So, lately, I’ve been a bit quiet, on a relatively material tip, considering who I am, what my writing represents and how to express that to a larger, world-wide audience. My blogs have been reflecting the shifts and movement of worldly energies as we are all buffeted by the winds of change, apparent at every level of our lives, no matter where in the world we live. It is indeed 2012 and while it is not a doomsday scenario as so many in the mainstream like to think the weird people on the fringe believe, it is a time of considered change and an opportunity for many to make personal shifts in their lives in order to create a better future more in tune with who they are within.
And, as my own life has been undergoing fundamental change, I have been forced to confront many of my previously inviolate beliefs about the nature of reality, the nature of experience and the nature of consciousness, all of which has led me to the realization that I am responsible for who I am as well as who I am perceived to be, and, the simultaneous realization that the trajectory of my life has led me to a place where I am blessed to be able to communicate effectively on certain issues. The question then becomes, should I communicate on these issues? Or, should I leave them to those more qualified and concerned then I?
Which then begged the question, who is more qualified or concerned then I? At which point it became incumbent upon me to peer up and away from my navel in order to assess the state of the online consciousness scene, and to break that down into bits and parts, attempting to determine if there was some void that needed to be filled, or if I could comfortably move back into social and political discourse – from which I had consciously distanced myself some years ago – in a manner that presents the same information from just a slightly different perspective. My training as a Western-style academic ended when I left the PhD program at Texas State, but, previously, I spent my undergraduate years learning how to learn according to the liberal arts tradition while attending Prairie View A&M University, an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) (91-94) where I was indoctrinated into the Afrocentric viewpoint by such luminaries as Dr. Imari Obadele (PoliSci), Dr. Jewel Prestage and Dr. William Brown (Geog), alongside my own student activism profile where I met such beautiful friends – that are still in my life, my cousin Teffany, Sal, Phillip, Kai and many others whose commitment to the continued consolidation of a normalized black culture remains paramount as we enter the middle decades of our lives.
During the middle educational years (94-00), as a Masters student at Indiana University-Bloomington (Hoosiers), my intellectual efforts were augmented by extensive net-time during the mid-to-late-90s when the fabled Flame Wars were at their peak and I joined theAfrofuturism Listserv, at the time ably adminstrated by Kali Tal and Alondra Nelson, where I met such strong and brilliant souls as Nalo Hopkinson, Lester Kenyata Spence and Art McGee/Dan Freeman. Peter (Oga), and Amneh, with whom i continue the journey of this life to this day, remain close friends whose thoughts and opinions I cherish and count on. That time period of involvement with numerous Afrocentric and Nile Valley-related listservs fed my need and desire to offset my Masters training in Urban and Environmental Geography with culturally and historically-related pursuits that might, I felt, ‘even out’ my continued indoctrination into the Ivory Tower, at least somewhat. The break from Academia that led me to 1stBooks Library (nowAuthorhouse) and then the co-founding of the Afrocentric Publishing company, Conquering Books LLC occured simultaneous to my publishing of my first book, Black Hole Soul and then Temple of the Sky, both written as I interacted with and wrote with the poets and novelists of De GriotSpace and UrbanPoetic(00-03). And then came Soultry, which I co-founded with my sistersoul Marlena (at her invitation), and which also acted as an introduction and opportunity to interact countless poets and writers, my peers, on the Net, many of whom are reaching the highest heights of the written and spoken word.
So many words, so many lives, so many ways to communicate and share experience. There are so many out there right now doing good work, writing upon current issues that affect not only the African American community, but the world-wide African Diaspora as well. Those with specific concerns that include education, politics, culture and economics. The information available to us through the Internet – and access to data in so many different formats – allows us to bolster our lived experiences with statistical and real-world data, the dissemination of which suffers only from the willingness and ability of disparate populations to access the articles, rants and raves decrying the inequalities and outrages of the GWSS as the toils and tribulations of daily life prevent those most in need of this knowledge from taking the time to search for it. There are enough voices out there preaching revolutionary doctrine, existing in opposition to prevailing political, economic and culture forces, and this is as it should be. All energies must exist in equilibrium and the expression of this natural law occurs within the context of social justice, as it does also in the context of existence itself. As above, so below.
So where do I fit into this schematic? I’m not sure yet, but I do know that my perspective is a bit different from that of most, and that I approach many issues of a worldly nature from a more arcane perspective and, hopefully, a pertinent one. I see the juxtaposition of life upon the template of spirit and destiny as being akin to preparing a hamburger to suit your tastes. Some people like meat and bread only, while others like cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, mustard and mayonaise to go along with it. The many possible tastes available span the gamut of experience and we all add different condiments and fillers to our lives that reflect our interests, with some being focused upon singular issues, prefering beef patties and bread alone, while others like to go for the gusto, synthesize information and gain a wider viewpoint by eating the jumbo rather than the plain burger. Both viewpoints, ways of looking at the world are valid and augment each other by providing the purveyor of information with a wide variety of choices, allowing them to see both the micro and macro-scaled renditions of life as we live it, as it pertains to their own lived experiences.
