In the sixties we had the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and we had a president named John F. Kennedy. At that time we as a people (African American and Caribbean) people knew what it meant to be a proud people. We stood together and fought for equality. We broke down racial barriers in peaceful demonstrations even though we were hosed, beaten, arrested and set upon by dogs.In recent years however, we have become doggish towards each other. We no longer think that fighting to make a better life for our children of any importance. We put more value in the clothes on our backs than who is on our backs. We kill to wear what is called BLING and keep on killing when we realize the bling gets us no where.Now here we are in another era of break-through-we think. Will we be able to find our way back to the time when being of African descent a proud thing to be? Will we stop addressing our children by derogatory names that erode their sense of pride, dignity and self-esteem? Will we take responsibility for the things we do or not do? Will we sit on our hands and only lift them for a hand-out because Barack Obama is President? One man can't save a nation, it takes each person to save themselves and on the way up reach back and help the person struggling to make it. Too many of our people distrust each other when we should be building an empire together. Instead of building we spend our energies ripping each other apart with hateful words, envy, gossip, robbery and murder. How can President Obama help us live in a better America when we aren't willing to help ourselves?We need to KNOW that we WILL NOT succeed in changing our societies until we are of one mind-set and that mind-set is to remember who we are as a people and from whence we came before enslavement. We need to begin the process by putting an end to self-hate, self-abuse and self-destruction. Begin speaking positive words to our children and honor our Ancestors. Then and only then will we see CHANGE! Change can only come when we begin self-introspection and vomit out the bitterness and divisiveness that was left in our guts since the days of enslavement which has been passed from generation to generation. No one ever considered that our ancestors would need therapy to undo the mind-altering device placed in them by the Willie Lynch slave control mechanism. We have to acknowledge these facts, face them, make conscious decisions to change the way we think, the way we see ourselves, our children, our communities, our people and the world, regardless of what others may say to and about us.So President Obama is here but HE cannot change what he cannot control. You, me and the rest of Black America, and the Caribbean are in total control of our destiny.
let's cut the bullshit first! until niggas ready to be willing to die for their freedom like all the other oppressed nations in the past, including the crackas that called themselves to take up arms under the leadership of some scottish rite freemasons, in order to officially establish amerikkka, we're gonna stay in the conditions that we're in. only then will or can we get down to business. all the same ole shit about afrikans-n-amerikkka this afrikans-n-amerikkka that, niggas ain't doing this and niggas ain't doing that, by mostly afrikans, who ain't willing to die for the same shit that they complaining or lamenting about. and all they can do is keep on pumping us up with is martin luther king this, dr. king that, dr. king's ole tired ass i have a dream speech, over and over again, as though dr. king's philosophy was the one that would free us. but when you ask afrikans-n-amerikkka what do they mean by freedom, they can hardly deliver, or sum it up into terms of material luxury. yes, their freedom has been broken down into a big ass house, a fat ass ride, some fly ass vines and shiny bling bling, while there are too many niggas in sing sing.
how many of us can say we're very familiar with mutulu shakur, chairman fred hampton sr., george jackson, tarik haskins, sundiata acoli, assata shakur, russell maroon shoatz, kawasi balagon, zayd shakur, robert charles, marx essex, robert williams, fleeta drumgo, jonathan jackson, james mc clain, albert nuh washington, jalil muntaquin, angola three, brother blood, ericka huggins, bunchy carter, safiya alston, patrice lumumba, general rico, the bla, and mau mau, just to name a few?
hardly any of us, because all we've been allowed to know is dr. king, rosa parks, w.e.b. dubois and frederick douglass, during so-called black history month, which means that there is something wrong with that picture. someone has been manipulating our thoughts. and since that's been the historical case, our minds have been so warped by hopeless fanticizing, so punkified, so sissified, so pacified, until the shit ain't funny. we've been made the cowards of all cowards, disguising ourselves as afrikan-amerikkkans. and we wanna keep on talking about getting free only in the abstract.
i know that niggas are screwed up in the mind, and that niggas won't do this and won't do that. but it ain't every nigga. and let's get my usage of the nigga term straight. it comes on the heels of what h. rap brown use to say back in the sixties-the white man hated niggas but he loved negroes. and why was what that the case? because niggas were his worse nightmare and negroes were his willing allies or accomplices in the suppression of the afrikans-n-amerikkka collective. therefore, i've grown to love niggas because the white man hates them, while i dispise negroes because whitey loves them. surely, you'd have to be outta your damned mind to love anything that whitey loves, and hate anything that he hates. there's an ole and politically correct adage that says my enemy's enemies is my friend.
