A statement by President Obama during his recent meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao proved the hypocrisy of this world we live in where even well intentioned & so called good people allow & pursue an agenda that continuously pits “the have’s against the have nots” & shows that there will never be an equal playing field by design in this world no matter who is in charge of any nation because the curse of world politics is in the agenda & well chosen words & actions of politicians playing politics as usual whenever & wherever it suits them in their personal & national agendas. We didn’t need Julian Assange & his wikileaks to hip us to this global hypocrisy in exposure of words & deeds by our world leaders because they spit it right in our faces daily, be it syrupy sweet or  hot lava burning fire as we sit there helpless as individuals, nations & in Africa’s case an entire continent.

As Martin Luther King said “If you do not come with an agenda ..you will be the agenda…”, but was he speaking of this type of global hypocrisy in coming with an agenda when President Hu is allowed to carry on & be respected by the so called international community when he says he will not allow any interference from outside forces in China’s affairs yet other sovereign nations are not granted the same respect? Deplorable abuses to humanity should not be tolerated anywhere if there truly is a representation of a collective an International community that has the best interest of human beings worldwide in their sights & hearts.

-With the two presidents standing side by side at the White House, Mr. Obama was asked by a reporter how America can work with “a country known for treating its people so poorly, using censorship and force to repress its people.” The reporter also asked Hu to defend China’s human rights record. China has a record of jailing dissidents for questioning their government, including recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo-
“China has a different political system than we do,” Mr. Obama said in response to the question. “China is at a different stage of development than we are. We come from very different cultures and with very different histories. But as I’ve said before and I repeated to President Hu, we had some core views as Americans about the universality of certain rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly that we think are very important and transcend cultures. I have been very candid with President Hu about these issues.” READ MORE

Doesn’t Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti,Côte d’Ivoire & so many others who we use force, war & sanctions against in crippling & dismantling their way of life & ability to do for self & to make their own decisions as sovereign nations not deserve the same consideration & respect just because they are amongst “the have nots” in comparison to the ever growing mighty super power of China? Where are all the so called journalists & world leaders calling out this hypocrisy in telling the truth & doing what’s right if our so called desire for peace, freedom & democracy is more than just rhetoric for our desired agendas?

How does Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon & the “so called International Community” justify using force & employing neighbors to use force against some in so called helping citizens of certain nations attain civil rights & democracy, while staying silent & often aiding & abetting others like China to grow their agenda? Why is so called Communism or Socialism acceptable in China or Vietnam, but not in Russia or Cuba? The world hypocrisy has driven us all into a state of emergency bringing us nothing but chaos, distrust and a collective world vote of no confidence in our leaders within a global scheme of soullessness & morally bankrupt societies.

Where is the United Nations & the “so called International communities” outrage against France who touts Democracy, civil rights & freedom while its actions prove otherwise? Imagine the OUTRAGE if French women & children were dragged on the streets of any African nation like this by African police , but I guess no one at the UN or the “so called international community” can see the hypocrisy or better yet the life of an African being equally as worthy of humanity & basic civil rights unless it involves an economic agenda  of getting something in return. Some call it neocolonialism, but I see it as very reminiscent of a slave auction block because there is always a price put on Africans by the “so called international community”-the gang that only few are chosen to join & be represented based on common benefit & economic agenda.

Why does this behavior of brutality in France & America equate to a government’s right to prevent lawlessness where the perpetrators are licensed to kill & go unpunished when they do so, but in Africa or Iran it is met with the distinction of savagery & cruelty that the so called “international community” must come together to fight against? Every man, woman & child’s life can not have a monetary price or superficial value placed on it if we are truly human beings who value all life, civil rights, freedom & this defined by the will & ways of the beholder idea of Democracy that is sold to the world.

All the French in Africa are far from citizens, but no one labels them as illegal aliens who are feeding & benefitting off of the land & backs of Africans.  How dare we condemn & criticize the actions of President Mugabe against deciding to kick out White farmers  from Zimbabwe who he sees as non-citizens of his country or like President Sarkozy -citizens who he can decide if & when to strip them of their citizenship in his sovereign nation, yet we do not see the need to criticize & condemn the same actions by President Sarkozy against Africans, Bulgarians & Romanians? Why is one’s life & civil rights more worthy of the “so called international community” standing up for them than the other? If we truly want peace in the world then we must act as we say & “be the Change we want to see”, as the great Ghandi who so many world leaders like to quote in praise said because as another great world leaders who we all like to quote & praise (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere”!  A CHANGE MUST COME- void of all the empty talk  & insidious actions & lack of action to meet individual & national agendas where we constantly serve & respect “the haves” while disregarding the “have nots”!

Who are we really in our leadership- are we teaching by words or real action? How do we expect others to unclench their fist when we are constantly throwing blows?

What’s the matter, people?

