Black Connections (Bconx)

The Mistake: Open Gods of Afrikan Leaders

2012-01-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

"The mistake our ancestors made, and which Africanleaders continue to make unto this day is that: non- European people,especially Africans and the Indigenous Americans in the Caribbean Islandsreferred to as 'Indians' initially attributed to the Europeans a humanity andspirituality that they did not have, and still do not have in theirrelationship with most of non-European people of the world. This brings us to aconclusion that might be difficult for a lot of people to accept. Maybe theworld outside of Europe didn't need the Europeansin the first place. Maybe in this fakery about spreading civilization hedestroyed more civilizations than he ever built and did the world more harmthan good."
~Dr. John Henrik Clarke

See especially minute 1:03 "Sacrifices which have been of no use." AWO.

Can ANYONE name a single leader of one of Africa's 54 recognized nation states who publicly has given thanks (or even mentioned/recognized) to an Afrikan deity (with an Afrikan name)? AWO.

Happy Born Day MLK (King on Jerusalem Slim)

2012-01-15T20:40:00.000-05:00

"We have the power to make the church that institution
that even the young people who feel temporarily separated from
and even get them to have a new loyalty
because they'll know that we're on the battle line for them.

And they'll come to see
that jesus christ was not a white man.
...christianity is not just a western religion.
We can make the church recapture it's authentic reign,
we have the power
to change America
and give a kind of new vitality
to the religion of jesus christ."

(don't be afraid...you and i were meant to die).

King On Ybp

Keep It On The (Download)

& one mo'gin (repost): http://bconx.blogspot.com/2010/03/teach-negro-child-60-ways-to-despise.html

haven't left ANYTHING?

2012-01-15T09:46:00.000-05:00

“You say, ‘I haven’t left anything in Africa.’ …you left your mind in Africa!”
~Malcolm X

Brave or Stupid or Social?

2012-01-10T13:04:00.000-05:00

From Sociological Images blog:

"Yes, it’s a beer commercial, not a documentary, not “reality.” But the couples are real and unscripted – like the victims in a “Candid Camera” bit (or the subjects in some social psychology experiments). Real and unscripted too is our reaction as viewers. I don’t know about you, but after the ad was over, I realized that I had shared something of the couples’ anxiety at being different and hence excluded. The bikers are neutral, maybe they are even silently hostile, so when they suddenly became accepting, my sense of relief was palpable. I laughed out loud.

So sociological point one is that we are social animals. Excluded we feel fear, accepted and included we feel comfort. Point two is that laughter is social. Here (and in many other situations) it’s a kind of tension-meter. The ad had no joke that I was laughing at. It was just a release from tension. No tension, no laughter.

The ad also illustrates “definition of the situation.” The rigged set-up shatters the couples’ standard definition of going to the movies. They are anxious not just because they are different but because they nave no workable definition and therefore no clear sense of what to do.

Finally, the ad raises the issue of stereotypes. Stereotypes may actually have some general statistical accuracy. The trouble is that the stereotype converts a statistical tendency to absolute certainty. We react as though we expect all members of the stereotype to be that way all the time or most of the time. Is it reasonable when you see 148 bikers to be fearful even to the point of leaving (I think some of the couples didn’t take the available seats)? You don’t need to have read Hunter S. Thompson to know there is some truth in the image of bikers as above the mean on violence. But in a theater where you find them quietly awaiting the movie?

What other sociological ideas does the ad suggest?"

- - - - - -

Did you see that brother lead the sister (his date) in to the row of chairs? (smile). That negro is either REALLY brave or REALLY stupid.

Got My Mind Made Up (Uh huh, C'mon).

2012-01-09T13:19:00.002-05:00

"The Mr. Meth-Tical from Staten Isle
We'll be back after this message don't touch that dial
Rarely do you see an mc out for justice
Got my guunnnn.. powder and my musket -BLAOW.
..... get swellings, I paint mental pictures like Magellen
Half of my Clan's repeat felons
Niggas best protect they joint the nine-nickel
Man I stay on point like icicles
Now who wanna test Tical then touch Tical
All up in your muhHuhHuhhuh mouth."
~Method Man

"...Confidence for you shaky-ass folks."
~Redman

Still Here

2012-01-09T07:14:00.002-05:00

Still Here

I've been scarred and battered.

My hopes the wind done scattered.

Snow has friz me, sun has baked me.

Looks like between 'em

They done tried to make me

Stop laughing, stop loving, stop living-

But I don't care!

I'm still here!

