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

/ Audio, Text and Video, The Honorable Dr. Amos Wilson and Afrikan Cultural Studies

From: RBGz Blue Print Study Cell In this group we study in detail one of RBGz required textbooks ( Dr Amos Wilson's Blue Print for Black Power) in both it print and video overview formats.

In two masterful lectures cocontained within the pages of this modest text, Dr. Wilson challenges the all too pervasive assumption and false perception that the "New World Order" is somehow ordained -that if Afrikan people are to progress, they have no other Alter-native but to remain colonized by White Western Interests, This of course is patently false. Dr Wilson de-bunks this myth with an insightful analysis of the Legacy of Marcus Garvey and the proven validity of Afrikan Centered Consciousness as necessary. Please listen to his audio lectures intently and then view/ study the videos in the context of his pearls of wisdom.

Areas covered in the book and audio include:

• Are Black and White Children the same?

• Are there any significant differences in the mental and physical growth and development of Black and White Children?

• Are such leisure time activities as the playing of certain games, watching T.V., going to the movies, listening to the radio, hazardous to the mental health of Black Children?

• Why do Black Children generally score lower than White Children on I.Q. tests?

• Is the Black Child merely a White Child who "happens" to be "painted" Black?

• What effects does race awareness have on the mental and personality development of Black Children?
• Is the use of Black English a sign of mental inferiority?
• Do Black parents socialize their children to be inferior to White Children?
• Why have integrated schools and busing failed so many Black Children?

  

Black Child Development Under White Supremacy  Dr. Amos Wilson-Audio Lecture and more...

As Dr. Wilson explains very eloquently , the cognitive, psychomotor , psychological and affective development of the Black (Afrikan) child is grounded in an overstanding of Afrikan peoples history and culture and the neurobiology of neuromelanin. For the past fifteen years "The Melanin Systems of Afrikan People" has been my primary area of research focus and the nexus of my current pedagogical approach. What follows are some opening volleys into my work. My thesis is that "Afrikan peoples cultural development, education and socialization (social sciences) are grounded in biological science/ biochemistry (i.e., a fostering of functional melaninization)." My academic approach is simultaneously historocultural, sociopolitical, psychoeducational and moro-spiritual.

Publish Post

A) MELANINS STRUCTURE

For now, just remember that both melanins and catacholamine neurotranmitters have the same tyrosine amino acid as their rate limiting precursor. I will build on this fact further along in the learning series.

B) MELANIN BIOSYNTHESIS



C) NEUROTRANSMITTER

(catacholamine)

BIOSYNTHESIS and DEGRADATION

D) DISTRIBUTION OF MELANIN WORLDWIDE

"Melanin is a conductor and a stable free radical, holding positive charges, balanced by counter anions and exhibiting a small gap, 1.4 eV. Experimental data, molecular modeling studies and molecular quantum mechanics calculations agree describing DHI-melanin, the best known synthetic melanin , as a structure fundamentally constituted by repetitive units of 5-gem-diol-indol-6-one linked at 4,7 positions (VII). Electric and conformational properties explain different roles of melanins. As a UV filter and a radical scavenger black it has a protective function in epithelial tissue; in dopaminergic neurons of substantia nigra, an area of the brain involved in fine motor control, it can act as a conductor allowing rapid electron passage which, generating a magnetic field, can sense the Earth's field and control movements. Melanin destroys, in Parkinson’s disease it can participate to the symptoms and development of the neuro-degenerative process.Finally their may be considered a cell assembling factor ." From: The Pigment Cell and its Biogenesis


Neuromelanin is the dark pigment present in pigment bearing neurons of four deep brain nuclei: the substantia nigra (in Latin, literally "black substance") - Pars Compacta part, the locus ceruleus ("blue spot"), the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve (cranial nerve X), and the median raphe nucleus of the pons. Both the substantia nigra and locus ceruleus can be easily identified grossly at the time of autopsy due to their dark pigmentation. In humans, these nuclei are not pigmented at the time of birth, but develop pigmentation during maturation to adulthood. Although the functional nature of Neuromelanin is unknown in the brain, it may be a byproduct of the synthesis of monoamine neurotransmitters for which the pigmented neurons are the only source. The loss of pigmented neurons from specific nuclei is seen in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. In Parkinson's disease there is massive loss of dopamine producing pigmented neurons in the substantia nigra. A common finding in advanced Alzheimer's disease is almost complete loss of the norepinephrine producing pigmented neurons of the locus ceruleus.
Neuromelanin has been detected in primates and in carnivores such as cats and dogs.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin

