my past, present, and future

hotep!

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Now, Sir, I am glad that the clouds are breaking away, I have long been convinced that nothing is more false than the specious statement in the Declaration of our Independence ‘that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ and those other provisions insidiously got into the Declaration of Rights which stands at the head of the Constitution of this state, ‘That all men are equal in rights’ and that none are entitled to exclusive privileges from the community, this all flummery. Let us rejoice that the time has come when our political leaders have dared to abrogate these heretical and pestilential notions.
Andrew Judson in support of an 1830s Connecticut law barring the education of Blacks from out of state

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Du Bois’ 25th birthday message to himself

Night—grand and wonderful. I am glad I am living. I rejoice as a strong man to win a race, and I am strong—is it egotism—is it assurance—or is it the silent call of the world spirit that makes me feel that I am royal and that beneath my sceptre a world of kings shall bow. The hot dark blood of a black forefather is beating at my heart, and I know that I am either a genius or a fool. O I wonder what I am— I wonder what the world is— I wonder if life is worth the Sturm. I do not know: be the Truth what it may I will seek it on the pure assumption that it is worth seeking— and Heaven nor Hell, God nor Devil shall turn me from my purpose till I die. I will in this second quarter century of my life, enter the dark forest of the unknown world for which I have so many years served my apprenticeship— in the chart and compass which the world furnishes me I have little faith—yet I have nothing better— I will seek till I find— and die. There is a grandeur in the very hopelessness of such a life- Life? And is life all? If I strive, shall I live to strive again? I do not know and in spite of the wild Sehnsucht (yearning) for Eternity that makes my heart sick now and then— I shut my teeth and say I do not care. Carpe Diem! (Seize the day!— that is, enjoy the present.) What is life but life, after all? Its end is its greatest and fullest self— this end is the Good: the Beautiful is its attribute— its soul, and Truth is its being. Not three commensurable things are these, they are three dimensions of the cube. Mayhap God is the fourth, but for that very reason he will be incomprehensible. The greatest and fullest life is by definition beautiful, beautiful— beautiful as a dark passionate woman, beautiful as a golden-hearted school girl, beautiful as a grey haired hero. That is the dimension of breadth. Then comes Truth— what is, cold and indisputable. What is height. Now I will, so help my soul multiply breadth by height, beauty by truth and then goodness, strength shall bind them together into a solid whole. Wherefore? I know not now. Perhaps infinite other dimensions do. This is a wretched figure and yet it roughly represents my attitude toward the world. I am striving to make my life all that life may be— and I am limiting that strife only in so far as that strife is incompatible with others of my brothers and sisters making their lives similar. The crucial question now is where that limit comes. I am too often puzzled to know. Paul put it as a meat-eating, which was asinine. I have put it as the (perhaps) life-ruin of Amalie which is cruel. God knows I am sorely puzzled. I am firmly convinced that my own best development is not one and the same with the best development of the world and here I am willing to sacrifice. That sacrifice to the world’s good becomes too soon sickly sentimentality. I therefore take the world that the Unknown lay in my hands and work for the rise of the Negro people, taking for granted that their best development means the best development of the world…

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Haile Gerima on teaching at an HBCU

Question: Is it important for you to be teaching film at an HBCU?

Gerima: Where else would I go, my brother? There’s no place else I would be. I would go completely mad or become irrelevant if I were to go to a white school, because I can’t let go of race. It’s my daily reality. In fact, more than the political, I think that cultural racism is the center of our twenty-first century struggle. And so, yes I do travel to schools; I lecture white students. I’m a novelty in many of those universities. But if I insist on staying and working in those universities every day, I will be stoned to death. I feel more at home at an HBCU. The students are precious, and I still have a lot of work to do there.

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Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. It is meet that we tell the truth before we die. Asé #tbt

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. It is meet that we tell the truth before we die. Asé #tbt

Filed under tbt

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I predict that by the year 2000 the most innovative significant developments in the field (Africana Studies) will be found on whatever black colleges still exist. By that date it is possible that more than half of the current number will have either discontinued the struggle completely or will have lost their identities in mergers with predominately white institutions or have been transformed by a gradual takeover by white students, white faculties, and white administrators. Such a development will, of course, be catastrophic for American blacks unless by that time, which is extremely doubtful, white racism as we know it now will have disappeared.
Nick Aaron Ford, Black Studies: Threat or Challenge

