In 1962/63, when asked what he thought of baseball great Jackie Robinson's critical remarks against the character and mission of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X responded; "the white man has intellectuals and world renowned minds to speak to his conditions, but when it comes to the so-called negro, his spokespersons are always trumpet players and athletes!"  

Although Malcolm X spoke those prophetic words over 50 years ago, here today, we still see the fixation on what African celebrities have to say about our struggle for human rights and justice.  This continues to be puzzling because African people possess some of the best social minds on the entire planet.  We have benefited from the knowledge and wisdom of intellectuals and activists - the best combination to qualify someone to speak about our suffering conditions.  From Marcus and Amy Garvey to George Padmore, W.E.B. and Shirley DuBois to Kwame Nkrumah.  Sekou Ture.  Malcolm X, Assata Shakur.  Thomas Sankara.  Mangeleso Sobukwe, Imbalia Camara and Kwame Ture.  Every facet and factor of our existence has been explored, analyzed, and a path to salvation has been provided.  Steve Biko and Franz Fanon told us about the psychology of 500+ years of colonialist indoctrination.  They explained its impact on us and they devised things we need to do to disrupt this terrible hold on our mental health.  Nkrumah, Ture, Sankara, Malcolm, Kwame Ture, Assata, and others have given us a clear path to liberation.  Yet, with all that great experience and knowledge, when we want to analyze a police shooting today do we go to those minds first for their perspective?  When we need a point of view on slavery who are we listening to?  Who are we providing for our children to listen to?  For the most part, we don't review and study any of those great minds on any of these questions.  Instead, we want to know what Raven Symone has to say about our psychology of oppression.  We're interested in how Steve Harvey views slavery.  What's Pharrell's position on police shootings.  How Bill Cosby interprets the African man's experience in a white supremacist society.  What Kanye West thinks about the confederate flag.  What is that?  Why do we do that?  There are probably a number of answers, but I'll take a stab at one theory.

Although we rarely talk about it and we certainly don't like admitting it, in 2015/16, we are still very much under the complete spell of neo-colonialist thought and values.  What this means is we very much believe that we are inferior to the European and we have a deep seated fear of challenging the facets of our oppression.  Most of us are much more interested in how to live with being oppressed than eliminating our oppression.  We want progress without sacrificing for it and we still believe our best weapon against oppression to be appealing to the moral conscious of a people and society who if nothing else, have demonstrated that they do not have a conscious to appeal to.  Celebrities, represent the segment of our population that has made it in the European capitalist world.  Consequently, since we view the dominant European capitalist society as superior, we inherently view the Africans who have achieved "success" in that system as people we should want to emulate.  In short, we still think like slaves and colonized people, viewing our master , and those he accepts, as the epitome of civilization.  This is why we can live in an information based society where information is everywhere around us today, yet we are still very hesitant and unwilling to commit to spending the amount of time necessary to insure we can properly understand the forces that impact us.  We want the easy way out and we view success through the eyes of our enemies.  That's why we look to Nikki Minaj instead of Angela Davis because it doesn't require nearly as much time and effort and she has made the grade.  And, with attention spans experiencing record low levels, we can get people much more keyed into what Minaj has to say then anyone of real substance.  Plus, it won't get anyone in any type of potential trouble.   Its a great recipe for continued slavery, but if your goal is liberation and justice, that road ain't gonna cut it.

Now, none of this is a judgment against the minds of the celebrities.  Many of them are very intelligent and there are actually a number of them who have produced some pretty strong political material in songs, poems, stage plays, etc., that have been shelved because of a lack of interest by the entertainment industry in focusing on such material.  The problem isn't the celebrities themselves.  Its the fact the masses of people are disorganized.  What this means is Sekou Ture (one of those great minds I mentioned) told us many years ago that the masses of people shape culture, the cultural artist doesn't shape the minds of the masses.  If you want evidence of that, look at the 1960s.  Fela Kuti was really clear in interviews when he said his passion and music was inspired by coming to the U.S. and meeting Black Panthers who helped him wake up.  His best music is a reflection of that connection.  When people demand more from the artists the artists are forced to step up their game.  That's why the 60s saw the Isley Brothers singing "Fight the Power" and "Harvest for the World" and "The Pride."  It's also why that same group in the 80s, the me decade, were singing "Between the Sheets."  So we know that the artists are capable of more than what we hear today from people like Raven and Steve Harvey, but we won't get it if we don't push them for it.  So, if we want more from them, instead of sharing and forwarding their statements of ignorance, why don't we refuse to support them until they speak like they have some respect for us.  If we boycotted Pharrell's music as a way of letting him know we don't want to hear his idiotic views on the lack of racism, then maybe we can hit him where it hurts so that he has to think first before he sells us out next time.

The healthy road is one that recognizes the people most coveted by our enemies are the people most harmful to our existence.  The people most hated by our enemies are the people we should want to know as much about as possible.  So, instead of shunning those great minds, who were and are certainly hated by our enemies, get as close and intimate with them as you possibly can.  It's in your best interests to do so.  And, instead of uplifting celebrity ignorance, we should decide to hold them accountable when they express it.  

If you wanted brain surgery for a serious neurological problem, you wouldn't go to a clerk at 7Eleven and ask them to perform that surgery. Nothing against the clerk as they are a vital component to the society we reside in, but you wouldn't trust them to carry out your surgery because you have respect for your ability to survive and you want the best to insure that can happen for you.  Well, we have to respect our struggle for justice as much if not more.  So, consider that promoting ignorant views expressed by those who are respected in the capitalist world is not good for us.  And, how will you know those views are ignorant?  You will have to dedicate yourselves to reviewing the perspectives of those who were qualified to provide an informed opinion - the criminalized genius of our commitment to liberation..  Make 2016 the year you read Amy Garvey's "Garvey and Garveyism."  Nkrumah's "Class Struggle in Africa."  Ture's "Africa on the Move."  Fanon's "Black Skin/White Masks."  Churchell's "The FBI's Secret War to Destroy the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement."  Elaine Brown's "A Taste of Power."  The list is endless, but its a path we have to take if we desire to see ourselves put a stop to the ongoing disrespect and minimizing of our people, our suffering, and our glorious and difficult road to victory.

Today is the second day of Kwanza, Kujichagulia - self determination in Swahili.  For the next five days, literally millions of Africans worldwide will be participating in this annual cultural commemoration which was created by Maulana Karenga in 1966.  Karenga achieved his PhD by age 25 and after engaging in several Black nationalist formations, he settled on helping form the US Organization in Los Angeles in the mid sixties.  He created Kwanza as a part of the philosophical mission of US which is to advance the cultural consciousness of African people as a way of freeing our minds from the shackles of European colonialism and neo-colonialism.  Kwanza was created and advanced based on Karenga's and USs philosophy of Kawaida or the Nguzu Saba which defines the seven principles, or days, of Kwanza.  It should be noted that besides Kwanza, Karenga is equally noted for his contributions to the concept of Afrocentricity.  In fact, he is noted as one of the world's foremost scholars on African history.  He was also one of the principle organizers of the original Million Man March in 1995.  Unfortunately,  Karenga's resume doesn't stop there because with each annual coming of Kwanza we are also greeted with resurfacing accusations against the character of Karenga during those early years of US and the Black power movement.  