~Langston Hughes

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click pictures for hi-rez)

2012-01-08T00:53:00.001-05:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click pic for hi-rez)

2011-12-30T12:39:00.001-05:00

If you want to know

2011-12-30T12:32:00.003-05:00

If you want to know who I am
I am daughter of Angola, of Keto and Nago
I don't fear blows because I am a warrior
Inside of samba I was born
I raised myself, I transformed myself, and
no one will lower my banner, O, O , O,
I am a warrior woman daughter of Ogun and Yansa
-Clara Nunes

America Passage

2011-12-14T18:19:00.003-05:00

Middle Passage

Shuttles in the rocking loom of history

The dark ships move, the dark ships move,

Their bright ironical names

Like jests of kindness on a murderer's mouth . . .

Weave toward New World littorals that are m

Mirage and myth and actual shore.

Voyage through death,

Voyage whose chartings are unlove.

A charnel stench, effluvium of living death

Spreads outward from the hold,

Where the living and the dead, the horribly dying,

Lie interlocked, lie foul with blood and excrement...

But, oh, the living look at you

With human eyes whose suffering accuses you,

Whose hatred reaches through the swill of dark

To strike you like a leper's claw.

You cannot stare that hatred down

Or chain the fear that stalks the watches

And breathes on you its fetid scorching breath;

Cannot kill the deep immortal human wish,

The timeless will.

~Robert Hayden

Pictures Speak 172k Words (click image for hi-rez)

2011-12-14T17:44:00.002-05:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click pic for hi-rez)

2011-11-14T21:11:00.001-05:00

SeariUS

2011-10-24T12:54:00.001-04:00

Who are thesemen? Why are they so serious? (the essential reason not superficial reason)?

Can we men today, be as serious about anything asthey?

What?

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez images)

2011-10-19T18:51:00.003-04:00

Haley's Ancestral Environment, Virginia & Modern Chaos Design

2011-10-13T13:51:00.003-04:00

CAPTURE

"In 1976, the African-American writer Alex Haley traced the story of his black family in the popular book Roots. He discovered that his "furthest-back-person" in america was Kunta Kinte, a Gambian who had been brought in chains from West Africa to Annapolis, Maryland, in the 1760s aboard the English slave ship Lord Ligonier. Haley (who also wrote the powerful Autobiography of Malcolm X) was fortunate in knowing the name of his first American forebear and in being able to locate the exact ship on which he arrived. But the facts themselves are remarkably typical. On average, the furthest- back New World ancestor for any African American today would have reached these shores shortly before the American Revolution, just as Kunta Kinte did. (By comparison, the largest migrations of Europeans and asians to the United states began in the late 19th century and grew larger in the twentieth century. So the average white resident of the United States has a far shorter American ancestry, as does the average Asian-American citizen)."

~To Make Our World Anew, by Robin D.G. Kelley, Earl Lewis

Ise MASSA'S FIDDLA

At minute 3:55 Fiddler tells sets about convincing an Afrikan that he is a nigger. “Yo name is Toby!” But Kunta (intact yut) stands up and prioritizes his real name.

Sound Familiar?

2011-10-13T13:01:00.002-04:00

(Warning language...see lyrics especially from minute 1:50):

“I’m thinkin’ bout takin’ my own life. SUICIDE

I might as well.

‘Cept they might not sell weed in Hell.

And that’s where I’m goin’

cuz the devil is inside of me.

They make me rob from my own nationality.

Thats kinda ignorant but yo,

I gotta pay the rent.

So yeah…I’ll stick a nigga most definite. (hmm). HOMICIDE

The degenerate,

if I get caught I’m innocent,

Cuz I don’t leave no sticky finga prints

for the cops, they only good if they dead.

All that badge and that gun ish be goin’ to they head. (word).

To make bread I gotta steal the sports.

So I stole the show and raised some pennies from my thoughts.

And if this f’n rap ish don’t pay,

Imma start selling drugs around my way. (mmm…)

Killin’ my own people in the USG, GENOCIDE

Stick’ gon get it from somebody, I’d rather it be me. (right)

Besides, they can’t tax dirty money,

And you can’t trust nobody, no one; I’m the scorpion, CHAOS

And I’ll probably bite the bullet ‘cause I live by the gun.

(WhUAA!!)”

~Sticky Fingaz of Onyx, 2nd Album; song: Last Dayz (1992), from South Suicide Queens

United States Ghetto, sample Eldress: Aretha Franklin: “listen to the melody”

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

...more to come.

Real Americans vs. Wannabees

2011-10-13T12:02:00.001-04:00

During Barak Obama's Presidential Campaign:

"What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. AndI have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and justnot feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud."

~Michelle Obama

Do you remember "Real" America's response to her saying this?