Also see:Neuromelanin in human dopamine neurons../Progress in neurobiology 2005, vol. 75, n^o2, pp. 109-124 [16 page(s) (article)]

RBGz Melanins Learning Series

1) RBG On The Role of Melanin In Our Afrikan Re-Education / ReAfrikanization Process

2) Black Child Development Under White Supremacy / Audio, Text and Video, The Honorable Dr. Amos Wilson

3) TOWARD UNDERSTANDING THE MELANIN, AFRI-ESSENCE, GOD-FORCE CONNECTION

4) Melanin, Negative Music and the Dope Game

5) AFRIKAN HEAL THYSELF:The Role of Melanin In Our Afrikan Re-Education / ReAfrikanization Process

A DEEP CUT ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN (ARYAN AND SEMITIC) SCHOLARSHIP AND CULTURE (INCLUDING PHILOSOPHY, MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION, POLITICS/GOVERNANCE, SOCIAL THEORY AND HISTORY, CURRENT EVENTS, EDUCATION AND ECONOMICS, LAW AND MEDICINE, MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS, CREATIVE PRODUCTIONS, ARTS AND HUMANITIES) DEMONSTRATES THAT THEY ALL SPEAK IN ONE VOICE, AND ALWAYS IN CONCERT WHEN IT COMES TO THOSE WITH THE ABILITY TO PRODUCE COLOR (MELANIN). BUT, PRECISELY BECAUSE MELANIN IS MORE THAN A MATTER OF... Read Full Story

A Quick Sneak Preview:

Also study this school's
recommended text:

RBGz WORKING DEFINITION AND INSIGHT INTO AFRIKAN CULTURE:

Europe's attempted occupation of practically all human space resulted in Africans being considerably removed from their own cultural base to be relegated to footnote status, to the periphery, the margin of the European experience and consciousness. This mental disenfranchisement is held responsible for Africans often not existing on their own cultural and historical terms but on borrowed European ones....Link to read more

Afrocentricity - Afrocentric Organizing Principle And Concepts

mouse over for snap mp3 player

play Professor James Smalls — Culture )
play Dr. Marimba Ani — African Worldview
play Dr. Amos Wilson — On Multi-Cultural Education, Identity and Liberation
play Dr. Na'im Akbar — On Afrikan Marriage to White
play Dr. Ani — Black American Individualism

RBG Blakademics reflects the cultural continuity and recurring spiritual and pedagogical themes of Afrikan peoples education and socialization across space and time; from ancient classic Nile Valley Civilizations to West Africa (from which we most directly come from) North , Central and East Africa and throughout the diaspora, right on up to our present day experience here in the hells of north America. So the process does not put in as much as it draws out what is already pre-existing in our mind and spirit (our collective ancestral unconscious).

For deeper layered study of OUR CULTURAL ROOTS
please seem RBGz annotated photo lessons/Group on
OUR African Vines Network:

Culture is not one of life’s luxuries: it is life itself.

“Culture” may be defined as “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour… language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, ceremonies, and other related components…” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1989).

At times,“culture” and “civilization” have been regarded as synonymous; at others, culture has been regarded as the end and civilization the means. In anthropological terms, culture encompasses a broad range of material objects, behavior patterns and thoughts. In western society, culture is commonly regarded as something highbrow, a luxury rather than a necessity. Certain activities are deemed to constitute culture, while others are excluded. This paper argues that a democratic culture where there is access, respect, coherence and/or relevance in the public interest is not elitist, but a basis for human and social development.

Senegal’s former president, the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, once stated in an interview: “At intellectual conferences in the Third World culture is made an instrument for politics, although Marx was of the opinion that politics should be the instrument for culture. To Marx the purpose of politics is to make man free in order to be able to ‘create works of beauty’. Culture, not politics is the weave that keeps a society together. But industrialized countries in East and West do not accept the notion that cultures be equal although different. They do not take African culture and philosophy seriously as long as we have no economic power.” 4

“Is ‘culture’ an aspect or a means of ‘development’, the latter understood as material progress; or is ‘culture’ the end and aim of ‘development’, the latter understood as the flourishing of human existence in its several forms and as a whole?” 5

These quotations reflect a longstanding and ongoing discussion of two viewpoints. These can, however, be combined without one overshadowing the other. They are interdependent and nurture one another.

On the one hand, the importance of culture is thought to lie in its function as a medium of messages for educational or other social purposes. Here, the sharpness of the instrument depends on the dedication, skills and depth of the conveyor.

