Category: Coffeehouse #3

Malcom x was a Black and Muslim leader in the civil rights movement and advocate for the American Black Nationalist movement. He spread teachings about Black pride and believed that Black Americans should protect themselves by any means which was the opposite of MLK’s non violent stance. 

CPUSA stands for Communist Party USA. It was established in 1919 and their goal was to eliminate social class struggles by creating a classless society where everyone benefits from eachother and the state controls all wealth and property. The CPUSA was formed after the Russian revolution when a split in the socialist party of America occurred. 

Megalomania

According to wikipedia megalomania is “an obsession with power and wealth, and a passion for grand schemes.” In other words it is simply a person who is obsessed with their own power. Upon further research I saw that megalomania is actually a psychological disorder. It makes sense, it being an “obsession” with power and wealth. People with this psychological disorder unnaturally want to be in control of everything and I can connect this to Daniel Slater in American Spy. In the novel Slater is a very greedy individual who manipulates people for his own benefit. It’s clearly seen that Slater enjoys being above people and being in control of everything as he was very controlling towards Helene and others around him.

Ideology

According to the Wikipedia ideology is “a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or groups of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which ‘practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones.’” To put it simply, ideology is a set of opinions or beliefs of a group or an individual. Some examples of political ideologies are communism, socialism, and capitalism, democracy, liberalism, as well as conservatism. An ideology in American Spy is that democracy should be spread across the world and communism should be eliminated.

Interdits

According to Cambridge dictionary the word interdits is a French word and in English it means something or someone that is banned, unauthorized, or not allowed. This term relates to the novel because in the novel it talks about how the author’s grandmother moved in and out of the New York places where negroes were interdits. She Is saying negroes were being moved around in places they were banned. She wasn’t living comfortably because of her being moved out her house consistently. The novel also says she was gathering her intelligence on the world that white people inhabited, and she feels like she about to be made.

Ghana

 According to Wikipedia officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east. Ghana is the second-most populous country in West Africa, after Nigeria. This country relates to the novel because when Marie arrived in Ghana, she intentionally blows her cover, revealing all of ross and Slater’s machinations to Sankara.

Hoover built the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency than it was excepted to be. He created a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Hoover also established and expanded a national blacklist, referred to as the FBI Index or Index List which contains a list of criminals that Fbi does not have much evidence on. Hoover in the novel by Lauren plays an important role as Marie’s father bill was one of a few handful of dark skin agents hired by J Edgar Hoover who were brought to participate in counterintelligence program. Hoovers idea of a perfect agent “was the white boy in a black suit, crew cut, spit shined, The Superman. Assuming Maries father bill was far from that, he didn’t even like his agents drinking coffee. The threat of political violence occupied many of the Bureau’s resources as did the threat of foreign espionage. In spite of Mr. Hoover’s age and length of service, presidents of both parties made the decision to keep him at the helm of the Bureau. When Mr. Hoover died in his sleep on May 2, 1972, he had led the FBI for 48 years

The Fbi is a organized bureau created for the domestic security and intelligence of the United States .

In the 1930s, the FBI attacked the violent crime by gangsters and implemented programs to professionalize U.S. law enforcement through training and forensic assistance. For example, the Bureau opened its Technical Laboratory to provide forensic analysis on Bureau investigations as well as services to other federal, state, and local law enforcement officials.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Bureau made headlines for its staunch efforts against Nazi and Communist espionage. During World War II, the Bureau took the lead in domestic counterintelligence, counterespionage, and countersabotage investigations.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Bureau took on investigations in the field of civil rights and organized crime

Words: United Nations and coup

The United Nations is the world’s largest and most familiar international organization founded in 1945 promoting peace, dignity and equality of human rights. Currently made up of 193 member states guided by the purposes and principles of its founding Charter. This intergovernmental organization has evolved over the years to keep peace with a rapidly changing world. Their purpose continues to maintain international peace and security as well as develop friendly relations amongst nations, and achieve international cooperation according to Wikipedia. The international organization was developed after World War II with the purpose of preventing any future world wars and it remains to be the place in which nations  can gather together, discuss common problems and find shared solutions benefitting all of humanity as stated by the United Nations. 

According to Merriam Webster, Coup refers to a sudden decisive, brilliant, and highly successful stroke or act or exercise of force in politics. Known especially to be the violent overthrow of alteration of an existing government by a small group. As stated by wikipedia the group is likely to be a political fashion , politician, cult, rebel group, military, or a dictator. The dictionary also states that the clever action could be a brave or reckless deed performed in battle by a single warrior, as touching or striking an enemy warrior without sustaining injury oneself making a very strong powerful statement. 