Let me state clearly that my initial personal experience with Karenga was not the best.  My first exposure to him was as a student member of the Pan-African Student Union at Sacramento State University in 1983.  We worked with African student organizations across the state of California to form an organization called the African/Black Statewide Student Alliance.  From the beginning of the formation of that group, there was tension between those of us who considered ourselves Pan-African, and those who considered themselves Black nationalists.  This tension culminated in a conference at USC in the fall of 83 where the Black Student Union of Cal State Long Beach, where Karenga taught at the time, had successfully pushed to have Karenga serve as the keynote speaker during the last session of the conference.  I remember how about 50 members of my campus group, along with our allies from sister Pan African student groups at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, and San Jose State, sat together in the back of the huge auditorium while the other hundreds of students sat down front in eager anticipation of Dr Karenga's arrival.  His wife, Tiamoya Karenga, came in first with a huge and beautiful black afro and a wonderful long flowing African dress.  She was accompanied by at least four Simba Wachucas - the military wing for the US Organization.  She stopped at our group in back and admonished us for sitting so far back.  Then, someone got on the microphone and started attacking us for "disrespecting Dr. Karenga."  We reluctantly moved down front together, only to walk out collectively when Karenga attacked Pan-Africanism as a fantasy, stating that all Kwame Nkrumah did was "write a letter" discussing Pan-African ideas, but nothing concrete for the African in America.  In the years since then, as an organizer for the All African People's Revolutionary Party, I've learned through my work in the party the concrete history of Pan-Africanism thus destroying any impact from Karenga's misinformation about our movement in his speech at USC.  In the years since, I've even made at least two visits to his Afro American Cultural Center in South Los Angeles, but I'd be lying if I said I still didn't have concerns. The accusations against him for torturing African women in the US Organization and the fact he served prison time in the 70s for those crimes makes that impossible to ignore.  And I think it adds fuel to the accusations that Karenga was a police agent/informant.  Now today, in this dominant atmosphere of call out culture that seems to completely ignore the lessons we should have learned from COINTELPRO tactics of the 60s/70s, the accusations against Karenga are continuing in full spirit, along with other similar accusations against people like Elaine Brown (former Black Panther Party Chairperson after Huey P. Newton).  Its this aspect of where we find ourselves today that I'd like to comment on.

First, its important that we acknowledge the seriousness of this conversation.  People who are accused of being police agents have a history of being killed.  There are several people who we know now were innocent and sincere fighters for liberation who were killed because of the manipulation of the state to turn people against honest soldiers for justice.  If you don't know than research the history of George Sams of the Black Panther Panther Party, Anna Mae Pictoh Aquash of the American Indian Movement, and many others who were killed because of intentional misinformation about their being police agents.  So, making accusations of any kind against anyone is not something that should be bandied about with such carelessness the way it was in the 60s/70s, and the way its being done today.  Even the psychology of these accusations raises a lot of concerns.  The thinking is apparently that if we call people out, that will create an environment where we are aware of who the snitches are which will somehow keep us safer.  The reality is what ends up happening is the environment becomes dominated by paranoia and fear.  Decisions are made based on faulty information at best and history is full of examples of how bad that makes things turn out.  So, logic dictates that we reassess our entire process for addressing the situation of police informants in our organizations.

We have to start by defining exactly what we are talking about.  When we say "police agents" what do we mean?  You can see the terms "police agents" and police informants" used interchangeably as if they mean the same thing, but to me, a police agent is someone who is a trained agent working undercover for the FBI, and/or other police agencies.  A police informant is someone who usually has been accused of a crime and offered a deal of performing intelligence work against the movement for money and/or immunity for the criminal accusations.  I think the difference is important because calling someone a police agent infers they work for the police agency and are infiltrating the movement organization as a part of their job.  This implies that the FBI and other police agencies are hiring and training a large number of people of color to infiltrate our organizations.  This we know is not true.  In fact, contrary to popular belief, the FBI has employed African agents from time to time over the last 100 years, but they have always been token hires.  Not the mass scale of people who are accused of being police agents over the last 50 years.  In other words, we know that even now, Africans in the FBI is still a limited phenomenon.  So, when we are talking about police informants, we are really talking primarily about people who were in the movement organizations on their own when something happened that caused them to be recruited by the police agencies to work against the organizations.  This is a critical point because if we are going to accuse people of being police informants, we must present the evidence e.g. what they did to become in entrapped by the police in the first place.  There has to be a story to justify the accusation.  As it relates to COINTELPRO, there are an enormous amount of hurt feelings and bad blood that has been generated from the lives and experiences that have been devastated as a result of betrayal and/or perceived betrayal, but we cannot confuse those difficult emotions with facts and evidence.  A lot of people are pointing to Geronimo Ji Jaga's (Pratt) open letter accusing Elaine Brown of being a police informant as proof against her.  I encourage everyone to read Geronimo's letter.  It's readily available on line.  I love Geronimo.  That African spent 27 years in prison for us as a people.  If you don't know the story you need to know it.  He deserves our respect, and I cherish the 30 minutes I was honored to sit down and speak with him after his release from prison in 1997, but I have to take exception to using his open letter as gospel against Sister Brown.  His accusations focus on her behavior as a young woman in the Black Panther Party in 1968.  Her worship of certain male leaders in the Party.  Her selfishness in pursuing what she wanted with disregard for the emotional impact it had on others, etc.  Elaine Brown has admitted as much in her own book "A Taste of Power."  In fact, her honest portrayal of herself  during those years reflects an integrity that many in our movement lack in describing their less than proud moments in our history.  Geronimo spent over three decades in prison for a crime he didn't commit.  The people who could have possibly helped him - Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Emery Douglass, Elaine Brown, and others, were operating on misinformation about Geronimo (courtesy of the FBI) so they didn't speak out in Geronimo's defense and he was understandably upset by that, but Elaine's behavior during those years was much more descriptive of an immature and politically unsophisticated young woman than a police informant.  Any of us in organizations today know plenty of people who play people against one another.  Who make unwarranted accusations against people.  Who sleep around with people in the movement and then cover that with political accusations against those people when the sexual bliss disappears.  None of these behaviors by themselves represents proof of police compliance to me.  What we would need is an analysis of why and how Elaine Brown became a police agent and a perspective of what her police objectives were.  It cannot be disputed that once you take away the macho guns image of the Black Panther Party, much of its practical imprint e.g the breakfast and health programs, Ms. Brown had quite a lot to do with stabilizing on a national level.  So, to suggest that her primary intention was to destroy the Black Panther Party based on her behavior in Los Angeles in 1968/69 doesn't stand up against the work she did to build the Party's school, which functioned until 1982.  You can accuse her of being reformist and not revolutionary, but then you would have to make that same accusation against Bobby Seale, who is writing cookbooks now, Eldridge Cleaver who found a home in the Mormon Church and the Church of Unification while becoming an ardent supporter of Ronald Reagan during the 80s, and even Huey P. Newton who basically retired from the struggle to alternate between political icon and crack addict in his final years.  In fact, you would have to make that accusation against practically the entire leadership of the Black Panther Party.  If you did, it would be true, but it isn't proof of being a police informant.

The accusations against Karenga are more difficult because of his confirmed history of abuse against women.  Still, we have to continue to be careful with what we use as evidence.  Most of what's going around today is proof that Karenga, Elaine Brown, and others had meetings with state officials.  These meetings are being offered as the primary proof of these people being informants.  The other proof being offered are the words of former confirmed police informants Louis Tackwood and Earl Anthony.  On that I'll just say it escapes me how anyone could believe anything those two have to say about anything in our movement.  Tackwood is a confirmed liar who's version of truth around the San Quentin 6 occurrences are legendary.  His story of what actually happened in those incidents has changed so many times that the courts have a hard time keeping track.  And the same is true for Anthony.  If you are basing your position on Karenga and Brown off of what those two have to say, I feel sorry for you.  I don't believe Karenga to be a police informant.  I do believe him to be driven by egotism and I think that and his documented paranoia, and subsequent addiction to pills, explains his erratic behavior against some of his members.  I think his less than progressive position on women, coupled with the paranoia, explains his abusive behavior, but I see nothing there to suggest he was a police informant.  This is especially true if you consider that his organization was clearly targeted by police agencies.  When they instigated the shootouts between US and the Panthers, they weren't concerned for what happened to Karenga as a result of the antagonism between the organizations.  Clearly, his life was as much in danger as anyone else's during that period.  Nothing could have prevented the Panthers from focusing on assassinating him.  So, it doesn't make sense to suggest he encouraged hits against Panthers because he was a police informant.  We know that the FBI manipulated the fact the US Organization and the Panthers recruited from Los Angeles street organizations.  The FBI used that to throw oil on the fire.  Of course their focus was more on the Panthers than US because the Panthers were an organization talking about revolution while US was only interested in a type of Black consciousness that does not pose any type of threat to the capitalist system (it actually encourages capitalism in many ways), so since the FBI is tasked with protecting national security, it makes sense they would focus on the Panthers, who were growing a national organization with revolutionary leanings.  That's sound logically and doesn't lend anything to the claim that Karenga was an informant.  Confused, egotistical, politically immature?  Yes.  Police informant.  No evidence.  As for the meetings with state officials.  All types of African militants had these meetings.  I know that Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), a leading All African People's Revolutionary Party cadre until his death in 1998, was one of the most targeted and abused activists by the FBI during the 60s/70s due to his work within the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party.  He played a crucial role in helping the Panthers expand into the national organization that was targeted by police agencies.  As a result of his work and how he was targeted, Kwame was also accused of being a police informant.  Huey P. Newton was sent a telegram while he was in prison asserting as much about Kwame and this led to Huey allegedly ordering hits out on Kwame's life.  It was enough to force Kwame to seek refuge in Guinea-Conakry and thank God he did because that enabled him to embark on what we believe was the most important work of his life - building the revolutionary Pan-African movement under the guidance of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Ture.  My point is in 1970, the letter to Newton made the accusation against Kwame based on Kwame being called to testify in the House of Un-American Activities as a result of comments Kwame had made internationally against the U.S. that were documented by U.S. intelligence sources.  Kwame's choice was to attend this meeting or go to jail.  He attended, was polite, but non-cooperative, and the story was leaked that he was working with U.S. intelligence sources.  We know now that nothing came out of those meetings, but its critical to acknowledge that all types of meetings took place during those days.  The power structure was generally afraid of the potential of  the Black Power movement to bring the U.S. to its knees.  Frederick Douglass told us that power concedes nothing without a demand.  Well, the demand was there in the late 60s and the power brokers felt they needed to try and work out a deal with voices of Black power.  People like Karenga, hungry for what they perceived to be power and wanting to establish themselves at the top of the circle of African leadership, enthusiastically accepted these invitations to meet with these devils.  So, its not hard to explain why these meetings happened.  Its a lot harder to assert that the meetings represented cooperation to destroy the movement.  Was Karenga motivated by self interest and ego?  Possibly/probably, but that's much more likely than using those meetings to justify labeling him a police informant.