the bottom line is stop worrying about what niggas ain't doing and find the ones that are willing to build with you at all cost, even if it means they are to become the new age political prisoners of war or targets of the continued cointelpro. forty years ago, two brothas got together and decided they were going to do something about the lack of traffic safety in their hoody and look what became of them-thousands of courageous brothas and sistars that called themselves the black panther party for self-defense. and they were considered or labeled as public enemy number one by the enemy among all the groups of the black liberation movement by the p.i.g. state. because they dared to struggle, which meant that they dared to win! freedom ain't gonna be given. it must be taken. and when that cracka reporter asked malcolm x what was it based on, he said the price of freedom is death. so to all the negroes who wanna keep on talking the talk about freedom this and freedom that, as though it's some type of commodity like coca cola, and ain't willing to walk the walk, to hell with them! the truth is brutal!
Thank you my brothers and sisters for your comments. Your over-standing of my words is appreciated. Let us all do our part to make America a better place for our children and grandchildren to grow, thrive and succeed.
Thank you Mr. Brooks ... It 's satisfying to read those words ... words that you have arranged on paper to convey your thoughts to 'us' , the readers of those words ...
It makes a difference to me, because I have experienced , first-hand , in my life- both sides of the racial / social-politacal coin. Right now the reader of these words is probably thinking that this could not be possible in America , for a Black man ... well , indeed it is , and it has made for me , what has gone on in America over the past (49) years of my life time .... un-settling.
You see , I was not raised with the understanding that Black culture or Black History were important , and as a result of my six years spent in central florida ( Bet. 12/15/01 and 6/07 ) , and after hundreds of conversations with blacks , and whites , I've realized that what the children were taught in the South was most probably an even more biased / euro-centric / white - supremacist presentation of the U.S. History model ... and even as distressing is the total lack of ANY education about the History of Africa and its people ... and if course this is only a part of what is holding us back , but I believe that it is the biggest part ... what personally has motivated me, has been number one, the extreme confusion... the racial confusion , that I experienced as a grew up ...
and I suppose that my only savior has been the need that I have had to understand "why??"
....Initially , when I was a kid going to school with white children, I couldn't have understood... I did not recieve the perspective or coaching that many black children by that time would have inculcated from conversations with their black parents ... parents who were only looking out for the childs best interests ... and of course , my white mother , and my white step -father were only acting in a way that they had been instructed to act , by the euro-centric , white - skin - priviledged system that they had been raised in.
This 'benefit' that I have inwittingly been afforded , has created in me - and I'm not going to lie to anyone , what was at first , an un - controlled , un-directed Anger towards the un-fairness of it all ... the increasingly Urgent need that I have to under-stand how 'this system' has been created by the white colonizer , and how it is maintained ... and the desire to figure out , for at least myself , what I can do to make things better.
I agree with much of what you say, when you say, " it takes each person to save themselves and on the way up reach back and help the person struggling to make it. Too many of our people distrust each other when we should be building an empire together." That's the problem, many of our people, on their way up, FORGET, those behind, struggling to make it. And as for breaking racial barriers, I still feel we have a long way to go to get there, even with barriers between us, as an African People. I, from personal experience, find that, if one is not 100% African descent, they are less important than those of 100% African blood. We do need to stick together, fight together, respect one another and help our people. I find the prisons to be overpopulated with people of color, yet, our Leaders of color, in political positions to help, will sell us and our loved ones' out, for their moments of glory, prosperity and fame with those at the top of white and black politics. Our President of tomorrow, has a monumental challenge ahead of him. But, I believe, if he does not listen 100% to our leaders of any color, but talks directly to the little people, we may see changes, long overdue, in the lives of all African Descendents.
