What working poor Black folks need to realize as we protest for better conditions in Amerika

Pan-African Strategy and Policy Research Group What Working Poor Black Folks Need To Realize As We Protest For Better Conditions In Amerika by Asar Imhotep Amen,Ph.D. A View From The Bridge Revelation From Ancestor Derrick Bell "Black people will never gain full equality in this country. Even those Herculean efforts we hail as successful will produce no mre than temporary "peaks of progress", short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapt in ways that maintain white dominance.This is a hard-to-accept fact that all history verifies. We must acknowledge it and move on to adopt policies based on what I call: "Racial Realism". This mind-set or philosophy requires us to acknowledge the permanence of our subordinate status. That acknowledgement enables us to avoid despair,and frees us to imagine and implement racial strategies that can bring fulfillment and even triumph. Accepting racial realism means that our philosophy,our mind-set, must look upon reality anew. As Afrikan descended people, we are inevitably confronted with our- selves in a Black reality, so as Blacks, we must create,and embrace new political strategies that focus on lioeration, not incremental progress. Black intellectual efforts must be weighed against its potential for freedom,and the certainty of Black people's subjugation and death. Black social political theory must be guided by the harsh realities of anti-Black racism,not the idle faith of a "never-dawning tomorrow". Struggle is not enough. As Frantz Fanon reminds us: "Challenging the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of viewpoints. It is not a dis- course on the universal,but the impassioned claim by the colonized that their world is fundamentally different". In other words,it is now clear we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Up to this time acceptable long-standing Amerikan concepts of "fairplay" must be reconsidered. We must develop effective methods to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us,i.e., we must disrupt, dismantle and defeat racism/white supremacy at all cost. Liberation is a Question of Consciousness 2 Decoding The Games of Liberals/Conservatives: These are code words for groups of White supremacists who have developed a cultivated technique for dealing with Black people. The word liberal is associated with many good things. It indicates tolerance, open-mindedness, free-thinking, open handedness, generosity,and big heartedness. The word alone is powerful enough to attract individuals. Who wouldn't want to belong to a group of people that have these qualities? The word liberal also has a distinct political meaning. In political rhetoric it is considered left wing. The uniting of political philosophies to "wings" brings about an immediate perceptual association with birds of flying. One of the cornerstone symbols of white domination is the big bird called the eagle. The eagle is a big-eyed, smart predator that surveys the landscape and then calmly waits out its prey. The intended prey is lulled into thinking that the eagle is not interested and is harmless. However, that is part of its game of deception. The eagle has every intention of attacking its target. The prey will never know when and where the eagle will strike. The same eagle has both a left wing and a right wing. Both wings are part of a predatory creature that seeks to devour its victime. The left wing, or liberals, have done much to derail,mislead and deceive Black people. This assessment is based on the history of White liberalism and its relationship to Black people. Liberals have never pushed for the dismantlement of the world- wide system of White domination. At best, the efforts have produced a piecemeal level of set-a-sides that Black people are supposed to be grateful for and con- tented with. The liberals want to control Black people in a less harsh/rigid and yet far more deceptive manner. This is part of the yo-yo effect or bouncing back and forth between the confusion of the left wing and right wing while in reality both sides are the White-wing. One side points a finger at the other to explain why the degrading social and economic conditions of Black people have not changed. The left blames the right and the right blames the left. Each side recruits pathetic Black spokespersons to spout the party line in return for money and fame. On the surface it appears that the liberals and conservative are hostile enemies. This is a good game. In the final analysis they play the same game of containment and control. The liberal versus conservative con game never allows Black people to be certain about the validity or the existence of racism/white supremacy. The liberal does more to confuse Black people than the conservative. The liberal is a real magician. He blurs the image of the White supremacist. With a liberal around, it is hard to see the antics of the racist in clear focus. His words,gestures and public appearances are acts of very great deception. He wants diversity and to have a few rich Black people at the pool party. He will even allow or encourage a Black male to date or to marry one of his daughters. However, this behavior has nothing to do with the attainment of real power. The right wing will at least indicate that they are for maintaining the existing structure of racial domination. The liberal will mislead and purposely delude Black people into believing thay are against the system. The inconsistency of the left and the right messages are painful and confusing. The one consistent dynamic is that the pattern of domination does not change. 