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
  • omnibus

The Silencing of Fred Dube
Abena Ampofoa Asare
24 Jan 2024
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

Jon Jeter
Fleeing Imaginary Persecution at Home, South African ‘Refugees’ May Find the Grass is Not Greener in America
14 May 2025
The Trump administration’s decision to fast-track asylum for white South Africans—claiming "persecution"—is a political stunt, ignoring that th
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: White Racism and Black Consciousness, Stephen Bantu Biko, 1971
12 February 2025
Steve Biko long ago diagnosed the pathological cruelty and rot of whi
Jon Jeter
Landless and Poor, Black South Africans Say they will Defy Trump and Move Ahead, Finally, with Land Reform
12 February 2025
A torrent of false and racist claims culminated in a presidential executive order suspending any aid to South Africa.
Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
Namibia Blocks Vessel Carrying Explosives to Israel
04 September 2024
The ruling SWAPO party says it is upholding international law.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
The Victims’ Pact: Rwanda and Israel
31 July 2024
Rwanda weaponizes the Rwandan Genocide to justify its vio
Irvin Jim, NUMSA General Secretary
NUMSA Statement on the National Elections Results and Coalitions
19 June 2024
With its recent historic loss of the Parliament majority, the African National Congress has formed a coalition with the Democratic Alliance, he
Qaanitah Hunter
Will South Africa’s new Coalition Government Change Tack on Israel-Palestine?
19 June 2024
While the new government includes parties neutral about Israel’s war on Gaza, ANC insists it will still support Palestine.
OAU flag
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
RESOLUTION: The Question of Palestine, Organization of African Unity, 1975
08 May 2024
Looking back at a time when African states acknowledged their shared anti-colonial struggle with Palestine and rebuked zionism for the white su
President Hage G. Geingob of the Republic of Namibia addresses the seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Presidency of the Republic of Namibia
Namibia Rejects Germany’s Support of the Genocidal Intent of the Racist Israeli State Against Innocent Civilians in Gaza
17 January 2024
Namibia issues a statement in response to Germany's declaration of support of Israel during the hearing at the International Court of Justice a
 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 December 2023
Joe Biden's several decades in political office have proved him consistent in his depraved indifference toward the suffering of oppressed peopl

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 30, 2025
    30 May 2025
    In this week’s segment we talk about jails and prisons in New York City and State and the end of city control of the infamous Rikers Island jail. But first a Washington DC activist analyzes how the…
  • Democratic party where are you
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Afeni on Fighting the Bipartisan Fascist Consensus
    30 May 2025
    Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Oakland to discuss politics in the U.S. and how the people can fight the fascism produced by the…
  • Rikers protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eric Adams Loses Control of Rikers Island to Federal Receivership
    30 May 2025
    Our guest is Melanie Dominguez, Organizing Director, New York with the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. She joins us from New York City to discuss the federal takeover of Rikers Island…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Charles Rangel and the End of Black Politics
    28 May 2025
    The late Charles Rangel served as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than 40 years. But the goals of Black politics and electoral politics are not necessarily the same.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism, Edward Said, 1977
    28 May 2025
    “In theory and in practice, then, Zionism is a degraded repetition of European imperialism.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us