Solidarity, solidarity

Everybody wants the same thing, don’t they?
Everybody wants a happy end
They wanna see the game on Saturday
They wanna be somebody’s friend

Everybody wanna work for a living
Everybody wants their children warm
Everybody wants to be forgiven
They want a shelter from the storm

Look at me, I ain’t your enemy
We walk on common ground
We don’t need to fight each other
What we need, what we need

Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity

Nobody likes to ask for money
Somebody likes to play the clown
Nobody likes to wait in a long line
Nobody likes being pushed around

Everybody wants their family protected
They wanna express themselves
Everybody wants to live forever

Look at me I ain’t your enemy
Don’t believe everything you hear
This is no time to fight each other
What we need, what we need

Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity

Hey, people

Everybody wants the same thing, don’t they?
Everybody wants a happy end
They wanna see the game on Saturday
They wanna be somebody’s friend

Everybody wants the same thing, don’t they?
Everybody wants a happy end
They wanna see the game on Saturday
They wanna be somebody’s friend

Everybody wanna work for a living
They wanna keep their children warm
Everybody just wants to be forgiven
They want a shelter from the storm

What we need, what we need

Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity, solidarity

As Nigeria, Africa’s richest & most populous nation embarks on its 50th Anniversary of Independence on October 1st , Nigerians & the rest of Africa should stand up to their governments that have allowed foreign investment to rob them of their independence & right to their God given livlihoods. The Made in Africa label is suffering & almost non-existent because of an influx of cheap goods from China & other third world countries who are also struggling for their place & competitiveness in the world. Most Africans do not benefit from the oil, gold & other natural resources produced in Africa & sold to foreign nations in the global trade that only benefits the elite minority with money, influence & power.

The textiles business is one of the only businesses in the continent of Africa that still benefits the everyday African & it must be protected.  We need to make sure that preserving these jobs are on the top of the list of every election going forward in Africa by standing up to fight to protect what is ours in only voting for those who have our best interests at heart. Africans must show that we are sick & tired of charity and just want the opportunity to do for ourselves in the promise of democracy & free trade that respects, promotes, empowers & protects local businesses.

“Ghanaian textile designer Philip Adu-Gyamfi wakes up in the middle of the night worrying about what he will design the next day.The African prints he and his team design for textile firm ATL are hugely popular. They are worn to church, funerals and weddings – every occasion, traditional or modern, that Ghanaians can find an excuse to wear them to. But Chinese copies of these designs are being smuggled into the West African country and sold at vastly-reduced rates. And this is forcing designers like Mr Adu-Gyamfi to work doubly hard to stay ahead…’It is not easy at all,” he says. “You get to a market and the design you have made has been copied, you feel like crying’…” Read More

If you go to any African nation you will see countless designers, sewers & tailors and even more consumers and people in need of the types of jobs that come from the textile & manufacturing industry. The tradition of textiles and manufacturing in Africa is a time honored tradition that does not take on any westernized concept of design schools etc.; this is a tradition past on from generation to generation, family to family, mother to daughter, father to son, madame & master to apprentice. The gift of looming, print making, sewing & creativity are innate to the everyday African, free from any limitation of finances for formalized western education.

From art exhibits in famed Trafalgar Square to the runways of  New York, Paris, London & Milan, African textiles have become the soup du jour, the fabric of choice, the often imitated but never authentically duplicated inspiration to a world of creativity that is hungary for global fusion & color! Textiles is Africa, Africa is Textiles & we must fight to protect our livelihood & tradition!

“Ugandan manufacturers want their Government to put controls on the importation of all second-hand clothing (commonly known as mivumba). They argue that the imported clothing – much of it donated to leading charities in the US and Europe before finding its way to Africa – is hampering the growth of the local textile industry. Joyce Rwakasisi, the Textile Development Agency co-ordinator, says the sector cannot develop when mivumba take up 85 per cent of the market…” READ MORE

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“We had a lot of expectation about how Nigeria would fare… unfortunately it has not worked out that way….”Professor Chinua Achebe speaks to BBC’s Bilkisu Labaran on the occasion of his country’s 50th anniversary of independence- READ MORE

Watch BBC Business:”Nigeria Looks to the Future” HERE
“the next 50 years people will now understand that there is need to have a change to have democracy in partnership with productivity…people are now suffering so the only option now is to look for the government that will make people productive , government that will protect investment in the country, government that will make people produce something else, not oil only..”

As Black history month is nearing its close in the shortest month of the year, I found myself engulfed in debates & really looking at Black history- past & present from Africa to the Diaspora. I went to a film screening of Fangafrika: The Voice of the Voiceless, which is a look at African underground hip-hop with a focus on francophone countries, put on by Nomadic Wax. The film was a great film from an African perspective, speaking of the same struggles, injustice, poverty, lack of basic civil rights & the right & need to have a say in one’s community & their governance as a nation by utilizing the same idea of music & storytelling which was the foundation of American Hip-Hop, Blues & Soul music, as well as the same foundation of Afrobeat, Reggae, Brazilian capoiera music, Negro spirituals and the traditional African proverbial story telling of our ancestors. Nothing new in its foundation, just new yet similar faces & places recognizing that our struggle for equality, civil rights & a right & duty to a voice & say in our communities & national governance still continues on a global scale from Africa to her Diaspora. A new Pan-Africanist movememnt errupting globally where our focus is back on education that starts with knowledge of self, empowerment , equality & economic freedom, not only on a national level, but on a globally free exchange international type of level!

