Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Babylon System (Tradition), Or The Danger of a Single Story
Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story
__
Bob Marley - Babylon System
We refuse to be
What you wanted us to be;
We are what we are:
That's the way (way) it's going to be.
If you don't know!
You can't educate I
For no equal opportunity:
(Talkin' 'bout my freedom)
Talkin' 'bout my freedom,
People freedom (freedom) and liberty!
Yeah, we've been trodding on the winepress much too long:
Rebel, rebel!
Yes, we've been trodding on the winepress much too long:
Rebel, rebel!
Babylon system is the vampire, yea! (vampire)
Suckin' the children day by day, yeah!
Me say: de Babylon system is the vampire, falling empire,
Suckin' the blood of the sufferers, yea-ea-ea-ea-e-ah!
Building church and university, wo-o-ooh, yeah!
-Deceiving the people continually, yea-ea!
Me say them graduatin' thieves and murderers;
Look out now: they suckin' the blood of the sufferers (sufferers).
Yea-ea-ea! (sufferers)
Tell the children the truth;
Tell the children the truth;
Tell the children the truth right now!
Come on and tell the children the truth;
Tell the children the truth;
Tell the children the truth;
Tell the children the truth;
Come on and tell the children the truth.
'Cause - 'cause we've been trodding on ya winepress much too long:
Rebel, rebel!
And we've been taken for granted much too long:
Rebel, rebel now!
(Trodding on the winepress)
Trodding on the winepress (rebel):got to rebel, y'all (rebel)!
We've been trodding on the winepress much too long - ye-e-ah! (rebel)
Yea-e-ah! (rebel) Yeah! Yeah!
From the very day we left the shores (trodding on the winepress)
Of our Father's land (rebel),
We've been trampled on (rebel),
Oh now! (we've been oppressed, yeah!)
Lord, Lord, go to ...
[*Sleeve notes continue:
Now we know everything we got to rebel
Somebody got to pay for the work
We've done, rebel.]
give thanks fru/la ...ita fi loop play in projector d'idren center (smile).
We Will All Live In Afrika One Day

Isn't this just Afrika? (smile).

This is afrika too (fi yellow arrow above).

Dem yuts-also: Afrika.

Yep. Asi, ashe.
Bob Marley Interview with Patrick Barrat, 1980 in Tuff Gong, Jamaica
....
PB: Isn't Africa a bit a dream for you?
Bob: No, no, it's a reality.
PB: Will you go and live there one day?
Bob: Yeah man. We will all live in Africa one day, for even France will be Africa.
PB: How come?
Bob: But of course, France will be Ethiopia! When the french were in Africa, they used to control some places and declared them french. The times will change and France will belong to Africa. The tables are turning, but this time, there won't be blood, people won't be forced. They will agree. Africa is the fruit basket of the earth. It will unite without opressing the people for God loves Africa.
Edward Wilmot Blyden
"There is no better rallying ground".
Make Life Swing

“Without the presence of Negro American style, our jokes, tall tales, even our sports would be lacking in the sudden turns, shocks, the swift changes of pace (all jazz shaped) that serve to remind us that the world is ever unexplored, and that while a complete mastery of life is mere illusion, the real secret of the game is to make life swing.”
~Ralph Ellison
European 'Capitols' Were Always Built By Slaves
I knew before of the hidden history of 'liberty' and that the slave Phillip Reid had put the ‘liberty woman’ on the capitol (see picture below of unirony of freedom doublespeak in the invisible presence of ‘her’ niggers). My ancestors are from nearby PG county and I know they did carpentry for their masters. I did not know the details of this story. And something else in this 11min clip surfaces: an important problem, and it begins with Biden's waxing majestically and continues when the guest author Holland refers to the slave workers as “African-american slaves”. Anachronistic? Not only that. Those men at the time had no political or legal standing as Americans. They were subjects of african sovereigns taken in war from africa to harbors such as annapolis and b'more and raised there (1 generation, 2 generation or 6 generations) with no polticial standing. So while folks might point at this wonderful researcher's remarks and say, isn’t that the epitome of "america" and "americans" and 'how far we have come' there is a whole different truth: this has nothing to do with america and is the epitmoe of africa and africans (& the surviving remanants of their spirituality & culture).
Imagine sitting there deliberating over how to do a complex art puzzle that was a symbol of liberty taken from the romans, a slave society, who did not overstand 'liberty' from their african teachers, for your masters (or hired out masters...federal gov't), and not being able to marry your slave wife, or subject to being sold, whipped or starved in any series of random daily acts? The tolerance, the thought, the skill, & the humanity to suffer these sufferements have nothing to do with america and americans. The spirituality is older and it comes from the older places on earth’s africa where 'black' folks dwelled first. Biden’s says 'look around you and see majesty': hah-the crumbling phallus of washington right in front of him b/c they could not construct the single stone phallus of Ausar (Osiris). But Amerika keeps on telling the lie, looking past Phillip Reid, the African (see capitol pic below). There is great (ancient) problem ahead that are to come from this ignorance multiplied by confusion (for all). ...& they know it in deep places inside them dem might not want to visit on the conscious level. Seen?, this strange Brockton man think: "rape then kill colored people to save the white race" ...reminiscent of lynch mobbers preserving their victims privates, awo.
Bconx: Not All Capitols built by slaves. The capitals of the columns in the Capital building have tobacco leaves as homage to where the 'first world', 'new world', 'novus ordem' (whatevery bby want to call it) was built...with the ancestors' free work on rich Cheasapeake (Ninnuock-stolen) soils.
B. Yung 2008 Urban Word NYC Teen Poetry Slam
tired yut bun fya: "whips & chains....and whips & chains ...are symetrical." (word)

