We have to find a solution!!

I am ready for the smack down on this one but we have to come up with a solution to our problem. I know there is war going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, The Philippine Islands. Yes my people, the U.S. Army and special forces are fighting a war against so called Islamist in The Philippines. Yet, we have a war situation here at home concerning the youth in general and especially our Black youth. I have pondered this over and over as to a possible solution and I know what I have come up with will stick in the craw of some of you but drastic times call for drastic measures.

We, in the U.S. have a prison population of around 2 million people, the highest in the world, and of that population approximately 41 percent are Black men and women. There have been studies that suggest that the prison incarceration rate is directly affected by the high school graduation rate. In 2006 the overall graduation rate, this includes Blacks, so called Hispanics and white was 70 percent. For Black people it was 55 percent and Hispanics 53 percent. Again, the amount of Black people locked in prison is about 41 percent of that approximate 2 million. We are in an educational crisis which appears to lead to crime. I am well aware of the injustice of the “just-us” system yet we can overcome some of the issues leading to the environment our children have put themselves in, that may lead to criminality. My solution for the country in general, and more specifically for my people, is based on a proposal in Jamaica that all males serve in the Jamaica Defense Force, for two years immediately following high school graduation. Jamaica has suffered over 1100 murders this year not including over 200 police killings. Something has to be done. Here in the U.S. I have seen too many very intelligent young men just fall into street gang life, homelessness, and of course jail time.

My solution is very similar to what is proposed in Jamaica. All children must graduate high school. Should they fail to graduate, they will be compelled to join a military service of THEIR choice for a minimum of three years. They will be required to pass the GED during military basic training. Should the student graduate from high school he/she must enter in to a junior college, college, vocational college, or university. They must take a minimum of 6 units of study maintaining a “B” average or if a full time student must maintain a “C” average to avoid entering into the military. Or, upon graduation they must find ample employment with in three months should they choose not to go into college. If not, they must join the military service of their choice. A youngster that has previously graduated prior to the implementation of this rule, and is between the ages of 18 & 25, and not have gainful employment but has been jailed for no more than 5 misdemeanors or one non violent felony must immediately join a military service of their choice. Should a youth have employment and lose their job due to a company layoff, and not find another job with in 30 days, must report for the military service of THEIR choice.

I believe we would see in increase in higher grades while in school, a higher graduation rate and more college applications being filed by the youth of the United States and an increase in college attendance. I have heard the argument that, suppose a child cannot receive grants or enough in loans to go to college. At this juncture they still have the opportunity to get work (since they will have a high school diploma) at a corporation of some kind that has will pay for school or go to a vocational college or go directly to the military service of their choice.

I know this may seem harsh or extreme, but something has to be done. I have seen too many children with time on their hands and no direction.  

What say you????

Unbought and Unbossed: Catalyst for change in the 20th Century

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was elected into Congress of the United States in 1968 representing New York's 12 district. Mrs. Chisholm ran for the office of the presidency of the United States in 1972 and came closer than any woman ever to win the nomination with 152 delegates.  A remarkable feat for this goddess of fire in the turbulent 1960’s, but much more impressive is how she did it. I recently saw the documentary Shirley Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed, which chronicled her 1972 run for president. The fortitude of this living spirit of Ezili Danto set the world on fire with her ability to bring people of different races, religions and nationalities together, even gaining the support of the National Organization of Women (N.O.W.) as part of her base.

While I was watching the documentary I was just awestruck by her speeches. When I was a child I my mother just thought Congresswoman Chisholm was the incarnation of genius, being a youngster at the time I could not understand my mother’s enthusiasm for the Congresswoman, but when I saw the film I wanted to pick up the phone and call my mother to tell how right she was about Shirley Chisholm. This woman could do what Senator Barak Obama cannot do. She exuded pure honesty, in that she could defend the plight of Black people in the raw oratory force and tone of El Hajj Malik Shabbazz (Malcom X for those that don’t know) and in the next moment speak just as powerfully about the rights of women and not lose one supporter, because she vehemently stood up for both sides of herself being Black and woman. One of the reasons, I believe she did not lose her base when she would stand up for Black power or Women’s Rights was because she was quite transparent in her honesty, it was honesty from her soul. She was once asked why she would accept funds from the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Her curt retort was simply…”why should I not accept funds from this grass roots organization, yet you should be asking yourself what were the conditions that created the Black Panther Party?…” That, right there, struck to the heart of the issue and she could pull this off like no one else could then and no one does in politics today.

When I was thinking of this post I was going to speak of Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm as the first Black woman to be elected to congress. I was going to speak of her as being a daughter of the Caribbean & South America representing Black people from the U.S. since she was born in Brooklyn, NY and, raised in Barbados (her father was from Guyana.) I was going to speak of Mrs. Chisholm as the first Black woman to run seriously and to be taken seriously on her bid for president. But, in her last words on the film she said she wanted to be remembered as a catalyst for change, she said she wanted to be remembered as someone that fought for change in the 20^th century. Mrs. Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm I will honor your words.