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-10-05T16:59:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click image for hi-rez)

2011-09-05T08:35:00.003-04:00

Euroversal

2011-09-04T22:57:00.001-04:00

We must always think about things

& we must think about things as they are,

not as they are said to be.

Cripple them.

2011-09-04T22:48:00.002-04:00

"We blind our children....Blind them to their potential, the human potential.
Cripple them, dispirit them. Cripples make good clients, wards, beggars,
victims."
~Toni Cade Bambara, Broken Field Running

Everywhere

2011-09-04T22:40:00.000-04:00

"The battlefield is everywhere."
~Baba Paul Robeson

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

2011-09-01T08:22:00.002-04:00

"Let the blare of Negro Jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals until they listen and perhaps understand. Let Paul Robeson singing "Water Boy" and Rudolph Fisher writing about the streets of Harlem, and Jean Toomer holding the heart of Georgia in his hands, and Aaron Douglas drawing strange black fantasies cause the smug Negro middle class to turn from their white, respectable, ordinary books and papers to catch a glimmer of their own beauty. We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

~Langston Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

Shade -wibby Black Congo-oh.

2011-09-01T08:12:00.000-04:00

"Is there a place to rest in your shade?
I want to rush toward you -- but a heavy debt lies in the way and turns meback.
I talk to myself about you, for I cannot return to you and sadness has made ahome in my heart."

~Yahya bin Talib al-Hanafi

2011-09-01T08:06:00.001-04:00

"...thequestion of the universal validity of European forms must not be confused withthe successful expansionism of European culture.”

~Marimba Ani, Yurugu

Justice ness

2011-09-01T08:03:00.003-04:00

"...blind goddess to which we black are wise, / Her bandage hides two festering sores / That once, perhaps, were eyes"
~Langston Hughes, from Justice

More Hosea Easton, 1837 Afrikan Fya*

2011-08-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

"I repeat, that emancipation embraces the idea that the eman- cipated must be placed back where slavery found them, and restore to them all that slavery has taken away from them. Merely to cease beating the colored people, and leave them in their gore, and call it emancipation, is nonsense. Nothing short of an entire reversal of the slave system in theory and practice — in general and in particular — will ever accomplish the work of redeeming the colored people of this country from their present condition. Let the country, then, no longer act the part of the thief. Let the free states no longer act the part of them who passed by on the other side, and leaving the colored people half dead, especially when they were beaten by their own hands, and so call it emancipation — raising a wonderment why the half dead people do not heal themselves."

~Hosea Easton, Treatise on the Intellectual Character, and the Civil and Political

Condition of the Colored People of the United States, 1837, Boston.

*Fya from way back ova deah. Beloved predated David Walker Fya 2 years (boston yuts dem cohm wit dit -awo)

Written in 1837 (Awo) by a black wampanoag narragansett N8V Afrikan

2011-08-15T22:21:00.006-04:00

"I have no language wherewith to give slavery, and its auxil- 

iaries, an adequate description, as an efficient cause of the mis- 

eries it is capable of producing. It seems to possess a kind of 

omnipresence. It follows its victims in every avenue of life. 



The principle assumes still another feature equally destruc- 

tive. It makes the colored people subserve almost every foul 

purpose imaginable. Negro or nigger, is an approbrious term, 

employed to impose contempt upon them as an inferior race, 

and also to express their deformity of person. Nigger lips, 

nigger shins, and nigger heels, are phrases universally common 

among the juvenile class of society, and full well understood by 

them ; they are early learned to think of these expressions, as 

they are intended to apply to colored people, and as being ex- 

pressive or descriptive of the odious qualities of their mind and 

body. These impressions received by the young, grow with 

their growth, and strengthen with their strength. The term in 

itself, would be perfectly harmless, were it used only to distin- 

guish one class of society from another ; but it is not used with 

that intent ; the practical definition is quite different in England 

to what it is here, for here, it flows from the fountain of purpose 

to injure. It is this baneful seed which is sown in the tender soil of

youthful minds, and there cultivated by the hand of a corrupt immoral policy."

~Hosea Easton, A TREATISE ON THE INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER, AND CIVIL AND

POLITICAL CONDITION of the COLORED PEOPLE OF THE U. STATES; AND THE

PREJUDICE EXERCISED TOWARDS THEM, 1837

http://www.archive.org/stream/treatiseonintell00east/treatiseonintell00east_djvu.txt

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-08-12T00:26:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-07-26T20:07:00.000-04:00

The World Breaks Everyone

2011-05-27T16:18:00.001-04:00

“The world breaks

everyone and afterward

many are strong at the broken places.

