Today is President Obama’s 50th birthday – a celebration of a half a century of life in freedom, a freedom celebrated in years that are a little less than the one celebrated by many nations in Africa in 2010. I look at where he is today & recall the days when he was the beacon of hope & change that we could believe in not only in America, but also for the future of Africa because Africans saw him as a native son that could,would & did. I recall the days when his words were the sermon of what could & would be à la Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Dr. Kwame Nkrumah -the type of great leaders & orators of global Africa & all poor & forgotten people of the world who saw hope through the type of love that came through action.

“The Time is always right to do what is right…Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation and this means we must develop a world perspectiv”Martin Luther King Jr.

Today the global celebrations & light of President Obama’s presence & words as the light of hope for the future has dimmed as stats of joblessness amongst Americans, particularly Black Americans is disproportionately higher than all others in the nation with the economic disparity between the poor & rich at new highs. President Obama has become the president who stood up before the world to see in the Black Star Nation & promised to be Africa’s partner  in economic freedom as his administration shutdown their commerce office in Ghana due to domestic economic hardships , while leading the way to an imperialist regime change war with Libya cloaked in Libyan liberation & he became the man who gave the OK to murder Somali pirates when other nations refused to do so in a nation that has now fallen back into famine with an estimated 29,000 lives already lost with total blame going to mother nature & the western labeled al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab, without any personal responsibility by the worldwide governments & corporations who use Somalia’s resources without any compensation & take advantage of a nation without any recognized system of government since 1991 – the time of the US invasion which Hollywood scripted to the world as Black Hawk Down & then followed up by supporting Ethiopia to take on the lost battle against Somalia!

“Obscenely named “Operation Restore Hope,” U.S. and “allied” troops invaded and occupied Somalia in the early 1990s, bringing a reign of terror. The occupation came to an abrupt end shortly after the “Battle of Mogadishu,” when Somali fighters shot down two U.S. helicopters, and thousands of Somalis attacked downed U.S. troops. Eighteen U.S. troops were killed, and 84 wounded… “Read More

With the entrance on the world stage of President Obama -the global people’s choice- came  a glimmer of hope that somehow the world would be more fair with a man whose mere being represented all parts of the world in a global fusion, at the helm in leading the heralded super power of the free world. It seems everyone but ourselves has to come to the aid of global Africans. Today it is all over the news about how Mayor Bloomberg, who in his third term has finally realized that he needs to put his money where his mouth is in giving young Black & Latino men who are disproportionately imprisoned & jobless a fighting chance to survive & to be productive citizens of his city. Once again Bono, the One Campaign & all the usual NGO suspects have come out to speak for Somalis & to call for & collect aid for the horn of Africa to save them from themselves. They have come once again to show Africans through ourselves the living proof that we need them to show us the way to our survival because we just can’t seem to get it right on our own.

Unfortunately we will always have these problems because we have become mind bunglingly dependent on others to always come to our aid without our own think thanks, governments & everyday people barely ever addressing the solutions to the problems until we are in crisis & wait for the great white or western hope to once again spray us with money with contingencies & futile promises until the next time. Where’s the African Union & Africa’s billionaires stepping up to the aid of Somalia & the many African nations & children who really need Africans in totality to wake up & get it together for the good of the continent’s future? Where is the so called HIP-HOP Nation that has become a global power in its self- stepping up & thinking to save the young Black & Latino boys/men who created her & used to love her, before Mayor Bloomberg  came along or at the very least stepping up now to match what he is doing?

The so called hottest record out right now is “Otis” which speaks of how much riches two Black Men have, hailing from two cities who need investment in opportunities for the future of young Black men & women the most. They speak on how everything can be bought, so why not buy our future by filling it up with people who know that they are the one’s who are- as Fela says “Expensive Shit” – mind, body & soul- not the material possessions they covet & often risk their future & lives for.

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” —Frederick Douglass

“The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances. The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed.To pay for the endeavor in a time of fiscal austerity, the city is relying on an unusual source: Mr. Bloomberg himself, who intends to use his personal fortune to cover about a quarter of the cost, city officials said. A $30 million contribution from Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation would be matched by that of a fellow billionaire, George Soros, a hedge fund manager, with the remainder being paid for by the city…” READ MORE

We march against police brutality 1 death with no consequences after another except another dead Black future, we rally & pay speakers & leaders to tell us about our problems calling for more rallies & paid speaking engagements- as we continue to be one of the highest consumer spending groups without ever thinking to spend that money on giving our children a better future through preventive measures in opportunity. All around the world it seems to be the same song for Global Africans!