Being a Geographer gives me a holistic view as I interpret information based upon its spatial extent, that space being simultaneously human and physical, material and abstract. Being a spiritual Being gives me a transcendent rather than material view, as I interpret information based upon its philosophical extent, applying seemingly universal precepts of morality to the cyclical depredations of this yin/yang creation, forever spiraling into darkness and then back into the light, the conditions of existence requiring the expression of both in order to fulfill its fundamental purpose of experiential evolution. On a personal basis, the decision to engage in this fashion must be made in full consciousness that engaging fully upon the material planes automatically precludes one from engaging fully in the spiritual planes, relegating one to a measured life lived within the confines of the dichotomous natore of our lived reality, which brings the individual to the basic choice that we each must make regarding destiny and who we have chosen to be during each successive lifetime. The paths of Dharma, the pages of the Book of Life, the entries of the Akashic Record seeth with the roilings of infinite existence and each thought, each spoken and written word adds to the collections, the expressions of G-d’s memories of the future.
So I remain unsure of anything except for the fact that I have to do what I have to do in every aspect of my life. That I am called to do this, whatever this is, to comment on that, whatever that may be in the moment, to speak upon those thoughts and occurences that draw my fingers to the keyboard like junebugs to light. If y’all find anything that I share of interest, then I think that I’ve done what I’ve been called to do, as I appreciate the call to read and listen to your thoughts and words too. In the end, all knowledge is One and each of us are only reminding each other of things that we already know, already feel are true, as evidenced by that chill of recognition that we get whenever we are exposed to Truth in its purest form. The future is Now as the Past is gone and realizing this zen moment is all there is makes us all culpable, responsible for our decisions and free to change the future with each choice we make. We are, then, who we choose to be, and that choice includes an infinite array of possibility.
The Future is Now. And it’s going to be a wild ride, I think. We all had better hold on to the sides of the car as the rollercoaster of life heads over the edge, into the void of potential that lies on the other side of each moment.
At first, the Trayvon Martin killing seemed to be following the usual pattern. The suspicious death of a black boy followed by mainstream apathy and outrage in the African-American community. The details of the case were a bit off kilter from the norm, as the police in this instance were not the cause of the boy’s death. Rather, the perpetrator was an Hispanic man who sought to protect his neighborhood in Sanford, Florida, from crime who became overzealous resulting in a struggle and Trayvon’s death. George Zimmerman, the aforementioned “Hispanic man” was allowed to walk free by the Sanford PD under the auspices of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, a liberal gun law that provides immunity to individuals who kill in self-defense.
But as black folks engaged in their peculiar form of revolt and assault upon systemic injustice by employing their usual tactics, something different happened. At first, it was only a trickle. Mainstream media reports of sympathetic polls showing that the majority of whites believed that an injustice had been done. Unbelievably, right-winged media luminaries and politicians speaking up for Trayvon. White people across the social networking sphere expressing sympathetic resonance to the plight of Trayvon and supporting calls for Zimmerman’s arrest. White movie stars and musicians tweeting and speaking about justice for Trayvon. World-wide media, individuals from countries all across the world, utilizing Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other venues calling out, expressing their dismay and solidarity with the movement to obtain justice for Trayvon Martin from an apparently corrupt system.
It’s not my job to continue the trend toward separation that is actively fostered by certain elevated segments of society and others motivated by fear and anger. There are plenty of writers out there who already do that. It was not my plan to write about Trayvon. There are plenty of writers out there who have already done that. What I do consider it my job and plan to do is to seek to stoke the awareness and compassion of a global polity concerned at heart with the necessity and inevitability of unity. Of a global expression of Oneness that dashes the macabre plans of a dysfunctional political and economic elite that expresses it’s life-denying and world-killing imperatives by any and all available means, technological and social, it deems necessary.
It’s going to be harder than pointing to Trayvon’s encounters with school authorities and suspensions to turn the people against the boy and his people, to make them fear him as yet another black youth gone wrong who might have broken into their houses, stolen their jewelry, if given half a chance. It’s going to be harder to continue to obscure Zimmerman’s past dealings with the police and his lenient treatment. It’s going to be harder than waiting on the already-broken justice system to do its slow and remorseless job of perceptive ambiguation, creating confusion and disinterest, hoping that people will stop paying attention as they enact their diabolical plans to consolidate their control through throttling economic peonage and total world-wide warfare.