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thepeoplesrecord: FBI billboards not about Assata Shakur; it’s about repressing the black communityMay 5, 2013 Following the ludicrous announcement that the Obama administration has placed Assata Shakur on its “most wanted terrorist list”, the FBI has erected billboards in Newark, New Jersey announcing its recently increased $2 million dollar reward. However, any critically thinking person knows that these billboards are not about capturing Assata Shakur but sending a message to the rest of us. Interestingly, perhaps just a coincidence or not, Newark, New Jersey is the place where a theater co-owned by Shaquille O’Neil, recently reneged on an agreement to show a popular independent film about the life of another former member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.Is Assata Shakur in New Jersey? No, she is not and the FBI and the Obama administration know exactly where she is, in Cuba where she has lived since being granted political asylum by its government in 1979 after escaping from prison. This is not about Assata Shakur, it is about sending a message to the Black community and those that live within it who stand up to police violence, oppression and murder of residents, one of the very reasons for the formation of the Black Panthers. It is about the political repression of those who advocate on the behalf of the many political prisoners being held by the United States government often in torturous conditions. It is about sending a message to anyone who would take up arms in defense of life, liberty and true freedom in a country that is home to the largest prison population in the world which the federal government and various corporations use as slave labor. It is about sending a message to those that would dare stand up and point out that the US government is the most violent entity on the planet and one that commits acts of terrorism against non-white people and nations on behalf of maintaining the American imperialist status-quo.Why else would the U.S. government seek to name Assata Shakur as a domestic terrorist after all these decades? We are talking about a woman who was shot twice while attempting to give herself up to police who were co-operating with Federal authorities to target and assassinate or otherwise eliminate members of the Black Liberation movement just as they had done and admitted in a civil lawsuit to doing to Martin Luther King Jr.The FBI and its corporate media wing fail to report the details of the sham case built against Assata Shakur after failing to win convictions on other trump up charges. The corporate media is failing to point out that a police officer, a state witness against Assata Shakur for the murder of another police officer, has recanted his testimony and admitted to lying on the stand. Medical personnel stated that because of nerves severed by a bullet, Assata Shakur would have been physically prevented from firing a weapon and it was also stated that her wounds indicate her hands were raised when she was shot consistent with her claim that she was giving herself up.Just as Assata Shakur has pointed out that COINTELPRO utilized and received full cooperation from the corporate media to demonize and alienate freedom fighters from the people who supported them, corporate media today is still fulfilling that role. The concept of a free and independent press in America has always been a fraud and it remains so today. Source Read more about Assata Shakur & find a link to her autobiography here.

thepeoplesrecord:

FBI billboards not about Assata Shakur; it’s about repressing the black community
May 5, 2013

Following the ludicrous announcement that the Obama administration has placed Assata Shakur on its “most wanted terrorist list”, the FBI has erected billboards in Newark, New Jersey announcing its recently increased $2 million dollar reward. However, any critically thinking person knows that these billboards are not about capturing Assata Shakur but sending a message to the rest of us. Interestingly, perhaps just a coincidence or not, Newark, New Jersey is the place where a theater co-owned by Shaquille O’Neil, recently reneged on an agreement to show a popular independent film about the life of another former member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Is Assata Shakur in New Jersey? No, she is not and the FBI and the Obama administration know exactly where she is, in Cuba where she has lived since being granted political asylum by its government in 1979 after escaping from prison.

This is not about Assata Shakur, it is about sending a message to the Black community and those that live within it who stand up to police violence, oppression and murder of residents, one of the very reasons for the formation of the Black Panthers. It is about the political repression of those who advocate on the behalf of the many political prisoners being held by the United States government often in torturous conditions. It is about sending a message to anyone who would take up arms in defense of life, liberty and true freedom in a country that is home to the largest prison population in the world which the federal government and various corporations use as slave labor. It is about sending a message to those that would dare stand up and point out that the US government is the most violent entity on the planet and one that commits acts of terrorism against non-white people and nations on behalf of maintaining the American imperialist status-quo.

Why else would the U.S. government seek to name Assata Shakur as a domestic terrorist after all these decades? We are talking about a woman who was shot twice while attempting to give herself up to police who were co-operating with Federal authorities to target and assassinate or otherwise eliminate members of the Black Liberation movement just as they had done and admitted in a civil lawsuit to doing to Martin Luther King Jr.

The FBI and its corporate media wing fail to report the details of the sham case built against Assata Shakur after failing to win convictions on other trump up charges. The corporate media is failing to point out that a police officer, a state witness against Assata Shakur for the murder of another police officer, has recanted his testimony and admitted to lying on the stand. Medical personnel stated that because of nerves severed by a bullet, Assata Shakur would have been physically prevented from firing a weapon and it was also stated that her wounds indicate her hands were raised when she was shot consistent with her claim that she was giving herself up.

Just as Assata Shakur has pointed out that COINTELPRO utilized and received full cooperation from the corporate media to demonize and alienate freedom fighters from the people who supported them, corporate media today is still fulfilling that role. The concept of a free and independent press in America has always been a fraud and it remains so today.

Source

Read more about Assata Shakur & find a link to her autobiography here.

(via geigh-shagirls)