What all of this says is that we have quite a bit of maturing to do if we are going to seriously challenge the power structure and build something better for humanity.  We have proven often that if we aren't working for the police, we ought to be because of the wreck-less behavior we exhibit on every level of our work.  This is still quite evident today.  Activists use social media on a regular basis to call out other activists and when you challenge them on it, they insist they know the history of COINTELPRO.  Well, if you know it, stop repeating it!  We have to accept that unless someone has a proven ability to read people's minds, we will never be able to accurately determine who is an honest activist and who is a police informant.  Assessing people's erratic behavior in this age of rampant mental health issues and associated trauma due to our oppression makes it even harder to use crazy behavior as proof of anything besides oppression.   So, this tactic of calling people out based on circumstantial evidence is at best completely non-productive and plays right into the hands of our enemies.  No matter how much you think you are helping by calling people out, you are being naive.  You are helping - the police.  But, that doesn't make you a police informant.  It just makes you the same as Elaine Brown and Maulana Karenga in the 60s.  Misguided and confused.  The only way to effectively combat police infiltration is to focus extensively on the ideological development of your membership.  If we focus on making sure our people are ideologically steeled on our revolutionary principles, we don't have to worry about police informants because no matter what these people say and do, the members will not be distracted and misdirected away from our mission.  That is how the police have been successful.  Getting us to lose focus so the solution is strengthening our ability to keep our focus, not trying to call out those who are trying to sabotage us.  If we have that ideological focus what ends up happening is the reactionaries end up being won over to the revolutionary cause instead of the other way around as has been the case up to this point.  If we study successful revolutions that came before us, like the Cuban revolution, we can see countless examples of people turning against the capitalist system once they understand the justifiable objectives of our fight.  So, if you really want to fight police infiltration, make sure your organization has a serious political education program and that you are taking the program seriously.  Once we start to do that, we won't have to depend entirely on guesswork to protect ourselves. And, if you suspect someone of being an agent, instead of calling them out, strengthen your organization's political education so you can use that person to advance the revolution.  One example.  Everyone has heard of the tactic of the person who wants to prove that their partner is true to them.  That person uses a sibling that the partner hasn't met to entice them.  If the partner bites, they cannot be trusted.  If they rebuke the sibling, they have proven the purity of their love.  As an analogy to the movement, the sibling in this example is the distraction, but the faithfulness of the partner is based not in identifying the sibling, but in the work that was done to solidify the relationship before the partner and the sibling ever had their staged meeting.  The point being if you focus correctly on the relationship e.g. the organization and the members, you don't need to worry about the sibling or the distraction.  We should start trying that approach the next time you have the urge to call out somebody.

Recently, a sincere community member approached me and intimated a concern.  They were told by another community member that I had offended the second person by stating in public that people don't like to read.  The person who came to me was upset because they felt the person who approached them was missing the essence of my message.  This person wanted to alert me as their way of hoping to correct the disconnect.  I took their input, as I take everyone's input, to heart.  I do this work not to offend people, but to hopefully inspire people, but I also know that a cultural tactic of achieving inspiration is based in jarring people awake.  So, in the tradition of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer, and Kwame Ture, I try to provide information when I speak, but I know doing so in a monotone fashion won't hold people's attention very long.  So, I try to infuse as much humor and pointed remarks as possible as a tactic, not to insult people, but to hopefully make them think.  I take this work very seriously so I recognize that sometimes I may not achieve my objective.  So, as I always do, I thought a lot about the feedback I received, but as I did, I actually came to the conclusion that my responsibility is to tell people the truth, regardless of how difficult it is for them to hear it.  When Malcolm asked us "who are you?  You don't know!"  His intent wasn't to insult us, although I'm sure some people took it that way, but that's really not the primary question.  The primary question should be was he correct?  So, instead of torturing myself further, I resolved that I regretted that someone felt put off by my words, but then maybe that's not such a bad thing.  Maybe what really offended them is the truth contained in my message?  Is what I said true?  Do African people read and study serious literature on a continuous basis?  Are we consistently engaged in study groups focused around understanding the political, economic, and social phenomenon that shapes our daily lives?  Can we compare how much we study to how much we party?  Do we read the Bible or Koran or do we primarily rely on someone else, who may not have our best interests at heart, to interpret it for us?  Do we spend more time listening to what actors, rappers, and singers have to say about our people's status in the world today than we do studying the words of people who actually engaged in the struggle for liberation?  

Look at it another way.  Whether you live in Africa, the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia, or Central, South America, or the Caribbean, how often do you see African people, or anyone else for that matter, reading serious and comprehensive material?  This doesn't include social media posts, some of which are great, but we all know that 90% of that is not serious material.  We are talking about seeing people reading book volumes.  Studying them.  We are talking about how many people do you come across on the bus, at the park, in the launder-mat, in the break-room, in your house, in cars, in the airport, reading volume books as opposed to looking at their phones or talking on those phones?  I don't see how any honest person can suggest that the majority of people are reading comprehensive books like "Class Struggle in Africa", "Neo-Colonialism", "Africa on the Move", The Communist Manifesto", "Imperialism", "Fighting Two Colonialisms", "In Defense of Socialism", etc.  Even if we see people reading, it isn't those types of volume books. Its self help, fiction, how to get rich quick, etc.  Now, reading anything is probably better than not reading at all, but the point here is the lack of reading of critically focused and comprehensive material is creating a dysfunctional reality in the world today where more and more people are unable to think critically.  This is a serious problem that all concerned people need to make our top priority.  Our children have become convinced that reading is not essential.  In some societies there isn't even a culture of debate any longer.  The minute you disagree, it's perceived as antagonistic and the discussion is immediately dropped as being a negative experience.  This is tragic since African people helped introduce the concept of debate and rhetoric to the world through our institutions of higher learning in Timbuktu, Mali, Kemit, and other ancient societies.  Yet today, the often repeated statement is "you never discuss politics and religion", the two things we should be discussing as often as we possibly can.