But those that will not break

it kills. It kills the very

good and the very

gentle and the very

brave impartially. If you

are none of these you

can be sure that it will

kill you too, but there

will be no special

hurry.”

~Ernest Hemingway (?)

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-05-27T16:08:00.000-04:00

Seen?

2011-05-03T17:07:00.001-04:00

Have you seen?

Have you seen the new ones?

ReIdren.

Black folks that as CLR James said

"we have never seen [before]

with so much concern

with so much less complaint

with so much more decision to solve their problems.

It dem.

Dey ah go build

we independent black organizations.

Mi Na g'Tiyad Fi Babylon

2011-04-16T13:45:00.000-04:00

Je suis un diplômé de la grande université de la Parole enseignée à l’ombre des baobabs. — "I graduated from the great university of the Spoken Word taught in the shade of baobab trees."

~Amadou Hampate Ba

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-04-15T17:20:00.000-04:00

Busy Ants

2011-04-15T17:08:00.000-04:00

"With patience, you can see the navel of an ant."
~Haitian (Afrikan) proverb

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-04-09T12:35:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-03-24T13:38:00.000-04:00

Skin Bleach - Old Form of Impossibility

2011-03-21T22:36:00.000-04:00

"It is the myth of scientific objectivity that allows Europeans to speak for all of us."
~Marimba Ani, Yurugu

Terms & Conditions Apply

2011-03-15T23:26:00.001-04:00

“Blacks faced a neo-slave system when the Civil War ended. Cotton still had to be picked, tobacco fields needed to be tended, and menial labor was required for the industries of the New South. It has been documented that share cropping, debt peonage, and convict lease were means used to resubjugate black labor and that the South sought through jim crow, night riders, and lynch law to nullify the civil and political rights guaranteed to blacks under the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. But another tool was also used against blacks: industrial education.”

~Donald Spivey, Schooling for the New Slavery

Our Age of Reason

2011-02-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

Our Age of Reason

Of hotel-states

And bee-keepers;

Of Apache helicopters

And hired zoo keepers;

Of vendors

And street sweepers;

Of farmers

And hot cocoa drinkers;

Of Tweets

And myth-weavers;

The scent of jasmine

Yet Mamelukes still linger.

~Kangsen Feka Wakai

Sometimes, Feel Happy.

2011-02-19T09:59:00.002-05:00

...probably a language difference, a pro-mis-translation, made this moment (smile).

Happy Black Love Day

2011-02-13T19:26:00.001-05:00

ini heart pa'da Black Womanmanfamilyracecommunityspirit&Uself (smile).

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2011-02-10T22:36:00.000-05:00

"The Mad No Money Person"

2011-02-09T20:13:00.001-05:00

“The normal people don’t have money.”

(that is her opening….where she starts).

“...the president have a lot of money”

“They just have to work and no money.”
(notice the sentence structure...magnificent order).

“The no money person is mad at the president”

“And The president throw rocks and sticks”

“But the mad no money person [pause] the normal person is sticking his head with a cushion and protecting their body with a shield.”
(nina has normalized something that makes her CIVIL...a part of civilization; rare in this day and time. AWO.)

[ What do you think is going to happen? ]

“I don’t know.”

Bob Marley na cud chant down babylon with more efficiency than this chicken (smile). I love d'yuts dem (chilren). go on Nina.

American Wanda

2011-01-20T17:55:00.009-05:00

Dem be tell me say
Mek I come see America Wanda.
Taim wey I keep ma foot for New York
I see wandaful ting:
Man pikin yi de chop mop
For ala man pikin!
I de wanda say na which
kain kontry be dis?

Dem be tell me say
Mek I come see America Wanda.
Taim wey I keep ma foot for Chicago
I see wandaful ting:
Woman pikin yi de chop mop
For ala woman pikin!
I de wanda say na which
kain kontry be dis?
~Peter W. Vakunta, Majunga tok

Witness: Education fi 2011

2011-01-03T03:54:00.007-05:00

The Lesson

2010-12-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

The Lesson

I keep on dying again.

Veins collaps, opening like the

Small fists of sleeping

Children.

Memory of old tombs,

flesh Rotting and worms do

Not convince me against

The challenge. The years

And cold defeat live deep in

Lines along my face.

They dull my eyes, yet

I keep on dying,

Because I love to live.

~Maya Angelou

(rest in perfect peace Danroy Henry)

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez pics)

2010-12-08T14:17:00.000-05:00

Cause & Effect

2010-12-05T07:44:00.000-05:00

"We are usually taught:

1) Yt supremacy was the cause > Black inferiority is the effect

But

2) Black inferiority is the cause > white supremacy was the effect."

