Dr. Bobby E. Wright on Proper Black Student Education, the Psychopathic Racial Personality and more

"Dr. Bobby E. Wright was a "Black" Afrikan psychologist, so labeled not just because he was both "Black" Afrikan and a psychologist, but because he used his education, training, intellectual knowledge and skills always in the best interest of "Black" Afrikan people all over the world."

Dr. Wright tells us that the answer to Blacks’ problems can be found in the works and lives of people like Shaka Zulu, Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X, Chancellor Williams and others. As those of you who frequent RBG Street Scholars Think Tank know, such an approach is at the core of our academic content and methods.

Dr. Bobby Wright was one of the greatest analytical thinkers of the 20th Century. He not only skillfully identified the problems that face Afrikan people today but also had a clear solution to help solve our problem. Dr. Bobby Wright developed a Black Social Theory that would combat white supremacy. Dr. Bobby Wright said, "The Black Social Theory determines the destiny of a people by establishing guidelines of life. It defines their relationship with other living things, It defines values and rituals, methods of education, and how enemies are dealt with, etc." Also, Dr. Wright concept of Mentacide explains some of the self destructive behavior exhibited by African people worldwide. Unfortunately for us, Dr. Wright made the transition to our ancestors in 1982, but his spirit and wisdom will be with us forever as he has resurrected in this RBG EduBlog/ Classroom.

Recognized for his activism, he was a special guest on the Committee of Science and Technology at the Sixth Pan-African Congress held at Tanzania in 1974. As a social scientist, he sought an all-encompassing social theory for Black people and formulated the concept of mentacide. To paraphrase, he defined mentacide as "the planned and systematic destruction of a group's mentality aimed at the destruction of the group." Thus, Black folk alienated from their culture and history eventually lose their sense of purpose and direction, the symptoms of mentacide. Well aware of the implications of technical advances such as behavior modification and genetic engineering, he presented science as a tool serving greater ends (such as controlling the outcasts of white society), neither objective nor neutral. Being an uncompromising critic of Western society, he wrote the following on the relation of religion to prejudice from "The Psychopathic Racial Personality" in the Fall 1974 issue of Black Books Bulletin: Because of their lack of ethical or moral development, there is no conflict between the white's religion and racial oppression. The white race had historically oppressed, exploited, and killed black people, all in the name of their god Jesus Christ and with the sanction of their churches. For example, it is generally overlooked that the Ku Klux Klan is primarily a religious organization. Also, blacks should never forget the Pope [Pius XI] blessing the Italian planes and pilots on their way to bombing Ethiopian men, women, and children who only had spears to defend themselves...Get Audio CDs from House of Nubian

The Psychopathic Racial Personality and Other Essays by Bobby E. Wright Ph.D. (44 pages)
Published by Haki R. Madhubuti
(Third World Press)
1984



Haki Madhubuti describes esteemed ancestor Dr. Bobby Wright as "one of the few Black people who dared to ask the penetrating questions and demand answers and corrective actions to the racial situation in the United States and the world." In these essays, psychologist Dr. Bobby Wright coins the term "mentacide" which he defines as the "deliberate and systematic destruction of a group’s minds with the ultimate objective being the extirpation of the group." "Mentacide," says Dr. Wright, is a worldwide phenomena being implemented against the entire Black race. "Therefore," he says, "Blacks in Africa will begin to manifest the behavior of Blacks in the United States. Dr. Wright "was a thorn in the brain of Black men and women posing as leaders." And his last words were a warning to his friends and associates, "Watch the leadership, especially those proclaiming their God-given answer to the problems of Black people." "Dr. Bobby E. Wright was a "Black" psychologist, so labeled not just because he was both Black and a psychologist, but because he used his education, training, intellectual knowledge and skills always in the best interest of Black people all over the world." Just as Brother Haki considered it an honor to publish Dr. Wright, it was an honor for me to study and draw lessons from this revolutionary and thought provoking work.
Modified from:
http://www.cultural-expressions.com/diaspora/wright.htm

Dr. Wright poignantly begins the title essay, The Psychopathic Racial Personality, with the following narrative;

"In a bullfight, after being brutalized while making innumerable charges at the movement of a cape, there comes a time when the bull finally turns and faces his adversary with the only movement being his heaving bloody sides. It is believed that for the first time he really sees the matador. This final confrontation is known as "the moment of truth." For the bull, this moment comes too late." According to Dr. Wright, the experience of Black people all over the world presents an analogous situation. For hundreds of years, our European (white) matadors have been holding up the capes of democracy, capitalism, Marxism, religion and education and for hundreds of years we have been charging at the movement of these "capes." Like the bull, we too are suffering from near fatal wounds and "indeed have arrived at our "moment of truth."