The other viewpoint emphasizes culture as a means of paving the way for creativity and showing experience that can be neither measured nor weighed. The artist’s imagination, or the world it builds, is a laboratory of the not-yet-experienced.

In the words of John Gardner, the American novelist, “Art is as original and important as it is precisely because it does not start out with a clear knowledge of what it means to say.”

To stimulate our imagination and nourish our dreams, we seek art, literature, film, music and theatre for a varied range of aesthetic experience. This applies to people all over the world, of all social classes and ages, women and men alike. What we cannot dream about cannot be realized either.

Culture helps us transgress limits, self-imposed or otherwise; to challenge ourselves; and to discover talents we were unaware of – talents that are valuable in every kind of situation in life. Without imagination and creativity, we are prisoners of the structures and thoughts of others.

Four aspects of the role of culture in development may be discerned. There is no competition between the four: rather, they empower one another.

They are:

* using culture to illustrate or clarify a medical, political, educational, agricultural or family problem = culture for development
* strengthening the cultural sector = cultural development
* the importance of analysing the consequences of development cooperation on the culture of a country, community or group.
* mainstreaming culture in all development work.

Text modified from: The Power of Culture

Companion Lessons and Further Study Resources:

Black Infant Mortality: Your Generation At Risk





RBG State of the Black America, The Masses of Our People

Learning and Overstanding Black Psychology with Dr. Na'im Akbar

RBGz Education and Psychology Link Roll

RBG Blakademics 2009: Feat. White Architects of Black Education and Correction

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank Introduction

RBG Academic Domains

Africentric education at RBG Street Scholars Think Tank is defined as the means by which Afrikan culture including the knowledge, attitudes, values and skills needed to maintain and perpetuate it throughout the nationbuilding process -- is developed and advanced through practices. Its aim, therefore, is to build commitment and competency within present and future generations to support the struggle for liberation and nationhood. We define nationbuilding as the conscious and focused application of our people's collective resources, energies, and knowledge to the task of liberating and developing the psychic and physical space that we identify as ours.

Nationbuilding encompasses two interdependent components:

a) the reconstruction of Afrikan culture and

b) the development of a progressive and sovereign state structure consistent with that culture.

Knowledge
Knowledge includes acknowledging Afrikan spirituality as a essential aspect of our uniqueness as a people and makes it an instrument of our liberation. (see Dr. Akbar below). This knowledge focuses on the "knowledge and history of historical truths; through comparison; hypothesizing and testing through debate, trial, and application; through analysis and synthesis; through creative and critical thinking; through problem resolution processes; and through final evaluation and decision making."

Attitudes
This attitude emphasizes that Afrikan identity is embedded in the continuity of Afrikan cultural history and the Afrikan cultural history represents a distinct reality continually evolving from the experiences of all Afrikan people wherever they are and have been on the planet across time and generations. It embraces the traditional wisdom that "children are the reward of life" and it is, therefore, an expression of our unconditional love for them. In order to best serve Afrikan children our methods must reflect the best understandings that we have of how they develop and learn biologically, spiritually and culturally.

Values
These ensure that the historic role and function of the customs, traditions, rituals and ceremonies -- that have protected and preserved our culture; facilitated our spiritual expression; ensured harmony in our social relations; prepared our people to meet their responsibilities as adult member of our culture; and sustained the continuity of Afrikan life over successive generation -- are understood and made relevant to the challenges that confront us in our time.

Skills
Afrikan centered education can only be systematically facilitated by people who themselves are consciously engaged in the process of Afrikan center personal transformation. Afrikan centered education is a process dependent upon human perception and interpretation (Thus, it follows that a curriculum cannot be Afrikan centered independent of our capacity to perceive and interpret it in an Afrikan centered manner).

Nationbuilding
Afrikan centered education facilitates participation in the affairs of nations and defining (or redefining) reality on our own terms, in our own time and in our own interests. This prepares Afrikans "for self-reliance, nation maintenance, and nation management in ever regard." Afrikan centered education emphasizes the fundamental relationship between the strength of our families and the strength of our nation

See: RBG Blakademics Definitions, Learning Domains and Basic Tenets of the Centered School
Companion PDF Reader:
BLACK NATIONALISM: CRITIQUES AND SUGGESTIONSBY FAGBAMILA FAGUNWA

Ten Vital Principles for Black Education and Socialization

Black Education A Transformative Research and Action Agenda for the New Century Edited by Joyce E. King

We are not new to the study of and practice of education and socialization that is rooted in deep thought.

We will not accept a dependent status in the approach and solution to our problems.