~Bro. Marcus Klien

Necessary Silence

2010-11-13T10:08:00.000-05:00

"The liberator is he who from a necessary silence, from a necessary secrecy strikes the destroyer. That, not loudness, is the necessary beginning."
~Ayi Kwei Armah, Two Thousand Seasons

Bamileke Saying

2010-11-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

"The thorn will come out from where it went in."
~Bamileke proverb

The Coming of Kali

2010-11-05T16:06:00.000-04:00

the coming of Kali
it is the black God, kali,
a woman God and terrible
with her skulls and breasts.
i am one side of your skin,
she sings, softness is the other,
you know you know me well, she sings,
you know you know me well.

running kali off is hard.
she is persistent with her
black terrible self. she
knows places in my bones
i never sing about but
she knows i know them well.
she knows.
she knows.
~Lucille Clifton

Pictures Speak 172,000 words (click for hi-rez)

2010-11-02T15:07:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-10-29T22:26:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-10-17T14:53:00.001-04:00

Decisions - freedom on earth

2010-10-14T19:40:00.003-04:00

...but never for a moment did she believe that Christianity negated the need for freedom on earth.
Neither did a slave named Prince, now owned by Joseph Barnard, accept this sermon. In September he decided that another sort of freedom was far more desirable. He put his fiddle under his arm, made up a bundle of heavy clothes-an old brown coat, "a double-breasted blue coat with a cape," a brown overcoat with cuffs and a cape, a new jacket and new leather breeches, stockings, and pumps-took up a rifle in his other hand, and tiptoed out of town. Barnard immediately advertised in the Boston Weekly Post-Boy and got him back. After that, Prince decided that the enslaved life was no life at all. The last we hear of him, only about a year and a half later, is when Barnard paid 2pounds for Prince's coffin.
~Mr. & Mrs. Prince, G. Holbrook

Rifles

2010-10-10T06:17:00.002-04:00

(kiotd-download

Wishing i could make you love you enough

to carry you instead of rifles

as if it’s really an equation
you are me we are they
bullet play

I used to think they were the same thing

any means necessary, last day obituary brothers

there’s petty crime on the front lines

and blood in my eyes cause i can’t define the finished line

we post lookout on your shoulders
our strategies in tact

police boast as if it’s all over, but our

strategies in tact . . .[meanwhile] we’re tripping over

trophies posed as terrorist attacks.

~Yvonne Gilmore, Rifles

for maude

2010-10-09T05:10:00.000-04:00

for maude
what i am forgetting doubles everyday
what i am remembering
is you     is us aging
though you called me girl
i can feel us       white haired
nappy and not
listening to marvin
both of us wondering
whats going on        all of us
wondering       oh darlin girl
what   what   what
~Lucille Clifton, Voices

Afrikan Music: Hard Times - Run D.M.C.

2010-10-07T09:33:00.004-04:00

(kiotd-download)

Hard times spreading just like the flu
Watch out homeboy, don't let it catch you
P-p-prices go up, don't let your pocket go down
When you got short money you're stuck on the ground
Turn around, get ready, keep your eye on the prize
And be on point for the future shock

Hard times are coming to your town
So stay alert, don't let them get you down
They tell you times are tough, you hear that times are hard
But when you work for that ace you know you pulled the right card
Hard times got our pockets all in change
I'll tell you what, homeboy, it don't have my brain
All day I have to work at my peak
Beacuse I need that dollar every day of the week

Hard times

Hard times can take you on a natural trip
So keep your balance, and don't you slip
Hard times is nothing new on me
I'm gonna use my strong mentality
Like the cream of the crop, like the crop of the cream
B-b-beating hard times, that is my theme
Hard times in life, hard times in death
I'm gonna keep on fighting to my very last breath.
~Run D.M.C.

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-10-03T22:48:00.001-04:00

Children of Sanchez - Chuck Mangione

2010-09-28T01:20:00.000-04:00

Without dreams of hope and pride a man will die
Though his flesh still moves his heart sleeps in the grave
Without land man never dreams cause he's not free
All men need a place to live with dignity.
Take the crumbs from starving soldiers, They won't die
Lord said not by bread alone does man survive
Take the food from hungry children, they won't cry
Food alone won't ease the hunger in their eyes.

Every child belongs to mankind's family
Children are the fruit of all humanity
Let them feel the love of all the human race
Touch them with the warmth, the strength of that embrace.