Sisters and brothers, it is time for us to look at the matador and Dr. Wright tries to sharpen our vision. He defines a psychopath as "an individual who is constantly in conflict with other persons or groups. He is unable to experience guilt, he is completely selfish and callous, and he has a total disregard for the rights of others." Dr. Wright says Black leaders are reluctant to measure psychopathic traits of the White race in their dealings with Blacks when there is a threat involved. "For example", says Dr. Wright, "everywhere one finds Whites and Blacks in close proximity to each other, Whites are in control, whether it is Chicago or Zimbabwe." And our leaders rarely question this "extraordinary universal phenomenon" which Dr. Wright says "defies every known statistical law of probability." He also analyzes some of our so-called intellectual leaders and comments that, "Black intellectual enlightenment does not always lead to genuine insight and it can be very damaging to the intellect as reflected by the behavior and attitudes of many eminent Black scientists." As a result of the confusion, Dr. Wright concludes that Blacks have become disoriented and the result is various inadequate and dangerous behavioral patterns. "Some have become catatonic and do not move at all but wait for divine intervention; others place their faith and energies in charismatic guides who are just as lost as they." Dr. Wright tells us that the answer to Blacks’ problems can be found in the works and lives of people like Shaka Zulu, Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X, Chancellor Williams and others. For they all looked at the matador or psychopath for what he was and is and moved against him." The "other essays", deal with Black Suicide, Educating the Black Child and The Black Child: A Destiny in Jeopardy. These excellent essays reinforce the notions discussed in the title essay. Dr. Wright quotes the Afrikan proverb that warns the traveler of life, "if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there." He says a social theory determines the destiny of a people by establishing guidelines of life and Blacks should therefore develop a "Black Social Theory." He warns, however, the ultimate achievement of a Black social theory would be the recreation of Black culture and that is a very difficult task. Professor Jacob Carruthers (RIU), who reviewed the book said, "brainwashed Blacks who are awestruck by European theory and theorists cannot accomplish this task……and Bobby Wright’s concepts of the ‘psychopathic racial personality’ and ‘mentacide’ are major contributions to this culture recreation process." Since its publication in 1984, The Psychopathic Racial Personality has proved to be a revolutionary, groundbreaking work on race relations. It is one of the works that should be read by serious minded Africans everywhere who are dedicated and committed to rebuilding the Afrikan world order.

A RBGStreetScholar Post Script
"AND THE BEAT GOES ON"

Wise Intelligent's Globe Holders

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Dr. Wright teaches / warned us well with deep cut analysis and razor sharp intelligence. And Wise Intelligent in the video / track below articulates the psychopath's work and manifestations in our present day and time. The problem is that the elders and ancestors of respect keep teaching us but we don't respond adequately by implementing their lessons, so we keep dying off. Its like we are moving on Ministers Malcolm's proverbial revolving wheel, he says that "the wheel just moves faster, but we never leave the spot we are in."
More so today then in the past, we suffer from that same double consciousness that Dr. DuBois taught on all the way back in 1903. A twoness of mind that I call humanist-integrationist inbetweenity with a Black tongue. We talk Black (Afrikan) but are more committed to living White (European). This is the root cause of our ongoing mental, physical and cultural genocide.
Certainly if we don't take the necessary risk and make the obligatory sacrifices required to be truly free it won't be long before we to as Afrikan people will become museum displays--as in extinct. Something well on its way and in dynamic motion as we speak with the Black / New Afrikan male in Amerikkka.

"KEEPAS OF THE CULTURE"

Finally, to end on a more positive note and with a charge, we must remember that Afrikan education is rooted in the Afrikan worldview and conceptual framework (THAT MEANS CULTURE). The lifeblood of our pedagogy from man's East Afrikan origins to Cush, Nubia, Nile Valley Civilizations to West Afrika is its maintenance of a cultural continuity rooted in the same Afrikan worldview (See Diop's Cultural Unity of Black Africa). This cultural continuity has been maintained only because of Afrikan education's foundational spirituality / Maatian Principles and Laws.
Never forget and allow the following caveat to be your motivating guide, "All history is current events and all current events are history." It is We who are the present carriers of Afrikan culture and history, and nobody else is or will be responsible for making the "blue prints, floor plans and road maps" our elders and ancestors have blessed us with a continuation of this intergenerational propagation of the Afrikan worldview but us. Keeping the culture means advancing the culture in all its agencies and manifestations, the most of which is through education.

For those that would like to get deeper into and interact with the science behind RBG Blakademics (Afrikan pedagogy) please spend some quality study time with

AFRICOLOGY: A NEW AFRIKAN GUIDING SYNOPSIS OF RBG COMMUNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Join this class discussion:
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/rbg-tube/

Dr. Ivan Van Sertima - Africans In Science and more

"We have come to reclaim the house of history. We are dedicated to the revision of the role of the African in the world's great civilizations, the contribution of Africa to the achievement of man in the arts and sciences. We shall emphasize what Africa has given to the world, not what it has lost."

--Ivan Van Sertima

With absolute certainty it can stated that, due to his consistent and unrelenting scholarship over the past twenty-five years in the rewriting of African history and the reconstruction of the African's place in world history, particularly in the field of the African presence in ancient America, Ivan Van Sertima has cemented his position as one of our greatest living scholars. Indeed, during this turbulent and exciting period, he has been in the vanguard of those scholars fighting to place African history in a new light. Simply put, Van Sertima's clarion call has been: "We shall follow the trail of the African in Europe, in Asia, and in every corner of the New World, seeking to set the record straight. This is no romantic exploration of antiquities. It is a search for roots."

Ivan Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, Guyana, South America on January 26, 1935. He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University where he graduated with honors. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a Press and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information Services. During the decade of the 1960s, he broadcasted weekly from Britain to both Africa and the Caribbean. He came to the United States in 1970, where he completed his post graduate studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Dr. Van Sertima began his teaching career as an instructor at Rutgers in 1972, and he is now Professor of African studies in the Department of Africana Studies.

Van Sertima is a literary critic, a linguist, and an anthropologist, and has made a name for himself in all three fields. As a linguist, he is the compiler of the Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms, based on his field word in Tanzania, East Africa in 1967. As a literary critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He is also the author of several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain, and the United States. He was recognized for his work in this field by being requested by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976 to 1980.

