Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

The Silencing of Fred Dube
Abena Ampofoa Asare
24 Jan 2024
🖨️ Print Article
Fred Dube at a 1981 UN meeting, “South African Women and Labour under Apartheid.”
Fred Dube at a 1981 UN meeting, “South African Women and Labour under Apartheid.” Image: UN Photo

Forty years ago, the exiled South African activist dared to teach Zionism critically and he was subjected to a ferocious attack. The treatment he was subjected to is being repeated today.

Originally published in Boston Review.

At the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the syllabus for an Africana Studies summer course entitled The Politics of Race includes prompts for students in need of term paper guidance. The twelve optional topics are deliberately provocative: “Can a Christian or a democrat be a racist?” “I.Q. tests are a means for blaming the victim.” “Zionism is as much racism as Nazism was racism.” A historian visiting from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University complains that the latter topic, thus the course, thus the professor are examples of anti-Semitism. An uproar ensues.

This year is 1983. The professor under scrutiny is Ernest Frederick Dube, the South African anti-apartheid activist, Robben Island survivor, Cornell-trained psychologist, husband, and father. Branded as an anti-Semite, he will be gone from the Stony Brook campus by 1987.

When I began teaching at Stony Brook, my colleagues in Africana Studies told me Dube’s story in different ways. Each time, I understood the lesson: the politics of Israel-Palestine are cordoned-off; they are an arena where you dare not tread. Even when, like Dube, your faculty peers support you, students lead protests against your dismissal, and you are a hero of the South African anti-apartheid movement, you may still end up losing your home and position.

Read the entire essay here.

 

Abena Asare is Associate Professor of Modern African Affairs at Stony Brook University. She is author of Truth Without Reconciliation: A Human Rights History of Ghana and When Will the Joy Come: Black Women in the Ivory Tower.

South Africa
Israel
Zionism
Academia

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Abayomi Azikiwe
Attacks in South Africa Undermining the Country and Africa as a Whole
15 July 2026
Parallels can be drawn between MAGA in the United States and retrograde elements domestically, as well as other Western imperialist states.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Against Nuclear Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah, 1960
01 April 2026
“We are not freeing ourselves from centuries of imperialism and colonialism only to be maimed and destroyed by nuclear weapons.”
Nicholas Mwangi
UN Declares Transatlantic Slavery the “gravest crime against humanity”
01 April 2026
The UN has adopted a landmark declaration, introduced by Ghana, recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanit
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
US and Israel Aid Sudan by Attacking Iran
04 March 2026
The US and Israel’s wholly unprovoked attack on the sovereign nation of Iran has given Sudan a hand in their own battle for sovereignty.
Somaliland
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Israel’s Recognition of “Somaliland” Is Destabilizing Somalia and the Horn of Africa
18 February 2026
I spoke to the Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin about Israel’s recognition of Somalia’s secessionist state, which is f
Booker Omole
Statement on Zionist Plans to Create a Mini-State in Kenya and the Lessons from History
18 February 2026
In 1903, Britain offered Kenyan land to Zionist settlers. That scheme failed. Now, a new attempt is underway in Nakuru.
Sara Flounders
U.S./Israeli plans to destabilize Africa and Asia – Somaliland Recognition
14 January 2026
Breaking the longstanding African consensus on post-colonial borders, Israel is actively destabilizing an entire continent to serve its interes
Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team
The Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team Condemns the Israeli/U.S. Effort to Destabilize Somalia with the Recognition of Somaliland
07 January 2026
Israel's recognition of Somaliland undermines not just Somalia's sovereignty, but that of all African states. 
Jon Jeter
In South Africa, White is the New Black: The ANC’s Failures Opens the Door for the Return of a Government Led by Settlers
19 November 2025
Decades of unmet promises and endemic corruption have eroded the ANC's legitimacy, creating a surge of support for a party led by South Africa'
Michael F. Brown
Trump Ambassador Pick Vows to Pressure South Africa Over Gaza Genocide Case
05 November 2025
The nomination of an ambassador to South Africa who vows to "pressure" the country over its Gaza case confirms that the U.S.

More Stories


  • image from Attica Uprising
    Jon Jeter
    From Attica to Gaza, Why the Settler Colony Kills its Own
    20 Dec 2023
    The recent killing of three Israeli hostages in Gaza has elevated questions about the policies of the zionist settler state and the occupation forces. The cold callousness with which they have…
  • A teacher works with students in a school in Ramallah, West Bank
    Essam Elkorghli
    Teaching Hatred and Normalizing Violence Against Palestinians
    20 Dec 2023
    While the education of Palestinian youth is under constant criticism for “promoting violence” against the zionist settler state, the entire structure of Israel is oriented to generate an environment…
  • Cartoon comic about mass shottings
    Danny Shaw
    Murder Thy Neighbor A Recap of Mass Shootings in 2023: An Anti-Imperialist Perspective
    20 Dec 2023
    Mass shootings have become ubiquitous in the US, as part of a gun-obsessed culture that manufactures and exports violence around the world. This pandemic of violence is a creation that serves ruling…
  •  Biden is welcomed by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, as he visits Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
    Bryan K. Bullock
    Zionist Joe
    20 Dec 2023
    Joe Biden's several decades in political office have proved him consistent in his depraved indifference toward the suffering of oppressed people around the globe as he offers full-throated support…
  • BDS South Africa staged a Palestine solidarity protest in the Limpopo province
    Salim Vally
    Africa’s role in Palestinian Liberation–an Interview with Salim Vally
    20 Dec 2023
    ROAPE interviews South African Human Rights activist and academic Salim Vally on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the relationship between Palestinian liberation and Africa.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us