3 Addressing The White Elephant In The Room: The European Amerikan community's drive to disguise and conceal their culpability and guilt in the destruction and oppression of Afrikans through their collective- societal institutional arms requires Amerikan society (both Whites and it's Black victims as well) to operate in a kind of "collective psychosis". Everyone appears to operate in a blatant denial of the true history of Afrikans in AmeriKKKa and the continuing contemporary legacy of that history,which allows whites to feel secure and positive about themselves,and to project themselves to the world as the apex/ standard of civility and high culture (with the implied beneficial psychological, economic,political,spiritual,etc., outcomes for everyone). Thus, maintenance of the psychological comfort level of European supremacy in Amerikan society requires (or demands,in fact) this kind of collective denial or "psychotic" behavior and functioning among Afrikans in virtually every aspect of Amerikan life. Consequently, the Black race in Amerika is literally forced to,and is reinforced (rewarded/applauded, etc.) for functioning in a state of collective/mass psychosis. Within this context, Afrikans in AmeriKKKa are reinforced for suppressing and/or denying their true racial-cultural identity and history (i.e., their integrity as human beings), for remaining ignorant of their true history and culture in the world, and for internalizing as much as possible of a Eurocentric consciousness. This is,in my view, the ultimate statement of psychological-cultural oppression which is illustrated by the Afrikan psychological predicament in Amerika and throughout the world. In fact, I think the Ancestor Dr.Chancellor Williams,author of The Destruction of Black Civilizations said it best when he said and I quote: "The whites are the implacable foe,the traditional and everlasting enemy of the Blacks. The necessary reeducation of Blacks and a possible solution of racial crisis can begin,strangely enough,only when Blacks fully realize this central fact in their lives: the white man is their Bitter Enemy. For this is not the ranting of wild-eyed militancy,but the calm and unmistakable verdict of several thousand years of documented history". So, I find it quite inconceivable that the white man dares to think of himself "civilized" given his long psychopathic history throughout the world. His "legiti- mate" theft of the wealth and resources of others now "exempts" him from the need to commit "crimes in street", to look the people he robs,rapes and kills directly in their eyes as did his "pioneering" and colonizing fathers. With one stroke of the pen,he mugs millions upon millions and desecrates the whole of the earth. Because it is a pen he wields (rather than a pistol to the temple or a knife to the throat), he deludes himself by thinking himself "good", "decent", and "law- abiding". In other words,their good and decency are but psychopathic illusions created by a repressive denial of the truth. The white Amerikan and the worldwide European ruling classes in general,refuse to accept and repent of their historical and contemporary theft of the lands,resources, and the taking of the lives of their own and other peoples; their enslavement,serfdom and peonage of their own and Afrikan peoples; their colonization and rapacious exploitation of virtually all non-white peoples; their eradication of whole ethno- cultural groups; their mass murder of hundreds of millions of persons;their scandalization and assassination of the character of Afrikan peoples;their de- struction of many of the Earths' streams,rivers,lakes,seas and oceans (ecocide); the raping and wasting of its natural treasures;their loosening of incurable diseases on vulnerable populations;the development and use of weapons of mass destruction;their assassination of national leaders,overthrow of the duly elected governments and other intrigues against legitimate organizations,their warmongering and dissemination of murderous arms among nations for profit and political advantage; their addicting of whole populations to self-destructive habits,appetites and drugs; their falsification of the consciousness of the Earth's peoples,and numerous other 4 heinous crimes against Man and Nature. Because of their need to deny their long criminal history and contemporaneous criminality,their refusal to recognize that they pose the gravest danger to every type of life on Earth,and their need to divert theirs and the world’s attention away from the facts listed above,the white Amerikan and European communities must compulsively project the alleged criminal activities in the Black and Brown community as representing the greatest danger to Amerikan society and European civilization. Now we fully understand why the Black male body is seen as inherently threatening,just by virtue of its very existence,both in public spaces as well as in the public imagination. In addition,we also fully understand why it is that Europeans see Afrikans as such an existential threat. It’s because the collective Afrikan consciousness is feared by Europeans,whose survival depends on the control of the Afrikan psyche. Indeed,racism/white supremacy is the witchcraft of the 21st century! It should be carefully noted that no matter how economically or socially distant the European (military-political-economic) elite are from the dispossessed white masses, they are one. The European elite still represent and share a joint supremacists, exploitative,dominative,nationalist agenda for and with the European masses. They form one racial-cultural nation. If push comes to shove,politicians are no more without their constituency than businessmen are without their consumers. And in a situation where politicians and businessmen are the same,constituency and consumer are the same. Therefore, European politicians/businessmen having the European masses as their constituency/consumers cannot truly risk alienating them in a game of racial politics (e.g.,Black Lives Matter/George Floyd protests) because if-they know nothing else,they know that in a politico-economic system grounded in white- supremacy the European masses' loyalty is first and foremost to their whiteness as world history more than verifies for the past five thousand plus years! Unless the European elite can make the nonEuropean masses as blindly loyal to them as the European masses are (even though for different political