The cornerstone of Dr. Van Sertima's legacy will probably be his authorship of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America. According to Van Sertima:

"The African presence in America before Columbus is of importance not only to African and American history, but to the history of world civilizations. The African presence is proven by stone heads, terra cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and inscriptions, by oral traditions and documented history, by botanical, linguistic and cultural data."

They Came Before Columbus is a groundbreaking historical work and a literary hallmark. The ideas and themes presented in They Came Before Columbus were not novel. Indeed, many people had written on the African presence in pre-Columbian America before Van Sertima, notably Leo Wiener, Kofi Wangara, R.A. Jairazbhoy, Legrand H. Clegg II, and Floyd W. Hayes III, but Van Sertima's book was the first such work of its type written by an African to comprehensively address the subject. In his own words, Van Sertima notes that:

"What I have sought to do in this book, therefore, is to present the whole picture emerging from these disciplines, all the facts that are now known about the links between Africa and America in pre-Columbian times."

They Came Before Columbus has now gone through more than twenty printings. It was published in French in 1981, and in the same year was awarded the Clarence L. Holt Prize, a prize awarded every two years "for a work of excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the the cultural heritage of Africa and the African diaspora." In 1979 Dr. Chancellor Williams received the Clarence L. Holte prize for the Destruction of Black Civilization.

Following upon the publication of They Came Before Columbus, and equally momentous, in 1979 Dr. Van Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations which quickly gained "a reputation for excellence and uniqueness among historical and anthropological journals. It is recognized as a valuable information source for both the layman and student." The late St. Clair Drake described the Journal of African Civilizations as "one of the most important events in the development of research and publication from the perspective of Pan-African scholarship." Van Sertima set the tone early on when he stated that:

"The destruction of African high-cultures after the massive and continuous invasions of Europe left many Africans surviving on the periphery or outer ring of what constituted the best in African civilizations. New facts that challenge this image create such consternation and incredulity that an extraordinarily emotional campaign is mounted by some of the most respected voices in the scientific establishment to explain away the new data.

That drift of dynastic Egypt from Africa has now dramatically slowed. Recent archeological finds have caught up with the mythmakers. More and more the history of Africa is being reconstructed upon the basis of hard, objective data rather than upon the self-serving speculations and racist theories about the black barbarians."

Since 1979 the Journal of African Civilizations has published works by and about many of the world's finest Africanist scholars in a series of magnificent anthologies. These works include Blacks in Science, Nile Valley Civilizations, African Presence in Early America, Black Women in Antiquity, Egypt Revisited, Egypt: Child of Africa, African Presence in Early Europe, Golden Age of the Moor, African Presence in the Art of the Americas, Great Black Leaders, Great African Thinkers (coedited with Larry Obadele Williams), and African Presence in Early Asia (coedited with Runoko Rashidi). In 1998 Transaction Press produced produced Van Sertima's newest text--Early America Revisited--the definitive statement on the subject.

On July 7, 1987 Dr. Van Sertima appeared before a Congressional Committee to challenge the Columbus myth. In November 1991 he defended his thesis in an address to the Smithsonian Institute. In this arena Ivan Van Sertima has emerged as an undefeated champion.

SOURCES:
They Came Before Columbus and Early Early America Revisited, by Ivan Van Sertima

Dr. Ivan Van Sertima

Dr. Ivan Van Sertima is a literary critic, linguist, anthropologist, and writer. In 1977 he wrote They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, now in its sixteenth printing, for which he won the Clarence L. Holte Prize for excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa. He is the editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, and has edited numerous recent books including African Presence in Early America, Great African Thinkers, and Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern.
He has defended this highly "controversial" thesis before the Smithsonian, which has recently published his address.

They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America

With the skill of a novelist, Ivan Van Sertima reveals to readers compelling, dramatic, and superbly detailed documentation of the presence and legacy of Black Africans in ancient America. It is the marriage of twin crafts--the artist's and the scholar's--in a book that makes it possible to see clearly the unmistakable face and handprint of Black Africans in Pre-Columbian America, and their overwhelming impact on the civilization they found here.

Further Reading: A History Of The African-Olmecs

Companion Reader:

"An excellent/must read review of Afrikan pedagogical and philosophical concepts as per our scholars / master teachers."
ASCAC Mid-Atlantic Region
PRAXIS Newsletter
Ivan Van Sertima Tribute
Report
Written by William HT Bailey
for March/April 2002 issue

A distinguished list of legends (Elders and some now Ancestors) gathered - at their own expense - to attempt to articulate the magnitude of Dr. Van Sertima's contribution to our collective psychological
healing process.

European History is Black History Stolen-Randall Robinson and Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed- Philip Emeagwali

The education of any people should begin with the people themselves.... The chief difficulty with the education of the Negro is that it has been largely imitation resulting in the enslavement of his mind.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson,
The Miseducation of the Negro(1933)

READ THE OUTLINED BOOK ONLINE

ICEBREAKER VIDEO
Dr. Khalid Muhammad-
On Dr. Woodson's Meaning 0f Mis-Education

Randall Robinson -
European History is Black History Stolen
(Also browse menu for related lessons)

Randall Robinson (6 July 1941- ) is an African-American lawyer, author and activist, noted as the founder of TransAfrica. He is known particularly for his impassioned opposition to South African apartheid, and for his advocacy on behalf of Haitian immigrants and Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Early Life & Education

Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia to Maxie Cleveland and Doris Robinson Griffin, both teachers. The late ABC News anchorman, Max Robinson, was his elder brother. He a graduated from Virginia Union University, and earned a law degree at Harvard Law School. He also has an older sister, actress Jewel Robinson and a younger sister, Pastor Jean Robinson. Both sisters live and work in the Washington, D.C. area.