When Wisdom left Knowledge

Maat

I sit on the train on my commute and as usual I see many young men and women riding the rails going to and from school daily. The conversations that come from their mouths can be astounding at times. “I can’t wait to get home today, my baby is getting’ out today”, she is all but 16 years of age and her baby I take it, is her boyfriend when she said he was coming home today.

M.O.B (money over *itches), tattooed all over his hands and arms, as he sat on the train heading to downtown ATL for a court appearance, I heard him oversaying to one of his buddies that he was facing a charge of driving without a license or something to that affect. And that he was on probation already from a previous charge, so he might get jail time on this occasion, he was about 18 years of age.

It blows me away. Where is the disconnect? What is the reason for the disconnect? Poverty is nothing new to the Black community. My own father lived at a time when not only poverty was an issue, but overt racism was as thick as a fog coming in from the San Diego bay in November. Yet, the first choice of getting out of poverty was not selling drugs, or breaking into the houses of their neighbors to steal what little they may have worked to gain. Is it the lyrics in today’s commercial “rap” music? I am having a hard time trying to figure out the issue. I hear the love of money coming out of the mouths of today’s “rappers”, expressing this by the way they admit to selling drugs. Yet, most of us that have a mind, know these people are not selling drugs and more than likely didn’t do too much dealing before they became famous because, the FBI would be arresting them on the strength of their own lyrics. Our children, can’t see this. I am not sure our children even realize these people (at lease most of them) write lyrics using sentences with commas, periods and exclamation points, yet somehow our children don’t get it.

There is a culture rejecting education circulating the nation, a love of ignorance. Is the disconnect our fault? Are our children misunderstanding what has been said about education? Are those of us that disseminate information not making ourselves clear about education? A brotha was just on the radio discussing hip hop saying that “it is not education that is needed, but knowledge.” Could this be what is being misunderstood by our youth? If I were a youngster listening to him speak, could this confirm my misunderstanding about education? Yes, this brother could have had good intention when he said this but, today’s youth don’t seem to be mentally capable of discerning where education ends, where knowledge begins and how wisdom is the balance of the two. Somehow, this very statement has been translated into not having a need for school education. How then can our children believe they are going to write song lyrics and cannot write a simple paragraph? Are we witnessing the affect of knowledge without wisdom?

Carnival: Krst root of Christ!

Before entering into this quagmire concerning Blacks & religion, a few etymological root words are in order for a clear overstanding of what we are saying when we say it.

Pagan-From Middle English paganus meaning a country dweller. From the Latin pagus, meaning a country district, akin to Latin pangere meaning to fix.

Heathen-From the Middle English hethen, from the Old English heathen meaning heath.

Heath-From the Middle English heth, Old English heath, akin to High German heida heather-A tract of wasteland; an extensive area of rather level open uncultivated land…

Lord-From Middle English loverd, lord, from the Old English hlAford, from hlAf=Loaf +weard= Keeper meaning loaf ward.

Ward-From the Middle English, Old English weard & Anglo French warde, garde of Germanic Origin akin to Old High German warta the act of watching, Old English warian to be aware of, guard, waer-careful. Wary

Har/Hor-Ancient Kemetan meaning Heir or Lord.

One having power over others; a ruler by hereditary right…

Vodou-From the Fon language meaning spirit.

Santeria-more correctly En Santo- In the Spirit

Religion-To tie or to bind. To bind back.

It would appear at first glance, that in fact “religion as we in the West know and practice it is an outgrowth of imperialism…” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King observed Sunday to be the most segregated day of the week. Dr. Yosef A. A. Ben Jochannan says “religion is culture deified. The Europeans have taken versions of ancient African forms of worship and contorted it to their way of life, culture and society.

Christianity has its foundation in Ancient Kemet with the Krst Mummy, the Queen Virgin Auset (Isis) and the fruit of her womb Heru (Horus) the Light of the World. This is why you see the Black Madonna and child all throughout Europe. Today’s Christian will call our distant ancestors pagan and reject the root of their form of worship. Black people refuse to find the root of what they say they believe.

The issue for Black people is gaining an overstanding about who we are and more importantly WHAT we are. One of the Books of the bible tells us that we are gods, and this was a basic tenet that Yeshua came to teach. To refer to the Most High using the term God, even for those that express doubt in the Most High, or reject the possibility of a supreme being totally, is verbally expressing their colonized state of mind. If your filter is dirty your “God-consciousness” will be dirty. It cannot flower. It is the patriarchal culture of the European that brought you the all powerful male God not your ancestors. So, how does one connect with their past, with the Goddess of their ancestors? It may best serve us to return to the God/Goddess of our Mothers and Fathers (Ancestors.)

The Candomble and the Voudou or En Santo or our Indigenous American way of worship may lead us closer to the ways of our ancestors. However, as long as we continue to look outside of ourselves for the God/Goddess our filter will remain dirty as the God/Goddess is in the midst of you. Wombman and Man must know ourselves, be still within ourselves and the Mystery will be revealed to us.  Are we then practicing a “white man’s religion?” The answer is no. There is no religion on this Earth that the white man created and you will find there is no religion that can bind you once you know who you are and you purpose.

