off page comments:
LL: Nice of u to try to educate "PEA"... You have infinitely more patience than I do;-)
Take care
Me:wow
see all my posts from last night into today....i was trying to channel my way out of that trauma
that incident taught me that...he and his page is just a stage of ego and self pronouncements whether legit, valid or credible.
what was scary was the amount of people who praised him for it
i have no idea why i am on here trying to engage people in any real way
LL: Yeah. My friend got really depressed at the praise he got and was talking about how you "represented".Whatever you do, just never dumb yourself down for anyone's sake. Lol.
Exactly what did anyone say to suggest a better place for us to live in? Demeaning an entire race with incredibly stupid insinuations help noone.
I think blogs (in the most part) are to literature what reality tv is to film.
Oh well. Gnite.
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after party comment:
"just read your last note Maven. about the mental prison, and ah, you have no idea how closely i understand that statement. it is the reason i feel the need and urgency to do social work.there are other cages that remain, that are equally as hard to break, as the cage of racism and it's legacy. but i've managed to break mine, after many years of deep struggle, and now i'm helping my family. one day we will sit and chat and i will tell you of the cages overcome.
but the analogy to racism will certainly help my understanding. an 'ah!' moment"
Kim Maharaj
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if you are not willing to see, deal and deconstruct your own infamy, dont talk to me pirate./ condescension may often be warranted to those who cloak, stance, proselytize and present from arrogance"
"this place could really sell ignorance and make money off of it. that is what we should diversify to: the production, sale and proliferationof Ignorance, pressurized, compounded and zip filed"
an Third Party reader:"Good Morning- I am really thankful that you presented your viewpoint on the "Emancipate This" note. I am not as eloquent and well read as obviously you are, but I also think that we Trinidadianns are too flippant about the effect on Slavery on the pysche of the African family and oh that happened 150 years ago, get over it. Bullocks, the Jewish controlled media remind us always of the Holocaust. They have a number of those who perished under Hilter, we don't!!! I sooooo totally concur wiith you, that we need to know the greatness that is within us, and we need to look back so that we can look forward.
Have a positive and powerful day,"
Ingrid Jahra
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My Response
Note: Go to the bottom, and read "Original Blog Post first; then come back up to read me...
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PEA. you too deep for me. and bold too
i wish i had the energy to really go through this with you, but i will take the short route
1. there is only one race. HUMAN.
so can we correct and forever put to bed your idea and socialization that the...re is some chemical, genetic difference between people who appear differently,. it is only ethnic; and no where but in trinidad where if people were to take genetic dna tests would they be identified as something totally different from how they look.
if you saw me you would be looking at a black woman. but my dna says i am a venezuelan spanish woman with straight/curly hair. WHY? because genetically, women's genetic dna/mitochondria do not change no matter how many children they have with how many men. girls are their mothers, their mothers, their mothers, so I am identical to my grandmother who no one would call african
i am also mixed with European (all the Huggins is one clan in the Caribbean), Native Indian, East Indian and Chinese. If i was light skin and straighter hair like my mother and aunt, you would think i was chinese. period. nothing mix. Flat nose and chinky eyse. but i digressed, didnt I?
point: we are not who we look like and we are all the same
race was a construction for socio-economic political purposes of the world as constructed hundreds of years ago
2. have you ever heard, read or studied White Supremacy/
White Male Patriarchy/ Western World Domination
Please. let school and class commence.
THis is your short answer as to why all the jails all around the globe are packed with people of the darker hue and black men to boot
2a. Study American Racism and war against the black male
then you will understand a concerted effort with direct results that ends; a long process that ends at the prison industrial complex. research that too
3. when you tell black people to love their neighbors above, how many of your privileged, lying non-black people love them? Just a thought? Just a question Do you love black men or black people
It is not a one-way street
And if you cant really interrogate that, if you cant come froma place that peels back all the layers of lies, convenience, prejudice and bias, etc. then we cant have a conversation. one must be able to say i am racist, i am bias, i have prejudice and lets move on from there...because if there is no reality check, self reality check. self check, there is no discussion to engage
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with that i praise you for at least knowing a lot that is totally obscure to the gp---that education, knowledge, the arts and sciences came from Africa
Assignment no. 4.