Comments
let's cut the bullshit first! until niggas ready to be willing to die for their freedom like all the other oppressed nations in the past, including the crackas that called themselves to take up arms under the leadership of some scottish rite freemasons, in order to officially establish amerikkka, we're gonna stay in the conditions that we're in. only then will or can we get down to business. all the same ole shit about afrikans-n-amerikkka this afrikans-n-amerikkka that, niggas ain't doing this and niggas ain't doing that, by mostly afrikans, who ain't willing to die for the same shit that they complaining or lamenting about. and all they can do is keep on pumping us up with is martin luther king this, dr. king that, dr. king's ole tired ass i have a dream speech, over and over again, as though dr. king's philosophy was the one that would free us. but when you ask afrikans-n-amerikkka what do they mean by freedom, they can hardly deliver, or sum it up into terms of material luxury. yes, their freedom has been broken down into a big ass house, a fat ass ride, some fly ass vines and shiny bling bling, while there are too many niggas in sing sing.
how many of us can say we're very familiar with mutulu shakur, chairman fred hampton sr., george jackson, tarik haskins, sundiata acoli, assata shakur, russell maroon shoatz, kawasi balagon, zayd shakur, robert charles, marx essex, robert williams, fleeta drumgo, jonathan jackson, james mc clain, albert nuh washington, jalil muntaquin, angola three, brother blood, ericka huggins, bunchy carter, safiya alston, patrice lumumba, general rico, the bla, and mau mau, just to name a few?
hardly any of us, because all we've been allowed to know is dr. king, rosa parks, w.e.b. dubois and frederick douglass, during so-called black history month, which means that there is something wrong with that picture. someone has been manipulating our thoughts. and since that's been the historical case, our minds have been so warped by hopeless fanticizing, so punkified, so sissified, so pacified, until the shit ain't funny. we've been made the cowards of all cowards, disguising ourselves as afrikan-amerikkkans. and we wanna keep on talking about getting free only in the abstract.
i know that niggas are screwed up in the mind, and that niggas won't do this and won't do that. but it ain't every nigga. and let's get my usage of the nigga term straight. it comes on the heels of what h. rap brown use to say back in the sixties-the white man hated niggas but he loved negroes. and why was what that the case? because niggas were his worse nightmare and negroes were his willing allies or accomplices in the suppression of the afrikans-n-amerikkka collective. therefore, i've grown to love niggas because the white man hates them, while i dispise negroes because whitey loves them. surely, you'd have to be outta your damned mind to love anything that whitey loves, and hate anything that he hates. there's an ole and politically correct adage that says my enemy's enemies is my friend.
the bottom line is stop worrying about what niggas ain't doing and find the ones that are willing to build with you at all cost, even if it means they are to become the new age political prisoners of war or targets of the continued cointelpro. forty years ago, two brothas got together and decided they were going to do something about the lack of traffic safety in their hoody and look what became of them-thousands of courageous brothas and sistars that called themselves the black panther party for self-defense. and they were considered or labeled as public enemy number one by the enemy among all the groups of the black liberation movement by the p.i.g. state. because they dared to struggle, which meant that they dared to win! freedom ain't gonna be given. it must be taken. and when that cracka reporter asked malcolm x what was it based on, he said the price of freedom is death. so to all the negroes who wanna keep on talking the talk about freedom this and freedom that, as though it's some type of commodity like coca cola, and ain't willing to walk the walk, to hell with them! the truth is brutal!
uhuru!
It makes a difference to me, because I have experienced , first-hand , in my life- both sides of the racial / social-politacal coin. Right now the reader of these words is probably thinking that this could not be possible in America , for a Black man ... well , indeed it is , and it has made for me , what has gone on in America over the past (49) years of my life time .... un-settling.
You see , I was not raised with the understanding that Black culture or Black History were important , and as a result of my six years spent in central florida ( Bet. 12/15/01 and 6/07 ) , and after hundreds of conversations with blacks , and whites , I've realized that what the children were taught in the South was most probably an even more biased / euro-centric / white - supremacist presentation of the U.S. History model ... and even as distressing is the total lack of ANY education about the History of Africa and its people ... and if course this is only a part of what is holding us back , but I believe that it is the biggest part ... what personally has motivated me, has been number one, the extreme confusion... the racial confusion , that I experienced as a grew up ...
and I suppose that my only savior has been the need that I have had to understand "why??"
....Initially , when I was a kid going to school with white children, I couldn't have understood... I did not recieve the perspective or coaching that many black children by that time would have inculcated from conversations with their black parents ... parents who were only looking out for the childs best interests ... and of course , my white mother , and my white step -father were only acting in a way that they had been instructed to act , by the euro-centric , white - skin - priviledged system that they had been raised in.
This 'benefit' that I have inwittingly been afforded , has created in me - and I'm not going to lie to anyone , what was at first , an un - controlled , un-directed Anger towards the un-fairness of it all ... the increasingly Urgent need that I have to under-stand how 'this system' has been created by the white colonizer , and how it is maintained ... and the desire to figure out , for at least myself , what I can do to make things better.
PEACE
Dave Myers
www.discussrace.com