The Krst Mummy was the anointed mummy of Ancient Kemet, anointed with spices and oils, that was prepared to move to "heaven" or the realm of the ancestors as pure spirit.  "In that she poured this ointment upon my body, she did it to prepare me for my burial." (Matt 26:12)  As you can see Yeshua was being prepared by Mary of Bethany with an expensive oil for his eventual death and ressurection (re-erection) in the realm of the Spirit.  Its important to note that a woman was preparing him for burial, thus it is by a woman that we come to Earth and it should be no surprise in the symbolism of a woman preparing him to leave the Earth.

On the issue of Christianity being forced into the lives of the Blacks enslaved in the Americas we will find this is a falsehood.  There are too many misconceptions about slavery that I won't go into at this time but, I will address the misconception of forced Christianity on the enslaved.  First, and foremost, Black people in the Americas whether of African ancestry or Indigenous American ancestry shared a common belief in water rites. Many of the earliest Black ministers of the Baptist Church were also Priest in the river rites of traditional African worship.  Not surprisingly In the Southeastern Indian culture, nearly every ritual act, from the celebration of pregnancy to the selection of a war leader, from the stomp dance to ball play is preceded by "going to water" as a critical part the religious pracitce says Charles Hudson in his 1976 work Southeastern Indians.  This is just a bit to show that the rituals in Christianity (Baptism) were familiar to the enslaved Blacks. We cannot not forget the contact with Islam the African had prior to the trans Atlantic slave trade and the contact with Islam via the Moor that ventured to the Americas long before Columbus existed, made our ancestors in the Americas well aware of the apostles, the patriarchs and the story of the Exodus prior to their acceptance of "Christ."  Also note, that many of the Christian rituals fit right into the traditional rituals of our ancestors.  Secondly, whites were very reluctant to begin to convert the enslaved Blacks, for fear the Blacks would view themselves as equals to the slave owners.  From the Classified Digest of the Records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 1701-1892, the slave owners were resistant to baptizing slaves..."If the masters were but good Christians themselves and would concurr with the Ministers, we should have good hopes of the conversion and salvation at least of some of their Negro and Indian slaves.  But too many of them rather oppose than concurr with us and are angry with us."  Its apparent from this statement, the slave masters and owners were reluctant to Christanize their slaves and not eager to convert them as we have been mislead to believe.  The form of Christianity practiced is born more of  "Aframerindian" than of the European, says Kenneth Wiggins Porter from the Journal of Negro History XVIII (January 1933, #1)

Its very important to study what we profess we believe or for that matter study the past events that lead us here where we stand today.

"KNOW THY SELF"!!! 

My First Year in the Blogshere

It has been one year this month that I began my venture into the blogsphere, and I knew nothing about it other than I wanted to do it. I felt I had something to say, or could provide information that would be uplifting for Black people first, and, all others should they want to come over into The World of Ensayn Reality. I was fortunate to start blogging at a time when a group of like minded Black people started the AfroSpear Think Tank, and I am a proud member.

The AfroSpear, I believe, has been influencial in the release of Shaquanda Cotton, prolific in the fight for the release of the Jena Six. Yet, I have concerns. I have concerns about the direction Black bloggers are heading. I read many blogs inside and outside of the AfroSpear and I am seeing a consistent running theme (myself included) of talking too much about the racist attitudes or treatment by individual whites or the institutional racism that exist in this U. S of A. Don’t misunderstand, I think these things should be talked about but, for me, going forward my primary emphasis will be on the uplift of the hearts and minds of Black people worldwide. And to strike at the overt forces of racial evil when it rears its wicked head. And destroy it. I have concerns that there are bloggers or guest commenters that appear to want to express points or ideas that really seem only to serve themselves by writing on a level that only another PHd can understand.  Leaving out those that might come onto a blog to learn something, yet may not comprehend the gist of what the writer is attempting to convey. Hell, I have a difficult time trying to understand what’s being said and often I still cannot make sense of it and I think I have a pretty good vocabulary and reading comprehension skillls. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE K.I.S.S RULE, just Keep It Simple for Stupid me?

Mainstream media is slowly acknowledging the power of blogging as a viable medium and taking note of what we are saying. A guest on the Al Sharpton radio program said straight out that it was the Black bloggers that influenced Black radio to pick up the story of the Jena Six. Many of us may never be recognized by the mainstream but, I know the effect of this medium, blogging, is affecting the mentality of our world. In fact I know it is due to the amount of fire The Field Negro takes from house negroes and white folks that email or "instalanche" his site. I have no doubt the discussions we bring forward are a benefit for Black people worldwide. I have seen our blogs create mental bridges with other Black people from Europe, Africa, The Caribbean right back to the U.S. I have seen the power of the AfroSpear first hand. The Free Slave asked where are the revolutionaries(I paraphrase here)? I say we are here! The revolution begins in the hearts and minds of the people. Black bloggers are affecting the hearts and minds of people. The revolution is not one of guns and bombs but of hearts and minds. This is where we are, and this is where we will join the battle.