The panel discussion after the film became a discussion on how the western media portrays Africans, sighting things like the 2007 Vanity Fair Africa Issue with Bono as the guest editor & expert on all things Africa along with the ubiquitous “Red” & “One” campaigns showing actors/musicians like Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Keys etc. with war paint on their faces with the tag line “I am African”. One of the panelist who happened to be from Ghana said “why are they so afraid to show African faces”. She took issue with the fact that they should have put or atleast included actual Africans in the advertisements instead of solely focusing on celebrities being the savior to help, represent & speak for Africa/Africans. They went on to speak of Africans currently taking charge of their own destiny & their own images in the media via social media, a flourishing Nollywood film industry & magazines like Arise. I personally took issue with this becase we are always ready to denounce & fault the “white man” or mainstream western media for not showing the depth & true beauty of Africa/Africans, while we ourselves do not accept the fact that we do our own-selves a disservice by perpetuating western/colonial mentality rather than showing the depth & true beauty of Africa/Africans within & without our homeland, even when we are the ones in charge.

Arise magazine is a wonderful well done magazine that shows Africa/Africans through the eye & direction of an Editor, who is a white English woman with many other white editors & writers, producing an African centric magazine in Europe with Nigerian financial backing. Why were the panelist so joyous in celebrating that, yet they took issue with having Bono be the editor for the Africa issue of Vanity Fair, an Anglo centric magazine with Anglo financial backing? Unfortunately I never got the opportunity to ask that question or to bring up that point because there were A’s without any Q’s.

Why do we take issue with the fact that western media/film industry often awards & puts the Beyonce, Alicia Keys & Halle Berry types of looks on covers of magazines & in films as their representation & celebration of “Black” instead of the Estelle, Jennifer Hudson, Angela Basset or Gabrielle Union types of looks; yet we do not take issue with the fact that many African centric magazines & films in Nollywood (Nigerian Film industry) & Ghallywood (Ghana Film Industry) do the same? The panelist specifically called out the movie “Beyonce” as one of the most popular Nollywood films, but she forgot to mention that the main character Nadia Buari, who is in most Ghanaian & Nigerian films is of the American Beyonce’s complexion & she is often put up as an adversary against Jackie Appiah, who is more of the Angela Bassett/ Gabriel Union complexion. Nadia Buari’s characters are often portrayed as the high society affluent girl while Jackie Appiah’s characters are often portrayed as the poor peasant girl who is either trying to run in the affluent circles or trying to bed the rich girl’s man- which is actually loosely the premise of the movie “Beyonce”. “Beyonce” in its various sequels is one of the most popular African films to date & it is actually not from Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) but rather from Ghallywood (the Ghanaian film industry). This is another thing I took issue with because the panelist while giving praise to the popularity of the film “Beyonce” lumped it in with Nollywood instead of giving the proper credit to Ghallywood, which is Ghana’s emerging film industry looking for its own rightful stand alone shine in the media, just as Broadway & New York filmmakers stand alone in their own contributions & shine to their Hollywood & California counterparts. We as Africans can’t get mad at the western media lumping an entire continent together as one instead of recognizing the many individual nations contributing to the greatness of the continent, if we ourselves don’t recognize them when we are sent to be their voice in the western world.

I interviewed Abdul Salaam Mumuni, the Managing Director of Venus Films & the producer of the movie “Beyonce” while I was in Ghana in 2008. I asked him why he chose names like Ciara, Beyonce & Tyra for his lead characters in his films & he flatly told me it was because he was trying to appeal to the western world. All I could think is with the millions of Africans who watch western movies, why are we not given the same consideration in terms of the western world trying to appeal to us for our hard earned money? At the end of the day these African films are bought by more Africans than westerners & the industry is being built on the earning power of Africans, yet the ultimate goal is to appeal to the western world -the colonial mentality continuing to be perpetuated by Africans on Africans. During the panel discussion the same woman from Ghana who was speaking on the growing Nollywood film industry that is now entering many western homes through bootleg DVD’s & internet piracy made notice of the fact that many westerners can’t belive that African films are showing actors in the same trappings of their western counterparts, with fancy cars, designer wardrobes, flashy jewelry, fancy houses etc.; yet what we fail to recognize is that most of the designer clothes are made in China knock off’s because Dior , D & G, Vuitton & Chanel have not opened shop in Africa yet. While these African actors can be patronizing local designers who create true haute couture- one of a kind hand made pieces utilizing the abundance of locally made fabric, leather, wood, metals, natural materials turned into the finest designs in fashion & accessories-which has been all the rage in the past couple of years from the fashion runways of New York, Paris & London. There is a tailor/designer at every corner from Lagos to Durbin to Accra, but our high profile Africans in entertainment would rather appeal to the western world by showing them that they can be just like them, as we build their economies while dismantling & destroying our own. I was told by a MP (member of parliment equivalent to a congressman in the US) that a random white man or westerner can come to Ghana (Africa in general) & be able to meet with the president or get a buisness venture to take off in the country quicker than he or any native can. I SMH(shake my head) because I know this is a fact because I have seen the colonial mentality in full bloom live an direct. I have a friend who is an engineer that has worked for the US government & major companies in the US, who wants to return back home to Ghana to open up a technology business where hi-speed internet would be more accessible to the everyday people of Ghana, not only did he meet resistance from the many millionaires & government in Ghana in attaining financing for the project, but he was told that if he wanted Ghanaians to patronize his business then he would be better off using some sort of Chinese or western name instead of his own Ghanaian name which ironically means to fly/soar like a bird because Ghanaians & Africans in general would rather patronize western & now the almighty Chinese companies rather than their own. I guess not much has changed from Africa to the Diaspora & back again.