WE Global Africans Are Expensive, even if everyone else thinks we are Shit!

This is not a wake up call of doom & gloom for Global Africans, but rather a wake up call to see the light ahead for the future & to not sit on the sidelines constantly waiting for others to come to our aid in perpetuating the centuries old global stereotypes that Global Africans always have to be saved from ourselves. If President Obama is the president of ALL OF AMERICA then he can act & speak of the disproportionate poverty, joblessness & needs of Black America just as much as he can speak for the rights of gays & other minorities in our broken & eroding union of partisan tomfoolery. If President Obama is the so called president ambassador to the world deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize who can stand up for Israel’s right to sovereignty, freedom & security then he can also stand up for the Middle East & Africa’s right to the same.

Many in the nation & around the world who needed the hope that President Obama represented are now experiencing some buyer’s remorse, but I believe there is time to be the change he promised & to leave a renewed long term legacy like many African nations celebrating their half century of freedom that starts from this new half century mark & going forward by recognizing, as Bill Maher stated, that he has to stop worrying about coming off as the stereotypical angry Black Man by endlessly trying to compromise & appease those who will never vote for him no matter what he does because it is a lost cause for people who will either see him as the angry black man who has to be tamed or the weak black man who they have tamed into doing as they say. President Obama needs to do himself a favor by flipping the script & being the upright man who he said he is by acting on the convictions & promises that he not only made to the American people, but also to the world who celebrated & welcomed him as the man who would finally bring change instead of more of the same.

Saving America is the job of President Obama, Congress & the American people collectively & saving Africa is the job of African presidents,Parliaments & African people collectively. America’s government needs to get out of its own way & the world needs to get out of Africa’s way to reach its potential. Rwanda has shown what that type of future can be in the so called dark continent with good governance, true freedom in sovereignty with no master, juxtaposed with the will of the people to put in the work & to take the reigns to their future when they are presented with opportunity; while the self proclaimed super power of the world’s capital, Washington, DC with a large forgotten Black majority continues to live worse than some so called third world nations without their basic right to representation for taxation.

I read the story of an African journalist who on her visit to DC & Kigali told the stories of the two capital cities with global African majorities. I couldn’t help but to think that America must wake up because the so called super power, beacon of democracy & the American dream type of promise land jig is up. The world is watching & seeing just how much the mighty can fall & how things fall apart in a system of bad governance, greed ,corruption & racism/tribalism/separatism with overzealous powerful corporations & churches calling the shots in government- things that were once seen as ills of third world nations which held them back, but now have been exposed live to the world as running the same muck in the so called first world, holding them back from the democracy & dream that they once blindly sold to the world.

” The cities are known. One, is very well known; Washington in the District of Columbia, capital city of self acclaimed world’s greatest country. Daily, millions flock to D.C. in search of remarkable sights. Tourists are often seen navigating the narrow, exclusive parts of town; without their knowledge, barred from sighting the real Washington D.C. Very wide open to the public are the government offices, historical sites, museums, archives, and man-made attractions. But, tourists must not be allowed to tour the greater part of South East, and parts of North West Washington D.C, or Chocolate City as its Black majority population would rather it be called…Welcome to Kigali, Black man’s cleanest capital city; a city synonymous with death in modern world history. From Kigali in 1994, orders were issued that mandated the elimination of ten percent of the population, the minority Tutsi. At the end of the blood chilling exercise, one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu men, women and children lay dead. The entire country and particularly the capital city was unfit for human habitation. Corpses at various stages of decomposition littered the narrow, potholed and dusty streets. Skulls, femur, tibia, fibula and other skeletal remnants – scraped clean by dogs – lay here and there. Thousands of homes were burnt down, government offices, hotels and hospitals had been raided and looted. Several technocrats, academicians, public intellectuals, civil servants, entrepreneurs had been murdered. Kigali was a dead city in 1994. Western interests, who watched unconcerned as the killings of black people who have neither oil, gold nor diamond to purchase their souls lasted, wrote off the country as finished. In Rwanda today, the black man feels human and proud to be associated with his people. It must be made clear, that it was not the penance-like pouring in of money by the “repentant” West that built Rwanda, but the discipline, tenacity and ability to live above seeking vengeance on the perpetrators of the genocide. As much aid has poured into the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Kenya, but these countries are nothing compared to what Rwanda is today.…” READ MORE