Chapter 2 (excerpt)
Embellished with emphasis and color by this author for purposes of RBG learning methodology enhancement

Ten Vital Principles for Black Education and Socialization

1. We exist as African people, an ethnic family. Our perspective must be centered in that reality.

2. The priority is on the African ethnic Family over the Individual. Because we live in a world where expertness in alien cultural traditions (that we also share) have gained hegemony, our collective survival and enhancement must be our highest priorities.

3. Some solutions to problems that we will identify will involve differential use of three modes of response to domination and hegemony: a) Adaptation—adopting what is deemed useful, b) Improvisation—substituting or improvising alternatives that are more sensitive to our culture and c) Resistance—resisting that which is destructive and not in the best interests of our people.

4. The “ways of knowing” provided by the arts and humanities are often more useful in informing our understanding of our lives and experiences and those of other oppressed people than the knowledge and methodologies of the sciences that have been privileged by the research establishment despite the often distorted or circumscribed knowledge and understanding this way of knowing produces.

5. Paradoxically, from the perspective of the education research establishment, knowledge production is viewed as the search for facts and (universal) truth, while the circumstances of our social and existential condition require the search for meaning and understanding.

6. The priority is on research validity over “inclusion.” For research validity highest priority must be placed on studies of:

a) African tradition (history, culture and language),

b) Hegemony (e.g., uses of schooling/socialization and incarceration),

c) Equity (funding, teacher quality, content and access to technology) and

d) Beneficial practice (at all levels of education, from childhood to elderhood).

7. Research informs practice and practice informs research in the production and utilization of knowledge; therefore, context is essential in research:

a) Cultural/ historical context,

b) Political/economic context and

c) Professional context, including the history of AERA and African people.

8. We require power and influence over our common destiny. Rapid globalization of the economy and cyber-technology are transforming teaching, learning and work itself. Therefore, we require access to education that serves our collective interests, including assessments that address cultural excellence and a comprehensive approach to the interrelated health, learning and economic needs of African people.

9. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims, and the UNESCO World Education 2000 Report, issued in Dakar, Senegal, affirms that “education is a fundamental human right” and “an indispensable means for effective participation in the societies and economies of the twenty-first century.” We are morally obligated to “create safe, healthy, inclusive and equitably resourced educational environments” conducive to excellence in learning and socialization with clearly defined levels of achievement for all. Such learning environments must include appropriate curricula and teachers who are appropriately educated and rewarded.

10. African people are not empty vessels. We are not new to the study of and practice of education and socialization that is rooted in deep thought. We will not accept a dependent status in the approach and solution to our problems...

Click to Read More, Purchase the Book and See the Video Documentary

www.myspace.com/rbgstreetscholar

Re-Education /Re-Afrikanization Vol. 1

"White Architects of Black Education and Correction"

Emotional Productions — RBG
Nas- Black Zombi
KRS One You Must Learn
Malcolm X - You Can't Hate the Roots Of A Tree and Not Hate That Tree
The Unknown Brother-What they Never Told You In History Class
We've Only Just Begun-Curtis Mayfield

1. FreeMix Radio — White Architects of Black Education 1
2. FreeMix Radio — White Architects of Black Education 2

The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America, 1865-1954

This study is a historical and cultural examination of the political and ideological tenets used in the 19th and 20th centuries to defeat the broader educational purposes of the "architects of black education." Because formal education was viewed by most black leaders as one of the main avenues toward permanent liberation, Watkins demonstrates how white leaders who sought to maintain a "caste-like" segregated educational system in the US systematically undermined black leaders' vision. The author suggests that the present educational system continues to keep African Americans in a subservient and unequal state. This work is recommended for students of educational policy and multicultural education and those interested in a broader analysis of race and culture in America. Upper-division undergraduates and above. L. B. Gallien, Spelman College

Black Protest Thought and Education and more, A PTR Interview with Dr. William H. Watkins

Black Protest Thought and Education [ buy this book from amazon.com ] William H. Watkins' "Black Protest Thought and Education," represents a much needed look at the reform and revolutionary efforts within the African Diaspora to teach oppressed people to challenge the social, economic and political system containing an array of obstacles preventing the ruled from challenging their rulers. While... Read Full Story

African Culture and the Ongoing Quest for Excellence
Dialog, Principles, Practice

by Maulana Karenga, Ph.D.

