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

Las Anod
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Somaliland and Sovereignty in the Horn and the Red Sea Region
09 September 2026
The victory of Somalia’s Northeast State over secessionist Somaliland gives Somalis hope of renewed unity and sovereignty, but Israel
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. 

More Stories


  • China Congo
    Dee Knight
    Disappointing “rush to judgment” on China’s Role in the Congo
    14 Feb 2024
    Dee Knight’s comments on a review by Ann Garrison in Black Agenda Report, of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.
  • Austin Cole
    Roberto Sirvent , Austin Cole
    Black Liberation and Anti-Imperialism: An Interview with Austin Cole
    14 Feb 2024
    Book Forum Editor, Roberto Sirvent, interviews Austin Cole about his organizing work and political writing.
  • GDF and US troops in Guyana for Exercise Tradewinds
    Tamanisha John
    Exercise Tradewinds: 40 years of U.S. Counterinsurgency in the Caribbean
    14 Feb 2024
    Exercise Tradewinds has historically been a show of military might and a threat to other nations in the Caribbean and Latin America that the West would exert force if they dared to stray from…
  • Rally against sanctions
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Peoples to Peoples Encounters: Venezuela’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America In Dialogue with Local Organizations and Social Movements in New York
    14 Feb 2024
    Venezuela's Vide Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Ron, recently met with representatives from various organizations and social movements to discuss the latest U.S. effort to destabilize the…
  • Haitian person holding their fist in the air at a protest
    MOLEGHAF
    MOLEGHAF: Public Statement on the Country's Situation
    14 Feb 2024
    MOLEGHAF released a statement calling for support of the Haitian masses mobilizing for popular sovereignty and vehemently rejects the continued attempts by the United States and the West to force a…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us