When I look at my community I see a community that from an economic, socio-economic, political, historically
Point of view has been alienated from the rest of the country.
The following questions that come to mind are why and how? Why has this community been alienated and how has this community become so disenfranchised so disconnect its parallels to a planet out of orbit.
To understand the present we must look at the past when we look at history many people struggle to look at it objectively because of the Lilly white lens history has been whitewashed to resembled
We start with the British Empire (an ’empire’ is a group of countries ruled over by a single monarch or ruling power). We look at the last 1490s when Englishmen began sailing the seas & “discovering new lands”. The first successful English colonies in the West Indies were founded in the 1620s. The settlers set up sugar and tobacco plantations and used slave labour. This is not to shame England and many other European countries such as French, German, Portuguese and Dutch empires found themselves discovering new lands”.
We lack knowledge of self, when I mention knowledge of self it is in no way related to the 5 Percent Nation, although peace to the Gods and Earth. The Koran describes it best ‘now nothing is nearer to thee than thyself, and if thou knowest not thyself how canst thou know anything else?’
What we face now is a lack of knowledge of ourselves & our history with many of the youth being bombarded with images of entertainers enabling them to believe that the only way for them to carve a niche for themselves in this Anglo-centric world is them to act as entertainment to the masses. In the not so distant past, it was interesting anomalies of their bodies that were often used as entertainment for their owners which resulted in their masters’ monetary profit such as Ota Benga or Saartjie Baartman. Not much has changed now expect these entertainers on the surface receive hundreds of thousands or millions for their services. This begs the question is how much are these establishments profiteering that they can afford to pay entertainers millions. And also, why is the only socially endorsed area that African men and women can excel is as athletes where statically speaking the odds are very heavily stacked against the average male or female ever becoming professional athletes. If we look at the NFL, every year you have millions of men fighting for only 224 roles available
As entertainment has been carved out as the pipe dream for many Africans those who have made it are now seen as leaders in the community. This in of itself is troubling as there is no real leadership in the community and the class, economic, social and political problems the average Africans face are very different from this new class of African Bourgeoisie. This class of bourgeoisie tread the line as they are tethered to white approval and acceptance, it is the life jacket that keeps them afloat. They are quickly used as examples as to what can happen if you ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps ’ and working hard. As we will touch upon later this is the ideological war that needs to be fought, in short, the current system is based on the assumption that the most oppressed and marginalised believe that should they work hard they will one day no longer be oppressed and marginalised but become the oppressor. They do not recite it in the manner by which I have but ultimately that is the goal, they make describe as getting rich via compassionate capitalism but I find that in and of itself an oxymoron
Ultimately, there is still a racial coding suggesting that blacks have bodies, but not minds. The images of blacks that circulate in white media have articulated the slave ideology to fit in with the contemporary obsession with having the perfect body. Black men, whether athletes or hip-hop artists are admired for their cool, muscular, hard bodies when they are located within the safe, contained space of a mediated image on a screen.
Symbolism
As a people who have been so alerted when an individual is speaking to us and our needs, our plight as oppressed people we are drawn to them. We hold them in high regard, even idolise. Symbolism is a disease that has plagued our community. Now, symbolism is great in practice when it is the use of an object or a word to represent an abstract idea, this allows for the idea to be identified with ease and shared across a people. The trouble lies when these symbolisms are people who are portrayed as the hopes of the oppressed, why you may ask? Because the imperialist regime does not play fair, these imperialist regime has mastered the ways of warfare, studied propaganda and violence to a sweet science.
The play often follows this script, a movement lead by a person or persons is building from a grass-root perspective, its growth disrupts the status quo and the apparent natural order and so the movement must be stopped. The first move is the find ways to infiltrate this movement with double ageists who can report learnings on the movement while surveillance of the movement occurs. In traditional times this would include phone taps and surveillance vehicle around key individuals properties and frequently visited locations, now phone tap, cellular tracking, monitoring of social media and instant messaging services can be completed with ease. The following step is to tarnish the reputation of the leader of the movement in the eyes of his / her followers & supporter. This assassination of reputation historically has often be followed by an actual assassination, the likes of Malcolm X, Patrice Lubuma, Gaddafi, Huey Newton, Martin Luther King, Thomas Sankara, Toussaint Louverture and many others. Notably many of these assassination occurs as coups with these individuals trusted associated playing a part.
Once the head has been removed there is a power vacuum, often a new version of the movement is developed with less social acceptance and the regime has won and most changes made the movement will revert to the so-called norm.
If these leaders are not removed, we run the risk of them becoming members of the Bourgeoisie class. This class of bourgeoisie tread the line as they are tethered to white approval and acceptance, it is the life jacket that keeps them afloat. They are quickly used as examples as to what can happen if you ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps ’ and working hard. As we will touch upon later this is the ideological war that needs to be fought, in short, the current system is based on the assumption that the most oppressed and marginalised believe that should they work hard they will one day no longer be oppressed and marginalised but become the oppressor. It is important to note these individuals desires do not match your own, they have their social status to protect. Often you can follow the trail of money that funds their movement to better understand whether their goals align with your own, in most cases sadly the answer is no.
