[i should have received this entry months ago, but just got it now, because the prison had censored it on the grounds that it talked "about rioting/and revolutionary ideas," was "deemed to be a threat to legitimate penalogical interests" and "contains material or literature which would pose a threat to institutional security or the safety of other person if allowed to be possessed by inmates." So please forgive the outdatedness, but this gives you a sense of what we're dealing with.]
Thanksgiving: Doorway to the Holidaze Season
As politicized prisoners of consciousness, pushing through the George Jackson Phenomenon, it can be difficult reconciling our reconstructed consciousness and political awareness to the consumer, consumption and debt our loved ones are seduced into each year, beginning with the sanctimonious and hypocritical Thanksgiving: doorway to the holidaze season of greed, gluttony, and depression. A season in which the number of suicides, murders, divorces, nervous breakdowns, intra-family disputes, leading to violence, assaults, robberies, alcohol an drug-related overdoses are increased exponentially.
In attempting to raise consciousness, we must remember our loved ones are trapped in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, most working two or three jobs trying to stay a step ahead of bill collectors and keeping our children away from negativity. Therefore, our approach must be grounded in a sincere desire to insure their daily experiences are free of manipulation, usury, and exploitation.
Which is why George Jackson's teachings are the ideal sounding board to gauge our motivations, approach, and goals. G teaches that "revolution should be love inspired" and that "consciousness is the opposite of indifference or blindness, blankness promoting consciousness involves the general dissemination of the concept that each of us is part of a universal action and interaction. That poles are somewhere connected that there are material causes for trauma, vertigo, degenerative disease, connections, cause and effect, clarity on their relation and interrelations. The connection with the past, continuity, flow, movement, the awareness that nothing, nothing remains the same for long."
Consciousness being the opposite of indifference of blindness, blankness refers to the fact that tour position as ppoc is predicated on the fact that we at some point had chosen material gain or personal pleasure over social well-being.
Not being indifferent or blind in this reality allows us to empathize with why our loved ones fall victim to the amerikan holidaze season. From this vantage point we are able to grasp the full meaning of G's teaching that "acceptance of enslavement is deeply buried in the pathogenic character types of capitalism. It is a result of the sense of dread and anxiety which is the lot of all men under capitalist rule. Compulsive behavior and disordered obsessional longings are actually made synonymous with "character in disordered society" and that "at the center of revolution is realism."
This realism allows us to realize that in actuality our loved ones gathering on the last Thursday in November for Thanksgiving is more about their socioeconomic condition. Therefore, we should not criticize them for gathering together or exchanging gifts/pleasantries during this holidaze sickness.
Instead, we should offer elucidations of the bodies buried in the soil of Thanksgiving. Ultimately, our aim is that they will begin expressing Thanksgiving/Christmas cheer, love, and commitment to one anther's' well-being every day as a natural occurrence of their beginning to heal the "pathogenic character types of capitalism."
This isn't to say that the amerikan holidays are the be all and end all of our problems. They are a large part, perhaps a kind to the needles, that have been used to infect unsuspecting Black, First Nations and Mexican women with sterilizing drugs and "degenerative disease" throughout amerika's history.
We cannot fail to point out that in amerikan elementary schools our children, the descendants of amerika's most heinously unadjudicated crimes are being indoctrinated and trained to celebrate the holocaust and genocide committed against their ancestors. Perpetuating their calcification while maintaining this Empire's occupation, mass murder, rape and robbery.
In truth what is celebrated as Thanksgiving today originated in 1863 under Abe Lincoln, who after being forced by the unrelenting ass whipping his union troops were suffering at the hands of the confederate army, from 1861-62 decreed emancipation in January 1863 to all "colonial captives (slaves) in rebellion states who would fight for his union. This forced decision and the infusion of Black men who would fight for his union. This forced decision and the infusion of Black men turned the tide, forcing confederate troops to surrender. Enabling Lincoln's troops to cut Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana off leading to the Union victory. Wanting to appease the wounded egos of his defeated brothers and restore peace amongst the amerikan settlers, he issued the 1863 proclamation which stated in part, "it has seemed to me fit and proper that they should solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice, by the whole Amerikan people...to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving."
By going about our task of raising consciousness in this manner it becomes much easier to draw-out not only the contradictions, such as celebrating slavery/colonialism and the mass-murder of First Nations people under the lie of Thanksgiving but we are able to display the "connections, connections, cause and effect, clarity on their relation and intra-relations, the connection with the past."
As well as satisfy the requirement and accomplish "the general dissemination of the concept that each of us is part of a universal action and intra action." In this way our loved ones will begin to realize that "the poles are somewhere connected" enabling them to self-diagnose the fact that "there are material causes for trauma, vertigo, degenerative disease."
Self-diagnosis in connection with truth will begin to act as a depurative once purged of the decadent "Holidaze" consciousness begins to rise and in this way we move a step closer to making Jonathan Jackson's call for love and loyalty to be our new medium of exchange reality.
push up. push out. push back.
akili.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
200 Years - Nothing's Changed!!
The month of March marked the 200th anniversary of Britain's legal abolition of its slave trade. Of course, this proclamation was more word than deed, more pomp and circumstance, holier than thou nose thumbing than righteous moral repentance for the hundreds of thousands of human lives brutalized and snuffed-out as a direct result of its (Britain's) legalized, sanctioned, unabashed genocide.
This is evidenced by two facts.
One, Britain has maintained or created colonies (both internal and external) for over 150 years after (and arguably up to this very day) through neocolonialism and occupation directly supported by slavery - in many of its subtle forms, which by definition are hard to detect.
Two, nothing was done then, or over the past 200 years, to repair the unfortunate damage to Afrika and her people throughout the world, caused by Britain's zealous slave trade.
