‘I can’t have a relationship with a woman without it black natural hair”. Umar Johnson speaks straight to the point, as he always does. Straightened hair, artificial braids and curls: all attempts to meet a white ideal of beauty, he thinks. And so not okay. “Every man should say to his wife: if you don’t natural hair take it, I will leave you.”
It is one of the many commands and statements that Umar Ifatunde Johnson, aka ‘Dr. Umar’, has in store for his audience on Saturday night. In Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam, he manages to enthrall a well-filled room – 270 people, according to the organization – for an hour and a half with a fierce, assertive speech about black self-awareness.
Dr. Umar is an American clinical psychologist, educator and speaker who calls himself ‘The Prince of Pan-Africanism’. He has almost a million followers on Instagram. He propagates a radical philosophy that amounts to a kind of black sovereignty within his own circle. He regularly makes controversial statements about gays, women and mixed relationships between black and white people, which he opposes. His arrival in the Netherlands was accompanied by the necessary ‘opposition’, says Gisele Sint Jago, the organizer of the meeting.
Jurist, activist and politician Sint Jago attracted attention at the beginning of this year when she disrupted a visit by the royal couple and Crown Princess Amalia to the University of Aruba by singing a slave song. The meeting with Dr. Umar, which Sint Jago organizes through its Beulah foundation, was initially supposed to take place in the Bijlmer Parktheater in Amsterdam. But after protests from the LGBTI community, the theater did not want to give him a stage.
Theater Zuidplein, the new location, was forced to abide by the contract. However, the announcement of his arrival was removed from the website twice and, according to Sint Jago, was put back after a legal reminder, with a disclaimer distancing himself from the speaker. If the theater had known “at an earlier stage” of the man’s controversial views, director Emmelien Matthijsse told the Rotterdam website Fresh Concrete“then he wouldn’t have gotten the podium”.
Reception with standing ovation
The public in Rotterdam, which partly came from Amsterdam on a free bus, has no interest in this controversy. Already upon his emergence, Dr. Umar received with cheers and a standing ovation, and after that he continues to receive approving shouts and applause.
His philosophy in brief: a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, black people in Europe and the United States are still oppressed, exploited and played off against each other by the white majority. The only way to end the “psychological dependence on the aggressor” is through self-confidence, political organization and complete economic independence. Only in this way can the African community become as successful as “the Chinese”, “the Arabs” and “the Jews”. “We are at war!” he shouts repeatedly.
So black people should stop striving for acceptance of white people, “the oppressors.” It is also important that they marry and have children of their own race: black men no longer have to choose ‘snow bunnies— American snake for white women.
“The black community can only be rebuilt by black men and women. Stop going outside!”
Demand own black schools, supermarkets and banks
Umar Johnson
Unproven statements
Dr. Umar also has a message especially for the Netherlands. Now that Prime Minister Rutte and the king have apologized for the slavery past, he says, the descendants should not be blinded by reparations. He calls on his audience to “think big”: demand their own black schools, banks, supermarkets. A 25 percent discount on “all raw materials”, that would be reasonable. Or never pay taxes again. “Our ancestors have already paid enough taxes.”
His story intersects Dr. Umar eager with unproven propositions and conspiracy theories. A selection: worldwide black girls are kidnapped for “underground organ trafficking”, corona vaccines are “deadlier than the virus itself”, singer R. Kelly is not in prison for raping underage girls, but because he does not have the original recordings of his music wanted to sell to record companies.
Dr Umar also has something to say about geopolitics. The recent military coups in Africa? Perhaps progress over all those deposed presidents who have failed their people and Africa and Africans in general. Dr Umar hopes the new leaders are “the real deal”.
He makes his most controversial statement at the end of the evening. During the question round after his speech, he lashes out against “child transgenderism”. That is, says Dr. Umar, part of an ‘agenda’ to ‘depopulate’ ‘our people’: a ‘black genocide’. But, he adds: “We are still the fastest growing breed in the world!” The hall is beautiful.
Monologues
Afterwards, the crowd gathered around Dr. Umar to take a picture with him. Some do the black power salute, fist in the air. Others carry a red-black-green black pride flag. Talk to the audience about Dr. Umar is tricky. Most visitors are suspicious and do not want to talk to the reporter, others lose themselves in long monologues.
Organizer Gisele Sint Jago says on the phone the next day that she is happy that the event went ahead, “despite the boycott”. Black organizations such as NiNsee, National Platform for Slavery Past, Omroep Zwart and The Black Archives did not respond to an invitation to collaborate, she says.
She “does not agree one hundred percent” with all of Dr. Umar. For example, she thinks differently about mixed marriages. Sint Jago does support his ideas about ‘transgenderism’. She calls the remark in Rotterdam about the ‘black genocide’ ‘indeed no cat piss’. “But in the past things have also been said that everyone fell over and that turned out to be true. No one has a monopoly on wisdom.”
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