None of this has happened by accident.  The capitalist system, the dominant economic system in the world today, gained its rise through exploitation.  It developed from the industrial period which was fueled e.g. financed, through the tri-angular slave trade that stole millions of Africans from Africa to force them to work in the Western Hemisphere to build up the wealth of the European/American capitalist industrial societies.  This process of colonialism is continued today through the system of neo-colonialism where Africa serves as the cheap resource and labor hub for Western capitalism.  The West relies on obtaining cheap resources like columbite tantalite (coltan), uranium, zinc, cocoa, bauxite, rubber, oil, diamonds, gold, etc., from Africa to power the capitalist world while leaving nothing in return for the people's of Africa.  The other aspect is the theft of African labor and the prison industrial complex.  This system of exploitation is so institutionalized today that it can be openly displayed in motion pictures like Sean Penn's "The Gunman" from 2015, yet, people are still completely oblivious to the basic functioning of the neo-colonial system that fuels their daily lives.  One of the primary ways in which all of this is able to continue to function like clockwork is because the capitalist classes have basically convinced the majority of us that their system is the only way available to us to exist in the world today.  We have been taught that its' always been capitalism (not true), and it will always be capitalism (equally not true).  So, at best, all we can do is modify capitalism.  Place lipstick on it.  Figure out a way for capitalism to work better.  Reform it.  Fix it.  Improve it.  Do anything except destroy it and replace it.  Even many of the people who have figured out there's something seriously wrong with capitalism are afraid to embrace socialism, the only alternative to capitalism.  Why this ill-rational fear?  Because we have been programmed to react negatively to the words "socialism, communism, radical, revolution, militant, etc." although we have absolutely no understanding of what those words mean.  We don't know because we don't study.  Test it out for yourself.  Ask your family members, friends, co-workers, etc., what they know about socialism.  Very few people will say they have absolutely no opinion.  Most people (I'd argue at least 9 out of 10) will respond by giving you some type of analysis of what they think about socialism, the bulk of that analysis being negative.  Then, when they conclude, ask them to recite to you what books by socialists they have read.  Not what articles written by capitalist apologists they've gleened on Face Book.  What books they have read by socialists like Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, Rosa Luxumburg, Leon Trotsky, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, etc.  Chances are overwhelming that the answer is always going to be they've got nothing in terms of reading under their belt.  This is the danger of the current times because how can people have opinions about something that they only know through what they've been told about it by sources who have an agenda against that concept?  Its the same as you accepting  information about someone you don't know from someone who hates the person they are telling you about.  

Comprehensive reading is the only method to resolve these contradictions because by reading and discussing critical material, the reader learns how to break down the concepts in the reading.  The brain learns how to analyze for itself instead of being fed like a sponge to regurgitate what it's told.  People start to develop their own tools of analysis so that you cannot be told anything without you questioning it, breaking it down, and coming to your own understanding of whether the information has objective validity or not.  Without developing people to think this way, we are setting ourselves up for a world where the majority of people don't know how to think.  And, science has long proven that when people don't think, they are reacting and when people react, we know our I.Q. goes down considerably.  This is the reality that serves our enemies the capitalist system because when we aren't thinking, they can program us to react to everything with fear.  That's why you see completely ill logical concepts emerge like people being led to believe that Muslims represent the primary threat to them when clear evidence indicates the European man as the primary terrorist in the world today.  People are programmed to hear the message about Muslims which evokes fear.  Most of them don't know any Muslims so their only concept is the fear based one provided to them so it never occurs to them to challenge this false concept.  The capitalists tell the world over and over that if we don't just accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ as provided by neo-colonialist preachers, then we will go to hell.  This message is heard from the moment people can understand language so people react to it with the fear that the message is designed to generate and the foolish concept is never questioned.  I saw this in my life growing up.  I was so propagandized by this "fear of God" that it wasn't until I was about 18 years old that I was able to question my mother, a consistent proponent of the God fear propaganda, as to why I had never seen her even crack open a Bible to read it.  Then, once I joined an organization that had an organized work/study process, and I read the Bible with people and discussed it, I began to understand that pretty much everything I had been taught about that book growing up was in error.  Another example is that we are programmed to believe that anyone who suggests a solution to any problem not connected to capitalism is automatically labeled as insane.  Socialism?  You must be insane suggesting that.  This is such a dependable response that the person advancing the socialist concept is forced to operate from the position of having to justify our sanity from the moment we start explaining our belief in the concept.  This is amazing since the reality is the persons you are going to be explaining socialism to have no prior study of it, no comprehensive understanding of it, and no right to question anything you are saying about it. Yet, those are the dysfunctional conditions provided to us that we are forced to function in.

We have the daunting task of reversing this anti-intellectual atmosphere that is poisoning the universe today.  We have to figure out a way to make reading comprehensive/critical material cool.  We have to make it the thing to do.  We have to make education fun.  One approach is to start instilling that in our youth before they get poisoned by the capitalist system.  This can be accomplished by establishing programs where you can talk to the youth on a consistent basis.  You don't need to be a trained educator to do this.  We do it on a regular basis as a part of our work here.  Our efforts are based in the theory provided by Sekou Ture that "one truth will crush a thousand lies!"  If we have the truth and we live the truth e.g. being consistent with them, the youth will accept the truth.  Another method is for people to champion the concept of reading in every way that we can.  This can happen by encouraging people to join work/study groups in organizations fighting for justice.  The All African People's Revolutionary Party has such a comprehensive process and we encourage every organization to have such a process.  Even if you are not a part of an organization, encourage your people to not just talk about concepts, but to organize to study them on a regular basis.  All of this will help create an atmosphere and culture where reading begins to be considered mandatory.  This is what we want to see happen as this will begin to change the current reality.  The other thing that has to happen, and this is not going to be easy, is we have to begin to challenge the cultural concept of accepting the lack of reading whenever it rears it's ugly head.  For example, for the person who leveled the criticism of my presentation to the person who advised me of the criticism, I've resolved that when I hear that type of critique again, I'll constructively challenge it to whomever brings it to me.  It's not whether what I said upsets someone because people get upset for all types of ill logical reasons.  Of course, as a revolutionary organizer, I always have the responsibility to present the work with humility, but provided that's happening, the question should always be did I speak truth?  Do people read?  I think the answer is unquestionably, for the most part, we don't.  So, let's not back down from that.  Let the struggle begin!  Our future deserves as much.

It's all around us at all times because it's a way of life here.  Things that make absolutely no sense are such a normal part of this society that people have unconsciously accepted these occurrences as the norm.  On the flip side, things that are completely logical are disregarded with such regularity by the institutions of this system that they are viewed as strange.  This is the tricknology of the capitalist system and we are all impacted and influenced by it all the time.  For example, today, many young and courageous demonstrators are taking to the streets to challenge the status quo.  They are filling up the retail malls across the land attempting to inspire people to stop spending money on "things" to hear a message of justice.  These activists want these people to stop and think about the fact that police agencies routinely murder African people - women and men - as policy with no consequences and/or accountability.  If an out of space alien landed here today and observed this phenomenon, that alien would have to conclude that the actions of the activists are sound logically.  People wanting to place the value of innocent life over that of rampant illogical consumerism.  Yet, the national narrative about the demonstrators is that they are disrupting commerce.  They are committing criminal acts because they are trespassing on private property (the malls) although they have been advised their presence is not wanted.  This is beyond ill logical.  Clearly, the purpose of any demonstration or protest is to disrupt the status quo.  To make people uncomfortable.  The idea is that you exert your power as a collective mass by disrupting the commerce which is the driving modem in this society.  This forces the power structure to acknowledge you and that's when discussions regarding true justice will take place because the power structure knows if they don't, you will hit them where it hurts them.  Kwame Nkrumah called it positive action.  So, any protest or demonstration worth its weight has to break rules.  It cannot be based on following the rules and permits of the institutions its protesting against because if it does that, it becomes no different than a child protesting a parent when that parent controls everything in that child's life.  In other words, the child's protest is empty once the parent decides to exert any control over the situation.  If we follow the laws/rules of the society oppressing us, we are no different than the protesting child.  Everyone knows this because everyone who has made any collective advancements has had to break laws and rules.  In fact, the only reason I can sit here and write this is because my people before me broke laws and rules so that I could have rights today.  I'd have no higher education if they hadn't done that.  I'd have no decent place to live.  I'd certainly not work where I work.  This is true for women, LGBTQ folks, disabled folks, and everyone in society.  So what type of fool would I look like today talking about it's wrong for protesters to break laws, yet you can hear people who benefited from collective struggle the same way I did saying just that everywhere today.  How is that possible?  

Why do we continue to play this holiday charade every year?  Why do Christian ministers, who if they attended seminary school - they know Jesus wasn't born in December - why do they play along with the charade?  Why do we pretend for one month in December that there is peace on Earth and goodwill towards humanity?  Why do we lie to children and tell them a European man gives presents to all children on the planet?  Why do people stop only on this day to smile at people, be nice to people, think about the houseless, and all of suffering humanity?  People will be suffering after December 25th and more people will be suffering once they get the credit card statements in January, yet we continue to play this game every year when we all know it makes no sense and only benefits the rich who owns the products we are buying.  