Read, study, analyze, research Western White Dominated Atlantic Slave Trade and its processes and effects of a people's psyche
Like self truth, learning the effects of this in making automatons bred for self hatred is compelling if not critical and necessary again to move on and have an intelligent conversation
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Now after I said all of that, know what?>
I am not one of those people/.sisters who sympathize. I feel at some point you have to draw the line and take personal responsibility for whatever life and heritage gives you, and if slavery is in the box, then so be it. THere was a time, history, context and reality when parents brought up their children to navigate all those truths, and still have pride, ownership, grounding, an insistence to succeed and contribute to our emancipation.
but there again
Assignment no 5.
Study Integration and the effects of that. Learn about Black economics before american integration and understand and see a systematic institutional racism to destroy black people, black communities, black economics, black families and black men
For the latter.
Assignment. no. 6/
Find, buy, read and study Frances Cress Welsing, FrantZ Fanon and a book entitled Black Rage.
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Now what is interesting is that different locations of the africa diaspora has variations on the theme; of its experience and affects of white supremacy, even in places where the phrase is neither known, studied, or acknowledged, like Trinidad...but let me tell you this, the folks who fomented for change in 1970 were aiming for the same redress...but one thing is consistent. Black folk messed up on that journey for no where in the globe did we get it right. Not in the caribbean where we don't own shit, make shit or claim shit. ANd the best and last wonderful example of that is South Africa who came out of apartheid
Assignment no 7.
Research study and find out about Apartheid, and as it relates to Jim Crow, as it relates to the Intifada
Africans and Palestinians; the two groups who have suffered under apartheid
assignment no8
research the three country triangular racist nations and their relationships: Israel/Palestinians; America/Blacks and SouthAfrican/Africans
...apartheid and see the costs and effects to the life and quality or lack thereof to those subjugated
See people bandy about that idea of "mental slavery"
but few very few have any concept what it really means
mental slavery is when someone of privilege, say an apparent white male, asks a black man or challenges the black community of what they are not doing, without that white male stopping to consider how they have benefitted, been privileged and allowed because of said subjugation'
and in a place like trinidad, all these tropes take on particularly complex dynamics
okay (smooths apron- wondering if i covered everything)
so let me recap. black people are about shit. on shit and aint doing shit. I will be the first to say. I have a problem too. black men are the only males who hate their image as in their women. it is the extent and completion of a fucked up brain beyond crack and twist; goes against all human and animal science of function, sanity or "the nature of things"
BUT, before, while and through me calling a spade a spade. I know clearly who marked the deck, designed the stack, and deals the cards for blanks to black folk, the whole world over
what would require change?
for black people to find and know themselves and we are about as far from doing that as the many planets out in the universe yet to be imagined, detected, seen, imaged, and name
for non-black people to realize how they have been sold a bag of goods about who is what, and what they are worth,
from time immemorial, this race madness has been about economics, power and money. created as a tool for rich white men to fool stupid and poor white men to side with their agenda to enrich themselves. now this latter is some high end shit that most people don't even know about...but it comes close when you start talking about illuminati, the trilateral commission, and recent end game constructions...see the game changes through time for the times
and that is what black folk, and folk in general don't understand
it would require us all waking up and seeing and understanding the world we live in , b ut, we are about as far away from that as people waking up to stop being the sheep they were bred and fed to be, and be the gods and power centers we were in different times, previous spaces and alter universes.
and on that note, this mad woman is gone.
emancipate yourself first PEA, and then once you understand your own sociopsychopathology, then we can begin to examine what might be confounding a brother or sister.
Assignment 9/10
Read: jonathanzap.com/ the oracle
Read the privilege of identity/web search
http://www.amptoons.com/bl
http://www.google.tt/searc
questions and tutorials: wed - 11am -3pm
Study Labs: Nightly 12-4am
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Major Gap in Syllabus above:
does not mention colonialism, post colonialism and neo colonialism as a driver and lever of racism in all its forms
the color code of acceptance and beauty
...
why dont black people like themselves, when was the last time you were taught to see beauty in blackness?>
Suggestion: take the discussion above and beyond the subjects. look at the systemic and systematic embeddedness of constructions
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Original Blog Post
Emancipate this...
ShareTo most, reading these lyrics are accompanied in the mind by the melodious guitar strumming that leads in that song, and its appeal is raceless, timeless and powerful.
Most of us will never have 'dreadlocks,' but we, together with our flesh eating 'imitation rasta' brothers, we shake we 'dread' to the 'woesome' lyrics and haunting beat and croon along with Bob.
Many who hear those words lose the meaning or they're considered too idealist for reality, but perfect for a song.
For others its a guide and a wondrous play on words that make us ponder every time we hear it, is it possible that we could ever be that conscious, that alive, if it were really possible to unshackle the mind?