If everyone is too sickened by what is going on to participate, who benefits? One thing is becoming quite clear: The United States of America still has quite a long way to go in the area of racial and class-based relations. At least, that collection of moving pictures and radio-waves we call the media does. I’d be a bit more sure of the difference if I didn’t hear the same words coming out of the mouths of ’real people’ in college classes, call-in radio shows and the comment spaces of blogs, news and opinion pages the net across. This inability to see the forest for the trees is represented by our wilful choice to settle for the sound bites and media hype to the detriment of truth and the fabled American Way. Perhaps the reason why half of the American electorate doesn’t vote is because they are too cynical – or knowledgeable – to participate in what is seeming more and more to be an exercise in futility.
Better to vegetate in front of a video game or the latest reality show, or, go to Pow Wows, church every night of the week or Wiccan gatherings, leaving the politics for those inclined toward them, taking on the challenge of individual and worldly spiritual salvation, instead. And yet, the ability of politics to open us, to awaken feelings of anger and disgust, joy and hopefulness speak to a need that we all must still share to work together, to find common answers to common problems as a group. There must be, even in the most cynical and uninvolved of us, some desire to see things get better for ourselves, our families and our country. the investment of emotion stems from our subconscious need to be a part of a community, while our disengagement from politics represents the fundamental alienation that results from the large-scale tampering and obvious monetization of the political process. They’re all crooked anyway, right? They’re just looking out for thier own interests, no doubt. The corporations run everything. The government doesn’t care about the people. Our votes don’t count. They’re going to pick who they want, anyway. Right?
So let the voices coalesce and the waking dream commence as we engage in this pursuit of humanness, as the political turmoil increases, as it most certainly will in the coming months leading up to the election season and as the economic and martial winds of worldwide trends continue to overtake our peace of mind. Recognize the inevitability of movement and find the peace that lies in the midst of every storm, in the heart of every moment, in the core of every thought. This is the manifestation of Being in its essence, the experiential chasm within which we all swim, searching for higher ground. To find the joy in despair is Life’s journey and a goal worth embarking upon consciously as we move to form a more perfect union, as individuals, nations and a human family, seeking ever after the Divine.
Despite the fact that it is 2012 and that the countries of the world are increasingly more diverse, there remain inter-cultural stigmas against interracial dating and marriage. While rates of interracial relationships are increasing in country after country throughout the West, the undeniable reality of institutionalized inequity and personal prejudice continues to leave room for doubt in the minds of many.
Within minority groups in particular, the more difficult social stigmas remain centered upon engaging in interracial relationships with whites, as opposed to members of other minority groups. Within the black community in general, entering into relationships with individuals of Mexican, American Indian, or members of any east or south Asian group is generally perceived as being better, or more acceptable than entering into congress with white men or women. This has to do particularly with that groups peculiar history and millennia-long interrelationship with Europe and its descendants. The historical imposition of slavery and the continuing institutionalization of privilege based upon race that has ossified due to its hoary standardization within the implicit structures of 
As people previously integrated into the system recognize the increasingly stratified nature of our societal structures and
African Americans and other minority groups in the United States have overcome many obstacles in order to gain increasing acceptance within the auspices of the American experience in a manner commiserate with their long-standing commitment to the American ideals of democracy, freedom and equal rights. Toward this end, African Americans and other groups have endeavored to gain access to the myriad expressions of free will and predestination that have been historically granted by right to the majority population. Among these rights, are those to equal education, which is a long-standing mainstay in the African American civil rights tradition dating back to the groundbreaking legal stand of Brown vs. Board of Education (Eaton 2004). The resultant access to the full gamut of educational platforms that this country has to offer resulted in the gradual increase in the number of African Americans going to post-secondary institutions, matriculating through demanding academic programs and graduating, thereupon to embark upon many a promising and successful career.
It is within this context that my study takes place. This research problem will examine the experiences and perceptions of members of selected African American Greek fraternities and sororities within the greater framework of college matriculation and campus climate. There is a dearth of literature regarding this issue, particularly. However, there is a burgeoning collection of scholarly articles devoted to group behavior and patterns, to include studies documenting the creation of instruments designed to measure the responses of the members of Greek organizations (Cokley et al. 2001), to examine the levels of social alienation (Lane and Daugherty 1999) in college students, and a plethora of studies geared toward marginalization and matriculation of African American students and other disaffected populations. Grant and Reese (1997) approach the issue from the perspective of marginality theory, which explores the numerous perceptive responses to marginalization that members of disaffected populations incorporate within their individual and group identity matrices. Datnow and Cooper (1998) document the educational experiences of African Americans and the creation and maintenance of cultural and racial identities through peer group identification.