As I read this story above it made me realize that we continue to not give Africa & Africans just due praises in recognizing & celebrating how far many of our nations have come, as much as we harp on how much further we need to go. It was hard to decipher if the writer’s black DC description & the constant reference to Africans in America as children of slaves was not being peppered with the inner workings of the stereotypes we all have about one another as global Africans on all sides of the Atlantic. The writer’s description of DC sounded much like the descriptions of African nations that I have heard from many African descendants in the Diaspora in the past,whose perception of  an unknown Africa or a one time visit to African nations reflect, as they profess to never want to go in the first place or wish to never return, but now an African has flipped the script with her reflection.

We seem to be once again at a cross roads in our global disconnect where we do not recognize our global economic struggles for freedom as one collective global African problem, the type that was once recognized  with a movement called Pan-Africanism as the blueprint toward forward moving solutions. The type of solutions that birthed freedom for many African nations &  fought for Civil Rights for Black America & other imperialist ruled nations of the African Diaspora, while springing up a global African cultural renaissance in shared history & progress. Where are we now, those that are still living & were at the front-lines of Pan-Africanism & those of us who are the children & beneficiaries of  the progress that was made from it?

While Jews with their different sects & tribes seem to come together to showcase their grasp of  power & nation building through direct investment in the birthright of their youth ,by setting up foundations to pay for kibbutizm retreats to Israel that give every Jewish child around the world- rich or poor an opportunity to set foot on their recognized motherland, in order to connect with their past history to attain a sense of belonging & responsibility in continuing to build on it for the future from the ground up; global Africans have somehow forgotten or  have set  aside our responsibility to Africa that was once part of the blueprint of Pan-Africanism.

We have gone from true activism to apathy in just getting by & trying to just keep the little that we have in a state of being hopelessly just too damn sick & tired of being sick & tired to often care to fight anymore. Whether we like to admit it or not many of us have become distracted in the great black hope of President Obama to even have the type of civil discourse amongst ourselves in demanding for the type of changes & rights to freedom that Frederick Douglas once spoke about, as if Malcolm X & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. couldn’t & didn’t co-exist in collectively bringing us to where we are today, being able to have a Black man whose DNA runs thru both America & Africa as the leader of the free world; just the same way as many outside of the Black community have become too distracted in stopping their perceived great black hope from achieving any type of greatness even if it is for the common good of America & the world, & even if it brings their own self-destruction.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress..those who profess to Favor Freedom and yet depreciate agitation, want crops without plowing up the ground, they want the ocean without the awful roar of it’s many waters…Power concedes nothing without demand.” Fredrick Douglas-1857

The quick & successful turn around in progress & growth of places like Brazil  & Rwanda during a global recession should not only be an example for Africa or Latin America, but also for “Chocolate Cities”  & nations all around the world. As the world was looking to President Obama for hope &  concrete change that they could believe in, perhaps we should have all been looking at President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil- a shoeshine boy from a nation with the largest population of Africans outside of the African continent, who has set the modern day blueprint on building a nation from third world status to a first world economic powerhouse,  & President Paul Kagame of Rwanda who collectively have shown through real action & concrete opportunity just how nations can rise from turmoil, poverty, internal conflicts  & foreign aid dependency into recognized nations at the forefront of our global economy who have produced change for the better & the type of self sufficiency that comes through innovation void of unproductive politics.

“BRAZIL is famous for stunning beaches, carnivals and great footballers.But now the world is going nuts for something else – the country’s ECONOMY. In just ten years, the South American nation has been transformed into a financial powerhouse. The new kids on the economic block came of age over the weekend. The so-called BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – were given more voting rights and seats at the International Monetary Fund, the organisation that oversees the global financial system.This marks Brazil’s emergence on the global stage. Bumper oil reserves and a booming agricultural sector mean the country’s economy could be bigger than Britain’s in five years. The economic revolution is feeding national confidence – Brazil is hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. Ruth Lea, economic adviser to City stockbroker Arbuthnot said: “Brazil has done terrifically well. It just shows how the power in the world economy is shifting…” READ MORE

