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
United States and Israeli Policy Further Divides Somalia
19 August 2026
White House to cut back on United Nations assistance while there is continued military and diplomatic interference by Washington and Tel Aviv i
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'

More Stories


  • The Caribbean Connection | Jeffrey Epstein, JP Morgan Chase and How Powerful Banks Escape Accountability
    Thad Baltimore
    The Caribbean Connection | Jeffrey Epstein, JP Morgan Chase and How Powerful Banks Escape Accountability
    15 Feb 2023
    Banks operate with impunity and so they act accordingly.
  • Report From Lima, PerĂş
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Report From Lima, PerĂş
    15 Feb 2023
    On December 7, 2022 a right wing coup removed Perú’s President Pedro Castillo Terrones from power, but the people have protested against the coup regime ever since.
  • An Open Letter to Current and Former Prisoners, Their Families, Friends, and Comrades
    Shaka Shakur
    An Open Letter to Current and Former Prisoners, Their Families, Friends, and Comrades
    15 Feb 2023
    "We cannot go through decades of this physical and psychological abuse behind these walls and think We are coming home undamaged, without scars," explains New African political prisoner Shaka Shakur.
  • We Condemn the Repression in Cap Cana That Left One Haitian Worker Dead and Several Injured
    Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic
    We Condemn the Repression in Cap Cana That Left One Haitian Worker Dead and Several Injured
    15 Feb 2023
    Violence against Haitians and Haitian descended people continues in the Dominican Republic. The Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic condemn the latest state sanctioned…
  • The Snitch in the Silver Hearse: The FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Denver’s Racial Justice Movement
    Trevor Aaronson
    The Snitch in the Silver Hearse: The FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Denver’s Racial Justice Movement
    15 Feb 2023
    COINTELPRO never ended. The FBI still pays informants to disrupt, to target organizers, and to spy on the movement.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us