This study utilizes critical race theory (CRT) – begun by law scholars – as an interdisciplinary approach to studying ethnic issues. The foundation of CRT is informed by multiple theoretical constructs, to include feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, discourse theory and social constructionism, primarily. False consciousness and racist ideology work in tandem with ideological constructs that constitute the institutional and societal bases of society, forming the sociological ‘underground’, if you will, whose very power remains in its invisibility and imperviousness to conscious criticism (Shelby 2003). The collective reaction of the marginalized to the lived reality bounded by logical response to these strictures results in the ‘normalization of the abnormal’, as exemplified by the twisted logic of marginalization theory and the rabid non-intellectualism of black male youths (Grant and Breese 1997; Datnow and Cooper 1997).
For my study, I chose 6 members of African American Greek fraternities and sororities. 3 were male, 3 were female. I did not interview them in any particular order. I utilized a snowball sampling methodology in choosing my interview subjects. As I interviewed one subject, I would ask them for recommendations regarding the next fraternity or sorority member interviewed. In all cases, I contacted and confirmed new interviews based upon information given me by previous interviewees. I conducted my study in public areas upon a central-Texas college campus. All interviews were conducted during daylight hours, when the subjects were between classes or finished for the day.
This study took me on a journey into my own deepest wishes and desires, in that I began it looking for very specific answers to personal questions that I had regarding the sense of belonging, and the extraordinary sense of togetherness and purpose that I witnessed in “Black Greek” organizations across the United States, that brotherhood and sisterhood being exemplary of the greatest standards of personal and collective behavior that could be applied to any organization or group. What I found confirmed my suspicion that this solidarity was real, and beyond the mundane, that the members of “Black Greek” fraternities and sororities do indeed feel a connection ‘beneath the skin’ that goes beyond even familial relationship, skin color or ethnicity and into a deeper, philosophical realm of belonging and acceptance that borders upon the spiritual, in many cases.
The challenge posed by the postmodern critique in geography and other social science disciplines has led to a virtual renaissance in the sub-fields of human geography. Areas of study such as feminist, queer and post-colonial theory intertwine almost indistinguishably in a multi-hued tapestry of conflict and difference, the common theme of relational ties between dominant and subordinate sectors of society being the tie that binds them together (Tyner, 2003). And yet, the postmodern discourse is considered to be fragmented and without an underlying positivistic or rational foundation, being concerned, as it is, with questions of subjectivity and dialectical opposition. While being valid on the surface, this critique of the postmodern and critical social theory movements fails to regard the ideological metanarratives of the dominant cultural forces as being monolithic in nature. In large part, this identity crisis has to do with the hidden aspects of ideology which form the mental and nationalistic core of all human groupings and consists of the unconscious teachings that make up the generally accepted subtext shared by all participants in social organization (Shelby, 2003).
Geography, as a discipline, has not shied away from racial issues. In recent years, many geographers have spent considerable time researching racial and ethnic issues. However, because geography focuses upon space and place, it has been difficult for geographers to discuss the issues of race in a broader social context in any way that relates to life as lived for racialized populations. According to Audrey Kobayashi, “Throughout its development, Western geography has been involved in the construction of (inter alia) ‘races’ and genders. Since its earliest involvement in exploration and scientific classification of the world, it has had a racist role, in that it has (first and foremost) supported the establishment of Eurocentric/Western domination both politically and intellectually” (1994, 226). Because of this history, the disciplinary focus of geography has been supportive of the ideological subtext of colonization and exploitation that has typified Western expansion and globalization. Thought categories, or, aspects of social consciousness, that have contributed to this pervasive racism have been passed down ever since the ‘Enlightenment’ period of European philosophical thought, with roots descending even further into the earliest conceptions of western science and the classical Greek cognitive standardization of dichotomization, exemplified by the platonic discourse (Ani, 1994).
Chapter 12 in David Harvey’s book, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference is concerned with “Class Relations, Social Justice and the Political Geography of Difference”. In that chapter, he states that the decline of progressive politics can be traced, in part, to its increasing fragmentation, brought on by the ascension of social movements concerned with multiculturalism, sexuality, race and gender, among other factors. In her critique of David Harvey’s denunciation of current postmodern trends, Iris Young says “…each of these movements is universalist at the same time that it exposes division of interest based in structural social relations. When the claims of all these movements are asserted together, they expose privileges and differences within each other” (1998, 38). The usefulness of the postmodern and critical social theory paradigms lies in this exposure and the possibility of fomenting some type of fundamental change within the ideological subsystem of the greater culture.