With his first wife he fathered a daughter, Anike Robinson who is a teacher and artist. He also had a son, Jabari Robinson. From his second marriage he fathered a third child a daughter named Khalea Ross-Robinson.

Career

Robinson founded the TransAfrica Forum in 1977, which-according to its mission statement-serves as a "major research, educational and organizing institution for the African-American community, offering constructive analysis concerning U.S. policy as it affects Africa and the African Diaspora (African-Americans and West Indians who can trace their heritage back to the dispersion of Africans that occurred as a result of the Transatlantic slave trade) in the Caribbean and Latin America." He served in the capacity as TransAfrica's president until 2001.

During that period he gained visibility for his political activism, organizing a sit-in at a South-African embassy in order to protest the apartheid era government's policy of segregation and discrimination against black South Africans, a personal hunger strike aimed at pressuring the United States government into restoring Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power after the short-lived coup by General Raoul Cedras, and dumping crates filled with bananas onto the steps of the United States Trade Representative in order to protest what he views as discriminatory trade policies aimed at Caribbean nations, such as protective tariffs and import quotas.

In 2001 he authored a book "The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks," which presented an in-depth outline regarding his belief that wide-scale reparations should be offered to African-Americans as a means of redressing what he perceives as centuries of discrimination and oppression directed at the group.
The book argues for the enactment of race-based reparation programs as restitution for the continued social and economic issues in the African-American community, such as a high proportion of incarcerated black citizens and the differential in cumulative wealth between white and black Americans. Although some reviewers praised Robinson for delving into a controversial topic that had not been addressed in the mainstream media, others criticized him for reverse racism, and asserted that his own personal success contradicted the dire portrait he portrayed of the conditions faced by African-Americans living in the United States.

Robinson will begin teaching at The Pennsylvania State University — Dickinson School of Law in the fall of 2008.

Exile

In the same year that this book was published Robinson quit his position as head of TransAfrica and decided to emigrate to St. Kitts-where his wife was born-a decision chronicled in his book, "Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from his Native Land."

His self-imposed exile-he still keeps a home in the state of Virginia-is caused by what he describes as his antipathy towards America's domestic policies and foreign policy, both of which he believes exploit minorities and the poor.

In September of 2005, Robinson wrote in a Huffington Post blog blasting the Bush Administration's handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, "It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive." Subsequently, the online publication censured Robinson -- compelling him to issue a retraction of the unsubstantiated claim.

Source:
Modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Robinson


Links:

• Randall Robinson official website
• Randall Robinson on Democracy Now
• Huffington Post biography
• African American Registry biography
• Randall Robinson Interview in The Progressive Magazine
• Randall Robinson: Aristide Says 'Tell the World It Is a Coup'
  

Black History:
Lost, Stolen or Strayed

Transcript of Black History Month keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali. Delivered at Arizona State University West, Phoenix, on February 17, 2003.

Permission to reproduce is granted by the author.

Thank you for the pleasant introduction.

When I was ten years old, living in Africa, my father posed the following question to me:

"The story or the warrior, which is mightier?"

"The warrior!" I replied."

My father shook his head in disagreement.

"The story. The story is mightier than the warrior," he said to me.

"How can that be?" I asked him.

"The story lives on long after the warrior has died," he explained.

This month is Black History Month. We celebrate it by telling stories of the contributions of black Americans to America.

Also, today is President's Day. We celebrate it by telling stories of the contributions of American presidents to America.

We tell stories about Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. We tell how Jefferson coined the phrase "All men are created equal." A phrase written in the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal." But he meant, "All white men are created equal."

Jefferson did not believe that white women are equal to white men. He did not believe that black men are equal to white men. Not much has changed two centuries later. As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

In his one and only published book, called "Notes on Virginia," Jefferson explained why white men are intellectually superior to black men. Jefferson wrote that it would be impossible for a black person to understand the mathematical formula in Euclid's famous book called "The Elements."

Jefferson wrote in his book "Notes on Virginia" that Africans are intellectually inferior and cannot understand mathematics.

Euclid wrote his book, called the "The Elements," 2,300 years ago. It is the second most reprinted book in history. It is second only to the Bible. And Euclid is, perhaps, the world's greatest mathematician of all time.

To the ancients, Euclid's Elements was a notoriously difficult textbook. The story is told about a discouraged student that asked Euclid:

"What shall I profit by learning these difficult things?"

Euclid, visibly angered, said to his assistant:

"Give this boy a penny, since he must make a profit out of what he learns."

Because The Elements was notoriously difficult to understand, Jefferson wrote that it would be difficult for a black person to understand the work of Euclid.

He believed that only people of European ancestry could understand the subject of Geometry.

As an African mathematician, I studied and understood geometry. There was nothing in my experience that could lead me to believe that whites have greater mathematical aptitude than people of other races. Yet, that stereotype persists among white mathematicians.

While researching the origins of the Euclid's work, I was surprised when I learned that Euclid never even traveled outside Africa.

"How could Euclid be Greek, if he was born, raised and educated in Africa?" I asked.

It occurred to me that Euclid, the greatest mathematician of all time, was neither Greek nor white. It occurred to me that he was probably black and full-blooded Negro.