We constantly sit around in blame of the “white man” & the western world for our plights, yet we also wait around for the “white man” & the western world to bring us our salvation by waking us up from our continental slumber to recognize that Africa is the future with many riches to build from & on, when we have been choosing to leave & sell off Africa for centuries. We allow the western world to give us excuses for remaining dependent on their charity & education, while letting us know when & if we are beautiful & the trend for the season. Harlem is all of a sudden chic again because white people have decided to grace us with their presence, Africa is the place to be again because white people have decided that they can once again make a lot of money there & get a lot for very little- the continuous cycle.

Many Africans of today readily give up their families entire life savings to attain a visa & a plane ticket to come to the West or to China, or to get smuggled in like modern day slaves having to work for their freedom from their smugglers or to attain the most grueling jobs for less than minimum wage as home care attendants, maids, nannies, taxi cab drivers etc., some of whom leave their countries as university graduates, engineers, doctors & lawyers. The constant pursuit of the dreams of western/colonial mentality without any appreciation for building & pursing the dreams of an African mentality which is powerful, free & flourishing!

As I always shout out my favorite quote from Benjamin Disraeli, ” The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.” But this is not the way of those who wish to only be the beneficiaries of mental enslavement & deep seeded colonial mentality.

Very few people know that the NAACP was started by Blacks & Jews in a collective fight for civil rights during the Civil Rights Movement. As Martin Luther King Jr. said “the segregationist and racists make no fine distinction between the negro & the Jew“.

“The story of Black-Jewish relations in the United States is a long and complex one…. Jews were among those who worked to establish the NAACP in 1909. African-American newspapers were among the first in the U.S. to denounce Nazism…. FROM SWASTIKA TO JIM CROW creates hope and reminds us of a time in U.S. history when the two communities came together.”David Horowitz, Washington Review

I bring up this point because Jewish people came from the same struggle from Egypt (Africa not the middle East for all those who are geographically challenged) & throughout the Jewish Diaspora that Black Africans did, but somehow they never internalized the same self hatred in perpetuating their condition in oppression from generation to generation. Jewish people never fell into the confusion of adopting their oppressors words such as “kike“,”yid” or “hymie” as global, out of the secrecy of home terms of endearment amongst themselves, but rather they were always quick to shut down & have heads roll if anything remotely close to those words were uttered as anti-Semitism. Ask Jesse Jackson if he has been able to recover from uttering the word “hymietown”, even though he walked hand & hand with Jews in the struggle for his & their civil rights.

The murders in Mississippi on June 21, 1964 of two young Jewish civil rights activists, Andrew Goodman & Michael Schwerner who were with James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi brought more national uproar & put a brighter spotlight on the civil rights struggle in America than was received prior by the thousands of lynchings of Black men, women & children. The video above says “has anything changed in 40 years” -I say for Jewish people -yes, but for Black people not much has really changed.

Jewish people have built & gained their power in Europe, America & the Middle East- a power of economics, a power in reparations from their oppressors & a power that upholds their holocaust history as the lowest moment in their history- which they will never forget, never let their perpetrators or the world forget, as well as a moment in history which they will never allow to happen again. Jewish people recognized that power on the world stage first & foremost comes from economics, while many Blacks fought amongst themselves & focused on blaming white people for their condition. Jews organized, mobilized & saw that freedom & power was not something they were going to attain from some words on a piece of paper, but thru unity in numbers & economics -I think this is why most white supremacist hate Jews more than Blacks because they out-mastered the master in what means most to him -money/economic power!

Jews have been able to get reparations from Germany with land for settlement, their jewels & other family possessions back from Swiss banks & have been able to take over a territory which had nothing to even do with their oppression & even bring in their fellow Ethiopian Jews from Africa in efforts to raise their numbers in a land that strategically on the world stage is their greatest position of power & where are we as Black people? Still fighting for equality & basic civil rights in a land that we originally helped build into a world power. I have personally witnessed from my Jewish clients how they patronize one another’s businesses, give to their own charities regularly, have their own banks & financial institutions & further the cause of never being the victims of oppression, degradation & destruction again by supporting Jewish causes & businesses locally & globally. While Black people globally practice kinship by merely calling one another brother or sister, Jewish people practice kinship by economically supporting, empowering & patronizing one another in the honor of continual brotherhood & sisterhood.