Why do we act like people who have experience and analysis doing organizational work are the same as those who just have individual opinions?  Why are so many people pretending its all the same?  We would never suggest that a qualified brain surgeon who went to medical school, has no further knowledge about brain surgery than anyone who has an opinion about it, yet we continue to act like that as it relates to the struggle for justice.  Why?  Does that make any sense?

Yesterday, I sat and watched an episode of "Sanford and Son" and then "Good Times."  The rampant anti-African behavior (us constantly putting each other down) was overshadowed only by the insane patriarchal anti-women behavior.  Watching these shows, I was immediately aware of the contradictions, but then I realized I spent my youth watching each of these shows like clockwork.  I wasn't even acutely aware of these issues then and so that led me to start thinking; How did that negative propaganda influence me growing up?  Influence others?  Why didn't my family or friends or anyone ever talk about it?  

And that last point leads us into the next question which is why intellectualism is a bad word in this world today?  You notice how you hardly see anyone reading comprehensive material?  If it's not a magazine or a social media post, it's not getting read and why are people acting like that doesn't matter?  The way we know that it matters plenty is because people's minds and their ability to have strong active cerebral capacities has been impacted in an extremely adverse way.  People are losing the ability to understand and process information in a reasonable fashion.  That's why you can provide people with facts, history, and an airtight analysis and they will still continue to deny everything you are saying because what matters most in this anti-intellectual era is how I feel, not what I know.  Clearly this is a cancer that is eating away at our souls, but why are more of us not doing anything to correct this?  Those people who don't read (or read much) know who we are.  Why aren't we doing anything to change since we know we need to?

Why do we keep looking to celebrities, clowns, and people who are rich only because they entertain the system that exploits us for answers for our liberation?  We have plenty of qualified activists who have the answers, yet we refuse to read what they had to say about it because we want to instead get Bill Cosby or Raven Simone's take on our people's liberation?  Let me see...Bill Cosby?  Malcolm X...The struggle of African people against capitalism and white supremacy.  I think I'll go with what Bill has to say about it.  And, then, I guess the logic is I'll study Malcolm X when I want to learn how to be a stand up comic?  Is that crazy or what?

Why do African people keep attempting to integrate into America when it's clear that after 500+ years of trying, we don't/won't fit?  Why do we keep acting like this next effort, next candidate, next job, will get us in?  Why do Africans in Africa look for anything with the U.S. flag, zionist israeli flag, even the confederate flag, as a sign of progress?  Why do we live on the richest continent in the world (Africa), yet accept living as the poorest people on the planet while our enemies steal our resources in plain view of us everyday?  Yet, whenever someone speaks against this and tries to organize us to do something about it, they label them as crazy and many of us go right along with it.  Think about it.  Anna, Amy, Kwame, Malcolm, Marcus, Martin, Assata, Kwame, Sekou, Patrice, Angela, all of them are heralded as extreme and crazy during their times and even still today.  Why don't more of us question this?  Why does all this happen and there is no comprehensive discussion about why we aren't doing anything collectively to change this confusion?

These are all examples for you on December 24th of what's wrong today.  We have more degreed people than humanity has ever had.  We have more technology to communicate, organize, and prepare than we've ever had.  Yet, we cannot do  anything sustainable to stop white supremacy, patriarchy, and the destruction of the planet.  We do not even have the capacity to understand ideas because our minds have been so polluted with nonsense.  Still, we act like all is basically well with what's going on now and people who raise questions are the crazy ones.  We better stop acting like we don't have good sense because if we don't, we are going to burn this planet completely into the ground.  We don't need more money to win.  We don't need more technology.  We don't need more military or technical training.  We actually have all of that right now.  What we don't have is the right mindset.  What we don't have is the right ideological focus.  That's what we need.  And people keep asking us why we promote the need for political education above all else.  Think about it  seriously  Please.  Then tell a friend.

Not to suggest any type of competition between these ideological giants.  You see, the All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) approaches revolution as a science.  As a result, we view scientific socialism as the universal system that it is. Therefore, we study Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il Sung, Le Duan, Nguyen Al Thoc (Ho Chi Minh), and others, intensely.  We learn from and respect their respective contributions to the struggle to achieve scientific socialism, but as African people we recognize that their efforts fall short of addressing our historical and cultural position in the world.  That's where Kwame Nkrumah comes in.  Although most so-called Marxist/Leninists couldn't tell you the first thing about Kwame Nkrumah, or Sekou Ture for that matter, these Africans developed and presented an ideological framework that unites the African world perspective with the universal principles of scientific socialism.  This is why we do not claim Marxist/Leninism as our ideology and in spite of the white supremacist efforts to lump us in as Marxists, we proudly proclaim our commitment to the ideological principles of Nkrumahism/Tureism!  

Sekou Ture's contributions to our ideological direction deserve a focus of their own and have been, and will be explored in separate posts, but here I will focus specifically on the contributions of Kwame Nkrumah since I've just returned from Ghana where his contributions were initially manifested.  Nkrumah was an impressive presence in the African revolutionary struggle.  As other comrades have previously pointed out, although Marx never left Europe and he never actually organized a communist party, Nkrumah made significant organizational contributions on the ground in Africa, Europe, and the U.S.  He participated in the African Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity in the U.S., the West African Students Association in Britain, and was a founding and leading member of the United Gold Coast Convention and later, the Convention People's Party in Ghana.  Then, once he was forced to leave Ghana, he founded the A-APRP in Guinea-Conakry in 1968 ("Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare - Nkrumah 68).  Nkrumah's work has earned him the title of father of Pan-Africanism and he continues to serve as the ideological leader for the African revolution.

The groundwork for Nkrumah's legacy is borne in his historical recognition that Ghana's independence as the first African country to advance past settler colonialism in 1957 was just a stepping stone to achieving true African liberation.  Nkrumah's speech saying as much on the night of Ghana's independence illustrates his vision.  And, his immediate work to make Ghana the base for the African revolution served to cement his commitment to this noble cause.  Becoming one of the first Africans to recognize the need to eliminate the colonial geographical boundaries that divide us, he made an international call for Africans everywhere to come to Ghana to help make that country the base of the African revolution.  Many Africans heeded his call.  Significant contributors like the Trinadadian born George Padmore, who stayed in Ghana as an advisor to Nkrumah until Padmore's death.  Adphaus Hunton, the African intellectual from the U.S.  Maya Angelou, the great African artist from the U.S. all came to Ghana.  Robert Mugabe, the founding member of the Zimbabwan African National Union was there as a student of Nkrumah.  Patrice Lumumba from the Congolese National Movement was there.  Support for liberation movements throughout Africa were established and aide from Ghana was provided to those movements.  This was happening from Ghana before there was even the slightest suggestion of aide coming from the Soviet block countries.  The weight of this work can be gauged several ways, one of which is by reading the words of Malcolm X who wrote in his autobiography; "the highest honor of my life was having an audience with Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana."  Malcolm demonstrated his respect by naming his new organization the Organization of Afro American Unity after the Organization of African Unity that Nkrumah played a prominent role in founding in 1963.  Going further, it should be stated how much Nkrumah influenced the U.S. civil rights and Black Power movements.  Although few scholars credit him for such, Martin Luther King clearly stated how much attending Ghana's independence ceremony influenced him to advance the civil rights agenda and he cited Nkrumah's personal encouragement to him to do so in his book "Why We Can't Wait."