I found the best explanation in a book on "History of Mathematics." The author explained that ancient Egypt was not in Africa. "Egypt was part of Greece," he added.

I was curious about how Euclid looked in person. As I probed further, I discovered a widely circulating photo of Euclid. It was the photo of white male that seems to be 90 years old.

I asked: "Is this a true portrait of Euclid?"

Upon reflection, I realized that it was a fictitious portrait. It was drawn 2,000 years after Euclid died.

Euclid died 2,300 years ago in Africa. And we do not have any true portrait of any person that lived before Jesus Christ. We do not have any true portrait of any person that lived even 500 years.

I later learned that many Greek scientists of ancient times were born, raised and educated in Africa. And I still wonder if those Greek scientists were actually black Africans.

This false portrait of Euclid as a white male reinforced Jefferson's views that mathematics could only be comprehended by whites. Since there is no proof that Euclid ever travelled outside Africa it makes sense to assume that he is full-blooded Negro.

Our history books are full of erroneous statements.

Black History Month is a period for us to re-examine the erroneous statements in our history books.

A period for us to challenge these erroneous statements in our history books.

A period for us to teach our children the truth. Teach them that Euclid was not Greek. That he was not white. That was born, raised, educated and worked in Africa. That he is African.

A period for us to acknowledge that science is the gift of ancient Africa to our modern world.

If Euclid never traveled outside Africa, we should assume that he is African. Which raises the profound question:

If Euclid is African, then Thomas Jefferson must be wrong when he argued that an African couldn't understand the work of Euclid?

Euclid was the warrior and Thomas Jefferson was the storyteller.

As my father taught me, the story is mightier than the warrior.

The story lives on long after the warrior has died.

Thomas Jefferson's belief that an African cannot understand the subject of geometry lives on 200 years after Jefferson has died. It lives on in the belief that whites make better mathematicians than blacks. It lives on among historians of science who are reluctant to acknowledge the contributions of Africans to mathematical knowledge.

When I was young, I believed that the warrior is mightier than the story. I did not understand that the pen is mightier than the sword.

As a young man, I believed history is about the truth.

As an older man, I learned that history is both truth and illusion.

I learned that the value of my scientific discovery is in the perception of those evaluating it.

I learned that the black student considers me to be his role model.

I learned that the up and coming white scientist is reluctant to accept me as his role model.

I learned that the established white scientist considers me to be an anomaly. Considers me to be a "freak of nature." Considers me to be the anti-Christ. Considers me to be a scientific vampire that sucks on the white race. Visualizes me as a monster with couple of horns on his head.

I learned that what I am is not as important as what I am to you.

I learned that when you ask me: "Who Are You?" that you really meant "Who Am I?"

I learned that you are searching for yourself in me.

Twelve years ago, a magazine hired a white man to prepare an illustration of a supercomputer wizard riding an ox. I was supposed to be the supercomputer wizard. But the white illustrator, who knew that I am black, portrayed me as a white person in his published illustration.

I learned that the white illustrator was searching for himself in me.

The first draft of a portrait that depicted Emeagwali as a supercomputer wizard driving a carriage powered by thousands of chickens (a metaphor for his 65,000 weak processors that performed the world's fastest computation). The "Negro Emeagwali" (shown in this illustration) was rejected and replaced with a "Caucasian Emeagwali" (shown below).

A "whitened" Caucasian portrait of Emeagwali was acceptable and widely published. One illustrator argued that Emeagwali has a trace of Caucasian blood and said that he could see the "Caucasian look" in his face.

Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint his masterpiece "The Lord's Supper." Before the Renaissance period, many paintings of the Madonna depicted a black woman. The infant God or Christ-child was depicted as black. But Leonardo da Vinci was searching for himself in Jesus Christ. He re-depicted Jesus Christ as white.

The Bible did not tell us what Jesus looked like. But we know that he lived in the Middle East or an eastern extension of Africa. We know that the Hebrews sojourned into Egypt and Africa. We know that Moses had a Cushite (Ethiopian) wife. When we put the facts together, we know that Jesus likely looked like a dark-skinned Palestinian, Yemenite or Egyptian.

Michelangelo used his family to pose for Jesus Christ. Michelangelo was searching for himself in Jesus Christ. During the Renaissance, the mother of Christ became a white woman.

I learned that King James wrote the Bible the way he believed it was supposed to be written.

I was trained by white mathematicians. I read books about History of Mathematics written by white authors. I learned in schools controlled and dominated by Eurocentric thoughts.

Considering where I came from, it was heresy to suggest that Euclid was African. Psychologist named this phenomenon "cognitive dissonance." I call it "The Fear of the Truth." We are afraid of the truth that the real Jesus Christ is dark-skinned. We are afraid of the truth that the real Euclid was an African and a full-blooded Negro.

I learned that Euclid was portrayed as a European to instill a sense of pride in white students. To embed a feeling of intellectual supremacy into their collective subconscious. I learned that European mathematicians were searching for themselves in Euclid.

I learned that Africans are the pioneers in many other fields of study.

I learned that the modern chemist is not aware that the word "chemistry" meant "black man's science."

I learned that the word chemistry was derived from the word "Kemet." And that Kemet is the ancient name for the land we now call Egypt. And that Kemet translates as "land of the blacks." And that "chemistry" means "black man's science."

Yet the story of black people's contribution to the science of chemistry is not included in chemistry textbooks. As my father taught me, the story is greater than the warrior.

We Africans have to tell our story. We underestimate the power of the story.

"What happened to the black people of Kemet," the traveler asked the old man.