I am willing to give Beyonce the benefit of the doubt that she is probably clueless about the long history & recent tensions between the French & Africans even though she is technically a product of this history since her mom is of New Orleans, Louisiana Creole decent; however anyone who has lived as a Black person & has been awake & aware in the world of fashion, which she makes a good amount of money from, should know that celebrating African queens by donning black face is just not a good move for anyone. Fela Anikulapo Ransome-Kuti is rolling in his grave that this is how they would choose to celebrate him,  Africa & the  true African queens who he loved in multiples. I don’t know if Beyonce was trying to make up for the fact that UK’s Daily Mail basically accused her of being part of the self hating skin bleaching brigade of Black celebrities, but come on Beyonce, why would you think this was a good idea with the last few years being nothing but Black people being outraged about black face in magazine after magazine & even Tyra Banks having to come out & apologize for doing the same on her America’s Top Model show?

I personally could careless about this overplayed card of “black face” by European magazines craving global or better yet American attention month after month, season after season..YAWN! We are bored & you can have it because it doesn’t even have the same offensive effect anymore because it is just lacking imagination, vision & creativity in its sheer unadulterated stupidity. As Black history month comes to an end in February & women’s history month begins in March, I would have loved to be celebrating my beautiful Black sister paying homage to  Fela & Africa depicted in a magazine that I actually really enjoy most of the time, but instead I am left with the disappointment of what could have been a beautiful celebratory trifecta of Beyonce, Africa & L’Officiel  ending up as a badly thought out effort choosing to opt for the go to cheap way of getting global attention instead of truly thinking out of the box in vision & creativity.

As an African & a great admirer & fan of Fela, I think it is disgraceful to try to claim that this is somehow celebratory in his honor because obviously they know very little about what Fela was about & stood for because this type of tomfoolery in depicting L’Officiel & Beyonce’s idea of what an African queen looks like would have him singing “Zombie” to Beyonce  & have him with a few choice words for L’officiel using “dem regular trademark” & letting them know “teacher don’t teach me no nonsense“! The idea that this is in anyway celebrating or paying homage to Fela’s legacy as a man who loved Africa & used music as a weapon to fight the type of injustice that is being done to African people/descendants right in France is absurd & a big fail in my book. The only reason I have any interest in speaking about this March  2011 -90th Anniversary issue of L’Officiel is specifically because they decided to say it was “deglaming” Beyonce AKA Sasha Feirce & taking her back to her African roots, while somehow paying homage to Fela by going against the exact nonsense he spoke about..this colonial mentality of what an African is & should be!

L’Officiel’s officiel response to the manufactured controversy

“The designs are all reflective of the African influence on fashion this season,” the magazine says in a statement. “As for the artistic make-up, the inspiration came from several African rituals during which paint is used on the face. We find the images beautiful and inspiring.”

#FELAHOMAGE #AFRICANRITUAL #PAINTEDFACES -There’s a difference let’s be honest & not disingenuous.

It is time that we stop acting stuck on stupid & recognize the world around us & our responsibility as everyday people & specifically artists/celebrities who have a massive platform to utilize their voice & power to bring about real change. By saying they are “deglaming” Beyonce & taking her back to her African roots is ridiculously insulting in itself because it suggests that Africa isn’t glamourous & to top off the stereotype of the  so called “dark continent” they blacken Beyonce’s face as if she isn’t already Black & one of us global African Queens who come in all shades-No need to Blacken or Whiten.

The other images without black face were fine all on their own, even though they gave the same stereotypical idea of head wraps, mudd clothes, elaborate wood, gold & ivory jewelry being the staple of what Africa is to most Europeans & I guess even to African descendants of the Diaspora. The blackface was just an unnecessary edition that added nothing to the shoot except to conjure up controversy, which I am sure was the goal. Is the European or African Diasporan idea of going back to one’s African roots just donning blackface & head wraps? Big Shrugs & an Oh Please on that! If you want real examples of Diasporans going back to one’s African roots look at Rita Marley & all that she has done for Africa (Ghana in particular) & the many others who are really about honoring, respecting & giving back to the roots of humanity & their culture in a real way not just a silly superficial way. I would like to know if there were any African designers featured in the so called “African themed” fashion shoot or was Mama Knowles as African as they wanted to get? Robin Givhan said it best in addressing the fashion industry’s lack of honesty in dealing with the issue of race.