Jews saw the bigger picture of economics that would ultimately be the true measure of freedom & equality that was beyond any Emancipation Proclamation or Civil Rights Bill. Now compare the Jews & Blacks who have worked together toward the same goals – tell me if Russell Simmons & Jay Z have made more money off of Def Jam/hip-hop than Rick Rubin & Lyor Cohen & the many other Jewish people before them who ended up profiting more off of Black music, inventions etc. than Black people did, which makes we wonder will we ever see the bigger picture? Even looking at a modern day company like Nomadic Wax , as much as I give props to Ben Herson for his accomplishments & him being able to take African hip-hop to another level in the western arena- this was happening before he got to Senegal in 1999 & subsequently going on to do his thesis & building a business off of his new discovery. There had been Africans pushing the music on a local & global level way before his arrival, yet at the end of the day he may end up eventually profiting & being more known as starting the movement more than the makers & creators if the mindset of the African & her Diaspora does not eventually change to see & work toward the bigger picture that the Jews saw & worked toward in their own economic empowerment. We can’t blame someone for having a plan for business & economic empowerment, when we are sitting around without one & just hoping for an opportunity to sell our goods & to eat for the day. I am a true & pure global fusionist who believes in us working together as a global society- sharing, creating and profiting from our mutually shared ideas & talents in true partnerships that does not have a foundation of benefitting off of another’s societal, mental or physical weakness & oppression because anything less than that is disingenuous & solely based on profiteering. What is fair trade when the maker gains significantly less of the profits than the seller?

As Africans we have adopted western mentality, names amongst ourselves & within our business structures which we feel have recognition in the western world, basically allowing the western world who we say does not define us properly to define us generally. Ghana allowed its national music which was Osibi to be given the western name of hi-life & let it spread throughout the world without taking it back to its original name or at least letting the world know of its original name & history within the context of it’s new name. The Kenyan warriors & freedom fighters allowed their colonizers taunting name of Mau Mau to define & name them in history for life because it had spread & been popularized througout the western world, much the same as the word “Nigga/Nigger” is today.

My night after the film screening ended at a friend’s house where the conversation turned to John Mayer & the preverbal debate of the use of the “N” word: who can use it, who can’t & when & why it should be used. Frankly I am exhausted with this never ending debate because everyone has their views & I don’t see anyone having their minds changed one way or the other any time soon; however during the very heated debate of uptown Black & Brown Harlem intellectuals, who have all paid their dues & served time in the western world of media, I actually came to a new understanding from my position that has always been that no one should ever use the word outside of its original historical definition/context because we can never redefine the word from its original intention.

We all told our stories of having cabs pass us by, dealing with certain comments by our white colleagues that are often out of line & would never be directed at our white counterparts- yet we have to check ourselves in our reaction as to not give them the expected angry black man/women stereotype, having to work twice as hard to get promotions that are steadily given to subordinates( who often we have trained) because of who they know & the fact that they run in the same circles, being taunted in your community as a “sell out” or some sort of anomaly for being educated as a prep school negro while being taunted in school as some type of affirmative action award recipient, as if getting a scholarship as a black person is socially & genetically wrong or suspect while getting one as a white person proves genius, being “dressed to the nines” & waiting for a vale to give you your car while some white person coming out from the same event where you just came out of, dressed in the same tuxedo & gown that you are dressed in just automatically assumes that you are there to serve them, so they hand you their vale ticket to get them their car. Essentially all the many episodes where you hear the word “Nigger” without it ever being verbalized.

One of my friends testified that growing up in the Black American community in Harlem, she heard the word “nigger” used often -but it was well known amongst everyone that you were not to use it outside of the home because everyone knew it was derogatory & were not looking to give it the global passage of usage which it has been given within this new generation. Basically at the end of it all another friend said it has been spread so globally now that we can not take it back much like the words hi-life & mau mau. My answer to that was the fact that slavery was also something that had spread far & wide globally, but we chose to put an end to it & take back our freedom. I also realized within our conversation that the word “Nigger” had evolved from slavery to Jim Crowe from a word simply meaning “Black” to our European colonizers/slave masters, a word that just diffrentiated them from us by color. We eventually allowed ourselves to internalize just a word for black as something extremely negative as the word black in itself is used to describe certain dark, negative & bad things in our global society. We basically came to internalize self hatred in associating our color as a symptom of the conditions put on us by our colonizers & slave masters & continued to perpetuate this from Africa throughout the Diaspora & back to Africa again- the same continual psychological cycle which our colonizers & slave masters came to recognize as the way to keep us perpetually in our condition & in check.