The nearing of the next millennium unavoidably evokes concerns and calls for a critical assessment of where we are and to what tasks we should direct our attention and efforts in our ongoing quest for a free and empowered community, a just and good society and a better world. In our assessment we are of necessity directed toward the continuing struggle to free ourselves both socially and culturally. In fact, the two struggles are unbreakably linked. For to free ourselves socially, we must build a consciousness, cohesion and sense of specialness in community only culture can give. But to bring forth the best of our culture, we must struggle to clear social space for its recovery, reception and development. It is in this context that our organization Us (Us, African people) argued in the Sixties and continues to argue that the key challenge in Black life is the cultural challenge. And this challenge is essential to break beyond the boundaries of the culture of the established order, recover, discover and bring forth the best of our own culture, and effectively address the fundamental questions of our world and our times.

The task, as Us perceived it then and contends now, is to forge and embrace a culture that both prepares the people for the struggle and sustains them in the process of the struggle for a world of human freedom and human flourishing. This meant then and continues to mean selecting and stressing elements of Black culture that represent the best of African and human values, values which protect and promote human life, human freedom and maximum human development. It means also recreating liberation-supporti ve values, views and practices which were lost, damaged or transformed in the midst of oppression and creating new ways of seeing and approaching the world that reinforce and raise up the people, support and sustain the struggle, and point toward the new world we struggle to bring into being. Key to this process of cultural construction and reconstruction is the ongoing dialog with African culture. Kawaida, the philosophy of Us organization, defines this dialog as the constant practice of asking questions and seeking answers from African culture to the fundamental and enduring concerns of the African and human community. At the heart of this project is the continuing quest to free ourselves, live full and meaningful lives and become the best of what it means to be both African and human in the fullest sense of the words. Moreover, it involves an ongoing search for models of excellence and possibilities within our culture by which we speak our own special cultural truth to the world and make our own unique contribution to the forward flow of human history. To truly dialog with African culture means, first of all, using it as a resource rather than as a mere reference. This is the meaning of posing questions and seeking answers within African culture concerning central issues of life and the world. To simply use African culture as a reference is to name things considered important, but never to use it to answer questions, solve problems, or extract and shape paradigms of excellence and possibility in thought and practice. To dialog with African culture, then, is to constantly engage its texts, i.e., its oral, written, and living-practice texts, its paradigms, its worldview and values, its understanding of itself and the world, in an ongoing search for ever better answers to the fundamental questions and challenges of our time. We must always recognize and respect the fact that our culture comes with its own special way of being human in the world and that this particular African way of being human in the world provides a pathway to the universal. For it represents African peoples' way of engaging the fundamental concerns of humankind. Furthermore, our culture has evolved in the longest of histories and thus has amassed a rich and varied array of ancient and modern knowledge, understanding, and wisdom concerning the world. Ours is a history of struggle, creativity, achievement, and constant concern for the right, the just, and the good. It is a history of ancient wonder and achievement in the Nile Valley, awesome tragedy and destruction in the Holocaust of Enslavement, and impressive triumph in our constant struggle against overwhelming societal odds against us in modern times. And ours is a history of an ongoing commitment to raise up the good even in the midst of the most horrific evil and to pursue the possible in spite of the catechism of impossibilities repeatedly offered us.

Seven Core Areas Of Culture

It is within the context of this rich and most ancient of histories and cultures that we must constantly search for and bring forth the best of what it means to be African and pose new paradigms of human excellence and possibility. This ongoing search for solutions and models of human excellence and possibilities must occur, Kawaida contends, in every area of human life but especially in the seven core areas of culture: history; religion (spirituality and ethics); social organization; economic organization; political organization; creative production (art, music, literature, dance, etc.) and ethos, the collective self-consciousness achieved as a result of activity in the other six areas.

History
In the area of history, Us maintains, we must study history to learn its lessons, absorb its spirit of possibility, extract and emulate its models of excellence and possibility and honor the moral obligation to remember. We must measure ourselves in the mirror of the best of our history and constantly ask ourselves how can we use the past as a foundation to inform, expand and enrich our present and future. We must always be conscious of our identity as the fathers and mothers of humanity and human civilization in the Nile Valley, the sons and daughters of the Holocaust of Enslavement and the authors and heirs of the Reaffirmation of our Africanness and social justice tradition in the Sixties. Surely this is a challenge for intellectual, social and moral excellence, active opposition to all forms of enslavement, and an enduring commitment to cultural rootedness, justice, and good in the world.

