Blog - You are the Makers of History!

How Europe Underdevelops Africa & African People - Today

6/5/2019

Of course, this title derives completely from Walter Rodney's classic book. If you haven't read it, you should, if you expect to properly understand the process to colonize Africa and her children. And, if you have read it you should read it again within a political education process and program to enhance your understanding of it. Its one of the most important books out today, but it was written decades ago. The subtle ways in which European colonialism dominates the mindset of the entire planet today is not often discussed in any comprehensive way today. So, this piece seeks to highlight some of the ways the institutional concept that Europe is the creator of all things civilized and worthwhile while Africa and the rest of the world are just dragging along on Europe's coattails is still very much alive, active, and effective today.

The entire purpose of the colonial system is to subjugate oppressed people. To make us believe we are nothing without Europe and to make Europeans (all people referred to as white) believe that they are the darlings of the universe. The manifestations of this are institutional and everywhere. No one anywhere on earth hasn't bathed in the stories of great European civilizations. We have all learned about the Greek and Roman empires. The Kings of the Roundtable of Britain. The ancient civilizations of Germany, France, Italy, etc. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of people on earth, including the current inhabitants of Africa and her millions of children scattered everywhere due to colonialism and slavery, Asia, the Indigenous peoples of Central and South America, and the Caribbean, all do not possess enough information about their own cultures to fill a thimble. None of this is accidental. The only effective way to promote the concept that European culture is superior is to suppress the truth about everyone else because in reality, no culture is superior to any other. What European capitalism does is suppress everyone else's contributions, diminishing them to such an extent that we are all led to believe that were it not for our great white fathers and mothers, we would have starved ourselves to death by now due to our complete incompetency.

You can hear the above racist analysis anytime you want by just traveling through any AM radio dial these days. Its this thinking that drives comments like "if you don't like it here (in the U.S.), why don't you go back to Africa?" The inference there is that this society is pristine and advanced because Europeans made it that way while Africa and everywhere else is a "s - - thole" because that's all we are ever capable of producing.

There is an abundance of information, inside this blog and everywhere else, easily dismissing the racist assumptions indicated above so if you lack concrete evidence to confirm that all cultures contribute to human advancement, we encourage you to investigate this plethora of information dismissing those baseless charges. The intent here is to bring to the surface some of the many subtle methods that European culture is used to continue to rob African culture in ways that perpetuate the myth that Europe is responsible for all advancements while we do nothing except sit at the table of Europe's greatness.

I'll start with Louisiana, specifically Southern state Louisiana, or New Orleans in particular because that's the place most people are familiar with in that state in the Southern U.S. My family on both sides come from the torturous legacy of slavery that dominated Louisiana and the stamp of that was the French name that I was forced to be born under that served as a constant reminder that the French dominated the Louisiana region and terrorized my family and many others in the process. In fact, that's the first subtle method of suggesting European dominance. Every one of us who walks around today with the European names of our slave masters, acting as if its actually our name and our proud cultural legacy, is in effect - unwittingly - advancing the notion that European culture is dominant. No one can refute this. Within earshot to anyone reading this are Africans who will not hesitate to tell you how proud they are of their family name of Thompson, Carter, Johnson, Smith, Duvailiar, Broussard, Sanchez, Martinez, Sosa, etc. All Europeans names that we hold only because those names were violently forced upon our families at one point and time in history. Meanwhile, anytime any one of us has the courage and vision to abandon those slave names for one that reflects our true history as proud African people, the vast majority of our people react to that as if we have murdered someone. The underlining emphasis here is on why anyone would abandon the "benefits" of that European name to voluntarily adopt a savage African name. This reality is ill refutable coming from someone who has spent the last 35 years hearing these reactionaries responses every time I introduce myself. Then, to add insult to injury, the glorious African cultural phenomenon known as Mardi Gra, which is without question an African experience, is never referred to as such. Instead, its called "Creole" or even worse, "French" which is a complete insult. All one has to do is watch a single Second line Mardi Gra parade, which are ironically referred to as Zulu processions, to understand how insulting it is to call this anything else except what it is - African. Yet, most people today would consider Mardi Gra an African cultural experience.

This same theme is repeated in religion where Christianity is assumed to be a product of Europe all the way from the values promoted in Christian circles today e.g. respect and support for European capitalist and individualist values and ways of life, all the way down to the pictures of a European hippie Jesus. This is insane when the actual truth is the very first country mentioned in any version of the Bible, whether old or new versions, is Ethiopia or K/Cush - which is the ancient name for Ethiopia. All of these names derive from a meaning connected to dark skinned people and there is no question, even for someone who failed geography, that Ethiopia is firmly situated in East Africa. Europe, is never even mentioned in any Bible version until the very end in the book of Revelations when everything starts to fall apart.

