This current time in history may appear to be new ground for Black people but it isn’t. Everyday is JUNETEENTH and if it isn’t it should be. As a people we are perpetually in the crosshairs of Europeans, White American’s, and the Western world. Not only are we in their crosshairs we are on the hamster wheel of their predatory systems, personal fear, terror and hatred. Our pain and despair only seems to heighten the animus, violence and terror against us. White supremacy has no conscience and the more we cry and the more we attempt to be politically correct and reasonable in our response to its purposive terror, the more oppressive and violent white supremacy becomes. Our emotions only feed it. Crying on television, accumulating wealth and material goods, seeking a seat at the table, marching and protesting with white people will not get white supremacy off of our backs. In this late stage of capitalism and the current digital age we are on the world’s stage trying to get our house together for the world to see with cliché’s abound. That’s a very dangerous place to be as a people.
Appreciate the fact that our Black bodies more than any other resource in the world have helped to position America and other European nations as some of the most powerful nations in modernity. Restitution may be a great academic argument, but is a waste of time. How do you put a price tag on the bones of Black people that lay on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean?, or the burned and decapitated bodies from those “Red Summers”?, or the dead bodies of those Black children overdosed on the heroin pandemic in Harlem, how much is that worth? My point is, too much damage has been done to calculate a numeric amount, and this level of devastation cannot be calculated with a dollar amount. My dollar amount would be everything that America and its allies have gained. Moreover, any reparations are only intended for the vacant conscience of America and less about Black liberation and freedom. Reparations would be weaponized to control and usurp the Black narrative. We don’t have a working ideology, as a result our communities are convinced that in order to find success in the face of a predatory system and people, we must get next to that predatory oppressor. All we end up accomplishing is reinforcing this idea of whiteness in Black face. There is nothing my enemy can offer me and nothing I want from them. Reparations will not change that dynamic and it will not do away with systemic and institutional Black oppression.
The game changer to me is found in getting off of the world stage, closing the curtains and truly reflecting on our condition and becoming preoccupied with our existence and creating practical solutions for Black people to have meaningful lives. This requires Black people who are seeking true liberation and freedom to begin divesting not just their time and money but divesting their thoughts from European ideas. This means that as a community we will not be looking forward to the ideals of the Black entertaining elite and middle class. This means we will not be seeking a seat at the table with whiteness. It means that as a community we should be treating American and European ideals as if they were South Africa, and divesting first mentally. As Frantz Fanon stated on the last page of the Wretched of the earth, Black people should be preoccupied with innovating and creating through the lens of Blackness. As a result of the war waged on Blackness we have stopped one of our most formidable tools, which is Grassroots organizing. And no BLM is not grassroots Black organizing.
In our communities we should be preoccupied with setting up our 15-25 year old members to form political parties. Those political parties should be driving the political participation and educational process involved in meaningful political participation on behalf of the community, not the church and outside political forces. Voting is simply an organizational tool, not a formidable response to Institutional and systemic white supremacy. Our educational and cultural default as a people should be preoccupied with creating a new political landscape and apparatus to meet the needs of the community. That will involve ridding the community of the current Black political leadership for the most part. In this digital age it would be necessary to pool information both online and offline that connects cities like Chicago to Brooklyn to the continent of Africa. As a community we should be preoccupied with nurturing our future political leaders from a very young age, if so we wouldn’t have political pretenders who are beholden to political parties and not Black people and Blackness. To achieve that level of organization and self determination requires that we curate our educational and cultural process. Supplemental community funded educational programs focused on a curriculum that introduces the children to John Clarke’s, Arthur Schomburg’s, Martin Delanye’s, David Walker’s,Ida B. Wells, Elaine Brown’s just to name a few. The educational and cultural journey should include the rich history of Black people and our contribution across the globe, not just America. This cultural and educational process should be intergenerational and represent the diversity and varying perspectives that exist in our community. We don’t need leaders, we need ideology. Ideology helps you determine what the community needs economically, it dictates our political participation. Ideology naturally imbeds accountability within and of course accountability to those outside of our community. When we control our educational and cultural process then we are not beholden by the false promises of integration and the dangerous commodification of our pain through american corporatization and the few handpicked replaceable Black people who work on behalf of corporate America in the name of “Black excellence”. When we control our educational and cultural process we will be able to see with clarity america’s tokenism. Only then will we not be moved by corporations and other American institutions making empty statements that are intended to distract you from their history of Black alienation.
Let everyday be JUNETEENTH. Let us pick up the blueprint and roadmap of great ideas founded in Blackness left by those elders who courageously thought and fought. Only true reflection, critical thinking and action will prepare us for this moment in history. It must be done through the lens of Blackness not whiteness.
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