Religion (Spirituality and Ethics)
In the area of religion (spirituality and ethics), our culture has the most ancient of ethical traditions, the oldest ethical, spiritual and social justice texts. We introduced the concept of human dignity and the divine image of the human person as early as 2140 BCE (before the common era) in the Sacred Husia, in the Book of Kheti. We are the ones who spoke to the world in the earliest of times saying, "speak truth, do justice, care for the vulnerable, give food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked and a boat to those without one, care for the ill, be a staff of support for those of old age, a father to the orphan, a mother to the timid, a raft for the drowning and a ladder for those trapped in the pit of despair, honor the elders and ancestors, cherish and challenge the children, maintain a right relation with the environment and always raise up the good and pursue the possible." This is a tradition we must neither ignore nor abandon.

Social Organization
Our social organization must be constantly concerned with values and practice that affirm and strengthen family, community, and culture. Certainly, the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles of Kawaida, which under gird Kwanzaa, independent schools and rights of passage, family maintenance, school retention and numerous other community development and action programs are key to this.

They are:
Umoja (Unity);
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination );
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) ;
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics);
Nia (Purpose); Kuumba (Creativity) ; and
Imani (Faith).

It is within this framework of communitarian values that we build a peaceful and harmonious togetherness; respect our special way of being human in the world; build together in responsibility the relationships, family, community, society and world we want to live in; share work and wealth; accept the collective vocation of struggle for freedom, justice, peace and human flourishing in the world; constantly repair and restore the world, making it ever more beautiful and beneficial and maintain our faith in the right and the good by working and struggling to define, defend, and develop them in the world.

Economic Organization
In the area of economics, our culture teaches us the principle of Ujamaa which in its most expansive sense means shared work and wealth rooted in a profound sense of kinship with other humans and the environment. It teaches us to be constantly concerned in our economic practice with the dignity of the human person, with the well-being of family and community, the integrity of the environment, and especially with the vulnerable among us: the poor, the ill, the aged, the captive, the disabled, the refugee and the stranger. For ours is a consciousness born not only of ancient ethical teaching but also of the historical experience of the vulnerability of the "motherless child, a long ways from home" as expressed in our sacred songs.

Political Organization
Our culture teaches us to view politics as a collective vocation to create a just and good society and advance human good in the world. It calls us to honor our most ancient social justice tradition that, as I noted in the Million Man March /Day of Absence Mission Statement, "requires respect for the dignity and rights of the human person, economic justice, meaningful political participation, shared power, cultural integrity, mutual respect for all peoples, and an uncompromising resistance to social forces and structures which deny or limit these."

Creative Production
The best of African culture insists that our creative production or art not only be technically sound but also socially purposeful and responsible. It is at its best functional, collective and committing. To be functional is to self-consciously have and urge social purpose, to inform, instruct and inspire the people and be an aesthetic translation of our will and struggle for liberation and ever higher levels of life. It also means searching for and creating new forms and styles to speak our truth and possibilities. To be collective, Black art must be done for all, drawn and synthesized from all, and rooted in a life-based language and imagery rich in everyday relevance. It must be understandable without being vulgarly simplistic, i.e., so pedestrian and impoverished that it damages art as a discipline and the social message it attempts to advance. And it must celebrate not only the transcendent and awesome but also the ordinary, teaching the beauty and sacredness of everyday people and their struggles to live full, decent, and meaningful lives. Finally, Black art must be committing, i.e., not simply inform and inspire Blacks, but also commit them to the historical project of liberation and a higher level of human life. To do this, it must demand and urge willing and conscious involvement in struggle and building of a new world and new men, women and children to inhabit it. And it must move beyond protest and teach possibilities, beyond victimization and teach Blacks to dare victory. The best of the Black aesthetic teaches that art, then, must commit us to what we can become and are becoming and inspire us to dare the positive in a world often defined and deformed by the negative.

Ethos
Finally, our culture provides us with an ethos we must honor in both thought and practice. By ethos, we mean a people's self-understanding as well as its self-presentation in the world through its thought and practice in the other six areas of culture. This cultural self-understanding and self-presentation are best summed up in the conclusion I posed in the MMM/DOA Mission Statement. The challenge I posed there is the one I pose here as we move forward toward the next millennium. It is above all a cultural challenge. For culture is here defined as the totality of thought and practice by which a people creates itself, celebrates, sustains and develops itself and introduces itself to history and humanity. And so the challenge of our culture is to come to the tasks before us, "bringing the most central views and values of our faith communities, our deepest commitments to our social justice tradition and the struggle it requires, the most instructive lessons of our history, and a profoundly urgent sense of the need for positive and productive action. In standing up and assuming responsibility in a new, renewed and expanded sense, we honor our ancestors, enrich our lives and give promise to our descendants. Moreover, through this historic work and struggle we strive to always know and introduce ourselves to history and humanity as a people who are spiritually and ethically grounded; who speak truth, do justice, respect our ancestors and elders, cherish, support and challenge our children, care for the vulnerable, relate rightfully to the environment, struggle for what is right and resist what is wrong, honor our past, willingly engage our present and self-consciously plan for and welcome our future.