Even professional sports doesn't escape this systemic white supremacy. African athletes who do everything on the court, field, etc., are credited with accolades that promote Europe. That's why someone like Giannis Antetokounmpo, an African basketball player who was born and raised in Greece (colonialism again) is nicknamed "the Greek Freak" giving Europe credit for displacing and oppressing African people all over the planet.

When one thinks about it, even knowledge of food is stolen from African people. All people get to claim food dishes, even those dishes that are staples for most people on earth like rice. Regardless of the fact you can eat rice anywhere you go, Mexican rice is awarded it character. Chinese rice is awarded its character, etc, but the overwhelming majority of people couldn't tell you of any particular African prepared rice. And, whether people know it or not. Whether anyone admits it or not, if everyone's else's culture has an accomplishment, but there is a culture, a particular culture, that doesn't, the default in your brain is that those people haven't accomplished anything. Unless you know about Joffof rice, without question a deliciously prepared African rice, you have no choice, just using this one example, to fall into that pit of believing Africans haven't even created a way to prepare rice that isn't based in the colonial context. And, if we haven't figured out that one task on our own, then clearly that must explain why we have so many problems governing ourselves and building stability for our people, right? That's how the white supremacist colonial model works folks. Keep perpetuating that lack of accomplishment and everyone will eventually submit to it. The same and similar examples can be provided for all colonized people. Everyone except Europe. That's the design.

The final example to be given here is that of the products we use and rely on today. Automobiles like the BMW, Benz, Tesla, etc. Cell phones. Lap tops, etc. All of these products are impossible to produce without the African steel, zinc, rubber, cobalt, oil, and bauxite they evolve from and the cheap and exploited African labor that produces them. Yet, when people think of any of these products, the last thing they think of is African people and Africa. This is even true for African people.

A very important component of anti-colonial resistance is, as Franz Fanon and others have taught us, is that the colonized people aggressively and without hesitation reclaim our dignity, regardless of the consequences against the colonizer. So, we encourage you to think aggressively about colonized people in all of the examples provided here and beyond. What that means is I don't say Japanese, German, or U.S. made car. I say African car because a part of this decolonization process is getting African and other colonized people to no longer be satisfied to just make payments on and drive the stupid car, but for us to realize that the production of the car is our birthright. The ability for us to control that production and use the resources obtained by it to solve the problems we face is our destiny. This is what the anti-colonial struggle is all about and its the real reason why the sham continues. Our enemies are focused on keeping everyone's attention on absolutely everything except Africa. Obama. Trump. North Korea. The NBA Finals. The World Cup. The Mueller report. Anything except our mother Africa because they realize that once we become uncompromisingly focused on redeeming our mother without apology, their days will finally and mercilessly start to come to an end.

Its Past Time We Discussed the Black Entertainment Network (BET)

6/4/2019

I remember back when BET first started in the early 1980s (it originally debuted in 1979). Like most institutions focused on African life and culture in capitalist societies today, those institutions arose because the dominant capitalist institutions were concerned only about European Judeo-Christian history, culture, and society. For example, despite the undeniable fact that Africa is the mother of practically all forms of musical expression operational within the U.S. today - from country to blues to salsa to gospel, etc., it took a megastar like Michael Jackson to break the racial exclusivity present on MTV. So, I understand why African folks, and others interested in African culture, would flock to BET. The early focus on African musical expression and especially, the commitment of the network back then to air discussions on topics of African political struggle, were far from what we needed, but at least, it was something.

