05 Zombie

http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14742683

The ultimate power of the world wide web for Africa & her descendants is that it allows us to be able to interact globally & to closely see that the fight for mental emancipation & renewed dignity is not a battle for Africans alone, but rather a collective battle being waged on Africa & all of her descendants spread throughout the world. The degradation of Africa & her descendants continues in the world economy, in media, in sport & in the everyday lives of those who carry the brand of slavery so deeply that the power of mental slavery has sustained a bondage that has not superseded nor reconciled with physical emancipation. I read the note below on “Zwarte Piet” posted by Simone from Amsterdam, discussing the continuation of images of degradation of the descendants of slaves in the Netherlands by utilizing the same formula with new/old names in the same Black face for the pursuit of entertainment, greed & power by those whose livelihood & existence depend on these images of degradation to exist.

With all the renewed interest in Africa & her resources to power & empower the world’s economy, I am hoping we have awaken from our slumber, learned from the past & CHOOSE to not repeat the parts of history that has failed Africa & Africans globally for generations. First, we actually have to acknowledge the mistakes & reconcile with the past. We must be able to say “never again” & truly mean it, not only in words but through action- talk, talk, talk & apologies can longer suffice! The resurrection from mental enslavement & lost dignity of Africa & her descendants is riding on having a good outcome with this new lure of Africa & everything/everyone African.

Simone Zeefuik: Zwarte Piet –or- How a huge clan of Dutch folks continuously keeps losing their mind (part 2)

Why are people still talking about Zwarte Piet?” For me this question is so far beyond any form of common sense that for a split second it gave me hope. The hope that in that one day I didn’t read the paper it finally happened. Oh joy! Could it be that while I was working on my Free Zwarte Piet!-article the blackface-lovers finally manned up to their madness and collectively said ‘NO!’ to Holland’s longest running minstrel show? Ofcourse not. Nothing changed but this maggot, whose anonymity is solely based on the fact that she doesn’t deserves to be acknowledged, felt the need to question the relevance of the problem we call Piet.

Apparently when it comes to ignorance the possibilities of arrogance are infinite. Let’s break it down to the point that even the lazy can just sniff it up and hallucinate their way to an epiphany. Until people stop singing songs with lyrics like: “Eventhough I’m black as soot I mean well” and “Sinterklaas please come in with your servant” it’s relevant. Until the magic chimney allows white folks to act like they’re auditioning for Bamboozled II it’s relevant. When a white kid points at a Black person and calls him or her Zwarte Piet you can just see the kid’s parents dying of embarrassment. Unless those parents can stand there with there heads high and that “Now what?!” look on their face you know our issue is relevant..

That inglorious blackfaced bastard is a splinter in our eye and until we actually take it out we will keep looking for a way to get rid of it! “Madam, we know it hurts but we really need you to stop complaining about the dagger in your chest.” The longer folks keep talking the harder they will have to pray that they’re not standing too close when we finally yank out the blade.

Spread the word. FREE ZWARTE PIET!!
http://www.facebook.com/notes/simone-zeefuik/zwarte-piet-or-how-a-huge-clan-of-dutch-folks-continuously-keeps-losing-their-mi/215421582645

Bless,
Simone

I had never heard of Zwarte Peit and I just found out that Mexico has its own Zwarte Peit named Black Pedro. It seems Black face is all the rage again in entertainment for art or laughs, grabbing headlines in letting people of African descent know just how far we have not come globally. The prevalence & branding of black face globally in all its inferences & provocations all come from the same root of our global confusion within what was & is our global fusion. I knew about Uncle Ben’s, Aunt Jemima, minstrel shows & the shucking & jiving history of Black America that was used as a form of entertainment as well as a tool for marketing & advertising in the past, but never really knew that modern day minstrel shows were still being celebrated & even government sanctioned globally. Even today there are many blatant & covert forms of new era minstrel shows utilized as a global publicity campaign in the showcasing of Black contribution to the world, often brought about or assisted by our own self-imposed bondage of mental slavery & loss of dignity.

African descendants rally against the institutionalized implications of Black face in some instances while perpetuating it in other instances. At a time when the entire world seems to once again be looking to Africa for its resources, we really need to reconcile with the transatlantic slave trade & its global fall out, which in one way or the other still holds its tight grip on the continuation of lost dignity & mental enslavement amongst African descendants globally. We continue to sit aside & accept the foolishness without question because of the loss of dignity that breeds helplessness in our situation. When one is fighting for their daily bread, often there is no energy left to seek education, to get political or to question their condition, but at some point we have to uprise & up-lift through the leadership of people like Harriet Tubman, who gave her fellow slaves no choice in the pursuit & right to their freedom! I was just watching a documentary on the Brazilians of African decent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZctDfysuhg), the words that captured me the most was when the commentators said:

“The brand of slavery remains so deeply etched in the memory of Black people that even today shanty town dwellers rarely question their lot, rarely challenge their role at the bottom of Brazilian society. Driven by the demands of daily survival, few Blacks in the favelas have time for political
organizations.”

I am sure the slave owners couldn’t believe their own power & bravado in being able to control millions of able bodied strong men & their entire families just thru the bondage of mental enslavement & lost of dignity. They must have had a laugh in the fact that in reality their slaves had full control over their entire livelihood & life as they knew it -without them -no money, no enterprise, no one to run the house, no one to raise their children to be obedient & fearful of power, while showing them the advantages of drunken power, which they would eventually inherent as their birth right in the enslavement of the children of the slaves who raised them to become their children’s masters. Even today many of those in power who are considered amongst “the haves” completely fall apart without their black & brown nannies at their beck & call to maintain house & home. These nannies much like the mammies of old often make the ultimate sacrifice which keeps them away from their own duties of keeping their own house & home in order, leaving yet another generation to be checked in the category of Zwarte Peits & “have nots”.