---

DR. MAULANA KARENGA is chairman of The Organization Us and The National Association of Kawaida Organizations. He is also professor and chair of the Department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach; Dr. Karenga is also the creator of Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba and author of numerous scholarly articles and books including, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, Kawaida Theory: A Communitarian African Philosophy; and Selections From The Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt. Moreover, he was a member of the Executive Council of the Million Man March/Day of Absence and author of the MMM/DOA Mission Statement.

Afrikan centered Mythology, Religion and Spirituality

31 December 2008
Greetings Family,
How goes it? Today is the birthday of Dr. Ben. That is what we call Yosef Alfredo Antonio ben-Jochannan. He was born on 31 December in either 1917 or 1918. I have been given both dates and I am inclined to the latter. That would make him ninety today.

I first became familiar with his work I think in the late 1970s through his book Black Man of the Nile. He was already a legend. I first saw him speak I believe around 1980 and began to travel to Egypt with him in either 1991 or 1992. That was my first trip to Africa and I went as an assistant to Dr. Ben.

Altogether I visited Egypt four times with him, the last time being in 1997. Three of those tours I was a group leader for him and and once an assistant group leader. That meant that I was able to spend really quality time with him. On each of these tours I was able to show off by giving a lecture. These were my first lectures in Africa. So, after a kind of rocky beginning, we developed a very good relationship and some of my most treasured memories in Africa are with this almost larger than life figure.

I can't count the lectures and conferences where I saw Dr. Ben and the times that we had lunch or dinner and just hung out and palled around. I always thought that it was an honor to be in his company. He was most always a real fountain of knowledge and a great inspiration. And all of these many interactions, whether they've been on tours, at conferences, at lectures, and in private sessions in Africa and the United States, have allowed me to see the human side of the man, and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. I hold him in the highest regard and believe that he stands along with J.A. Rogers and Carter G. Woodson in the popularization of African history and especially Nile Valley history.

Today Dr. Ben is in a nursing home in the Bronx, New York. I hope that the situation is temporary. An esteemed Elder and long time friend of Dr. Ben is about to give me an exact report on the situation within a couple of days and then we can act on it.

If you want to know more about Dr. Ben you can just put his name in an Internet search engine and a lot of things will come up. Better yet, buy one of his books. He has quite a few, the best of which are published by Paul Coates at Black Classic Press based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Dr. Ben has been a real treasure to me and to a lot of us; I mean a real legend, and I wish him many, many more earth days. Below is a recollection of one my of trips to Egypt with him and a brief note that he gave me after reviewing an essay that I dedicated to him. All of it brings back a lot of memories.

In love of Africa,

From Runoko Rashidi Okello

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html

Dr. Ben On The Afrikan Origins of Civilization and Christianity

From this school's Black History 24/7/365 Zine:
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE BLACK RACE, Featuring Dr. Barashango, Dr. Ben, Dr. Clarke and Aswi Kwasi

POST SCRIPT

"Extracts from our community discussion"

QueenPearl9 said...

Dear RBG Street Scholar, your agreement with the observations of a white man who described black people are selfish, ignorant, and greedy merits serious contemplation as all of humanity is guilty of these faults. What we should all be asking is why are these very human characteristics be such an impediment to progress when it comes to Black people. Greed, ignorance, and selfishness has not served as an impediment for anyone else.
I no longer use such statements as "black on black" crime because a general observation of crime in general will reveal that there is "white on white" crime, "Latino on Latino crime", "Asian on Asian crime" etc. Although our society is diverse, it is still very much polarized and people live and associate with members of their own group for the most part. the statistics on murder committed in the usa reveal that most people know the person who killed them.
if we are slaves because of our human characteristics of greed, selfishness, and ignorance are we saying that other groups of people are exempt from such characteristics? are we saying that they are morally stronger than us? black people are suffering from slavery of yesteryear and from "Jim crow" of yesteryear which has obviously had a traumatizing affect. It is important to always remember that slavery and Jim Crow were enforced through law and thus, our oppression was legal, something that many people forget when these topics are being addressed.
black men are only group of men who dare not run down the street for any reason because of fear of apprehension from the police whether he has a criminal record or not, whether he committed a crime or not. are black men the only men committing crime in America?
we kill ourselves everyday by internalizing that we are somehow inferior, by thinking that only we suffer from social ills. I would love to see how other groups would fare if they went through the trials and tribulations of the African American.