reasons), they cannot take the chance of blatantly foresaking the European masses but so far in extending support (which,in the end,benefits them) to the causes of nonEuropean masses. This is especially true if those causes undermine the resources the European masses require for basic survival.Said another way,if it arises at some point in the future that whites have to make a decision between feeding their children and Black children, irrespective of what kinds of laws are on the books they are going to feed theirs and starve ours. Therefore, "race" precedes class in the European mind, whether that European mind is dispossessed (poor white trash) or elite. This we should remain cognizant, no matter how doggedly "radical", "liberal" and "progressive" Europeans work to convince us that we're in the same class boat with them because nature aptly reminds us that every parasite requires a host. Whatever the reason,whatever the source, consistently, historically, Europeans have demonstrated that they under- stand that they are our enemy,whether we want to see their hatred for what it is or not. Final Truths That We Must Face As A People: In all of our brilliant Afrikan-centered analysis of the origin and continuity of the European's pathological level of racism/white supremacy what makes us believe white people will change? Because we've come to clearly recognize that all of their "humanizing change" has come in form and not content,so why would it be in any way productive for us to envision their politicized claim to humanity as even a most trivial concern in our search for Black people's social,economic and political empowerment? 5 Because at the end of the day,we cannot analyze the enemy as an historical incurable psychopath and then create a future where we are one. Given historical and contemporary fact,that the universe of tomorrow will in all probability be imbued with Afrikan optimism does not necessarily speak well of a future Afrikan presence. In the final analysis,we must seriously ask,does not history (his-story) deny the possibility of really civilizing and humanizing those who by nature are psychopaths? That the majority of Afrikans' focus is invariably on helping Europeans change into something they are not should tell us something. These qualifications for racist thought and behavior again and again,and despite evidence to the contrary, make their return of love to us a living possibility. The mentally oppressed will find a way,even in the light of truth,to gain the approval of those they love to fear, even if it means the blatant denial of their birthright and disrespect of their Ancestors. If only we had the time to get them to see the error in their ways, their shortsighted vision of our enemy. If only we had time,which we do not. They will just have to become courageous enough to follow what they see Afrikan warriors do on their own,or lose their place.Indeed,history does not forgive those who lose their way. It is undeniable that Black people have been engaged in a protracted struggle against the forces of racism/white supremacy for more than five thousand years plus. That struggle has been unrelenting,despite the brief periods of apparent progress and the passage of laws that gave the illusion of progress in "race matters". A cursory examination of Amerikan/world history quickly reveals that slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow,segregation ,discrimination ,miseducation , integration ,gentrification the "War on Drugs", and"the new Jim Crow" are variations of the same state-sanctioned terrorism meted out by white against Blacks to main- tain the system of white domination. Afrikan-centered education is the key to our collective liberation. Afrikan-centered education recognizes that the whole of human life is a political system and , therefore ,it interprets its materials politically. It is political,economic and military action that must change our circumstances as a people. If those things are not applied in the context of our education then we are being educated to be servants- educated servants. Because it is the intention of Europeans that Black people throughout the world never escape their condition of servitude.A "higher education" means that we will just be educated servants-nothing more,nothing less. Again,African throughout the world must deeply understand that racism/white supremacy is an integral, permanent, and indestructive component of this pathological society and the idea of racial equality is fundamentally bankrupt. For all of these reasons outlined in this essay and much more,white people should never assume they know everything we know about them. 6 In Honor of The Ancestors Our deepest fear is not that we are inferior. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our divinity not our so-called "humanness" that most frightens us. We ask, who are we to be intelligent,wise,conscious, Afrikancentered? Actually, who are we not to be? We are a manifestation of the vibrations of Muntu and the Ancestors. Our playing small does not serve our Afrikan Nation well. There is nothing enlightened about cowering so that other people,especially Europeans,won't feel insecure around us. We are meant to shine,as the gods do. We were born to manifest the glory of Muntu and the Ancestors. It’s not just in some of us;it’s in ALL OF US. And as we let our light shine,we unconsciously give all of humanity permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear and ignorance of self, our presence automatically liberates others. Final Thoughts: The solution to the sickness of racism/white supremacy is the awakening of the consciousness of Afrikan people to the divinity within. "You cannot successfully oppress a consciously historical people Once a people know who they are,they will always know what to do about their condition". -Dr.John Henrik Clarke May You Find Peace Within The Infinite Spaciousness of Your Sacred Conscious, Brother Asar Imhotep Amen,Ph.D Feel Free To Write Me At: Troy T. Thomas,[ID number] (Aka Asar Imhotep Amen,Ph.D.) [address]