Its worth saying again that BET, even in its African owned capacity of the 80s and 90s, was far from what African people should have and deserve. If the argument is that BET was an example of African independence and voices in its African owned days, that's a very unstable argument at best. It wasn't until 2001 that the media mogul corporation Viacom bought out the Johnson family and BET, but most people have little to no understanding of colonial politics and how neo-colonial politics manifest themselves in capitalist societies. In other words, regardless of African ownership, BET, like all corporate media, is always beholden to the interests, ideas, tastes, and concerns of the capitalist corporations that buy up its air space through advertising. As long as that's the model for corporate media, there is no such thing as independent voices. Every voice is nothing except the reflection of the values of capitalism, period. That's why we were unfazed when BET approached us in our All African People's Revolutionary Party Bay Area/Northern California cadre circle in 1998, months after Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) made his physical transition in Guinea-Conakry, West Africa. The BET representative who contacted us indicated they wanted to interview a few of us about Kwame's life and contributions, specifically after he moved to Guinea full-time in 1969. Despite the fact this was a few years before BET sold to Viacom, we - possessing a clear class analysis of everything that happens in this capitalist society - had no illusions about BET being a propaganda arm for the corporate interests that dominant its airwaves. We knew then that BET was never going to air our revolutionary Pan-African views in a positive context. We knew that just from reviewing the basic content on the station which at that time consisted 80% of reactionary music videos (during a time, I admit, when much of the music coming out was some of the best dance music I've experienced in my lifetime). The other portion of airtime was devoted to some of the most reactionary and anti-human religious programming you can find on any network. I mean constant commercials on Sunday mornings praising the zionist state of Israel, despite their clear oppression of the Palestinian people and their blatant exploitation of African resources to continue to enable them to do so. We knew all of this, so we were skeptical. We discussed this as a circle and with our Central Committee, and it was collectively decided we would decline the interview request. BET, of course, decided to air their segment on Kwame anyway, and if you archive it, you will see that it was as bad a hit job on our Pan-Africanist work as anything you can find on any imperialist network. Only the most inexperienced and naive soul could blame this on our lack of participation in the interview. Anyone who has done what we do as long as we have done it knows that even when we speak out, the networks, ever focused and concerned about what their advertisers want and think, would certainly have edited out any militant statements challenging the existing status quo. One has to work hard to display the blatant lack of humanity BET broadcast by depicting Guinea as the dictatorship under Sekou Ture and the Democratic Party of Guinea, the same way any white left or imperialist entity would define our struggle and our people. And again, that was when BET was African owned by the Johnson family.

Over the last 18 years, since BET has been taken over by Viacom, the programming, as much as it would seem impossible to believe, has declined significantly to make matters that much worse. The dominance of music videos has been replaced by reality shows and I mean some of the most "get the money, disregard human life" reactionary television you can imagine. So reactionary that the dominantly backward hip/hop music videos that defined BET in the 80s and 90s seem progressive compared to the filth spewing from the network today. The reactionary religious programming of course continues. And, besides the chance to at least catch a decent African movie that is going to be constantly interrupted by those capitalist commercials again, there is going to be absolutely no sign of any conversations and discussions on BET as there were 20 years ago.

Its difficult for me to see any redeeming value to BET in 2019 and beyond. The only plausible argument is the tired visual symbolism argument. The one used for the Obama administration that argues that brutally murdering millions of people, including many of our own people in Libya, is worth it just so our people and youth can see a biological African family everyday that sanctions those murders. That is too high a price to pay for cheap symbolism and BET is also a price not worth paying. Unless you can argue that our people have any better self esteem today than we did back before we had any visuals of us on television, which you can't argue, then BET today makes no sense. In fact, all it does is cater to the misrepresentation of who we are and where we can find our humanity.

An example of my point about the lack of reason for BET to continue to exist, take the question of casual usage of the n word by African people. Its no wonder so many of our people, especially those of us who are younger, actually believe they have a sound argument for using the n word openly today. Its as if they have no way to assess the damage their continued perpetuation of this criminal label has imposed upon our people. I still haven't met a single African who has experienced the n word the way I have, with European people making every effort to kill you calling you that as if it was your middle name, express tolerance for the word's casual usage among our people. The only people arguing for that casual usage apparently have only experienced the word as a casual label so to them, they can't understand what the big fuss is all about. By the same token, these same Africans arguing for their ability to use the n word casually would be ready to kill a European who uses it. The irony in that is the anger they feel at hearing Europeans use it is the same anger we feel at hearing them use it because we understand that they are only using it because it has been programmed into us by this oppressive system. As a result, when our people say it, we hear white supremacy saying it. Where BET ties into this is what use is that media outlet if we cannot have those types of discussions on it? What's the use of having something like BET if at no point of its existence do we ever use it to challenge the status quo? Even an average high school student would comprehend that Chevron, KFC, McDonalds, etc., have no interest in paying for a discussion among African people about the n word. No interest at all.

That's why BET was never designed to serve the African masses. Its purpose was always, and continues to be, to serve the interests of capitalism by convincing the African masses, using our cultural expressions, etc., to lull us to sleep thinking that BET and other similar neo-colonial enterprises, are representing progress for us within the capitalist system. The sad truth is like everything else we participate in within this society, our access to it has only contributed to making our conditions that much worse.

Stop Letting People Ignorantly Say that "Immigrants" Owe the U.S.

6/3/2019

Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) was always fond of saying "people in capitalist societies don't know how to think. They only know how to react to stimuli." His analysis is the only way to effectively explain how so many people within the U.S. and Europe have been led to embrace this phony disdain for people living in those countries who were not born there. Its especially disappointing to see African people - who's radar for racism should represent the most heightened in these societies - signing on to these bogus concept with slim to no critical and historical analysis.