So we if cannot put our belief in symbolic leaders due to them potentially being discredited or assassinated, we cannot put faith in leaders because they are ‘race hustlers, ‘race pimps’ looking to advance their own using the movement as a sacrificial lamb, then who and what can we trust? Well, if we look at symbolism its goal is to represent an abstract idea, this idea should be an ideology which is agreed to. You can kill a man, a man can perish but an ideology can not, to say it is immortal would imply it was a living breathing entity which it is not but it can stand the test of time.
For me the ideology is that true liberation can only be found in education, economic & political empowerment and community this are not found in whiteness or white approval”.
Whiteness as an identity is a meaningless concept outside of the constructed notions of blackness that whites have produced and circulated in popular culture. Whiteness is a shield that many people have adopted to better assimilate into the imperialist regime, people such as Italians, Irish, Scottish and others with immigrants backgrounds opt to operate under the protective veil of whiteness. I recall watching the movie Malcolm X where the Muslim brother had faced Red to read the dictionary from A- Z and look at the definitions of words. In this world, to be the opposite of black: hardworking, law-abiding, intellectual, rational, and sexually restrained and controlled.
Eduction
Not in the traditional sense of the word which implies understanding a conventional education curriculum telling you a whitewashed version of history. Rather I suggest learning about your history which despite when the educational curriculum will share did not begin during the TransAtlantic slave trade. To study history is to study the future and history often repeats itself but also it so important to have an understanding of the system that has lead to the world being in its current state. This consists of learning about the Egyptians, to civil right leaders, to African leaders who fought against colonialism both during and post, to African socialism & marxism and capitalist and much more
Economic empowerment
We will focus on the US as I am unable to find any statistic on the power of the UK black pound without them referencing BAME. Though Black America makes up a small portion of the US population (13&), Black buying power is approximately $1 trillion with estimates placing it close to $2 trillion by 2020
Maggie Anderson, author and brainchild behind The Empowerment Experiment, explains that “a dollar circulates in Asian communities for up to 28 days, in Jewish communities for nearly 20 days, in white communities for 17 days and in Hispanic communities for 7 days. Yet in the Black community, a dollar circulates for only 6 hours”
A reason for the absence of black economic revolution is the lack of black businesses. This stems from an overall lack of money available to start them, the lack of consumers who spend money on black-owned businesses and the money spent with black businesses working in partnership with other businesses.
Not only that but have we view good from black businesses, we have an affinity to European brands because we have been conditioned to believe that they exude status and wealth so we wish to buy into these brands to indulge is escapism and seeking of white approval while showing others in our community to suffer from this same fallacy of thought that we have ‘made it’. To me buying European goods isn’t my idea of success. Secondly, we directing compare smaller black businesses to behemoths who have has years of experience, more working capital, better relationships with suppliers and we hold our own peoples’ businesses to a higher standard
The goal here is to keep more money in our community, encourage the creation of more black business and they do not have to be pigeonholed into FMCG market or business which just black people are the potential customer base, we can create a global business but we have to cultivate the power of community.
Political empowerment
Stokely Carmicheal preached that voting was a great tool of organisation and to focus on local voting as a greater impact can be made within your local community compares to that of the wider countries.
What would be ideal is the further inclusion of the younger generation in politics but understanding the limitations and benefits of this western branch of democracy, socialism, marxism, Capitalism and other political systems.
To understand on a local level what are the areas in their community they have the power to change, and understanding the mechanism by which change can occur. You can the Young party variants for Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dem’s and Communist but historically speaking these systems have not truly helped the plight of the oppressed so the creation of our own political parties is required
Community
“It takes a village to raise a child.” This proverb means that an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment.
Or ‘each one, teach one’’, outlining that if you knew it was your duty, your responsibility to shine a light on ignorance or misunderstanding in others.
Children are vulnerable and impressionable, we need to be conscious of the images they see and absorb especially in our communities where often whether it is via the music or social media anti-social behaviour is encouraged. With stories of violent acts being committed by young men to each other many adults are scared of the youth, further adding to the youths feeling of being disconnected, misunderstood and thus further leading to their alienation and they withdraw. It is not only the duty of the direct family but the local community to help in rearing and educating the youth but this cannot occur until they themselves have gone through an unlearning and relearning process
As we grow older our community is our support system who we should be able to rely on, seek refuge or wisdom and understanding from. Our community could be the first customers for our business, our first listeners to our podcast, our reference on a job application, your mentor and much more. Having a community that acts as a collective black conscious focused on the ideology of liberation, true liberation is ideal, this may only be a handful of people initially but that is all you need
We can attribute our success or failures to the following:
Our ability
Effort – how much effort are you willing to put in
Luck -you often find you become luckier the more work and effort you put
Task – are you able to breakdown the end goal into
Bedroom 2 Boardroom 🚀 