Afro-Uruguay y la Copa Mundial 2010

Don't get it twisted. I'm no Soccer buff, but all this talk about the World Cup 2010 and the hotly disputed face-offs between national teams have really inundated me with an enthusiasm and excitement for the game that I never thought I harbored. Seeing Diego Forlán, Fernando Muslera, Diego Lugano and Diego Gordín (yeah, I know...a lot of Diegos), I'm becoming once again enamored with the sport. It's just by coincidence that all these players are from the same national team, la Selección Uruguaya, a country that has held tremendous appeal with me due to its sizable Afro-Uruguayan population.

Although it is often asserted (surprisely) within academic circles that Afro-Uruguayan role in the development of their nation was marginal and, at best, evanescent, the contrary argument would be closer to the truth. Afro-Uruguayans have made significant gains and contributions to their country's economy, society and culture at large. First, they were the slaves, peons and artisans whose toils and hardships lended themselves as the foundation upon which Uruguay's economy between the 17th and 19th centuries blossomed. Second, Afro-Uruguayans constituted the backbone of their nation's military forces, whose blood and patriotic martyrdom not only wrought a republican nation-state from a Spanish colonial backwater, but also continued to safeguard it from the wiles and geopolitical pretensions of foreign invaders, namely: Great Britain and Brazil during the first decades of the 19th century. Third, Uruguayans of African descent were the musicians, writers and artists whose artistic aptitude enriched, invigorated and entertained their fellow citizens from colonial tims until the present day through their renditions of tangos, milongas, candomblés and sambas. Unquestionably, symbols of nationhood in the River Plate were dramatically influenced by the intellectual acuity, physical brio, artistic acumen of Africans and their New-World descendants in Uruguay.

Although Uruguay is to face up against some formidable adversaries, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico to name a few, I'm reminded of Afro-Uruguayans' incontroverble contributions to their nation and I've made it up in my mind to back the underdog in this one.

VIVA URUGUAY!!!

This time I'm playing for all the marbles

Stirred by my grandparents' horrific accounts of "separate but equal" education in Jim Crow Georgia, I learned at a tender age the importance of an education. Because of this, as an undergrad at Cornell, I viewed college as a means of honoring my family legacy by receiving an education, of which my grandparents could have only dreamed. Four years later after securing an Ivy League degree, admission into Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a Fulbright Research Grant to Colombia, I realize that the accomplishments that I have achieved have not been attained by my merits and talents alone but by my sharecropping ancestors in the Jim Crow South who blazed the path centuries ago.

My grandmother, a demure but fervently Christian women, had a favorite saying, "If you've ever seen a turtle on a fence post, you'll know that it didn't get up there by itself." Those pearls of wisdom are deeply humbling and resonant within me as I look upon my past successes as a continuation of a work my predecessors started ages ago.

If this were up to me I would have thrown in the towel a while back, but every time I'm assailed by thoughts of defeat and discouragement, I'm reminded of how selfish it would be to simply stop here and go no further. Although I've tasted the sweet nectar of success, I've also had my share of setbacks and tribulations. Despite the strife and calamity I've had to traverse in this life, God has manifested Himself as faithful and a very present help in a time of trouble. I've learned that opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune or temporary defeat. Although the enemy has desired that I abort the seed of faith that God has deposited within me via discouragement and loss of heart, I'm fully persuaded that God will help me bring all my dreams and aspirations to term. God is able and willing to bring to pass every promise He's made.

As for me, I'm too blessed just waiting on the rest!!!