We as Black people all over the world internalized the foreigner’s word for black as being something that was less than, something that was bad, something negative, an internalized self hatred, which our slave masters/colonizers utilized in the further breakdown of our psyche by giving favor to their lighter skinned/mixed race slaves, allowing those favored slaves to administer punishment on the closer to black than white slaves & eventually creating a permanent stamp in our pyche which we would spread from generation to generation, teaching us that the closer you were to white the better your treatment; therefore being black had to be bad & the curse for the conditions of slavery & colonization. A European attempt to merely differentiate by color without pejorative intention i.e. Negus, Negro, Niger etc. eventually became Nigger- the most highly debated, inflammatory, hateful word in Black American/American history, which is now being taken back as just “Black” by a new generation in proclaiming love of brotherhood/sisterhood of blackness globally. A return to change the psyche where another man’s foreign language for being Black no longer internalizes self hate, but rather a celebration of Black. I realized that my many of my Spanish speaking friends have always called me “negra” or “negrita”, merely as just a reference to my blackness & Africaness which I never found or took any offense in, but rather found a certain special love & acknowledgement in the same word that the Spanish & Portuguese slave traders named my ancestors that eventually became an Americanized word that I detest. HMMM-this was the new understanding that I came to toward those who wish to perpetuate the word “Nigga” in that context, but at the same time if one accepts a redefintion then one must accept it fully on a global celebratory level as we have accepted the words mau mau & hi-life with no pejorative intent regardless of who says it; otherwise we must truly work to get back to our true & rightful historical names if we want to ever break the cycle of slavery’s psyche & colonial mentality.

It seems everyone but Black people benefitted from the battles & wars we fought for freedom from the revolution, to the World Wars, to Civil War to Civil Rights. All the minorities in search of equality from white women to Jews received the benefits of the fight & struggle, while Black people still seem to be on the picket line & marching on washington to finally attain the dream of equality. Black history month this year seemed like there was an all out assault on its celebration. As we celebrated the fisrt full year of President Obama’s presidency, as the first Black president in America, the tea party, Republicans and what seems like the majority of Americans- Black White & other were letting him know just how disappointed they were with his fist year & how quickly they were losing their hope for change. Tiger Woods, the pre-Obama ultimate role model for the possibility of what a negro could & should be in the eyes of mass White acceptance fell from grace & also had to withstand the backlash of Black, White & other letting him know just how disappointed they were in his actions. Police bruatality reared it’s ugly head again against Black men, while Sean Bell could not be truly laid to rest because once again police officers emptying clips into a Black man & taking his life due to mistaken identity is just a casuality of the job, never warranting a guilty verdict. We had a national debate sparking interest in mainstream White America that felt sorry for all of the educated Michelle Obama type of Black women who could not seem to find themselves any kind of husband let alone a Barack Obama; While John Mayer let Black women know that they were like kryptonite to his “white supremacist penis” gaining an erection while finding his freedom to use the “N” word. We found fashion week still having issues of black model exclusion from the runway, while  European  magazines keep testing our limits & boundaries by using blackface in editorials for cheap shock value, lacking creativity type of publicity that is so easy to find these days when your target is the first Black president or stereotypes of Black people & other minorities. We found ourselves as Black people arguing, fighting & debating over all of this with no new solutions, panaceas, initiatives or a way to finally rid ourselves of the mental enslavement that has become the crutch for the stagnation in our forward movements, just to come back again next time to start the cycle of slave/colonial mentality all over again.

I however, am filled with a certain optimism that change is truly on its way even if  it is brought about by a small minority of believers in hope. We have found forward movements of hope for greatness through the type of focus, dilligence, hardwork and being able to make something out of nothing that has kept black people/ black history from Africa to her Diaspora alive & thriving in many aspects for centuries. The hope in our forward movements for this new decade & beyond appears with Olympians like Shani Davis & Kwame Nkrumah  Acheampong as the  Williams sisters continue to make world & black history, while  First lady Michelle Obama epitomizes the grace, dignity & class holding the first Black family up through all adversity. The  New Orleans Saints bringing back the sunshine from the rain right in time to celebrate  mardi gras & the explosive new energy of Pan-Africanism erupting globally thru political actions of activists fully in sync with the beautiful powerful soundtracks of musical activists leading the charge of hope & empowerment in a new decade, where we have no choice but to create, manifest & accept Change!

Here’s to ending Black History month on a high note & creating & manifesting a new decade & future where Africa & her Diaspora truly gets our house in order in efforts to write our own history in the manner that we would like to be recognized & heralded.

“We don’t have to wait for someone to greenlight our projects we can create our own intersections..we don’t just have to act in the sitcom, we can own the show & the network..we don’t have to be at the end of the line waiting for a hand out, we can be at the front giving a hand up..we don’t have to wait for somebody to give us 40 acres & a mule we can buy our own.. U can b born into a whole lot of a nightmare but God can usher u into a dream” Tyler Perry -Taking us back 2 what Black history has always been from Africa 2 her Diaspora.