Of course the basis of this backward argument is that people living in capitalist countries, take the U.S. for example, who were not born here, are taking advantage of resources this country has. Resources the argument wages, these people have no right to. Underneath this argument is the subtle, yet clear, racist assumption that by immigrants, these people are talking about colonized people who want handouts provided to them by the wonderfully successful European (white) people who grace us with their presence in the Western Hemisphere (and everywhere else). In short, their position is that brown people, colonized people, are stealing the wealth of Europeans.

What immigrants are these people talking about though? Its ill-refutable that people living in the U.S. who are not so-called "citizens" of the U.S., whatever that really means, work jobs everyday and contribute millions of dollars in tax revenues to the coffers of this country. The racist belief that all immigrant labor is paid under the table is a myth. A very large percentage of these people have individual tax identification numbers (ITINS) which they can obtain in order to be eligible to work within the U.S. You may choose to make the worthless argument that undocumented immigrants figure out ways to get ITINs, but you are still going to be making my argument for me because the point is that once the ITIN is received, its used to work - "legally" within the U.S. That means a W-2 is issued and taxes are paid. Again, these folks, working fast fast, custodial work, etc., pay millions in taxes, but most public services they are ineligible for. As a result, contrary to popular misinformation, these folks pay a lot more into the system than they receive out of it. This is ill-refutable unless you're one of these people who demand an existence within an ignorant realm where your fears become reality above scientific evidence. And, most people from Central America and the Caribbean would fall within the categories described in this paragraph, so clearly, if anything, anyone claiming U.S. e.g. American identification; you owe these people, not the other way around. And, that's before we add in that unforgettable point that all of this is taking place on land that was violently stolen from these people in the first place. Obviously, when its said these people owe the U.S., its not these people that you can be talking about.

Regarding so-called immigrants here from Africa. The only reason these folks are here is because of colonialism and slavery. This is true whether those folks know anything about those systems or not. Its still the reason they are here because it was those systems that destabilized Africa while continuing to keep her destabilized. Its that destabilization that has prevented the development of the educational and economic opportunities for people in Africa to benefit, although it is still the cheap and human resources that provide the foundation for the wealth that exists within the capitalist world today. For example, I read yesterday that the massive cocoa industry, which is based in West African countries like Ghana and the so-called Ivory Coast, produces upwards of 50% of the cocoa products e.g. chocolate, in the world today while less than 2% of the wealth generated from that industry returns to Africa. We can tell you the same ill-refutable story about the cobalt industry (cell phones, lap tops, flats screens, etc.), bauxite (aluminum products), gold, diamonds, uranium (nuclear power), etc., etc. The multi-national corporations like Chevron, Shell, Samsung, Apple, who steal all this wealth make billions every year from their theft while the Africans forced to displace to the U.S. to get an education (because their countries haven't been able to develop the capacity to provide that for them) are supposed to give up their birthright to all that wealth in exchange for a worthless college degree in the U.S. that at best, will give them the opportunity to slave for the very corporations who are robbing Africa in the first place? I'll tell you what, next time you do anything at all on your cell phone, remember that you owe them, not the other way around. So, clearly, its not these African so-called "immigrants" who owe anything to this country. Again, that analysis is made before factoring in the slave trade and colonialism which robbed Africa to such a degree that no monetary number can ever compensate for it.

So, if its not the Central American, Caribbean, or African people coming to the U.S. and the other capitalist countries who owe something to those countries, what immigrants are they talking about? Oh, it must be those from the Asian countries? The people who work in sweat shops to produce the clothes you wear right? The ones who toil for companies and corporations doing that oppressive labor. The ones you dry clean with, eat food with, etc., who still have to pay so much more in taxes than they can ever receive in services. Nope. You owe them too. Not the other way around.

The only people left would be the masses of descendants from Europe who settle in the Western Hemisphere on other people's lands. Yes, for these people, unless they are involved in a just and organized struggle to spread truth about what is actually happening. Unless they are actually fighting against the forces of settler colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, etc., then yes, it is these people who have the debt to pay. In fact, they are the only ones who should be expected to pay a debt. And, to be clear, by fighting we don't mean participating in some liberal process that ultimately upholds capitalism. By doing that you do nothing to correct these wrongs. You must be engaged in a process to eliminate the system of oppression, not make it seem more tolerable.

So, the next time you hear someone spreading this filth about so-called immigrants, make an effort to bring integrity into your day. Correct them and ask them when they made their last contribution?