Give me love and understanding, I will thrive
As my children grow my dreams come alive
Those who hear the cries of children. God will bless
I will always hear the Children of Sanchez.
~Livicated to one brave & focused (w/socks off)

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-09-26T13:07:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172k Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-09-16T23:24:00.000-04:00

Tasmanian Full-Blood

2010-09-04T11:28:00.001-04:00

Nikka Gulag

2010-09-02T13:28:00.000-04:00

(kiotd-download)

"Obama pretends that there is no such thing as the American prison gulag, a vast penal system that houses one out of every four incarcerated human beings on the planet - half of whom are Black. In sheer numbers, the American prison gulag dwarfs that of every other nation, and its racial composition is irrefutable proof that the American state functions as the principal enforcer of the color bar in U.S. society." (more...Black Agenda Report, Glen Ford).

"We want justice.

That is our only interest.
Don’t waan a jus tifi ca tion,
from the unjust man.
Justtice."
~Justice, Dezarie

Robbed From Innerstand

2010-08-31T22:04:00.000-04:00

"When I see you bending over something rare
Like music, or a painting, or a book,
And see within your eyes that vacant stare
And halfway understand that pleading look;
I cannot help but bitterly detest
The age and men who made you what you are,
Who robbed you of your all -- your ample best --
And left you seeking life across a hateful bar,
And left you vainly searching for a star
Your soul appreciates but cannot understand."
~Margaret Walker Alexander, "Ex-Slave"

Slavery In Deerfield MA 1740s

2010-08-26T12:57:00.000-04:00

"Deerfield presented a picture of slavery that went against so much of what we think we know about American slavery, for we tend to think of northerners as abolitionists rather than as slaveholders who were comfortable in that role."

"...In August 1742, Peter, like so many other slaves who managed to scrape together a bit of money, bought gloves, a snuff box and snuff, and strings of beads. He paid for some of these things by his hunting and trapping, using mink and other furs to get credit at the shops. Prince got store credit in exchange for fox skins and by pawning his violin. Others bought shoe buckles, vest buttons, tobacco and pipes. But they all, slave and free, bought gunpowder and flint and shot both for their own hunting and to defend the town. This would have been unthinkable away from the frontier, and five hundred miles farther south, this kind of slave-armed but not free-was almost unimaginable, but it was still slavery nonetheless, with people condemned to a lifetime of servitude and subject to sale."
~Mr. and Mrs. Prince, Gretchen Holbrook

Is This Fair?

2010-08-16T08:02:00.001-04:00

Is this fair?

   The designer is frowning on Lil Wayne. It is also a condemnation of new music. It’s sarcasm translates in both the photograph and the musical notation.

But more.

   The designer is accusing Lil Wayne and the musical era he is to represent of deviating from a historical path. But that is as problematic as older black folk asking why younger black folk put their jeans off of their asses. But older black folk: you put it there. Way off their asses. You ‘put’ Lil Wayne in Babylon music machine and produced for him his song ‘A Milli’.

   You see, ina Babylon, young people of all backgrounds rebel. They wear ‘bad’ hair, until the time comes. They listen to ‘bad’ music, until the time comes. They do all the “bad” things they can to distinguish themselves from other generations. Until the time comes. What is the ‘until the time comes’? That is a phenomenon that occurs in any industrialized nation with a substantially visible middle-class, when youth put away these ‘rebel’ things and join mainstream and leave adolescence and fight their way into an illusory acceptability, (be it a 9 to 5, child rearing, and so on blah blah blah). So too do black boys rebel and put their pants as far from where they should be, but they often do it past when the ‘normal’ ‘until the time comes’, (but still you will only find it restricted to a specific age group of black men). It is important to note that their decision making is seen and imitated by the rest of the world: yes our youth of black America lead from their underwears.

   So to be full of profanity, oversexed, and super-baggy, among other things, is just not enough of a ‘rebel’ -generates no substantial post-modern difference from their parents (for now). They have to have it hanging off so far that they might as well just wear underwear in the street. Now, many other generations see that and wonder why they don’t just wear underwear in the street. Wear their pajamas in the street (though some do). But dammit…you put it there. You put the jeans off their ass so far by the degree to which you allowed poverty and racism engineering to delay or completely destroy their ‘until the time comes’ mechanism. Which may be a good thing or may be a bad thing. Lil Wayne's slavish dedication to 'A Milli' shows the destruction of something in our youth, that we let happen, no?

So. Is this (image) fair? Let the designer of this political image and 'other generation' black folk answer the question for themselves. idren pause for an answer.