The past couple of years have seen more & more Africans brutalized & murdered in Italy & other Western & Eastern nations under the guise of anti-immigration & racism. In Italy in particular, the real core issue is the battle over wealth, drugs & territory incited by the Italian mafia. It is easy to cry racism & anti-immigration without holding accountable African, European & global governments’ lackadaisical anti-drug enforcement & implicit involvement in the economic profiteering of global drug trafficking.

West Africa has become the new hot bed transport destination for European drug trafficking. The rise of global poverty, particularly in Africa, along with rampant drug abuse globally have left many West Africans to be left with little choice but to pin their hopes of a better tomorrow in a life of drug trafficking & prostitution. War torn African countries like Guinea Bissau & many West African countries with corrupt governments have been bought to turn a blind eye to the influx of drugs trafficked thru their nations.

Africans need to start pinning their hopes of a better tomorrow in themselves, fighting their own corrupt governments, who have refused to serve the people of Africa for decades & centuries. Why risk your life to fight a war for survival in another man’s land instead of taking the fight for survival to your own governments in greater numbers of effected people, in hopes of at least giving a better future for generations to come? Africa’s hope & dreams can only be fully realized in Africa & it is time that Africans hold themselves & their governments accountable & take them to task to better their conditions in order to have the opportunity to live & thrive in their own homelands as free human beings.

Using the guise of immigration as a reason for hate & racism instead of seeing another human beings plight & burden has become the European way toward the plight of Africans immigrating to Europe in hopes of a better life, only to find out that they are far from welcomed because the European natives are also in search of their own better lives in their own countries & often times even in African nations where they find a much better life & a welcoming that is not afforded to Africans at home or in Europe. Human beings should be free to move about wherever they want to be, but often times because of the mental enslavement embedded thru slavery & colonialism, Africans never seem to find their freedom & dreams in their own homeland or in the western world, yet westerners flock to Africa and find benefit from the never ending mental enslavement that continues to plague Africans who still see Westerners & now those from the East as the ones to bring them salvation & emancipation.

I was surprised to see the large number of Asians, Europeans & other westerners flooding into Africa for business prospects & opportunity to live a much more luxurious lifestyle than they could ever afford in their own homelands, while Africans still continue to be the servants and the ones never reaping any opportunities, whether in their homelands or abroad. The only way Africans can ever find their freedom is to fight for it in large numbers by taking the fight to their own governments without the tribal & class divides because African governments have been selling their own people out since the time of slavery & continue to do so centuries later.

With all the natural resources, fertile land, oil & people capital, how are African nations still unable to provide for their people & evoke a sense of pride of being African, fighting for Africa & staying in Africa beyond just flag waving during football matches? Africans must wake up & hold themselves, their governments & the western world which needs Africa in a constant state of patheticness in order for them to thrive easily without doing much of the work in so many ways. 2010 starts a new decade that must be Africa’s decade -coming up from under the belly of the beast to rise like the phoenix from the flames, soaring over our nations & continent as the new decade Sankofa birds- returning to get what is rightfully ours! In this new decade we must learn, embody & have the desire to Feel Free to Feel Free!

“Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. Thy claim it as their own and none can keep it from them. We face neither East nor West: We Face Forward -Freedom, Freedom , Fredom”- Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure..We ask ourselves -Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented & fabulous? Actually, WHO ARE YOU NOT TO BE “-Nelson Mandela

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/world/europe/11italy.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/opinion/25saviano.html

http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/yet-in-africa-it-is-not-when-white-farmers-are-slaughteredfascism-only-applies-to-whites/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/nyregion/20africans.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=african%20immigrants%20in%20bronx%20face%20atatcks&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/world/africa/21zambia.html

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/20614

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/03/200932663136741480.html

http://www.france24.com/en/20090124-beyond-business-morocco-china-oriental-slippers-souk-market-low-cost

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/travel/08Bijagos.html

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/european-solar-power-from-african-deserts/

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5327/is_347/ai_n31003678/

cap·i·tal·ism
Function: noun: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

de·moc·ra·cy
Function: noun
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

I looked at the dictionary definition of capitalism & democracy & saw that there is a fundamental disconnect in a system of democracy that is driven by capitalism. Free enterprise is only free for private corporations making private decisions on prices & distribution of goods where the private minority preys on the global majority in the presence of hereditary & arbitrary class distinctions & privileges.

he·redi·tary (hə red′i ter′ē)
adjective
of, or passed down by, inheritance from an ancestor to a legal heir; ancestral
having title, right, etc. by inheritance
of, or passed down by, heredity; designating or of a characteristic transmitted genetically from generation to generation
being such because of attitudes, beliefs, etc. passed down through generations hereditary allies

ar·bi·trar·y (ärb-trr)
adj.
1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice.
2. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference: The diet imposes overall calorie limits, but daily menus are arbitrary.
3. Established by a court or judge rather than by a specific law or statute: an arbitrary penalty.
4. Not limited by law; despotic: the arbitrary rule of a dictator.