Analog theories pertaining to difference, therefore, must be borrowed from other disciplines. As a form of social theorization, critical race theory has played an important role in the application of social justice to the academic realm of research and theorization. Even so, in many cases these theoretical formulations retain aspects of Eurocentricity, as must inevitably be the case, as well as little practical application outside of the academy.
1. The Centrality and Intersectionality of Race and Racism
Social justice, as a viable political discourse, has many detractors. Among these, is Miles Wolpin, who wrote the article, “The Limits of Social Justice”. In this article, he decries the advent of the multiculturalist agenda and writes in support of the prevailing world order and traditionally rational and empiricist understandings. He also suggests some draconian methods by which social discontent can be quelled. He states of those middle class elites, also called Liberal, that their “Positional ambitions are simultaneously reinforced by class, racial, ethnic and sexual vicarious affinities with the “oppressed.” These in turn provide them with spiritual meaning” (2001, 488). He goes even further: “Thus, here we see psychology is also in accord with traditional conservative emphasis upon the limits of reason and moral perfectionism. While positive and negative eugenic policies might reduce the ubiquity of perversity and even inequality in the distant future, our social environment in the decades ahead is likely to be characterized by leftist elite militancy rejecting such policies and favoring quasi-violent ascriptive zero-sum conflicts for “social justice” (489). Wolpin’s dangerous views are far from uncommon. In fact, they find their genesis in a long tradition of xenophobia and intolerance that date, again, back to the earliest foundations of Western philosophy. The ability of CRT to confront such viewpoints effectively is apparent in his grudging admission that the near future “…is likely to be characterized by leftist elite militancy”, which is an extraordinary admission for an unabashed Conservative of Wolpin’s ilk. The convergence of social justice and CRT is found at the intersection of politics and philosophy. The signpost, at that point, is Action.
In the context of geography, the urban arena is one site of confrontation that has seen wide application of CRT and geographic application. Eugene McCann’s article, “Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. City”, discusses the social theories of Henri Lefebvre, outlined in his book The Production of Space. McCann argues for the contextualization of Lefebvre’s theory about the social construction of space in America’s racialized urban areas. He argues that, “Lefebvre’s conceptual framework is especially instructive when used to understand how the production and maintenance of “safe” public spaces in U.S. cities is fundamentally related to representations of racial identities and to an ongoing process in which subjective identity and material urban spaces exist in a mutually constitutive relationship” (1999, 164). He contextualizes this discussion by an examination of the murder of an African-American youth in Lexington, Kentucky, and the resultant social and political backlash that rocked the city. By employing a spatial conception of reality in the context of a racial incident that had geographic extent, McCann effectively creates a quasi-CRT applied to a specific problem in a specific context. The greater application of this theoretical model, which utilizes Lefebvre’s “conceptual triad of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces” (165), has been posited by McCann to coincide with certain trends in geography. He states, specifically: “As a result of this increased attention to public space, critical geographers have resolved “to raise questions about both the politics in and the politics of public space,” by examining “how boundaries between what is public and what is private, what is material and what is metaphorical, are constructed, contested, and continually reconstructed” (165). This use of Lefebvre’s theoretical construct is firmly in agreement with the tenets of CRT.
Ideology underlies all social production. CRT exposes ideology for what it is: subjective, power-related and culturally normative. As a method of critical discourse, it functions as a lens through which disparate disciplines, geography included, can focus their arguments against the dominant forms of cultural production and perhaps achieve some form of social justice and transformation that will make the lives of the oppressed and downtrodden somewhat more livable. Its concern with action differentiates CRT from most theoretical constructs. According to George Dei and Alireza Asgharzadeh, in their article, “The Power of Social Theory: The Anti-Colonial Discursive Framework”, “The process of producing and validating what is knowledge in the academy can be a colonial exercise. Rather than heralding a knowledge that allows learners to develop a counter culture, a colonial process can actually reward the knowledge that inserts learners within existing hegemonic structures and practices. Therefore, a decolonization project in the academy must be aware that the colonization process and colonizing tendencies accede a false status to the colonial subject through the authority of Western canons at the same time as local knowledges are deprivileged, negated, and devalued” (2001, 299). This quote states the problem succinctly. How is it possible to deconstruct cultural metanarratives from within that framework? Can true social justice be achieved through non-violent means? Is revolution necessary? CRT attempts to provide an answer to these questions by approaching them through the polemic of fragmentation and confrontation.
The American Republic is dead.
Black folks, we got a little 2, 3 year break in there as most of the attention was placed on the Sand Negras instead of your garden variety American Negras, but the onus is back on us once again. Surprise, surprise. Caught your breath? Did you enjoy the break while it lasted? I did! Ready to go? Good. Let’s move on.
