(I originally sent this out in an e-mail on November 5th, 2008. The Day after election Day)
First and Foremost,
Peace and Blessings Fam,
Today, I'm writing in light of the Election. Today is November 5, 2008. There is a thickness in the air of urgency that has come upon us to unite with one another regardless of what we perceive reality to be and how comfortably we sit in our own slighted versions of it... many of us know and speculate that there is much more than what has been given to us. Knowing that, many of us have yet to do something about it...and by that I mean, educating ourselves at the least...regardless of how much it scares us to do so. We have to get on the boat people.
Over the past two years (and undoubtedly my whole life has prepared me for these revelations) I have become completely aware of the atrocities this country has committed against our people and I can honestly say, with the purest intentions that i have no faith in the system and what it purports to do. If you do not understand this today, maybe you will understand it another day. There is so much that is being actively hidden from our eyes so that we remain blind and invested in a system that is not invested in us. I want to know that I don't have to point out reasons for stating that this system is not invested in us, but I know that there are still a lot of us who blindly believe that the dire circumstances under which we live is a natural thing and has no connection with the system, the world abroad or the past...but surprise! because it does. It has everything to do with this system, the world abroad...the past...AND THE FUTURE. These circumstances include: poverty, poor preventative medicine and health period, poor education, poor environmental health, police brutality, criminalization of our people, incarceration of our people, poor wages, lack of job opportunity, lack of solidarity between communities of color and the list could go on forever. So I ask only for your time again... to read this passage that was posted by a sistah, Dr. Marimba Ani...and though I don't know her...she's a comrade in the struggle...and she has an important message and knowledge to impart on us...please just take the time to read it.
I also want to point out that when I say "our people" or "my people", I specifically mean people of color...and when I say people of color I mean the Afrikan diaspora abroad, the native/indigenous peoples world round (Latin America,
Asia, the islands, and etc).
I'm also speaking to anyone else who is oppressed daily. This includes poor white people...because if you're not at the top...to the elite, you're disposable too...though it must be acknowledged that all white people participate..whether willingly or not...in white privileged...and I don't say that in an attempt to cause further discord or separation, it is simply the truth, whether that is realized or not. I say this in an attempt to bring to light something that is usually not discussed or not taken into consideration...especially by my white comrades who intend to understand the struggle, that we, as people of color, encounter on a daily basis).
Also, I would like to point out that when I say "system", I'm referring specifically to this bullshit capitalist system that murders thousands upon thousands of people daily for monetary gain...this pseudo-democracy that has been presented to us as a real democracy intending to cater to the voice of the people, and the system at large, that intends, to enslave and murder people world round that don't fit into this idealistic mold of what is supposed to be "normal", including the imperialist actions of this nation (Amerikkka) that started with the "pilgrimage" of Europeans to the North American continents (that resulted in the slaughter of millions of indigenous peoples and the total annihilation of their cultures) and that continues with the wars overseas and war at home on people of color (this includes all of the circumstances listed above and additionally the militarization of the state...ie. look up
Martial Law, Habeaus Corpus, NorthCom, ICE, The
Military Commissions Act of 2006, The
Posse Comitatus Act)
Additionally I want to acknowledge that I am not a pessimist...I am a realist...with hope. No one can kill or take away my faith and hope. And if for some reason or another, you find any of this unsettling, and you want to exchange words, I'm open to conversation. It's time to start dialogue and action. Don't become complacent, just because the face of this oppressive system has changed to look more like us. This is not an attack on Obama's personal character. I do not know him, but if the presidential office is looked at critically from a historical perspective, it can be assumed that he will only continue to perpetuate this system. Only, it will be easier to give up our freedoms now, because he, in a sense is us, and therefore he must have our best interests in mind. This is not necessarily true. A Black man in America does not become President without there being some plan of sorts on the agenda for using his race to continue this system, and if anything, the President is nothing more than a figure head. To get real changed, the system must be changed first. If you really care about your people and the situation at hand then presumably, you will find all of this unsettling... and presumably, you will do something about it.
"In this revolution, no plans have been written for retreat" -
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (whom by the way, was a community organizer. A simple man with love for his people and a plan)
This is the passage I wanted Yall to look at:
Amura Onaa tells us that when our Ancestors were being torn apart from each other, we looked into each other's eyes and made a solemn promise. We promised to reconnect with each other so that this tearing apart would never happen again. It is the Afrikan belief that we are our Ancestors reborn, and through this spiritual rebirth, we gain eternal life. The promise could only be fulfilled by future generations returning ast Afrikans who had made this sacred promise to each other. What our Ancestors suffered over centuries, could only have been survived because they had hope. But what could possibly have given them cause for hope? If they had not survived and bore children who bore children who bore children, we would not be here. It is the Afrikan belief that we choose to be born when we are in the spirit world, and that we make a contract to fulfill a purpose in this life.
All of this can only mean that we have chosen to be born Afrikan and tthat we are the
hope of our Ancestors. Our purpose on this earth is to avenge our Ancestors and to achieve the victory: Afrikan sovereignty through a Pan-Afrikan world order based on the principles of MAAT. It is our choice to fulfill The Promise to our Ancestors by achieving the victory denied them.
It is now Tuesday, November 4, 2008.
Is this the final act of assimilation, accommodation, and integration? Is this how we are fulfilling our promise to the Ancestors? Has America made restitution for what was done to them, still being done to us? Is the Maafa over or has it merely morphed into another, more insidious form of genocide? Are we now experiencing a life-threatening condition of cultural AIDS in which our immune system has turned on itself? Has the Yurugu virus mutated so that it looks like us? Are we participating in our own self-destruction?