The slave masters were probably dumbfounded about how long it took for the slaves to realize that they cleaned, organized & controlled the libraries of their master’s households, so if the day came when they decided to open those books & become mentally emancipated with revived dignity, the gig would be up! They would lose their livelihoods & even their lives because nothing could be more dangerous or feared than a self aware, confident & educated Negro; therefore they had to do everything possible to maintain the power of mental bondage & lost dignity amongst their slaves in order to maintain their supremacy & survival!

This blueprint of drunken power from the past continues globally because for the small minority to continue their supremacy, they must maintain a large majority with eyes wide shut in lost dignity & with no hope in mental emancipation that can catalyze an uprising for true mental, physical & economic emancipation! From slavery, to the holocaust, to Jim Crowe, to apartheid, to Sharia law in Sudan, to priests & prophets utilizing religion to teach & perpetuate inequality, to global corporations built on the backs of the poor without a human living wage, to the aftermath of hurricane katrina, to favelas, to ghettos globally, to Palestine, to Iran, to Mexico, to China, to North Korea, to Haiti, to Colombia, to Brazil, to Nigeria, to Jamaica, to Zimbabwe, to America, to welfare, to Dick Cheney, to haliburton, to genocides, to Idi Amin Dada, to Tony Blair, to George Bush, to Kim Il-sung, to Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, to Hitler, to Bernard Madoff, to AIG, to the world bank -same formula with the same ultimate results; just different places, faces, institutions & plays on human ignorance in the pursuit of greed + power!

It’s great to see many everyday people from Africa & her Diaspora along with artists from all genres following in the footsteps of Fela, who for love of continent, nation, music, art & CONFINDENCE in the fact that everyman/woman had a right & ability to use his/her voice in exposing the world to global injustice by exposing Africa, her conditions & conditioning -the good, the bad & the ugly! I love the entrepreneurial spirit that is rising amongst young people in Africa, who make up the majority of the continent’s population. They are finding their MIGHT through mental emancipation & uprising for dignity by utilizing their voices & organizing in the knowledge that Made in Africa shall be the ultimate in physical emancipation & re-evolution of Africa’s dignity & the dignity of her descendants globally! The blueprint started 52 years ago at Independence/ Black Star Square & erupted from Guinea to America, to Jamaica & much of the Diaspora, & now back to America in the form of Barack Obama, who is seen by many African descendants as some sort of prophecy or symbol of a new era of reconciliation in renewed dignity with a call for mental emancipation/education at the forefront of what the future will hold in the true global physical emancipation of Africa & her descendants, as well as the ultimate taboo in betrayal & disobedience of the slave owners blueprint (a Caucasian woman creating a child with an African man). Prophecy & Prayer alone without continued action, responsibility & true reconciliation can never bring true freedom!

As Jomo Kenyatta, former President of Kenya, African Nationalist and leader of the Mau Mau rebel group, once said:

“When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the Land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible”

Nations such as China,India, & Brazil who were once at the bottom of the global economic power structure are now being recognized as power players. Attaining power & economic freedom from the bottom up has been shown to be possible generation after generation, but do we ever learn from the past- do we ever mean it when we say “Never Again!”, or do we just continue to use the same formula of our former master’s supremacy to build upon our own supremacy?

“It has also given Brazil new swagger, providing it, for instance, with greater leverage to push for a tougher bargain with the United States and Europe in global trade talks. After seven years, those negotiations finally broke down this week over demands by India and China for safeguards for their farmers, a clear sign of the rising clout of these emerging economies.” Strong Economy Propels Brazil to World Stage By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/americas/31brazil.html

The scary part of all this is that many young & old Africans have no clue about their global connections nor do they relate the struggle & upliftment of descendants of slaves in the Diaspora to their own & vice versa. We don’t seem to see that as African descendants our history in its good, bad & ugly all stem from one place which globally fused us throughout the world. Black face whether in Amsterdam, Australia, London, Brazil, India, China, Mexico or Mississippi has the same root of origin as a symbol of degradation that has been made acceptable through the stripping & rewriting of history much like the word “Nigger” despite abbreviations, different languages & new reasoning. We have reasoned & found acceptance for racism & the perpetuation of racial stereotypes-self imposed or not- for basic entertainment, for sport, for art, for economics etc. thru our sense of helplessness & in the comfort & tolerance of these words & images in our everyday lives as global citizens. We have all once again as global citizens, despite our global history, become compliant in our complacency in perpetuating the ultimate PR/Marketing/Advertising campaign with images & taglines putting people of African descent in their “rightful place” as the consummate ignorant powerless workers building nations & institutions which they can never take full ownership of, or ever claim as their own -free from mental emancipation & shackled by lost dignity.

http://www.blackvoices.com/black-history-month-2009/vintage-racist-ads
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33540065/ns/entertainment-access_hollywood/

Modern Day Advertising for Sugar Across Africa

http://grammarpolice.net/archives/000717.php

From the Texas State Library and Archives Commision:
“The enslavement of African Americans was the curse of early American life, and Texas was no exception. The Mexican government was opposed to slavery, but even so, there were 5000 slaves in Texas by the time of the Texas Revolution in 1836. By the time of annexation a decade later, there were 30,000; by 1860, the census found 182,566 slaves — over 30% of the total population of the state.”

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, NOW, Freedom, Freedom, Now!
May God Bless You!
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

03 Place is now , time is near