"For legend had it that the people of Kemet were black? What happened?"

"Ah," wailed the old man, "they lost their history and they died."

Isaac Asimov is the author of more than 500 books. One of his books called "Biographical Encyclopedia of Science," is standard reference in many libraries.

Isaac Asimov, the most prolific science writer, acknowledges that mathematics, science and technology are the gift of ancient Africans to our modern world.

The Encyclopedia of Science:

Acknowledges that an African named Imhotep is the Father of Medicine.

It acknowledges that an African is the Father of Architecture.

It acknowledges that an African is the first scientist in recorded history.

It acknowledges that the earliest Greek scientists were educated in Africa by Africans. That they lived and worked in Africa. That they were even born in Africa.

If the earliest Greek scientists lived in Africa, then it leads to the profound conclusion that Greece is not the birthplace of Western civilization. It leads to more logical conclusion that Africa is the birthplace of civilization.

The oldest mathematics textbooks are called the Rhind, Moscow and Berlin papyri.

The ancient papyri are our primary source of information about the mathematics of Nile Valley civilization. A page from Ahmes papyrus which is about one foot tall and 18 feet long. This book was renamed "Rhind Papyrus."

The Rhind Papyrus was not written by Alexander Rhind --- the Scottish traveler that purchased it. It was written 4,000 years ago by an African named Ahmes. But it was renamed after a non-mathematician that purchased it.

The Moscow Papyrus was not excavated in Moscow. It was excavated in Africa. But it was renamed after the city of Moscow.

The Berlin Papyrus was not excavated in Berlin. It was excavated in Africa. But it was renamed after the city of Berlin.

Ladies and gentlemen, we should give credit where credit is due. Scholars name a book after its author. Scientists name a discovery after the discoverer. And technologists name an invention after the inventor.

Why then were African textbooks Europeanized by naming them after European cities and persons? The reason is that the story is mightier than the warrior. Ancient Africans were the ancient warriors and modern Europeans are the modern storytellers.

A digital facial reconstruction of a mummy believed to be Queen Nefertiti. The British forensic experts that performed this reconstruction were astonished when the image of a black woman emerged on their computer screen! (Image courtesy of USA Today, August 13, 2003)

History is called "his story."

It is a story told from the perspective of the storyteller. From the bias of the storyteller. With the prejudice of the storyteller.

"What is history?" asked Napoleon, the conquered French emperor.

"History is nothing but a lie agreed upon!" Napoleon answered.

Carter Woodson is the name of the historian that founded Negro History Week in 1926. Woodson wrote:

"When you control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions."

"You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his (proper place) and will stay in it.

You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told.

In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary," said Woodson who was the son of former slaves.

Someone asked me: "Why don't we have a White History Month?"

"Every month is White History Month." I explained to him.

However, our goal is to make every month Black History Month. Our goal is to include black history into American history. And to include African history into world history.

African history is a search for answers to profound questions. Universal questions such as:

Who are we? Where have we been? And how did we get here?

History is the compass that tells us who we are, where we have been, and where we are going.

We now know that Africa is the birthplace of humanity. It is the Motherland of all people: black or white.

We should teach our children that:

Science is the gift of ancient Africa to our modern world.

Finally, and most importantly, we should remind them that

Africans were the carriers of light.

Africans were not waiting in darkness for others to bring light to them.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with you tonight.

Emeagwali

Emeagwali won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, which has been called "supercomputing's Nobel Prize," for inventing a formula that allows computers to perform their fastest computations - a discovery that inspired the reinvention of supercomputers. He was extolled by then U.S. President Bill Clinton as "one of the great minds of the Information Age" and described by CNN as "a Father of the Internet;" and is the most searched-for scientist on the Internet.

A History of The Republic of New Afrika and related People & Organizations

Companion PDF Reader:
BLACK NATIONALISM: CRITIQUES AND SUGGESTIONS
BY FAGBAMILA FAGUNWA

The original RNA manifesto demanded the cession by the United States of the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina and the payment of $400 billion in reparations for the injustices suffered by black Americans during the slavery and segregation periods. These concessions would then form the basis of an independent black nation.

The republic and Provisional Government was founded at a conference of Militant Black Nationalists meeting in Detroit in 1968. The conference was convened by attorney Gaidi Obadele and Imari Abubakari Obadele, former acquaintances of Malcolm X who . Imari Obadele was elected to the position of "Provisional President".

Rev. Milton Henry (Gaidi Obadele) With Malcolm X in Detroit, April 12, 1964, at the Group on Advance Leadership (GOAL) Office located at 11605 Linwood on the west side

The RNA advocated cooperative economics and community self-sufficiency, political rights and press freedoms, prohibiting trades unions, mandatory military service and the legalization of polygamy.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believed the Republic of New Africa to be a seditious group, and conducted raids on their meetings, leading to violent confrontations and the arrest and repeated imprisonment of RNA leaders. The RNA was a target of the COINTELPRO operation.

Following his 1980 release from prison, Imari Obadele attended Temple University and earned a PhD in political science. He has since taught at various universities and published books and articles upholding the aims of the RNA.

The RNA is today based in Washington, D.C., and has membership of almost 10,000.