“the fashion community tends to play dumb or be disingenuous. It treats race like “a paint chip,” even while benefiting from the undercurrent of racial tensions that permeate our society. Recognizing the power of race—and the accompanying stereotypes—has led to some of fashion’s most glorious images. Fashion pushes at the boundaries of political correctness in the name of creative freedom and buzz. But it often does it in a manner that is impish, sly, timid, and, at times, seemingly downright deceitful. How many times must we see a white model dressed in designer fare cavorting with the brown-skinned locals in India or Africa? Those who lead the cultural conversation about beauty, gender, and class biases can be shockingly uninterested in carrying on a dialogue about race—or simply unwilling to do so. I say, if you’re going to play with stereotypes, do it openly and honestly. After all, sometimes the culture needs to be challenged, even angered….” READ MORE

I am all for having this honest dialogue about race & how we all benefit in playing the game of race without being openly honest about it whether one is Black ,White or other. I guess Black people are even more stuck on stupid than White people on this issue of “black face” because we condone, celebrate & participate in what we say we hate. How can anyone take Black people seriously when we fall right in line with stereotypes even when we are the ones in control of defining our Blackness. Why would Beyonce, miss independent with a mind of her own that can upgrade you choose to downgrade herself & Africa by ever thinking that this would be a great idea to agree to after the past few years of backlash with this very issue ? I guess money & fame weakens the brain & principle goes out the window! Oh well congrats Beyonce on yet another cover & getting mama Knowles a high end fashion gig for her costumes & joyeux anniversaire L’officiel, but the M.O.P & African in me can’t help but to channel Cee Lo & say F$*K You!

This is our own stupidity in the fact that this shoot would have been great if someone actually stood up & said no to the Black Face- which was just unnecessary & really served no purpose other than to create controversy. They knew the hype in media attention that they would receive from the controversy -which is what they were going for & they got it with the help of Black people who should know better..sometimes our thirst to be included by any means necessary makes us our own worst enemy!

I had to add this comment that I saw on theHotness.com because it captured the issues of the Black community that we seem to never learn from & create for ourselves, while others who have been through the struggles of racism, genocide & injustice have managed to decipher in a clear cut no exceptions way on what is & isn’t acceptable in their representation.
Justin Says:
“First of all, I agree that the editorial was more of an issue than the photograph. The language indicated an underlying notion of Africans as savage and inherently un-glamarous. Ugh….But we need to take a page from our Jewish brothers and sisters when in comes to ish like this. No Jewish person would ever tolerate someone in a Nazi costume, just because the person wearing it was Jewish. They keep it simple: all things Nazi are bad and won’t be tolerated. We, on the other hand make so many exceptions to all of our ‘rules’ that is renders them completely useless. “Don’t say the N word, unless you’re Black, or a rapper or one of the cool white cats that we grew up with who we know don’t mean it in a bad way.” “Don’t dress up in blackface unless you’re black, or in a European fashion magazine, or directing your own music video.”…We need to get our ish together and stand for something or just shut up. Consistency might not be universally respected, but at least folks will know where we stand.”

“Music is a spiritual thing, u don’t play with music..if u play with music u will die young..When the higher forces give u gift of music, musicianship- it must b well used for the good of humanity..if u use it 4 ur own self by deceiving people..u will die young” Fela kept it clear & consistent

Fela Wives PHOTO CREDIT: Femi Osunla @ URBAN IMAGE

Beyonce Photos : March 2011: L’Officiel Paris

At the end of each year magazines & media outlets like People, Time , Barbara Walters etc. name their list of most influential people of the year or person of the year. Many of us may or may not agree with their choices, particularly those of us outside of America who have other people who influenced our lives & nations for better or worse in a way that would make Barabara Walters’s choices of the cast of The Jersey Shore, Sara Palin & even Oprah irrelevant. some of us may not even know about facebook (this is for my villagers & I suspect even some of them may know-lol) let alone would agree with Time Magazine naming Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as the operson of the year . As much as I love Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt for their all around global fusion of sexy perfection, People Magazine could have tried to think outside the box for once.  With an ever exploding multi million to billion dollar African film industry that is invading America & Europe maybe People Magazine could have taken some advice from Oprah & CNN by featuring African film’s best of 2010 actress Genevieve Naji and some of the many other global actors whose influence & recognition also span the world at large.