The following is from Bill Cosby on the African Experience in America:
'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.
I can't even talk the way these people talk:
Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...
And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.
And then I heard the father talk.
Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads.
You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.
In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.
People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now
We've got these knuckleheads walking around.
The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.
$500 sneakers for what?
And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.
I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.
Where were you when he was 2?
Where were you when he was 12?
Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?
And where is the father? Or who is his father?
People putting their clothes on backward:
Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?
People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something?
Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?
What part of Africa did this come from??
We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa ..
I say this all the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.
I was born here, and so were my parents and grandparents and, very likely, my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa , no more than white Americans have to Germany, Scotland , England, Ireland or the Netherlands .. The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa.
So stop it ! ! !
With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap .....And all of them are in jail.
Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.
We have got to take the neighborhood back.
People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.
We have millionaire football players who cannot read.
We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.
Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.
We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.
We cannot blame the white people any longer.'
Dr. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.
I was not going to write on Emancipation Day because there are enough bullshit artists out there already milking it for what it's worth, and I would rather say nothing than have to lie.
I really don't understand what the African Diaspora in this country has to celebrate, and the abolition of slavery how ever many years ago seems to be the point at which 'westernized' African descendants have stopped developing 'as a people'.
If you are intellectually stunted, racist to your core or very sensitive to sensitive topics I suggest you stop reading right here.
I do not expect to win or lose friends over this, but I would like to hopefully kick start some sort of debate that leads to positive change, or, at the very least, understanding.
Trinidad being what it is though, i'd be surprised if it did.
I am not black.
I do not know what is the politically correct term now, 'negro', 'african', 'afro-trinidadian', black, so I'll use all interchangeably and allow others to 'pull me up' after.
I wont use the word 'nigger' though, because I am neither part of the hip hop culture nor am I an American redneck, so I cant really pull that off.
(Before I go any further, this does not apply to my 'Red' or 'pseudo black' friends who, like Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson, are only conveniently black when it suits them.)
I wanted to lead in by listing all the positive things I know that came out of Africa and contributions of noted Africans in History.
How they have changed the world by their contributions in the development of art, science, education, astronomy, music, etc, but sadly this is written to focus on the negative and hopefully provoke a positive discussion.
The saddest thing to me is how difficult it appears for the average black person to accept being black, and the lengths most black people go to escape their own blackness, and it always leaves me asking why?
There are questions that need to be asked and dealt with both as a nation and as an Afro-centric community, and where such community does not now exist, steps should be taken to create such a body with specific goals and study.
Questions such as:
1) How do black people excuse having the poorest per capita results in all matters education?
The following is from:
Education Sector, a US based independent think tank that challenges conventional thinking in education policy. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to achieving measurable impact in education policy, both by improving existing reform initiatives and by developing new, innovative solutions to our nation's most pressing education problems. The ultimate beneficiaries of our work are students. Our mission is to promote changes in policy and practice that lead to improved student opportunities and outcomes.
They say:
"Achievement gaps between black and white high school students are discouraging but all too common facts of education life. It's well known that black students are less likely than their white peers to graduate from high school, and score lower on tests like the SAT and the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Far less attention has been paid to gaps in higher education. A new study of college student literacy suggests that black-white gaps not only persist into college, but may become even larger by the time students finish their degree.
Released in January 2006 by the American Institutes for Research, the study assessed the literacy of 1,827 graduating seniors from 80 randomly-selected 2- and 4-year colleges and universities. Students were tested for three types of literacy:
"Prose" (comprehending and using information from texts such as news stories and editorials)
"Document" (comprehending and using information from documents such as job applications, maps, and food labels)
"Quantitative" (identifying and performing computations with data from printed materials such as order forms and interest rate schedules)
Scores were translated into four levels: "Below Basic," "Basic," "Intermediate," and "Proficient." To be proficient in prose literacy, for example, a student would have to successfully compare the viewpoints of two newspaper editorials. Proficient document literacy might mean interpreting a table about blood pressure and physical activity, while proficient quantitative literacy could include computing and comparing the cost per ounce of food items.
As the chart shows, there were dramatic differences in proficiency between black and white students. White proficiency rates in prose and document literacy were more than double that of black students, and eight times higher for quantitative literacy (all differences were statistically significant)."
(I could not get the chart to load here, but it is available on the blog, click the link below)
(I do not for one minute believe this to be the ONLY or definitive source of this information and I don't have statistics for what occurs here, I post this to encourage others to research and discuss toward a positive outcome)
The blow mind here is that most of what we know as science, writing and math began in Africa; go figure.