How so, do you ask? Well, they don’t talk about the past few Presidents army of power-consolidating Executive Orders, the so-called Refugee Camps, newly passed legislation designed to allow for the indefinite detainment of American Citizens and the readiness of the national security apparatus for a possible declaration of Martial Law, given a serious enough emergency, be it natural or otherwise. So, instead, notice how, on the News, what used to be a discussion about the sub-prime lending market has now spread to the prime lending market and, get this, the credit market as well? When did they slip that little bit of news in there? This is a sloooooow-motion breakdown, y’all. It’s taken so long to fall it has seemed more like a gradual and boooring slide than a precipitous descent into disaster. Remember the ending scenario of Fight Club, when the credit company computers were destroyed? We won’t have it that good, but perhaps some of us should look up the historical reality of Debtor’s Prisons. I’m not forecasting anything, I’m just saying. You know, in case you go on Jeopardy. Or win the lottery. Or something.
Has everybody been watching the dollar plunge? Another slow-motion drama? Like watching paint dry? Will there be an international dollar and a local dollar? Have you bee watching the pundits and talking heads frothing at the mouth as they herald every little market rally, as if these rallies had anything at all to do with the real economy and the real lives of real people, or as if they were doing anything to stave off the blood spurting from the American Economy? Covering the floor while the European and Asian Powers step gingerly back, so their shoes don’t get messy, controlling the freefall of the former world superpower, America? The former world reserve currency, the dollar? By siphoning off their own reserves slowly through purchases in every other part of the world except the United States, while keeping a wary eye on the sleeping giant, waiting for us, the Americans, to finally realize that our economy is in the gutter? Oh, wait. We realized that a couple of years ago, but has it really sunk in yet? And if it has, then why is everybody still so apathetic?? What is everybody waiting for??? Is everyone waiting for the day when everybody else panics and begins to make their run on the banks and the stock market, trying to withdraw worthless dollars and apply them in a worthless and inflation-rent economy that is also just waiting for the stampede to happen?
Did you guys hear the news? Old news, now. But Obama is 10th cousin to Cheney, and 9th cousin to Bush 42. Keep it all in the family, right? Does it look more and more like the democratic and republican parties are two sides of the same coin? That, at heart, they both have the same goal: to keep the system inviolate, destroying anything or anybody who might actually make some sort of formative change to the system, and to simultaneously enrich themselves while nominally serving their constituencies, who are finding it harder and harder, by the way, to actually make these so-called pulbic servants live up to their campaign promises and responsibilities to their states and populations. How can a representative democracy thrive if the people are not represented? If only the corporate interests are met? If only death is dealt to its citizens, if only bad food, bad products, bad water, bad air are cultivated rather than remedied, sold rather than banned, advertised rather than decried?
Did I already mention that the United States has been conquered? Oh, I think I did. Did I deign to mention, who? What foreign power has conspired in some way to defeat the greatest power on the face of the planet? Well, what do you think? I wonder who the greatest Debtor country is, who holds the morgage on the United States of America? Well, that’s an easy one: China. Where is the majority of the world’s wealth concentrated today, right this moment? Another easy one: East Asia. Does that mean that it is the East that has conquered America? You tell me! Is money everything? And, are there any other candidates for the position of World Leader? Hm. Well, where is the traditional stronghold of wealth and culture? Europe, right? Where is the world’s strongest economy at the moment? Europe again. Particularly, Germany. Where is the wealth of America’s top 1% concentrated these days, in America or…you guessed it, Europe! Germany. Where do you think America’s wealthy will flee too if things get tough here in the United States? China? Or …
Ok ok, I didn’t really ask them the first question. Got’cha, didn’t I?
Not just reparations as Merriam-Webster’s defines it: the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury; but Reparations as African folk define it: the Big Payback for wrongs and injury suffered by our ancestors and ourselves during the 400-plus year period of our forced service to the Global White Supremacy System (GWSS). Reparations as that subject, that religious credo which has captured the hearts and minds of afrocentric scholars – of both the nationalist and integrationist persuasion – and laypersons alike. The idea has captured my imagination also. But even more importantly, it has captured my body/self/ego defined as the complex of emotions, memories and intellectual constructs that comprise a small proportion of the greater entity I be. Because of my fervent desire for parity, because I want my people to continue to rise and express their natural genius unfettered by any boundaries I find myself at the Crossroads with Papa Legba, holding a bottle of whisky in one hand, a cigar in the other. We pass the bottle between us.