Dr. Imari Obadele

Queen Mother Moore, Gaidi Obadele, right, in 1969, as vice president of the Republic of New Africa, with Mabel Williams, center, wife of the R.N.A.’s president in exile, Robert F. Williams

Also see LET IT BURN in player menu

Safiya Bukhari, 1950–2003

MAJ / Safiya Lioness for Liberation Presente!
mp3, 3.88 MBs, 4:48

Mouse over for snap audio

( About Our Second Blakademics Player Selection )

Marilyn Killingham, veteran and elder of the Republic of New Africa , joined this month’s Unity Brunch hosted by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in Washington, DC. FreeMix Radio was there and offers this special edition in appreciation of the work of this particular woman and those for whom she continues to struggle. Also features the art of Head-Roc, Son of Nun and Immortal Technique.

Jericho 10th Anniversary National March to the United Nations

“One of the first steps we are going to become involved in as an Organization of Afro-American Unity will be to work with every leader and other organization in this country interested in a program designed to bring your and my problem before the United Nations ... We must take it out of the hands of the United States government.”

– Malcolm X, Speech at Founding Rally of the OAAU, 28 June 1964

Friday, October 10, 2008

Demand Freedom for
Our Political Prisoners and POWs!

Evening Concert to Benefit the Prisoners!

To Learn More Click here!

Dhoruba Bin Wahad Speaks to Supporting Our PP & POW

Republic of New Afrika member, Dr. Mutulu Shakur discusses the terms and conditions of his incarceration.

What is the Black Liberation Army (BLA)

Aluta Continua / Post Script

"New Africa : Black Racial Homeland"

From: BlackNationalism

Dis is a hypothetical idea of a Black Racial homeland in da deep South USA and NYC called New Africa. I read a pigs book called "Civil War 2: the coming breakup of America". Dis is like a movie for da book.

All brothas out there need to think bout our destiny as a people
Georgia, Missisipi an Alabama were the first states we were brought to as slaves. They are the states wif da biggest Black population Now. Isn't it only fittin we get a hypothetical nation there ? New York City iz good fo us too! We took away the Whitey rebel flags down there. So aint it time to hoist up the Black Green n Red ?

Da BOOK must read:
http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-II-Br...

Our crew !
http://www.newblackpanther.com/

Check da farms fo Blacks in GA !
http://www.noi.org/3year-econ.html

If yall Whites gots a problem wif dis, go to ya honkey bruthahood website at
http://www.stormfront.org/

RBG Who, What, Why and How: Background & Significance and A Review of the Afrikan Centered Education Literature

Liberation is impossible if we fail to see ourselves in more positive terms. For without a change of vision, we are slaves to the oppressor’s ideas and values—ideas and values that finally attack the very core of our existence. Therefore, we must see the world in terms of our own realities.”
Larry Neal, “Black Art and Black Liberation,” 1969

Our Professors and Teachers are Our Elders, Ancestors, Scholars and Revolutionaries...

cultural workers, raptivists, poets, artists and playwrights and grassroots community folk; including the likes of DPZ and Family, UNO The Prophet, Paris, KRS-1, PE/Chuck D, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal, Dr. Amiri Baraka, Bro. J of X-Klan, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Khallid Abdul Muhammad, Dr. Martin Luther Jr., Minister Malcolm X, Imam Jamal Al-Amin, Dr. Huey P. Newton, Dr. Kwame Toure , Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr Leonard Jeffries, Dr. Na’im Akbar, Dr Ben, Dr Asa Hilliard, Dr. John Jackson, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. Mulana Karenga, Dr. Oba T’ Shaka, Rev. Khandi Paasewe, Dr. Molefi Asante and many, many more.

How We Provoke Thought, Discussion & Learning:



Please keep in mind that RBG is a Think Tank. A center of higher learning organized for intensive study, research, critical thinking and problem solving; focused in the areas of the use of technology in Afrikan-centered cultural development and education for the purpose of individually and collectively learning the social, political , economic and moral strategies to secure Black Power in the 21st century.

More frequently than not, we initiate our teaching / learning process by presenting audio and visual resources that pose semalies, parables, metaphors, analogies and oxymorons--that's what makes you think (we hope). Then we have lively and well informed group discussions revolving around the various messages put forth in the learning objects and media assets. Next we research the facts overlaying our discussions using the voluminous number of resources available in the communiversity's web portals and learning environments. Finally, each learner has the opportunity to fill our evaluation instruments on most of the 5,000+ RLOs (Reusable Learning Objects) and media assets that comprise the core curriculum. It is out of following this methodology that we devise position papers and community policy recommendations and initiatives... Learn More

Also I use a teaching theory called Overlearning. Just like one more frequently than not under learns a topic/subject by not appreciating all the relationships; presenting previous data along with new data solidifies relational overstanding. So if you have seen or heard or read something in another context--please--don't skip over it in the new application, if you want to catch on to the program faster.

IN CLASSICAL AFRIKAN (KEMETIC) PHILOSOPHY THE HUMAN BEING AND HUMAN REALITY WERE GOVERNED BY THE BASIC DIVINE LAW OF “TO BE A SPIRIT”. THE MORAL MANDATE OF AFRIKAN HUMANITY WAS “TO BECOME AND IN BECOMING”---THE PURSUIT OF SUCH DIVINE LAW AND MORAL MANDATE WAS REFLECTIVE OF ONES PURSUIT OF GODLINESS. EDUCATION WAS KEY TO THIS PROCESS--TO BECOME AND IN BECOMING A MORE PERFECT BEING. FOR OUR AFRIKAN ANCESTORS EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING WAS ULTIMATELY ABOUT A PERSON BEING TRANSFORMED FROM A LESSER MATERIAL BEING TO A GREATER SPIRITUAL BEING.