RBGStreetScholar said...

Hi QueenPearl9, thank you for the intelligent and passionate comment...and most of all thank you for the respectful tone you bring with your different views.

Despite the wealth of solid information presented within this page / course alone, I am nonetheless not surprised that you would not agree. But if you are a true seeker of truth..read the full page and follow some links before your take your final position on this most important topic-"THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES".

The long answer as to why I / we hold the position that we (Afrikans in Amerikkka) are still slaves is articulated in the body of the communiversity's content quite well I think ...Ones cumulative overstanding of content once they spend some quality time with it. ...For those who choice to pick one lil thing out of the larger picture and formulate an ill informed position, here's the short version of my / our reasoning:
The idea that we are still slaves is not merely my observation, it is a well documented fact, researched , written about and struggled against by many more learned then I for the past 150 years ( post emancipation proclamation). All one needs to do is look at the data / indices of "well being" during chattel slavery times and compare that data to our condition as a group today. All qualifiers included, the masses of our people are even worst off today then during those times:

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank "State of Black America"

Its just that your "education" dose not view these things as of primary importance, RBG does.
That is what much of what we do here ( look at problems & offer solutions). But people see what they want to see and read what they want to read, more frequently the not, with a total disregard for all facts. Everything I put on the more than 20 websites / 5,000 learning objects-media assets is well documented by the most respected and scholarly sources (Afrikan scholars, educators, psychologist, historians, sociologist, personologist, elders, ancestors etc...are our professors).
Fact, selfish, ignorant, and greedy are not Afrikan peoples original way.You can't explain away how these things keep us enslaved by saying "other people manifest them also", because every other people has a history the is quite different from ours.
In order to come up with the correct perspective you have to put what a people does in proper historical context.
No one else has our history...
DeAfrikanized culturally ie, we lost our land, language, religion, God, folkways, mores and power of our own being.
DeHumanized in the eyes of the rest of the world as to justify the slavery, rape and murder.
Inferiortized in our own mind and spirit to hate our self.
These things took place systematically over the course of hundreds of years...And you dare say that we should be bunched in with others who have these flaws--WRONG.

Please see and read:
THE OFFICIAL AND ONLY STATEMENT, "I speak for no one, EXCEPT"

If you study the school closely you will find that selfish, ignorant, and greedy are the ways of a European conceptual framework, ie white supremacy. There is no separation between the past, present and future--based on our history we can't afford to do what others do, epically our former slavemaster.

Let's look at an illustration:
Afrikan & Traditional Afrikan American Family Worldview / Definitional System / Conceptual Framework vs The European's:
>we, ours, us--not I, me, mines
>cooperative--not competitive
>groupness--not oneness
>collective--individualistic
>spiritual-not material
>man & women were a complimentary dualism--not man vs women
>man in harmony with nature--not man vs nature
>peace and harmony--not greed and violence...and I can go on and on.

The main take home point here QueenPearl9 is we are other than our self / controlled by another's way--that's a slave sista and the primary cause of 99.9% of current inter-group problems.

For example, if you look at the characteristics to the right in the above illustration you don't know if I'm talking about the dope game on the corner or corporate america--because the dope game as it is played out in every ghetto/ barrio is merely a microcosm of the corporate American ethos.

Finally, on a most fundamental level, any people who don't provide food, clothing, shelter, energy, education protection and recreation (to name a few) for themselves are slaves to those who provide those things to them. Just look at all that I present in this school. Ask yourself, are the things RBG Street Scholar presents important for Black people to think about ? Once you answer yes, ask yourself this, are they taught in such a comprehensive manner in K-12, college, graduate school?--hell no. Why

BECAUSE WE ARE STILL SLAVES and slaves must stay ignorant of self. In other words its still against the rules for us to educate ourselves. Its still against the rules for us to defend, define and development in our own image and interest. An the main culprits today in this self-alienation process is us; because of the brainwashing of white supremacy/racism (socio-structural, institutional and interpersonal)...I mean, it use to be against the white man's law and rule for us to read and many were lashed and kill for trying to do so; but today you have to lash us to make us read. This is called intropression: When the opressed are subject to oppression as long as us we internalize the oppressor and thus do to ourselves what the oppressor once did..THAT IS A SLAVE.

Do myself and yourself a favor and take the time to read the Willie Lynch Letter above with close attention. Its saying the same thing.
Again, thank you for your comment.

Hope this helps sista, it certainly will help others.