On a sub-verbal supra-conscious level we Africans believe that Europeans owe us for our contribution to their forms of music, dance and art, or more correctly stated, their theft of African music, dance and art. Our contributions to the scientific achievements of the modern and post-modern ages, too numerous to mention. Their theft of the mineralogical and biological resources of the mother continent and yes, that includes us. Their active and subliminal attempts to perform the act of genocide against our people in these days and past years and yes, that includes AIDS, Norplant and syphilis. Their continued implementation of Divide and Conquer tactics, which include making it easier for other ethnicities to build businesses in our communities than it is for us. Dividing us by social station and melanin-level, a tactic that we as a people knowingly and sometimes gleefully maintain. And finally, their conscious and sub-conscious refusal to take responsibility for the sins of their fathers and mothers, and, even more damning, to take responsibility for themselves, the world they live in and their responsibility for its current state. For the fact that the very prosperity of American Europeans, extrapolated unto Eurasia and the global European community, was [and is being] built upon the bodies and blood as well as the physical and intellectual labor of diasporic and continental Africans. Is there more? Indeed there is. Variations upon the themes described above, mostly. Contemplating these injustices is how I got to where I find myself now. At the Crossroads, looking North and South knowing that if I go in one of those directions, either the positive or negative aspect of a single, ideological narrative will be the result. If I choose East or West, aspects of the alternative choice will manifest. Papa Legba laughs at my mental stasis and tells me to pass the cigar. I drain the bottle, hit the cigar one last time and do as he commands. He is in control of my fate, after all.
Globalization, that European vehicle of domination tied directly to post-colonialism and imperialism in ideological thrust and practice, has proselytized the notion of a global family the world across. The spatial diffusion of higher standards of living, of computer and robotic technology and of luxury items such as clothing and vehicles – not to mention the social and political innovations transmitted by artistic forms of expression – have all conspired to create a climate of connectivity that binds us together in Almost-Real-Time (ART). Media has become the modern-day Griot, with CNN and MTV acting as the superimposed and digitized voices of the people. It is in these venues that visions of the present and future lie. It is in these venues that the arguments for and against reparations will be carried out by the incestuous American family, for the rest of the world to ingest and regurgitate, edited for cultural context and adult content. Misogyny is an American institution and the history of this country is x-rated and forbidden fodder for countries of a more theocratic bent. But Reality Programming is the order of the day and this internecine struggle for equity and compensation is the only show in heavy rotation that has never been truly or objectively publicized. Its day has finally come.
Eastern and Western meridians stretch forth into the Plains of Infinity. To the East, Blackwards, the Clan once said. There I see our spiritual foundation, the Land of our Birth and Awakening. The Past, full of glory. Wondrous civilizations existed: the Nile, Sumer, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Also, I see pineally-challenged albino children feared, reviled, cast out and isolated from the hue-man family. Mass-migrations, cave-dwelling, devolution and great walls built for protection against abandoned barbarians. I see the seeds of retribution sown. I see Ancestors reviled, brothers, sisters and cousins sold into slavery, traditional spiritual practices forgotten or tossed aside for material gain. If the choice to live in the past is made, we must accept all of it. The Good with the Bad. Too many do not. I stand in the Present and, looking to the West, see Light. Spiritual Evolution. Truth and Justice untainted by vengeful motifs. Past actions and Karmic debts forgiven whether forgiveness is given in return or not. Life, lived in the moment with the knowledge that we cannot exact our own vengeance without calling Divine Justice down upon ourselves. Faith in something beyond the physical is required to walk this road.
The Reparations Movement is destined for success beyond the wildest dreams of the diasporic African world: spiritual transcendence – which cannot be truly conceived in its entirety – is guaranteed, provided we do not get caught up in the fatal lure of Babylon’s pride. Spiritual transcendence is what our Ancestors believed in and fought for, knowing that the battle against Evil was enjoined on different levels of Creation. The lengths that Europeans will go to in order to retain the material rewards that they have stolen at the expense of all other lifeforms on this planet is unknown to me. But what I do know is that everything has its reason and season. That the fight for Right is the fight for Life. That in living, and continuing to speak and seek the Truth in all its forms, we build relationships of Synthetic Correlation, connecting our struggle with that of those who came before us, the revered Ancestors. It is the same struggle, but must be fought in our hearts. Living with hate or self-perceived victimization or superiority issues is spiritually deadening, no matter what color you interpret life through. We are each responsible for ourselves and Eternity is our destiny. Papa Legba comes to mind. Drums sound in the distance and I smile, take a deep breath and my first step…into the Light.
Borderland dreams seem hazy, beset by preconditioned, perceptive forays into the collective unconscious and symbolic visions. The morning dawns brightly and adventure beckons, minus a singular feminine wile. Contextual narratives define experience, in this case bounding a field excursion into unfamiliar terrain – both physiographic and psycho-spiritual – with the familiar, i.e. known companions and culturally referential group perceptions in turn delimited by a tripartite racial/cultural differentiation. Perceptive meanderings achieve sentience, and the journey begins.