How do countries/continents with vast resources push systems of governance in the name of democracy ( government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections) when the majority suffers from not benefiting from the vast amount of resources which they help to cultivate , produce & distribute in a so called “free market” enterprise of capitalism that is not vested in its people? I look at the “New Africa” where the China effect can easily become the new plague & new colonialism vested in purely bringing more capital to it’s own country & private enterprise- the usual using Africa as a vacation spot/temporary job rather than equal partnerships in building nations toward self sufficiency & equal profit. This is not the fault of China & other global countries who come to invest in Africa, but rather the fault of African & other governments who make these deals on the behalf of the people without it trickling down to the people. How is it possible for African governments to allow China to bring in thousands of Chinese workers for infrastructure /construction projects when many Africans have no jobs & have the ability to do construction- how does this benefit Africans in the short or long run? Eventually after the Chinese are done & take what they need in return for their investment, Africans will once again be left to pick up the pieces in trying to figure out how to rebuild from dependency when the source of African dependency picks up & leaves once again. Many of China’s investments in infrastructure have been beneficial to Africa, but at what cost- only time will tell. Africa/Africans should be hopeful for the best, but to always be prepared for the worst. We need to learn from the past that short term investments/aid instead of true partnerships with global nations which include & benefit the average citizen, can never benefit any nation particularly those who have always been the workers & not the owners. We can’t always be ready to sell our souls for quick money-there has to come a time when our dignity & ability for self empowerment & future building as a continent is not for sale.

An average African is now faced with a new yet very familiar struggle of global investments that do not benefit the average African’s prosperity & having to compete with the counterfeiting of their own goods to be sold to their own people at a lesser price that takes away their existence & ability to attain capital to uplift from poverty & dependency. The production of traditional cloth, leather sandals & other goods made in Africa have now been replaced by often inferior products or counterfeits because the “have nots” have no choice or are completely disadvantaged in a competition that handicaps them right from the start. If you make on average $100 a month –you have to stretch that money & make it last so you forcibly become compliant in a system that keeps you down & dependant, where you will have to pass up the goods made in your own nation in efforts to build up your own economy for one that just takes your spending capital to build up other nations because the price is right. Most Africans would love to buy product made in their own nations because it helps the nation in terms of economic & national pride, but it has become a system of choosing the slow death over the quick death because you maybe able to save a couple of dollars today & saving yourself from not dying today based on the depletion of your means of existence, but in the long run it’s just a slower depletion & burning of your existence. The USA started the cycle of creating China as a super power, handicapping their own industries of production/manufacturing & ending up indebted to China while paving the way for China to possibly give the same fate to the rest of the world in the name of free market capitalism and selling one’s soul/consciousness for capital which eventually left the USA soulless & unconscious in its slow demise. Free enterprise can not be free only to private corporations & not free to the average citizen doing most of the production work. How is one form of communism/socialism or whatever types of governments that we constantly say are inferior to American style democracy, OK & another is not- why is it OK to open doors & have free enterprise with China but not Cuba when the main grievance we taut is a lack of basic human/civil rights? Have we looked at the state of human rights in China? Where has the the civility in our humanity gone? There is an abundance of global resources giving us all the ability for self sufficiency, but in a system of capitalism one’s reward/profit comes from having/taking more than another whether it is fair or not. In one way or another we are all global citizens who contribute to one another’s livelihood & existence in our global collective earth- so we need to stop all the hypocrisy when we are all contributors to the state of the world & the lack of resource distribution to the majority of the world. It is time to wake up & take responsibility before there is a global mass majority Revolution determined to Evolve from brutal inhumane existence in a world of abundance which benefits a select/chosen few!

LMAO- European nations-Good & Honest partners with Africans as opposed to China- It’s all the same game just new super powers & Europe/USA are clamoring to get back global power from China. Why isn’t she more focused on encouraging European countries & the USA to open the so called free market enterprise to enterprising Africans in terms of trade. If that was occurring then perhaps none of them would have to worry their perfect little heads & shout out their self serving opinions of China exploiting Africa & Africa needing a European/American mouthpiece to protect them from Big Bad China.

The journalist just showed her ignorance & spoke directly to Ms. Moyo’s point of trade not aid by suggesting that Africa does not have the resources of Asia to uplift its economy. The ignorance of foreign journalists on Africa comes thru the focus on reporting so much about African aid & poverty instead of African trade & wealth. Africa has more resources than Asia that is why China & others are so invested in Africa-so of course it’s possible for African countries to achieve the same if not more of an economic rise as certain Asian countries have from skillfully & intelligently utilizing their resources to push their individual country’s economic growth.

When did Europeans from former colonizing nations become the spokespeople for Africa? They may belive they are helping but they are just perpetuating the stigma of Africa that we constantly need our former Colonizers/Masters to come to our aid & save us from ourselves & others.

http://worldfocus.org/blog/2008/10/13/chinese-investment-in-africa-soars/1555/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crrLgvIQw1g