With Time Magazine’s only focus on Africans who mattered this year being in the negative with the inclusion Omar al-Bashir & Asamoah Gyan- not in the fact that he led Ghana as the only African nation still standing at the quarter finals in the first world cup ever to be held in Africa, but  rather chose to recognize his contribution to one of the most watched world cup games ever which had not only Africans but most of the world rooting for Ghana in this manner:

“And poor Asamoah Gyan, of Ghana; during the final moments of Ghana’s quarterfinal game against Uruguay, Gyan was awarded a penalty kick when a handball negated what would have been the winning goal to send an African nation to the World Cup semifinals for the first time. Instead, Gyan missed the penalty shot, badly, and Uruguay went on to win the game….” Read More

Does American media represent a monolithic view of the world instead of a global view with the choices of influential people of the year unanbashingly lacking a true global perspective? Where are people like Activist, Youth Action International Founder & Brick Award Winner Kimmie Weeks, Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson,  Kenyan Environmentalist Wangari Maathai, Nigerian Businessman & Chairmain of Credit Suiss Adebayo Ogunlesi, the revival of the life & soul of Fela Anikulapo Kuti on Broadway & resurgence of Afrobeat with global new artists on the rise like Nneka ? What about the African continent as a whole which in 2010 not only had 17 nations celebrating 50 years of  independence but also influencing everything from new global media with major western outlets like C-SPAN, MTV & BET recognizing the need to have their imprint in Africa, global fashion trends , telecom business to evoking a new global scramble for Africa that has brought a new resurgence of repatriation during a global recession that is leading all investors to Africa as the new frontier.

The person of the year is YOU! Each individual that exercised their creativity, consumed &  produced globally- making this year the people’s year in keeping economies going during a global recession while being innovative & widely sharing information through social networks. Who Is Your Person Of The Year?

AFRICA LOOKS FORWARD FOR 2011 TO BE AFRICA’S YEAR -A RETURN TO TRUE LEADERSHIP & GLOBAL THINKERS-THE TIME IS NOW!

“In the future as the world of Africa & the West mate more & more into the totality of world culture, the creative strength of the African personality, which is evident in tribal sculpture, will contribute far more profoundly to human fulfillment than can yet be imagined” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah- 1966

Billions have been raised so far in charitable donations for Haiti, but more & more Haitians are dying every day after surviving being buried alive in years of poverty & the rubble of the earthquake, having only their sheer will to live to hold onto. International bureaucracy & power struggles of people with invested interest more in economy than humanity is becoming the continued cause of many Haitians being handed their final death certificates.

We need to be diligent & aware about keeping up with who is controlling the purse strings of all the humanitarian aid & the future sovereignty of Haiti. We can raise all the money we want to help Haiti, but Haiti will still be in the same condition & possibly worse, with an achieved loss of sovereignty if Haitians & Pan-Africanists at large do not come to the aid of their brothers & sisters in attaining & retaining economic empowerment & sovereignty. We have seen throughout the history of the world that a nation’s power & health rests upon its economic power & health; however for many African nations & Diasporans, genuinely fighting to attain this reality has been less & less of a priority because it has been easier & less work to collect foreign aid in return for resources, to leave the health & upliftment from poverty of their citizens to NGO’s & to just silently exist without much fight nor change within broken systems of governance, as long as the few in power continue to hold their titles as beneficiaries.

“Something in the nature of an economic revolution is required. Our development has been held back for too long by the colonial-type economy. We need to reorganize entirely, so that each country can specialize in producing the goods and crops for which it is best suited…..We have the blessing of the wealth of our vast resources, the power of our talents and the potentialities of our people. Let us grasp now the opportunities before us and meet the challenge to our survival. ” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s First President

We need to be diligent about not turning a blind eye to where all the Haitian relief funds are going when there are so many still begging & waiting for relief. Where is all that money being allocated to? Who is watching over the money & making the decisions on how it is spent? These are the questions we should never stop asking as we give of ourselves in charity because what is the point of charity when the situation of the people is never helped, but rather seems to get worse than better? This is the question we should be asking the Red Cross & the 10,000 + NGO/charities that were in Haiti prior to the quake & the numerous more that are in Haiti now.