How many Homeland Security Camps are there? They’re also called Detainment Camps. How may these be used to house populations other than evacuees fleeing natural disasters? It seems to include a broad spectrum of individuals, to include American citizens deemed to be Enemy Combatants, according to CNN and recent decisions by a Federal Appeals Court. The United States Northern Command (2002)seeks to provide homeland security from enemies both domestic and foreign. According to their Mission Statement:
Chances are, if you are one who is interested in Truth, Justice and the Neo-American Way or even the traditional, American Way, you have been pegged at some level of the above-mentioned surveillance system. Or, if, by some chance, you are under the radar, there are other ways to catch your communications, most notibly, the now obsolete Carnivore system, which regularly read all of your mail up until 2003. Even government surveillance has been out-sourced. And yet, Carnivore was just a subset of a larger spying effort that continues to this day, known as Echelon. It is a global surveillance system – that has been depicted on movies such as Will Smith’s Enemy of the State and Denzel Washington’s Deja Vu – that is but one of many implemented by different governments as tools utilized by Federal and Corporate actors in the process of implementing observational procedures key to what has become generally identified, often derisively, as some overarching, conspiratorial, New World Order. And yet, this term, this quasi-global paradigm, has been officially sanctioned by individuals of no less importance than a former President of the United States (POTUS), George Herbert Walker Bush, who first used the phrase on September 11th, 1990 (nice date, huh?).
Sometimes it seems as if the current economic system still retains vestiges of slavery and neo-slavery. Here are a couple of terms that we associate with another era altogether: share-cropping as an expression of peonage, whereby ex-slaves and poor whites were given a tract of land upon which to work that forced them into debt to the landowner, who continued to pile upon that debt yearly, causing the farmers and their families to fall further and further behind, deeper and deeper into debt. Its funny (or not so) to realize that things haven’t change much. Or, have only changed to the extent that more people besides Blacks and poor whites are being affected.
It seems as if the American Middle Class has been murdered. What’s left is the remnants of the Lower Upper Class, masked as the current Middle Class, while those who had been Middle Class are now Upper Lower Class. This is perhaps a function of the aforementioned system of national peonage, as we see gas prices rising, food prices exploding and home values continue to plummet. The so-called credit crunch is indicative of a loss of confidence by both Investors and Consumers in the health of the Market and the Economy as a whole. Since we, here in America and most Western countries, are a Consumer Economy, there is very little of real, material value that we make, or export to other countries. That means that we import both necessities and luxury items in order to fulfill consumer demand. And, since our input exceeds our output, it has lead to our becoming what is called a Debtor Nation, borrowing money from countries like China and Japan, who hold most American debt, along with other countries, represented by Sovereign-Wealth Funds, that skip around the USA and the world buying up commodity and energy sources, as the movement to privatize government continues unabated. From the privatization of national security, Intelligence and the military, to the privaitization of highways and food stamps, the list goes on and on.
The movement from Roosevelt’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society has been underway, in earnest, ever since Gingrich’s Republican Revolution and Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)began to dismantle the pseudo-populist construction of the programs most closely associated with political liberalism, the active, material manifestation of social paradigms primarily concerned with social justice. The America that we inhabit today, while remaining a place of opportunity, is an amazing example of how a country can turn from Democracy to Fascism, while the citizens stand by. And, for those still thinking about “conspiracy theories” and chuckling to yourselves, these days, the New World Order is more discretely known as Globalism, which is the overarching paradigm that houses the controversial aspects of Globalization, making the world a smaller and more interconnected place. The feared and now seemingly defunct North American Union (NAU) and the seemingly defunct NAFTA Superhighway are just two aspects of this that may still affect us here in America (under other names, of course) most directly, alongside the continuous job outsourcing and concerns over illegal immigration that continues to threaten the economic and personal security of countless Americans, to a greater or lesser extent.
The ways by which freedoms are coopted are amazingly devious and undeniably machiavellian, although, once you catch a hold of a thread and follow it to its logical conclusion, the rest unravels and becomes clear to see. But the sad fact is that most people do not want to know the truth about their state and will physically fight you in order to remain ignorant, which is a sobering indication of the degree of mental slavery that we’ve inculcated as a population, just to get through the days, anesthetized by reality tv, prescription or illegal drugs, sex and video games.
Welcome, to the “Desert of the Real“, as Morpheus told Neo, in the movie, the Matrix. And while we don’t necessarily need to stock up on water or food at the moment, it doesn’t hurt us to know that, somewhere in the world – in fact, in most of the world – ordinary people, just like you and me, are.