We are witnessing a time of the most blatant acts of genocide such as "Katrina" (Maafa - 2005), in which thousands of our people were slaughtered, left to die, placed in disease-producing holding pens, forcibly relocated, separated from their families and support-systems, and their (our) children "lost", all this for the purpose of corporate profit and for the illegal misappropriation of land.
In our time, Afrikan mothers are being incarcerated in increasing numbers, so that their presence in the u.s. prison system almost equals that of Afrikan men and fathers, who have, for more than a century, been sacrificed to the prison-industrial complex.
We are living in the time of Blackwater, mercenaries used by government and corporations. We are living in the time of American support of European Hegemony taken to the most extreme levels ever in history. We watch as America's bank, the so-called "world bank," sucks the life out of Afrika, Jamaica and other Black nations. We are living in the time of the IMF, the Federal Reserve, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers and more.
The Patriot Act is an updated McCarran Act of 1950. We are living in a time that can be understood as part of "the process of Fascism". Fascism creates a demon, sells this demonization to the public, then uses it to control (intimidate, detain, torture, kill) anyone who challenges the state's abuse of human rights. In the l950's the demons were the "subversives," and the "communists" ..throughout the "cold war," in 1968, following the assassination of Dr. King, the demons were those suspected of being "guerrillas", and by 2001 the term "terrorists" had been accepted as describing the new "demons.
" Should we allow the original, the real terrorists to define "terrorism" ?
This brief statement is only meant to point to the reality of the times in which we live, the political legacy that we have inherited as "americans," and what we need to be aware of at this "historic" moment. In the 1960's, our people were regarded by the rest of the world as leaders in the struggle for human rights as we fought to expose and confront the genocidal policies perpetrated by the american government towards Afrikan people in the u.s.
We stopped organizing. We stopped confronting "the system." We became part of "the system." We sent our sons to fight for u.s. monetary gain. We did not see value in self-determination, self-definition, and self-reliance for our people. Those who were politically conscious read and talked about ancient history. We no longer concerned ourselves with contemporary events, systems, or political realities. Instead of expanding our movement to become a world movement, a truly Pan-Afrikan movement, we were content to become "individuals" in the "greatest" (most materially powerful) country in the world.
So now we are "making history" by being swept up in someone else's definition of what history is. We are "making history," by capitulating to integration, accommodation, and assimilation. We have reached the mountain top, for we have been able to vote for a "first to." The struggle is over. We have won. We can proudly say that one of our people represents the most repressive, destructive, inhumane, anti-Afrikan nation ever to have existed! We are proud to be part of a multinational corporate structure run by sociopathic adolescents who think nothing of stealing from their own people. (Imagine what they will do to us.)
We say that we vote because our Ancestors died to get the vote. Yes, if you decide to vote, that is your "right." Do not, however, blame it on "the Ancestors." That's like saying Black people died to go to school with white people, so I will make sure that my children go to white schools. I have a personal experience of that Movement. Registering to vote in Mississippi was a means of confronting a system of oppression head on. Today we vote to avoid confrontation with a system that is Fascist. In Mississippi, attempting to register, meant putting your life on the line, if you were Black. This effort became part of a strategy to expose the system of oppression that existed in this country, which continues to exist even though we, Black people, can now "vote" (even in Mississippi). No, that is not what our Ancestors died for. They died to fulfill The Promise. And that is the question that we should raise.
"What are we doing to fulfill The Promise?"
Is this occasion "historic" because it represents the abandonment of our sacred obligation to the Ancestors? Will we go down in "his" story as having finally capitulated and become satisfied with the evil that is represented in contemporary globalization, privatization and international capitalism? Have we aborted our movement for freedom, liberation and sovereignty? Or have we merely redefined that objective in "american" individualistic, "what's in it for me" terms? Have we now "won"? Or have we simply taken the easier road, finding it more comfortable to be colonized than to fight for liberation? Are we excited about the possibility of being closer to power than we have ever been beforeS, even though that power rests on the exploitation, even murder, of Afrikans and other non-Europeans throughout the world? Have we even dared to ask ourselves "what kind of person would want to be president of the United States of America?"
What is the significance of this moment, Tuesday, November 4, 2008, in "our" story?
Let us make this a time for reassessment of our lives, each of us. Let us reconnect with each other in ways that will help our people to become self-sustaining. Let us read and study and become aware of what this country stands for in the world. Let us teach and learn about the monetary system.
Organize, Organize, Organize!
Food cooperatives,
Investment groups
Independent Afrikan schools
Alternative sustainable energy
Communal and collective social entities
Susus (saving together)
Vehicles for harnessing and sharing our resources
Ways of educating ourselves for optimal healthy living
Methods for alternative social organization
The study of ways in which our Ancestors organized communities, so that we can get ideas for the future (doing Sankofa)
Black political conventions
An independent Afrikan/Black vehicle for political action and race (Kanda) decision-making
A Back-to-Afrika process.
We must read the following:
Blueprint for Black Power (Amos Wilson) (especially chapter 31)
The Choice (Sam Yette)
There is A River (Vincent Harding)
The condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States of America (Martin Delany
The Miseducation of the Negro (Carter G.
Woodson)
The Destruction of Black Civilization (Chancellor Williams)
Two Thousand Seasons (Ayi Kwei Armah)
Wretched of the Earth (Franz Fanon)
By Europeans:
The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)
And watch:
Goodbye Uncle Tom
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist Addendum
End Games
Loose Change
The Corporation
http://uk. youtube. com/watch?v=k7czQ05DN4U&sdig=1
THANKS FOR READING, I KNOW THAT WAS LONG. lol.
Peace Fam
Gh0sT!