“We shall measure our progress by the improvement in the health of our people; by the number of children in school, and by the quality of their education; by the availability of water and electricity in our towns and villages, and by the happiness which our people take in being able to manage their own affairs. The welfare of our people is our chief pride, and it is by this that my Government will ask to be judged.” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

February honors Black History month in America- we should not & can not allow the history of Black people throughout Africa & her Diaspora to be written in the same way in the next decade as it has been written in the past because that only will show the lack of forward movement & the acceptance of stagnation amongst Black people globally. If this decade is going to be diffrent than the last decade for Haiti & Black people globally, then we must recognize our common struggle, the same struggle that became the catalyst for the movement of Pan-Africanism.

We need this new decade to be a revival of Pan-Africanism with new, young, intelligent, concerned, enlightened, awake, aware, unabashed,unbought, unbossed, pride filled Black people in the likeness of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, W.E.B Dubois, Jomo Kenyatta, Marcus Garvey,Patrice Lumumba, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Ahmed Sékou Touré ,Gamal Abd El Nasser,Haile Selassie,Bob Marley, Fela Anikulapo Kuti etc. -everyday people turned leaders who knew,understood & accepted that although they have been spread all over the world, their legacy empowerment & economic freedom is intertwined in the legacy, empowerment & economic freedom of Africa-the spiritual birthplace of home. The type of feeling of home where one always comes back to pay homage while seeking the guidance & comfort of mama Africa’s bosom -the only true mother of our blood & roots regardless of our adopted mother nations.

There are the Kimmie Weeks of Africa & the Wyclef Jean’s of the Diaspora, who need to join forces with the likes of people like Samia Yaba Christina Nkrumah, daughter of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who has decided to take on the mantle of her father by starting a new intelligent revolution toward real resolution. There needs to be a new era/new decade of Pan-Africanism with a Pan-African summit based on the original teachings & goals of empowerment & health through our collective economic freedom at the forefront.

“She is emerging as the new face of the current crop of selfless continental African leaders who think more about the development and prosperity of sub-Saharan Africa, first and foremost than looting from the continent.” Ghanaweb.com.

Sami Nkrumah & the growing crop of new thinkers & leaders are the only way to make this new decade, a decade where Africa & the 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 can’t rest on touting the legacy & greatness of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah or Toussaint L’Ouverture when there has been little to no forward movement created by the generations after them, in terms of the level of global respect & conditions of Africans & her Diasporans.

“Achieving political and economic liberation, social justice and national and continental unity including the African Diaspora are yet to be realized.” Samia Nkrumah

Pan-African movement
“Movement dedicated to establishing independence for African nations and cultivating unity among black people throughout the world. It originated in conferences held in London (1900, 1919, 1921, 1923) and other cities. W.E.B. Du Bois was a principal early leader. The important sixth Pan-African conference (Manchester, 1945) included Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah. The first truly intergovernmental conference was held in Accra, Ghana, in 1958, where Patrice Lumumba was a key speaker. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) was founded by Robert M. Sobukwe and others in South Africa in 1959 as a political alternative to the African National Congress, which was seen as contaminated by non-African influences. The founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU; now the African Union) by Julius Nyerere and others in 1963 was a milestone, and the OAU soon became the most important Pan-Africanist organization.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60U0IV20100131

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1455459.html

http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/haiti-red-cross-donations/

http://open.salon.com/blog/ezili_danto/2009/10/13/oil_in_haiti_-_economic_reasons_for_the_unus_occupation

“When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.” — Jomo Kenyatta, Pan-Africanist & first president of Kenya

“It is said, of course that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications, no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilize our resources for our own social needs…Yet all the stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with Africa’s gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores. Our CAPITAL flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to have originated from OUR shores. Africa provides more than 60 per cent of the world’s gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries – the basic economic might of the foreign Powers – comes from OUR continent.” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

http://ghanaianoracle.wordpress.com/the-history-of-ghana/

The Achievements and Failures of President Kwame Nkrumah
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/history/cia_nkrumah.php

Richard Helms (CIA) file on Nkrumah
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/history/cia_nkrumah.php

“Countrymen, the task ahead is great indeed, and heavy is the responsibility; and yet it is a noble and glorious challenge – a challenge which calls for the courage to dream, the courage to believe, the courage to dare, the courage to do, the courage to envision, the courage to fight, the courage to work, the courage to achieve – to achieve the highest excellencies and the fullest greatness of man. Dare we ask for more in life? ”
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah -Address to the National Assembly. 12 June 1965