During the month of March, all over Afrika, there were ceremonies of remembrance and reflection on the genocide and holocaust that Afrika's people, diaspora-wide, have endured as a result of colonialism (of which slavery is a major tool).
However, here in North Amerika, there was even less news coverage about Afrika than usual - this most important authentic Afrikan memorial ceremony was subjected to an all out whiteout. We must think about this in a context that lies deeper than the surface racism and supremacist disdain western culture has towards Afrikan peoples and peoples of color in general. Such thinking allows one to come up with two of the main causes or points behind such continued hatred.
First and foremost there is the issue of self-determination. For any people, but especially Afrikans, to commemorate the holocaust which we've survived as a result of western man's blood thirsty lust of war, murder and power, is for Afrikans to announce worldwide, "Never Again!" It is to display our refusal to be dominated, controlled, or subservient and to celebrate our and all oppressed people's ability to thrive in the face of the ugliest evil mankind can bring to bear on mankind.
This is the one thing that cannot be tolerated, simply because it is evidence of free thinking, of courage in the face of fear. And freethinking, courageous people equals free beings. This is the antithesis of western power.
Secondly, it's one example of the fact that the old divide and conquer game is still in full swing. The supremacist thinking goes something like this...If the self-determination being displayed by Afrikans in Afrika, in commemorating and reflecting on our holocaust, is shared with other Afrikans throughout the worldwide Afrikan Nation, you'll begin to have a united Afrikan people. False identities (Afrikan-Amerikan, Latino, etc.) begin to fall away like leaves in Autumn. We would begin to experience the realization that the bonds which bind us to Afrika and Her to us are far deeper than the false citizenship in the home-colonies of our abuser, murder, and criminal host. This they cannot allow, for obvious reasons.
Nonetheless this is exactly the type of solidarity we as the Hip Hop Generation must begin to push for amongst all people who dabble in our cultural expression throughout the world. This push needs special focus on north amerika, because it's here in north amerika -- by virtue of its position in the leadership of western imperials -- that all the world is focused on.
We hip hoppers, activists, and conscious people in general cannot afford to continue missing the boat on such chances to solidify and work in solidarity with hiphoppers all around the world. No more lip service. If hip hop is the music of a new generation, of breaking down old walls, let us prove with action that there exists a better way of live for all human beings. This is where the revolution will be launched and from where unity is found.
There is honor, love, and loyalty in our historical perspective, cultural reality, and suffering.
love and loyalty,
akili
The month of March marked the 200th anniversary of Britain's legal abolition of its slave trade. Of course, this proclamation was more word than deed, more pomp and circumstance, holier than thou nose thumbing than righteous moral repentance for the hundreds of thousands of human lives brutalized and snuffed-out as a direct result of its (Britain's) legalized, sanctioned, unabashed genocide.
This is evidenced by two facts.
One, Britain has maintained or created colonies (both internal and external) for over 150 years after (and arguably up to this very day) through neocolonialism and occupation directly supported by slavery - in many of its subtle forms, which by definition are hard to detect.
Two, nothing was done then, or over the past 200 years, to repair the unfortunate damage to Afrika and her people throughout the world, caused by Britain's zealous slave trade.
During the month of March, all over Afrika, there were ceremonies of remembrance and reflection on the genocide and holocaust that Afrika's people, diaspora-wide, have endured as a result of colonialism (of which slavery is a major tool).
However, here in North Amerika, there was even less news coverage about Afrika than usual - this most important authentic Afrikan memorial ceremony was subjected to an all out whiteout. We must think about this in a context that lies deeper than the surface racism and supremacist disdain western culture has towards Afrikan peoples and peoples of color in general. Such thinking allows one to come up with two of the main causes or points behind such continued hatred.
First and foremost there is the issue of self-determination. For any people, but especially Afrikans, to commemorate the holocaust which we've survived as a result of western man's blood thirsty lust of war, murder and power, is for Afrikans to announce worldwide, "Never Again!" It is to display our refusal to be dominated, controlled, or subservient and to celebrate our and all oppressed people's ability to thrive in the face of the ugliest evil mankind can bring to bear on mankind.
This is the one thing that cannot be tolerated, simply because it is evidence of free thinking, of courage in the face of fear. And freethinking, courageous people equals free beings. This is the antithesis of western power.
Secondly, it's one example of the fact that the old divide and conquer game is still in full swing. The supremacist thinking goes something like this...If the self-determination being displayed by Afrikans in Afrika, in commemorating and reflecting on our holocaust, is shared with other Afrikans throughout the worldwide Afrikan Nation, you'll begin to have a united Afrikan people. False identities (Afrikan-Amerikan, Latino, etc.) begin to fall away like leaves in Autumn. We would begin to experience the realization that the bonds which bind us to Afrika and Her to us are far deeper than the false citizenship in the home-colonies of our abuser, murder, and criminal host. This they cannot allow, for obvious reasons.
Nonetheless this is exactly the type of solidarity we as the Hip Hop Generation must begin to push for amongst all people who dabble in our cultural expression throughout the world. This push needs special focus on north amerika, because it's here in north amerika -- by virtue of its position in the leadership of western imperials -- that all the world is focused on.
We hip hoppers, activists, and conscious people in general cannot afford to continue missing the boat on such chances to solidify and work in solidarity with hiphoppers all around the world. No more lip service. If hip hop is the music of a new generation, of breaking down old walls, let us prove with action that there exists a better way of live for all human beings. This is where the revolution will be launched and from where unity is found.
There is honor, love, and loyalty in our historical perspective, cultural reality, and suffering.
love and loyalty,
akili
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