See: AFRICOLOGY: A NEW AFRIKAN GUIDING SYNOPSIS OF RBG COMMUNIVERSITY EDUCATION

"WHAT WE BELIEVE"

1) We Believe that Along Side Every Real Black Man
There Should Be A Conscious Black Women

See: The Lost and Stolen History of the African Women

2) We Believe in the Power, Knowledge,
Wisdom and Resurrection of the Ancestors

3) We Believe it is Our Responsibility to Educate
Our Children, Youth and the Masses of the People

RBG Who, What Why and How:

RBG STREET SCHOLARS THINK TANK is a web-based-face to face hybrid, not -for-profit research, cultural development, education, and socialization community project. It epitomizes New Afrikan consciousness raising in the Web 2.0 environment. We are an academic-action plan community dedicated to fostering progressive social, political, economic and educational change in oppressed / “ghettoized” communities throughout the United States. Our main goal is to stomp out mentacide by intellectually uplifting our youth and young adults caught-up in the many facets of systematic oppression ( including Black-on-Black violence, poverty, ignorance, death and disease). We are about preserving our rich history of scholarship combined with activism and grass-root struggle for civil and human rights and our pursuits of ultimate national liberation and self-determination. We do this by educating and providing African American youth and young adults of the hip-hop generation and their children with the information, tools and skills necessary for them to lead a productive life in a 21st century America being driven by technology. At the core of our methods is an emphasis on history’s (OUR-STORY not His-Story) power as a weapon in fighting against national oppression and its continued relevance to our current plights and struggles for a good life. By equipping our learners (student-teachers) with proper knowledge and technical skills we inspire them to become confident and committed to creating programs, projects and products that will assist in their financially supporting themselves, and at the same time encourage their practicing ongoing progressive change through activism.
This CommuniVersity's target audience is the Hip Hop Generation (Blacks / New Afrikans born between 1965 and 1984) and their children.
RBG Street Scholars Think Tank seeks to educate and empower all Black (New Afrikan) people, but we are especially committed to teaching (and learning from) urban Black youth / hip-hop headz how to be builders of a true African World Union.

4) We Believe in Mental Liberation
Through Proper Education

The education of any people should begin with the people themselves.... The chief difficulty with the education of the Negro is that it has been largely imitation resulting in the enslavement of his mind.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson,
The Miseducation of the Negro(1933)

READ THE OUTLINED BOOK ONLINE

5) We believe that the Afrikan American experience in the United States is an integral part of the "American" experience

For the past forty plus years scholars and students in the “Black Studies Movement” have worked to include courses on the African American experience in the curricula of American colleges and universities. Beginning in the late 1960s, they began one of the most important endeavors in mainstream American education, i.e. the creation of departments, programs and courses in African American studies. In their efforts they have continued the work begun eighty years ago by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of African American History.” In 1915, Dr. Woodson organized the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A year later, he began publishing the Journal of Negro History. Dr. Woodson’s goal was to encourage the “scientific study of the Negro” and to dispel the ideas and notions prevalent in his time that African Americans had no history and had never contributed to the development of world civilization. An important part of Woodson’s mission in popularizing the study of African American history was to ensure that young people learned the history and culture of African Americans.

Link to the full essay
Back To School: RBG (Redeemed By God) Style,Feat.Brothas Keepa

The 1960s and 1970s were times of social and political ferment which gave rise in the U.S. to the Black Nationalist, Black Power and Black Arts Movements, all driven to some degree by a rejection of Western values and an identification with "Mother Africa." Afrocentric scholars and Black youth also challenged Eurocentric ideas in academia. 1968 signaled a new era in student unrest in the U.S. when Howard University became the first major university to be shut down by student protests, in part over demands for a more Afrocentric orientation of the institution.

The work of Cheikh Anta Diop became very influential. In the following decades, histories related to Africa and the diaspora gradually would incorporate a more African perspective. Since that time, Afrocentrists have increasingly seen Afrikan peoples as the makers and shapers of their own histories. RBG Street Scholars Think Tank is a continuation of that academic, socio-political and cultural process.

6) We Believe that We Are An Afrikan People

"We Are Afrikan People Wherever We Were Born No matter where we were born in the world. Afrikan (Black) People are historically and culturally linked. Our history, identity, and culture are rooted in the many thousands of years of development of Afrikan civilization on the Afrikan continent. This is a consequence of the ever forward movement and motion of the New Afrikan masses. It is from this historical march of our people (Afrikan [Black] People) that we derive our African culture, the sum total of material and spiritual values created by our people. It is this invincible weapon, Afrikan culture, that has always served to fight against all forms of oppression and exploitation, to move forward New Afrikan People and Afrikan civilization. Modified with "k for c" from Ayize Atiba. 8 March, 1995 / Link to Full Lesson

A Definition of African Centered Education

African Centered Education is a system of sequentially planned educational opportunities provided for African heritage children, youth and young adults to develop the necessary and required skills to participate in the global marketplace with specific interest on the upliftment and empowerment of their African-American communities and the total development and growth of the African continent.
Dr. E. Curtis Alexander

Link to more essential RBG definitions of Afrikan Centered Education

Tony Brown's Afrocentric Education Conference
(See menu for relate videos)

RBG Reference Resource Center and Review of the Literature

Click the link for synoptic reviews of the main resources / book concepts that I have called upon to build "The RBG Street Scholars Think Tank's Educational Foundation" from a scholarly / academic perspective. The reviews are very important reading for learners as well as teachers, as they are rich with knowledge of the issues and solutions. I have also embedded video education assets throughout to enhance the reading.