Why You Should Support Sending Our Children Home to Africa

Today, there are approximately 2 billion Africans - all persons of African descent are Africans - on the planet.  1.2 billion of us live on the African continent and the remaining 800 million of us live in Europe, North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean.  We are the most scattered persons on Earth.  We are the most disconnected people on Earth.  And, we are the most downtrodden people on Earth.  In other words, anywhere you find us, and you can do that in plentiful numbers in about 120 countries worldwide, we will be at the bottom of society. 

If you take all of that in for a moment, what you have to logically come away with is that either we are the most wretched and cursed people ever, or something sinister has been, and continues to happen to us every second of every waking day that we walk this world.   I can certainly assure you that despite the absurd logic generated from the capitalist system, that everyone who struggles within it does so because there is something wrong with you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with us that a new system wouldn't cure.  This capitalist concept that every problem you have is your own fault isn't particular to African people.  It applies universally to everyone, but like everything under this system, if Europeans (for example) are adversely impacted, you can just imagine the trauma the African masses deal with at being pressed with the same challenges.  

Again, there is nothing wrong with us that revolution isn't the healing potion for.  Africans speak more languages than any other people anywhere.  We live in more countries than anyone anywhere.  Consequently, we are the most confused about our connection to each other than any other people.  And, this alone is seriously backward because of all people, we are the only people who exist in the parts of the world we dwell in today due to historical circumstances against our will.  What I'm saying is Africans spread throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere had absolutely no say in how we ended up in these places.  Even those who traveled to these places under their own power didn't choose this dynamic because the reasons we came to these places - so-called education and opportunity - only exist in the Western world, and not Africa, because of the systemic terror that has been directed at Africa and her children over the last 500+ years.  So, again, we are only in these places because of our oppression.  Still, capitalism has trained us to believe we are different from another.  This backward system would have us concentrate on the fact we were born in different countries.  They want us to always remember we don't speak the same languages.  We don't have the same day to day customs.  So, to capitalism, this all has to mean we are not only much different from each other, but we (according to our enemies) are diametrically opposed to each other and we definitely cannot trust one another.  Some opportunistic and dishonest Africans, as well as the usual sheep minded folks, have adopted some of this nonsense to suggest that Africans from specific colonialism and slavery created existences for us, are somehow so much different than Africans from different locations.  Its even safe to say that you are almost as likely to find an African who is confused about this question as you are to find one who understands why and how these contradictions exist.  For an example, I'm reminded of a time I was watching a Major League Baseball game with three other African men not that long ago.  When the subject came up about Vladimar Guerraro, then one of baseball's best players who was African, born in the Dominican Republic (the Caribbean), one of the brothers remarked "but he's not really a brother!"  If you look up Guerraro, you will see immediately that he is a very dark skinned brother with clear African features all the way down to his locked hair.  The assertion that he isn't African is nothing short of insane, yet in this present reality, I had to spend time that day explaining to this group why the fact he was born in a different country from those of us in that room doesn't preclude the very real possibility that one of us could even be related to him.  My method of explaining this was simply to state that the only difference between Guerraro and us in that room was a boat stop.  A slave ship boat stop.  The slave ship took his ancestors to the Caribbean and mine here to the U.S., but some of my ancestors went with his and some of his came with mine.  And, of course, most of our families didn't even make the trip at all.  All of this is ill refutable because the slavers had no incentive to keep families together.  The money was the money regardless.  

The way that all of this ties into our children in the U.S. going to Africa is that most people today have absolutely no idea of the history I've laid out to you here.  I had the woman who's lawn I used to mow when I was in high school in San Francisco tell me that the reason Africans were in different parts of the world was because Jesus intentionally placed us where we are.  Her claim was our separation had absolutely nothing to do with slavery and colonialism.  My point is in today's world, if you take the lies capitalism has told us then you would believe that Africa, and by extension African people, are poor simply because we are lazy and less valuable as human beings.  No major educational institution takes the time and effort to wonder out loud why it is that we are on the bottom of so many societies?  The fact that capitalism is fueled by its reliance on the cheap mineral resources that are stolen routinely from Africa everyday is never discussed outside of independent sources like this one.  And, along with that, the necessity to keep Africans confused results because the capitalists must ensure Africans are focused on anything, except Africa.  The reason for this is they know the moment we focus on Africa we are going to start wondering why she is the richest continent on Earth, yet her children are the poorest on Earth.  Once you study anything about Africa you realize that her children are among the hardest working people anywhere.  So, the sick narrative that we are lazy would come to a point where it stopped being effective with you once your eyes are opened.  

These are the reasons why we want our children to go home.  Not to go on some bourgeoisie tour, but to be among our people on the ground who are doing work to bring out Pan-African unity and liberation.  We know that once we do that, we can change how our children see Africa.  They will no longer see their mother as poor, lazy, and unworthy of their respect and attention.  This is important because we know that if our children see their mother in such a poor light it will never be possible for them to see themselves as being any better.  The capitalists know this too and that is the core reason why no matter what country you were in, all approximately 200 of them on Earth, you never learned much of anything about Africa.  Its the reason why thousands of Africans in Mozambique can be wiped out in a flood last week and there isn't even a peep about while a simple structure in France can burn down and millions can be raised to resurrect it in days.  This is why we must send our children home so they can learn truly who the hell they actually are and more importantly, how who they are determines what their interests should be going forward in their young lives.  They will never be free until Africa is free.  Our enemies never want them to internalize this and therefore, its something we know they must understand.

Here in Sacramento, California, U.S., I'm fortunate enough to work with an organization named the West2West Movement that is an organization of young Africans.  They have established a Pan-African Freedom School in South Sacramento where I help out as a regular instructor for the youth.  In this school, we provide our youth with clarity on the subjects discussed here, but to further enhance and solidify their interest and further development, this organization plans multiple trips per year to Ghana, West Africa, to directly expose these youth to not only where they came from, but from a Pan-Africanist sense, where they are going.  In my humble effort, I'm committed to contributing 75% of all royalties from my book sales for my latest novel "The Paradox Principles" to help send these children home.  Now, like anything else African and independent, West2West, as well as the struggling African revolutionary organizer/author writing this, receive no help in developing and promoting our work.  We receive no grants.  No help selling books. No help marketing the revolutionary messages in our books.  Nothing.  That's why we ask you to help us by buying books so we can hopefully send at least one child home to Africa (hopefully more).  Plus, you will get a 740 story of people standing up to fight back against oppression that is entertaining and inspiring.  Go to amazon.com, type in my name - Ahjamu Umi - see "The Paradox Principles" and order it for only $19.99 U.S.D.  You get a worthwhile book and you contribute towards us ending the carnage of self-hatred against our youth and people.  And, if you aren't African, I'm still talking to you because if you truly support justice for humanity you know humanity cannot be saved, not even the planet, until humanity's elements that are forced to live at the bottom of the world are saved.  That would be us.  If you are truly our accomplice, spread the word and help us.  If I didn't have to figure out how to pay for my organizing work, I'd donate 100% of royalties, but any help you can provide helps us cut off the savage repression that attempts daily to wipe our people off the face of the Earth.  With or without help, we are never going to let them succeed against us, but your efforts certainly make our lift a little lighter.  And the lighter it is, the longer we can carry it.