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Forum
The Corner |
by Jared Ball We all have professions and loves. We all have varying areas of expertise and interest. Over the last ten years or so mine has been African history, or as some of the great ones have said, "the missing pages of world history." I am now trying to make this my profession, one day, but earning money has truly become a secondary purpose. The reason I began studying African history in the first place was to answer questions about myself first, it was without a doubt most definitely a selfish endeavor at first, and then about race, class and power. A few things first. One, when I say African history I don't mean it as relegated to the continent. Slavery made us a global people by taking us to the Caribbean and "West Indies" (so-called because Columbus was a lost, murderous, enslaving, idiot) and here and Europe, everywhere. No, make no mistakes, Africans had done all of this traveling before Europeans knew the world existed, much less that it was round and not flat, but that is another story. So, my point is, that studying African history is only proper when it covers the entire diaspora. What this has told me was that we are all one. I know it is idealistic, but it is true and the only reason we don't generally think so is because our education has been controlled by people who have despised us for the last 500 years. The other important thing I have learned is that I HAVE to share what I learn or it is useless. RussellWeb has provided me with space and I intend to use it because knowledge stored away is useless and the people whom I study and learn from live (and some died) for the purpose of spreading this information TO MAKE CHANGE. That's it, John Henrik Clarke always said "education has but ONE purpose and one purpose alone, that is to teach people how to be responsible handlers of power." Ever wonder why there are fights at the Source Awards or why Black net worth in America is $200 when we spend more that $500 BILLION dollars a year? Because we have not only NOT been taught how to be "responsible handlers of power" but because we have been taught the exact opposite, to be irresponsible with whatever power we get. Some last basic points and then this introduction will conclude. The first is that Africa is the richest continent in the world as far as mineral wealth in concerned. Always has been always will be. Therefore, it is the most coveted by those who come from the least mineral-wealthy land mass in the world, Europe. This is the basis of our relationship with White people. They don't have and they want and will do whatever it takes to get. Now, I'm not on that "whitey is the devil" foolishness. I love my mother. What I am on is reality. Europeans (White people) didn't have religion, so they took ours, renamed it, refashioned it and used it as a weapon... they didn't have land or people to work it so they took the people and the land and have never given it back. Nobody in the world is "independent" so we should not be confused by the 60s and 70s and to sum that up we need only to say IMF and World Bank. There hasn't been a loyal leader in Africa since Julius Nyere of Tanzania died and they killed Lumumba in the Congo and destroyed Nkrumah and Sekou Toure in Ghana and Guinea, or for that matter Malcolm X and King and the Panthers and others here in America (if I am ignoring the women it is because WE ignored them, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, more recently Ella Baker, Mary McCloud Bethune, Assata Shakur, etc.) So, my plan is to spark discussion and share information. Most of you work real jobs and have families and what not, this is my full-time job so it only makes sense that I play my part. I know many of you know as much if not more than me so I do hope we can exchange stuff here. My ultimate goal is to work for independent resources of financing, education and business opportunities. You know, Clarke also always said that if you create supply a need for a billion people (the amount of Africans around the globe) you will have plenty of market space without a need for European/Asian or whatever assistance. We have been lied to for so long that I do think we lack the information we need to improve for real, not just make a little more money but be a communal, healthy and spiritual people again. The late and great Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) has said that Africa was already becoming a unified continent before Europeans got in the way (and the Arabs first, many of us forget that Arabs had their slave trade 7-800 years before Europeans did, we love some Islam but it has been used as an evil weapon just like Judaism and Christianity). His point was that we are destined to become unified it is just that now we need revolution to do it since the natural process was interrupted. And if we look properly at African history he was correct. Now, we know more about athletes and musicians than those who would, now and before, teach us properly so that we could be truly free. Slavery and colonialism never ended, it merely changed form to suit the times. Many thanks...peace |
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