Of course, in February of 1966,. the Central Intelligence Agency (criminals in action) forced an illegal coup to overthrow the Nkrumah government in Ghana.  This happened while Nkrumah was traveling to Vietnam to help broker peace in the war between Vietnam and the U.S.  The CIA has had to come clean and acknowledge it's role in instigating the coup in Ghana as it has become quite clear that Ghana today is one of the CIA's main outposts in Africa.  The coup was accomplished not just by the acts of criminals in 1966, but by a carefully coordinated campaign in the years leading up to the coup where Britain, playing the role of objective supporter, continued to levy it's control over technical expertise and resources, over Nkrumah's head in an attempt to direct the actions of his government.  Much has been said of the corruption of the Convention People's Party in Ghana, but very little has been said about the lack of technical skills and political education which paved the way for the corruption.  Nkrumah tried desperately to hold his political party together, but the reality is had Britain truly supported Ghana's independence, they would have provided the resources needed from the very beginning.  And, that means all of the technical resources needed to build up Ghana's industrial infrastructure.  Britain never did this.  Instead they dangled a carrot in front of Nkrumah when it appeared he may look to the Eastern block for help and they used Ghana as a tool in the cold war with the Soviets.  This was devastating to Ghana because having a lack of resources and skill to properly develop the country, they were forced to play Britain's game in the hopes that they would get what they needed.  Britain, having benefited from exploiting Ghana's resources for decades, had a moral obligation to provide everything Ghana needed without cost.  Of course, this was never going to happen because Britain was never really interested in true Ghanaian independence.  These are the factors that have to be considered in order to make a proper assessment of Nkrumah's government in Ghana along with the misinformation that circulated accusing Nkrumah of stealing the government's resources.  In fact, I had a conversation with a taxi driver in Ghana earlier this month where he accused Nkrumah of being a dictator.  When I asked him what qualified Nkrumah for that title, he said Nkrumah gave Ghana's money away to causes when the money was needed in Ghana.  He cited Nkrumah's support for the Congolese people during the crisis in the Congo in 1960 as an example.  I told him I thought a dictator was someone who stole a country's resources, not someone who shared them with others in need?  Especially when Nkrumah was operating on the premise that Ghana had no security unless Africa was also free and united.  

This leads to Nkrumah being forced to go to Guinea which many people mistakenly call being in exile.  Any African, anywhere in Africa, cannot be in exile.  This is only possible if you accept the colonial borders which we will never do.  So, Nkrumah was invited to Guinea by Sekou Ture.  At first, Ture made the unprecedented move of offering the presidency of the country to Nkrumah, but Nkrumah indicated he could not accept that offer so Ture declared him co-president of Guinea.  This makes Nkrumah the only person in human history to be president of two different countries.  During his time in Conakry, from 1966 until his death in 1972, Nrkuamh researched and wrote his best works including "The Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare" and "Class Struggle in Africa."  The "Handbook" manuscript he shared with a young Stokely Carmichael who read the entire book in one day.  Carmichael enthusiastically told Nkrumah he wanted to carry out Nkrumah's call to create the A-APRP and the All African Committee for Political Coordination and the All African People's Revolutionary Army.  Thus, the first work study circle for the A-APRP commenced in Conakry with Nkrumah, Stokely Carmichael, the Guinea Bissau revolutionary Pan-Africanist Amilcar Cabral, and Lamin Janga from Gambia.  Nkrumah made his physical transition in 72, but Stokely Carmichael and a number of other activists, (including a number of former Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party members who left the BPP and came into the A-APRP, some who are still active within the A-APRP movement today) continued to build the A-APRP.  In 1977, Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture to give respect to Nkrumah and Sekou Ture who guided him through his revolutionary development.  Kwame Ture spent the last 30 years of his life living in Guinea-Conakry building the A-APRP not just in Guinea, but throughout the African world.

Kwame Ture carrried Nkrumah's vision which we taken along with the concepts and ideas of Sekou Ture into our Nkrumahist/Tureist framework for African revolution.  Today we are all over the African world organizing to build the A-APRP.  We advance the ideas of Nkrumah which differ significantly from the ideas of Karl Marx and the other European revolutionaries.  We believe in the concept of Philosophical Consciencism which we define as recognizing the primacy of matter instead of the absolute existence of matter.  We recognize the role of the immaterial e.g. ideas, etc., and since spirituality is a central part of African culture, we do not agree with the Marxist emphasis on atheism.  Instead, we subscribe to the passion of Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer who placed a shotgun in every room of her house in Mississippi and exclaimed that she prayed to God that she would have accuracy in shooting any "cracka" who tried to deny her the rights she deserved.  We advance Nkrumah's notion of the mass political party where everyone is a member which is consistent with the collective character of African culture as opposed to the vanguard approach of European Marxist parties.  And finally, we subscribe to the Revolutionary African Personality and the social revolution which inform us that our struggle isn't just a class struggle, but is a nation. class, gender, struggle which is defined by the ideological tenets that guide it and that ideology is a major aspect of all of this and without understanding the role of ideological struggle we will never truly win the war against our enemies.  

These are just some of the contributions of Kwame Nkurmah to the struggle for African self determination and victory.  Nkrumah himself disappeared 45 years ago, but his ideas are still being organized around everywhere Africans exist.  His ideas guided the efforts of Qaddafi to create one African currency.  His ideas are contributing to uprisings all over the African world from Bourkina Faso to the U.S. We encourage you to study the works of Nkrumah, and Sekou Ture, to gain an understanding of the ideas that guide the work of true revolutionary Pan-Africanists around the world.

From the time I was a very little boy I've felt quite the connection to the animal world.  It doesn't matter whether it's dogs, cats, birds, mice, rats, roaches, spiders, etc., I've always been fascinated by all of them.  I've gone out of my way to insure they were not harmed and I've considered their presence here on Earth as worthy and justified as my own.  And often, when I sat and watched them, I envision what they would say to the human world.  Now, I can't claim to be a huge cat lover.  I'll just say I love all animals and leave it at that.  In this particular time and space in history, I happen to sharing my living quarters with an almost nine year old cat.  Ninety percent of the time she is completely indifferent to me and the other ten percent is when I'm the one feeding her.  Besides that, every once in a while she cuddles up to me for a few moments, but usually, she wants nothing to do with me which suits me fine.  She has the right to interact or not interact with whomever she wants, whenever she wants.  I do think there's more to it though.  I live my life working for justice and liberation for oppressed peoples across the world.  Even when I'm in my living quarters, I'm reading about liberation, talking about it, and researching and planning around it.  About five months ago, I began to notice that when I was doing my work, when I was coming in from participating in programs and/or events, when I was on the phone talking about organization, the resident cat was observing me.  She began this habit of staring at me.  Literally sitting two feet away from me and staring at me while I engaged whatever I was engaging.  And the look on her face said it all...She thinks I'm a hypocrite!  Then I thought about it.  I'm talking about liberation, yet she's a hostage in the house, prevented from ever leaving.  Her meals are controlled and everything she can or cannot do is dominated by humans.    I listened very closely to her one day and I heard it.  She's calling me out as talking about one thing, but practicing another!  She's questioning how I can complain about oppression against humans when the cat nation is oppressed!

Then, one day a grey cat started camping outside our door.  That cat stays there everyday.  She stares at me as I approach much in the same way the resident cat stares at me in the house.  I came to realize they are somehow on the same page!  They are communicating with one another.  Then, one day as I approached the stairway, and that outside cat was there, I heard it, "let my feline comrade go!!  Free em!  Free em all!!"

I was taken aback.  I dare not say anything to anyone for fear of having my sanity questioned.  Cats can't talk and they certainly enjoy having humans controlling their lives right?  Then, one day when I inadvertently left the front door opened while taking my bike out, I noticed the resident cat at the doorway, scared to venture out into the un-chartered world.  And when I looked at her I heard it.  "I've been colonized by humans for so long now that even if you offered me my freedom, I won't take it because I wouldn't even know how to survive out here on my own!!"

Now I'm dogged by this question everyday.  Do the cats want their liberation?  Are they organizing and communicating?  Will they one day mount a resistance challenge against human colonialism?  Well, I got my answer while eating lunch at La Badie beach in Accra, Ghana, earlier this month.  A young kitten approached, one of the very few that I saw in Ghana.  She wanted food yes, but there was more...She wanted to deliver a message.  "Let our comrade go!  Free em all!  The cat nation must be free in Africa and America!  Pan-Felineism all over the planet Earth!!"

I quickly shared more of my tilapia and banku with that strange kitten on that Accra beach and I swore to spread the word from that day forward.  The cats are organizing.  And that means the house cats and the field cats.  The U.S. cats and the African cats.  They are making a call for justice and we better answer correctly because I'm pretty convinced that the resident cat has figured out a way to use her litter box as a weapon for civil disobedience.  