Living in a system - Pagan...Everytime you get pay - paygone

2010-08-15T13:45:00.000-04:00

Oh ---------- Oh Jah I Selassie I
Oh Jah now

Living in a system – Pagan
Everytime you get pay – pay gone
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Everything them do now – a greed
All of them objections to right – agreed
Look high Jah King aye
Look high Jah King aye

Either you slave now I a
Or you will not be provider
Look high Jah King aye
Look high Jah King aye

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Living in a system – Pagan
Everytime you get pay – pay gone
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

What them call them jail guard – sentry
2000 is the end of – century
Look high Jah King aye
Look high Jah King aye

Israel son of Ithipian said – Amos
Chapter 9 and verse 7 is – a must
Look high Jah King aye
Look high Jah King aye

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Living in a system – Pagan
Everytime you get pay – pay gone
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Everything they do now – stranger
Youth a look for mother – stranger
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Living in a system – Pagan
Everytime you get pay – pay gone
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Every Sunday come them gone – altar
Preacher know the truth is what they – alter
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Every little thing they – dissect
Eat bad food and you must die – die sick
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Living in a system – Pagan
Everytime you get pay – pay gone
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Everytime they build a separate – chapter
The body fragment and divide – conquer
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Living in a system – Pagan
Everytime you get pay – pay gone
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey

Now thief is a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey
Look high Jah King, hey
Oh God I man a say

I man a say thief a murderer
Guilty put a lie sense pan his trigger finger
Imposter is a murderer
Bald head with dread locks come replace Rasta

Until an African Leader...

2010-08-15T13:38:00.000-04:00

"Until an African leader publicly acknowledges, honors and prays to an African God, we Africans will continue to be viewed as pathetic imitators of others, never having believed in ourselves. So powerful is the concept of religion when we discuss it in connection with civilization that to deny the validity of one's religion is to deny the validity of one's civilization. Indeed to deny one's religion as valid is to suggest that the person is a pagan, a heathen, uncivilized, and beyond the sphere of humanity. So to talk about religion is to talk about our views of ourselves, our understanding of our ancestors, and our love of culture."
~Molefi K. Asante

iyahTrod ina bby Once aginuh, once agin...

2010-08-15T13:32:00.001-04:00

"Individualism, competition and materialism provide criteria for self-definition as a natural consequence of a world view in which a finite and limited focus orients us towards such disorder that we fight one another to sustain an illusion."
~Linda James Myer

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-08-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-08-12T22:24:00.000-04:00

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-07-29T14:44:00.000-04:00

Two Plus Two or Why Indians Flunk

2010-07-29T13:45:00.000-04:00

All right, class, let's see who knows what two plus two is. Yes,
Doris?
I have a question. Two plus two what?
Two plus two anything.
I don't understand.
Ok, Doris, I'll explain it to you. You have two apples and you get two more.
How many do you have?
Where would I get two more?
From a tree.
Why would I pick two apples if I already have two?
Never mind, you have two apples and someone gives you two more.
Why would someone give me two more, if she could give them to
someone who's hungry?
Doris, it's just an example.
An example of what?
Let's try again-you have two apples and you find two more. Now
how many do you have?
Who lost them?
YOU HAVE TWO PLUS TWO APPLES!!!! HOW MANY DO YOU
HAVE ALL TOGETHER?????
Well, if I ate one, and gave away the other three, I'd have none left, but
I could always get some more if I got hungry from that tree you were
talking about before.
Doris, this is your last chance-you have two, uh, buffalo and you
get two more.
Now how many do you have?
It depends. How many are cows and how many are bulls, and is any
of the cows pregnant?
It's hopeless! You Indians have absolutely no grasp of abstractions!
Huh?
-Beverly Slapin, Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children

Go, Ghost, Go

2010-07-22T19:10:00.004-04:00

Go, Ghost, Go
At this university upon a hill,
I meet a tenured professor
Who's strangely thrilled
To list all of the oppressors --
Past, present, and future -- who have killed.
Are killing and will kill the indigenous.
O, he names the standard suspects --
Rich, white, and unjust --
And I, a red man, think he's correct,
But why does he have to be so humorless?
And how can he, a white man, fondly speak
Of the Ghost Dance, the strange and cruel
Ceremony
That, if performed well, would have doomed
All white men to hell, destroyed their colonies,
And brought back every dead Indian to life?
The professor says, "Brown people
From all brown tribes
Will burn skyscrapers and steeples.
They'll speak Spanish and carry guns and knives.
Sherman, can't you see that immigration
Is the new and improved Ghost Dance?"
All I can do is laugh and laugh
And say, "Damn, you've got some imagination.
You should write a screenplay about this shit --
About some fictional city,
Grown fat and pale and pretty,
That's destroyed by a Chicano apocalypse.
"The professor doesn't speak. He shakes his head
And assaults me with his pity.
I wonder how he can believe
In a ceremony that requires his death.
I think that he thinks he's the new Jesus.
He's eager to get on that cross
And pay the ultimate cost
Because he's addicted to the indigenous.
Sherman Alexie - Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian

The Last Word

2010-07-15T15:48:00.002-04:00

"...jessie (little doe) and her husband, Jason Baird, who also is fluent, are raising their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Mae Alice, entirely in Wampanoag. She is the first native speaker in seven generations. Six or seven other Wampanoag community members also have attained conversational fluency and are working towards total mastery. Some 50 people, from small children to elders, and 6 teachers attended a recent immersion camp at which only Wampanoag was spoken." (more).

Idren met (now 5 year old) Mae Alice earlier this month at the Mashpee Wampanoag 'Wow. Remarkable. Indeed, ini N8V African & N8V American haffi much to teach one a neddy, o?

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-07-11T12:06:00.000-04:00

Wrong Answer

2010-07-11T11:22:00.000-04:00

(kiotd-download

"An Energy In Us"

2010-07-11T11:09:00.001-04:00

"There was a third white destroyer: a missionary who wanted to replace all knowledge of our way with fables even our children laughed at then. We told the white missionary we had such fables too, but kept them for the entertainment of those yet growing up - fables of gods and devils and a supreme being above everything. We told him we knew soft minds needed such illusions, but that when any mind grew among us to adulthood it grew beyond these fables and came to understand that there is indeed a great force in the world, a force spiritual and able to shape the physical universe, but that that force is not something cut off, not something seperate from ourselves. It is an energy in us, strongest in our working, breathing, thinking together as one people; weakest when we are scattered, confused, broken into individual, unconnected fragments."
~Ayi Kwei Armah

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click 4 high rez)

2010-07-01T19:18:00.000-04:00

Play fi unda Pay

2010-07-01T17:50:00.000-04:00

Fela: I was talking to one of my friends today and he said the French government wants me to play at the French cultural centre and they’re going to pay me 45,000 Naira. Do you know that 45,000 is not even up to 500 Dollars, man? Could the French government pay any musician with a 16 piece band in France 500 Dollars? For a whole show? See the whole game, man? And here Africans are rushing for this bread . . . because to us one Naira seems like its equal to one Dollar. Do you know that for a Nigerian to watch my show for 150 Naira then I’ve killed him? Ah ha! You see now. It’s a lot of bread! Yeah this is what is called the Whiteman’s conspiracy—called the devaluation of currency.

Femi: So that westerners can buy our resources cheaper . . .

Fela: Thank you. Then I ask them, I am the one with the oil. They say, no your money is not one Dollar, your money is one eightieth of a Dollar. I say, but my oil has not devalued has it? .You see their f******g cheating man? All the heavy slapping, boxing, kicking, karate, leg kicking . . . My brother anything, they’re just giving it to us here in Africa. They are now telling me that our currency is of low value, but our crude oil is still considered as one of the highest qualities in the world. The validity of the oil remains the same.

Femi: So I mean...

Fela: You see now that’s democrazy.
( ..more ).

Long burn the Iyes, awo.

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-06-17T03:50:00.000-04:00

Good or Bad In What We Do Or Say. Not How We Look...

2010-06-12T09:09:00.000-04:00

"The dark-skinned Yumna said to one whose colour equals the white-ness of the eye, 'Why should your face boast its white complexion? Do you think that by so clear a tint it gains additional merit? Were a mole of my color on that face it would adorn it; but one of your colour on my cheek would disfigure me."
-Abu Ishak Assabi

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-06-03T17:22:00.000-04:00

Vodun Woman (Fon lanugage: Sacred Woman)

2010-06-03T17:09:00.001-04:00

"i'm that Black girl who couldn't understand Nietzsche.

But i never had a problem understanding you are my Jailer, not my Rescuer."
~Marguerite Laurent ( more )

To All Idren Storytellers, Artists & Teachers:

2010-05-23T18:32:00.000-04:00

Stop the death of vibrating curiosity in children…Today.
~ fist tap to Sis. Tonia

Originile House Arkytect, awo

2010-05-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

"Once the slave has his master's education, the slave wants to be like his master, wants to share his master's property, and even wants to exercise the same privileges as his master while he is yet in his master's house."
~Malcolm X, The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard

Pictures Speak 172k Words (click for hi-rez)

2010-05-19T12:50:00.005-04:00

No Mirrors In Nana's House

2010-05-17T10:09:00.001-04:00