2) Why do black people outnumber every other demographic in the criminal court system and jails and excel at crime and criminal pursuits?
From 'Incarceration in the United States.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
Although blacks account for only 12 percent of the U.S. population, 44 percent of all prisoners in the United States are black. Census data for 2000, which included a count of the number and race of all individuals incarcerated in the United States, revealed a dramatic racial disproportion of the incarcerated population in each state: the proportion of blacks in prison populations exceeded the proportion among state residents in every single state. In twenty states, the percent of blacks incarcerated was at least five times greater than their share of resident population.
In 2002, 93.2% of prisoners were male. About 10.4% of all black males in the United States between the ages of 25 and 29 were sentenced and in prison, compared to 2.4% of Hispanic males and 1.3% of white males.
Why is this fact that has been known and discussed for at least the last forty years not changing, reversing, dipping?
(I do not for one minute believe this to be the ONLY or definitive source of this information and I don't have statistics for what occurs here, I post this to encourage others to research and discuss toward a positive outcome)
3) Why do black people think marrying up means marrying straight hair, or better still white skin?
The biggest hold over from both slavery and colonization, successful blacks see a white mate as a trophy.
Michael Jordan, Brian Lara, Tiger Woods, Dwight Yorke, and many others have all demonstrated this tendency/desire.
Interracial marriages or hook ups are not the discussion, the disproportionate ratio of 'successful' blacks and their interracial hook ups is.
4) Why do black people mess so much with their hair?
Why are so many black men preferring baldness to natural african hair or why is black beauty now associated with straightened hair?
Would Beyonce be less beautiful/talented/sexy with an afro? Oprah? Tyra?
There are other questions I would like to put into the debate for which I cannot post preliminary answers.
Questions like:
Why are black people so willing to climb up on other blacks just to leave them behind?
Why is it so easy for black people to kill other black people?
Why the disproportionate violent response?
Why the willingness to be used as drug mules and drug addicts?
Where are the real Black Leaders who are willing to at least talk about this?
I am not Black, well not in the strictest sense of the word, so I cannot agitate for blacks, nor can i be a black leader devoted to the upliftment of the race.
If I was though, I'd recommend a few things:
I'd tell black fathers to grow up and marry at least one of your 'child mothers' and stay home and paternally raise and support the family.
I'd tell black men that if they spent half the money they spent on clothes and crap for their cars on cutting a track and making a way for their children, they too might benefit from the unwritten social contract, and they too would have successful, sane and civilized loved ones to take care of them in old age.
I'd tell black people to boycott the drivel on Synergy and all other media that portrays black youth specifically and blackness in general in a negative stereo type, of being over sexed, party crazed, pistol packing thugs and ho's and would instead encourage more stereotypes in the likes of the Cosby Show and the Hughleys, of upwardly mobile, family oriented, positive people.
I would tell my Afro Trinidadian brothers and sisters to use days like Emancipation Day to not only reconcile your past with your present, but to link your present to your future, so you can achieve set goals based on realistic models not tied to issues long dead.
To work for your children and to teach them strong family values.
To support black owned businesses and businessmen and women, so as to build up the community from within.
To establish a code of conduct that would see a turning away from the violent response and a joining of hands in a community response.
I would tell them black pride isn't a tee shirt slogan but a mindset and a feeling in the spirit that no man, no history and no word could take away.
I would encourage them to love all their neighbors, but to especially love their black neighbors and to work hard at building the bonds of trust and support that would spin into a web of extended family and community, that could become a safety net for children and grandchildren to hold them and mould them and guide them forward to a better day, and to catch them and right them when they slip.
To form groups that work towards emptying the jails and filling the universities with blackness side by side with brownness and whiteness.
To step forward into the global family as one people with a vision for the african condition now and for the future.
To have words like ambition and devotion as watch words.
To be brothers and fathers and sisters and mothers to all who need it, but specifically as an example to those who don't yet know it.
The 'successful' (read here those with wealth and little or no jail time) races don't have special days of special garb and dances, those days are every day for them.
It should be that way for all if we ever hope to function in a more civilized manner across the board, and to reduce the ills that plague society while we strive to lift every one up together as one people, regardless of race.
Won't you help to sing this songs of freedom, 'cause all I ever have, are Redemption Songs.
Songs of Freedom.
Something to think about...
http://plainlytalking.blog
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