My physical journey from Accra, Ghana, back to Portland, Oregon, began at 6:00am on Monday morning and didn't end until 1:00am on Wednesday morning.  When I arrived at the airport in Portland, I found out I would be without my luggage which was lost somewhere since New York, but I did pick up a bad head and chest cold.  In the 48 hours since then, I've become acutely aware of a sense of depression which is lingering inside me.  I've tried to force myself to rest and heal, but the depression and the resulting anxiety refused to abate.  As I lay awake at 3:00am last night, I challenged myself to think through the logic for this depression.  As I replayed the course of my experiences in Ghana, I realized I am feeling the weight of all of the trauma of our 500+ year experience in the Western Hemisphere.  I want to tell our African version of the truth of this experience, but I fear that the truth alone cannot outweigh the 500 years of lies and misinformation that is constantly injected into our veins.  I realize that I'm worried about those lies because I don't have a clear idea how to defeat them right now.  I also have doubts that I possess what it takes to carry the message.  Those same doubts I've had about myself my entire life.  I know I've overcome incredible obstacles to defeat those doubts on countless occasions, yet here they are again, bigger than life, eating away at my very soul.  Its all bigger because this is Africa we are talking about.  The basis from which I've dedicated all of my adult life.  I've got a lot riding on this.  I failed at being able to maintain being married so my claims for consistency and legitimacy are two things; my thirty one years in the All African People's Revolutionary Party and my 28 years as the father to my daughter.  In many ways, my anxiety is related to the fear that if we cannot convince people of our mission, my life e.g. everything I've fought for and taught my daughter (and a whole lot of other people) may be at risk.  

I carry that burden every day.  I worry that I won't hold the torch properly.  Marcus and Amy Garvey did.  Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Malcolm X, Imbalia Camara, Assata Shakur, Teodora Gomes, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Ture.  They all carried the torch properly.  So, what does it say about me if I can't carry the message as strong as they did?  After spending the last couple of weeks talking to and learning from Baba Seku Neblitt in Ghana, I'm reminded of my responsibility to carry that torch as he has since the early 60s when he was a Freedom singer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  Then, he was a field marshall for the Black Panther Party and that was very significant because anyone who knows anything about the Panther's structure knows that the field marshalls controlled the weapons in the party.  Then, he came to Conakry and met with Kwame Nkrumah.  Saw Sekou Ture.  Met Amilcar Cabral.  He traveled everywhere with Kwame Ture and he is still today, as dedicated to the mission and objectives of the A-APRP as he was almost 50 years ago.  I'm haunted by how much I owe his legacy and those before him.  I'm pressured daily, hourly, by the minute, by the need to deliver.  How can I tell people about him and his contributions and sacrifices?  How can I explain to people in tangible terms the outstanding work of the cadre of the A-APRP in Ghana?  How can I make that palatable to the people here in the U.S. since most of them here have absolutely no concept or understanding about anything in Africa?  How can I communicate to them how African they are?  How they look like the people in Africa.  How they talk like them.  Stand like them.  Dance like them.  How the women in the beauty salons and the guys in the barber shops are in those places the exact same way we inhabit those places here?  And as hard as it will be to paint that picture for them, those points will be the easy ones my anxious personality reminds me.  The more difficult objective will be challenging people to accept realities they don't want to accept.  For example, many Africans in America trumpet the concept that the solution to our suffering is owning something under this capitalist system e.g. owning our share of the pie for ourselves.  I'm 100% opposed to capitalism.  I believe that the U.S. capitalist system is based on exploiting Africa, but how can I convince people here of that?  I feel the anxiety piranhas eating away at my stomach lining over that one.  How can I demonstrate to people that I just saw several African owned businesses in Ghana.  They were everywhere.  Some of them were national companies.  Soft drink companies.  Construction companies.  Consulting firms.  Food manufacturers.  Yet, the masses of people in Ghana live in serious poverty.  How do I get African people here to grapple critically with that reality?  To dig deeper beyond just the superficial and unsophisticated assumption that creating Africans with money equals progress for the masses of our people?  How do I get us to see that electing people who look like us, or who speak to us in our language, means nothing if we do not have the organization and power to hold them accountable to our interests?  There are African elected officials everywhere in Africa on all levels, yet what do we have to show for it?

I had a great moment of anxiety in Africa when one of my party comrade cadre told me he had purchased and read my novel "The Courage Equation."  I thought I had come to the point where I could handle any feedback, but here was a cadre on the ground in Ghana.  This was significant because my story is based on a fictional A-APRP chapter in Ghana.  So, his opinion matters!  Would he take offense to my characters, especially those who are not African?  To some extent he did, but I think he was still impressed overall with the book and my conversation with him and my resulting capacity to process his feedback in a healthy way may be one of the keys to my understanding how to grapple with my anxiety.  You see, those anxiety piranhas have caused me so much grief over the years, but they have also pushed me to develop some of my most creative and effective forms of work.  They have also driven me to be disciplined and to never accept no for an answer.  Thinking of this gives me much hope.  I don't have all the answers to all these questions I've raised here right now, but I have complete confidence that I'll come up with them.  I have confidence that I'll think of ways to engage my local comrades so that we can build effective organization for the A-APRP here in Oregon.  I believe I'll find ways to spread the ideals contained in my books and all of the work I'm struggling to produce.  I have to believe that I can do it.

I guess what it all comes down to is I love Africa because Africa is me.  I saw me everywhere I went and in everything I saw.  I saw you too.  And seeing all of that reiterated to me why our enemies are so intent on separating us from Africa because they know what I know.  The minute we make the connection that we are African, their days are numbered.  So, I realize I have the secret and like anyone who holds the riches, until those riches get delivered, you are going to have anxiety.   So, I'm not going to complain about the anxiety.  I am going to try and get better at managing it.  I am also going to try and remember to see it as a tool that can be used to help me.  I am going to keep the vision of the pride and dignity I observed in Africa inside me.  We need that here, more than we need money, or anything else.  I'm going to keep doing my work and I just hope the people I'm working with can understand that I'm not the person they may want to think that I am.  In truth, I can talk to thousands of people in one place about the struggle for justice, but I'm very socially awkward when the focus is on me.  I struggle like everyone else.  The only difference is I have always refused to give up and I'll never give up.  I hope they can see them and have patience with me. I hope they realize I'm sincere and I always place the struggle and them above myself.  I hope they see they can always count on me.  I can rest well with knowing all of that, even if no one else ever does because its all true. I can also rest well exposing all of these personal weaknesses because I know that making myself vulnerable is my strongest weapon.  The strongest person in the room is always the one who has nothing to hide.  So, get ready capitalism because my imperfect and anxiety stricken self is coming to out organize you and I've got the spirit of Africa inside me.  You may have all the technology and propaganda on your side, but from where I sit, my wounded soul and the millions of others like me, cannot possibly lose.

I think it was 1983, the last year I can be accused of celebrating Christmas on any level.  So, after 30+ years of actively not celebrating it, I've grown to expect irritation this time of year as people I don't know, and people I see everyday, feel inclined to wish me "Merry Christmas, happy holidays", even "happy Kwanza."  I'm asking you, please save it.  The concept is beyond strange to me anyway.  There are really all types of people in this world.  Some Christians, some Muslims, Jews, Atheists, etc.  Many of those people actively wouldn't celebrate Christmas.  That's why I never expressed those sentiments to people, even before I gained any political consciousness about it, because I was always thinking maybe they didn't believe in it.  So, it befuddles me why anyone would assume its ok to impose your beliefs on someone else.  I know its non intentional.  In airports, restaurants, etc., people are just socialized to ask you "what are you doing for the holidays?"  Although innocent intended, it's still extremely presumptive.  I've often wondered why people don't do as I do.  When its people at work, I just tell them to enjoy their time off.  If its people I pass in stores, etc., I tell them to be safe.  I think all of those approaches are respectful and I doubt the celebrators need me to validate their beliefs.  They can find many who share their practices to do that for them.

You see, the Christmas part is deeply offensive to me because I know December 25th is nothing more than a retail established day to support capitalism.  There is absolutely no scholarly justification to support Jesus being born on that day.  Yet, the church establishment corporations go along with the capitalist agenda lock, stock, and barrel, which in my book makes them culpable.  I don't believe that oppressed people should be manipulated into supporting capitalist corporations like Wal Mart that don't support them.  So the entire packaging of Christmas is offensive to me, yes it is, and I don't want to be assumed to be willing to play along with the fleecing of poor and working poor people to ultimately advance a corporate agenda.  Happy holidays isn't much better because it still promotes and validates the concept that there is a legitimate holiday to be happy about.  I am a part of movements that believe firmly that oppressed people should use this time to flex their economic muscle against the capitalist system by refusing to participate so wishing me happy holidays in the scheme of all of that doesn't feel much different than just saying Merry Christmas.  And, although I have studied and met Dr. Maulana Karenga from the Organization US and have respect for what he has contributed to African resistance since 1966, including his creation of the Kwanza holiday that year, I don't celebrate it myself because I'm a Pan-Africanist.  What that's saying is we believe that we are African people, no different than the Africans who live in Africa.  Consequently, if we want to have an African harvest festival, we should research the customs of the many traditions that exist on the continent.  I don't believe it's necessary for us to create a separate way to observe that no more than its necessary for us to create a new African language when we can learn Wolof, Akan (Twi), Mandinka, Susu, Swahili, etc., and instantly connect with millions of our sisters and brothers (which we should be doing).  Now, the Kwanza piece is just my personal point of view.  I encourage everyone who desires to celebrate Kwanza.  I just don't need to be expected to do the same.  