The Cold War began from the year 1947 and lasted until 1991. It was a war fought indirectly between both America and the Soviet Union meaning the two power houses fought each other through other countries. The Cold War is known as a general term to refer to the geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The justification behind the war was the fear of the growing communism within Europe, America feared the domino affect would occur should countries like Korea and Vietnam. Thus America lent their aid to the foreign countries fighting off their wars to avoid and counteract communism from taking over the world. Although there was never an actual war between the United States and the Soviet Union there was huge tension between the two with major events occurring known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis regarded to when America had missiles placed within Turkey while Russia had missiles placed in Cuba as a countermeasure and the two countries were mere seconds away from declaring all out nuclear war on each other until they both managed to come to an agreement to lay down arms and remove their missiles from the countries.

The Year of the Spy occurred during the Cold War within the year 1985. Given such high tensions had rose within the world Russia and America both needed to stay ahead of one another by grabbing information off each other. The year held a string of high-profile espionage arrests by the FBI. Major names within those arrest include John Anthony Walker, Jonathan Jay Pollard, Sharon Marie Scranage and Larry Wu-tai Chin all of whom worked for separate countries. The Year of the Spy increased tensions in the West by having people constantly paranoid of each other and their allies not knowing who to trust everyone was in constant suspect of each other.

Yerime Dieye

English Composition 2

Prof. Sean Scanlan

11/16/2022

Sharon Scranage

Sharon Marie Scranage was a 29-year-old who worked as a CIA clerk for seven years, and was accused by the FBI for being a spy, according to The Washington Post, Scranage was specifically accused “of giving her former Ghanaian lover names of CIA employees and informants while she worked for the agency.”(Murphy, 1985) Scranage allegedly met with members of Ghana’s intelligence agency in Ghana. One of the people she allegedly met was Tojo Tsikata head of Ghanaian Intelligence Agency, a very pro-Soviet member of the Rawling Government. Michael Agbotui Soussoudis the lover in question was arrested by the FBI in a planned meeting with Scranage, Soussoudis was charged with espionage, he denied being a Ghanian Intelligence Officer. Scranage later plead guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Communism

Communism is a political and economic theory in which there are no classes, where all private owned property is nonexistent and is owned by the public, furthermore each individual is paid by their abilities and needs. Karl Marx Identified communism cowrote and gave the outlines for the system in the Friedrich Engels, “The Communist Manifesto.” According to the Britannica, “Marx’s embrace of communism was motivated in part by the inequities caused by the Industrial Revolution.”(Ball, 2022) Some notable countries that are on “transitional stage between the end of capitalism and the establishment of communism.” re Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba.

Taha Hamdan 

Professor Scanlan

11/16/22

                                                                Study Guide Terms

According to Wikipedia Cointelpro was an operation of sorts that were run by the FBI. The whole program was made to infiltrate groups to target groups that were trying to go against the government such as the civil rights movement, Black power movement. According to chapter 5 “We had the news on because pop had told us to look out for Malcom X’s funeral”. “He’s a spy? What else would he be on the TV for with a fake name and a fake job? He works for the FBI”. This is how the book correlated with Cointelpro since there father was a FBI agent and since the organization was using this through the 1960’s as well that’s what Cointelpro the organization was used for. 

Also, according to Wikipedia Fred Hampton was a part of the Black Panther party. Fred was a leader of the Black Panther party which was also targeted by Cointelpro where the FBI drugged, shot, and killed. Hampton was an activist who considered Fascism to be the threat that needed to be resolved and be ridden. He had also founded the Rainbow coalition which included making different races stop gang fights and unite in Chicago for change in society. This also relates to Cointelpro and their father since he was an FBI agent who was a part of the downfall of the Black Panther Association.

Black Panthers

According to Wikipedia, the black panthers was a self black power and marxist-leninist political organization founded by college students on October 1996 in Oakland, California. Marxists can be seen as communists though because of the classless society belief. They were against police brutality and would challenge the police by practicing open carry in front of cops because they believed in armed self defense. The black panthers party was active between 1966 and 1982. From 1969 and forward they were involved in establishing social programs, such as Free Breakfast for Children programs, community health clinics and educational programs. However the FBI at the time did not differentiate between soviet spies and suspected communist so they sabotaged the Black Panthers with the covert counterintelligence program.

Thomas Sankara

According to Wikipedia, Thomas Sankara was the first president of Brukina Faso (a country in West Africa) from his coup d’etat in 1983 to when he was shot and killed in 1987 He was also a brukinabe military officer and a marxist revolutionary. He was seen as a hero  amongst Africans because he was anti-imperialist, he would not take aid from United Nations international monetary fund and prevented famine and promoted education with his policies. With his domestic policies he also helped vaccinate “more than 2 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles, which saved the lives of 18,000 to 50,000 children annually.” However, In 1987 he was murdered in a coup d’etat organized by his former friend Compaore. Compaoré said that “Sankara jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France and neighbouring Ivory Coast, and accused his former comrade of plotting to assassinate opponents.”