The last piece of this is for those misinformed who believe these parts of the world were founded on some sort of Christian principles and therefore, anyone who attempts to change that is challenging the history of this place.  This country was never founded.  It was stolen and those so-called "values" people are talking about are colonial domination techniques and practices that were imposed by force of violence to contribute to the cultural domination of people who were oppressed.  So, no go.  You are aren't expressing some historic cultural fact when you advance these holidays.  You are perpetuating colonial domination in 2015.  

Hopefully people can take just a moment to realize that everyone doesn't see the world the way you do or walk in it the way you walk.  Stop wishing people a Merry Christmas, happy "4th", happy thankstaking, etc.  Every time you do that you are continuing to contribute to keeping the oppression alive.  If you want to do something good, why not use these times to have real conversations with your family and friends about these issues.  I've done it for years and its been extremely productive and beneficial because we do our work with humility and respect for people.  What I mean is I practice a rule of thumb.  I don't go to non political gatherings and bring up my beliefs unless you bring up yours or you ask me about mine.  And even then, I'll give you an advisory before I launch into what I believe because I know most people aren't going to ready to hear my views on electoral politics in capitalism, education, revolution, culture, spirituality, etc.  I don't mind doing things this way because it reminds me that its not about me and my beliefs. Its about walking through the world with all types of people.  That's why I don't greet you with "revolution or death!" when you say hello to me (although I'd love to greet people that way).  So, please don't greet me with your holiday greeting.  It's only fair.

My original idea was to try and get as many All African People's Revolutionary Party work study members in Portland to go to Ghana as we could.  When we started the fundraising in October of 2014, the idea was that several of us would go, but I don't think more than a couple of people besides myself had a real commitment to go as evidenced by the fact I was the only person who raised any real money for the trip.  So, I decided to buy my ticket out of my pocket and make the money raised available for at least one other person in Portland to go and that happened.  Although it wasn't what I had envisioned, it was great that the comrade sister Adrienne was able to go with me.  In fact, I was more excited for her going than even myself.  The reason for this is I spend all my time organizing around African liberation.  A major aspect of that work is attempting to convince Africans (all people of African descent are Africans and belong to the African nation) that Africa is central to our identity and our quest for dignity, justice, and forward motion.  This is no small task because capitalism/imperialism, and it's organizational appendage - white supremacy - have spent the last 500+ years convincing Africans in the U.S. that we are Black, Americans, anything that isn't directly connected to Africa.  This is so prevalent today that it is becoming more and more common to find people who identity as Black who will argue that we even have a historical relationship to Africa.  I have written on this topic many times in different posts so I won't reiterate some of the reasons for these enemy tactics, but I will stress again that a major underflow of their strategy is to unconsciously convince us and everyone else that Africa is inferior and insignificant.  Thus, the blatant contradiction where there are 50 million Africans living in the U.S. today, yet the overwhelming majority of the 350 million people in this country, including  most of those 50 million Africans, know very little about Africa.  Obviously, the best medicine and solution is to provide Africans with empirical evidence of our connection to Africa and what better way to do that than to expose people physically to Africa?  That's why I wanted our organizers/members to go and it's why we will embark upon another mission to plan a trip home to Africa this year (new people, new energy about going, especially after our trip this month).  

Adrienne's experiences, which she will express, accomplished my goal in an overflowing way.  I knew that as soon as she stepped off the plane in Accra, Ghana, much of the uncertainty about Africa would be immediately erased.  For example, Africans in the U.S. spend a lot of time talking about whether Africans on the continent accept us as a part of the African family.  Anyone who goes to Africa realizes instantly that this concern is disconnected from material reality.  Once you touch down in Africa, you realize that the people there walk the same way you do.  They stand the same way you do.  They make commentary in the same spirited and cultural way, even if doing so in other languages.  Everything you observe makes it plain that Africa is definitely where you come from and if you look closer, it's equally as clear that Africa has a lot to do with where you should be going.  I have already debriefed these realities with Adrienne numerous times during our stay in Ghana.

Since this truth is so easily exposed, the imperialists have to insure that their efforts to keep us disconnected from Africa are still fused with fresh energy.  They do this by attempting to westernize Africa and remove the cultural manifestations that make Africa uniquely ours.  What I mean is the imperialists are on a campaign to make Africa a satellite U.S./Europe.  This is done by promoting the values of the U.S and Europe at every turn.  That's why everywhere you go you see Western style Christian salvation promoted in the most colonial terms imaginable.  This message is everywhere.  On billboards, tro tros (the public transportation) and taxis.  Church leaders are afforded rock star treatment in how they appear on billboards and how their presence in Ghana is promoted.  Equally stunning, the imperialist flags of the U.S., Britain, and even zionist israel, are seen everywhere in Ghana.  I expressed while being interviewed on Ghana television Saturday night that this is the equivalent of a person breaking into your home, robbing you, raping your family, and you responding to that by going out and getting a tee shirt and bumper sticker with that person's picture on it and displaying that picture in every facet of your life.  Yet, that's what we do in Africa.  Also, European styles of dress are aggressively promoted.  One of the most insidious ways this is done is by the mass shipment of second hand (knockoff) Western clothes that are dumped in large supplies in Africa.  You know, the brands that were deemed not good enough to be made available to you in the U.S. and the West because a stitch was off or something.  Since they are in such large supply and demand, these clothes can be bought much more cheaply than traditional African clothes. For a country where the overwhelming majority of people live in poverty, this makes Western clothes extremely popular and it insures that they become the norm, not African clothes that promote our pride in our culture and dignity as a people.  Another method is how Western celebrities are used as the primary models for a large variety of hair, skin, and other products.  The pictures of people like Chris Brown, Ludacris, and Common, are seen all over town in these adds for local products (which also actually serves as yet another clear example of how absurd the "they don't like us" argument is).  Finally, the cultural expressions of the West are widely promoted.  Radio station DJs sound the same as the ones in the states and more and more of the music, although still retaining an African style and flavor, also incorporates the new pop styles that are so universally promoted in the West today.  Last, but certainly not least, Ghana is now home to a large U.S. Naval installation, compliments of Bush/Obama's "AFROCOM" military strategy to recolonize Africa.

Everyone knows that the most obvious ways that people promote their culture and distinguish themselves from other people is through their forms of expression, either through dress, art, song, etc., and their food.  African food, as it relates to West Africa we are talking about banku, fish stews, jollof rice, foo foo, etc., and music like highlife, are some of the most prideful and enjoyable things about being in Africa so there should be considerable concern that we are seeing such an advance of fast food and culturally generic music in Africa.  If this continues, as time goes by, it will become increasingly difficult for Africa to maintain it's distinctive flavor in these important areas.  This is essential because whether we know it or not, everything we do as Africans in the West we learned from Africa (and again, all you have to do is get off a plane there and you will realize that if you disagree), so as those things are diminished in Africa, our ability to be influenced by them in the West will also be diminished which will actually complete the process of colonization and the elimination of the (Revolutionary) African personality.  If you want to see what that looks like, just look around the U.S. today.  What manifestations of Indigenous culture are dominant in the U.S. today?  In fact, people who come to the U.S. today could very easily have no idea that a different culture and people were dominant in that country at one time in recent history.  Now, many of you will respond by countering that Africa is full of Africans so the comparison to the U.S. is not realistic, but we know that Carter G. Woodson was correct when he said "if you teach the Negro that he should go through the back door, eventually you won't even need a back door.  If there isn't one, the mis-education of the Negro will demand one!"  Think about that next time you call African clothing "garb" (as if it's a costume).