When I flipped through this weeks "Final Call" I initially thought "great minds think alike". They had recommended that our community seek to address its own dietary needs by producing the items with a focus on health and create a job market just the same. This is basically what I was saying should be done with the $2.16 "seed money". Turn the "grievance money" into an enduring business.
Then I got home and read through the series of articles in this special edition of "The Final Call" and a saw that we were talking about the same thing but with radically different methodologies and motivations.
A Quick Side Track
Last week as I made my run to pick up "The Final Call" I was also listening to WRFG and "The Friday Night Drum". From this session I learned of a program that was taking place the next day (last Saturday) entitled "Who Is The Bigger Gangsters - Young Black Males Or White America? The History Of COINTELPRO".
The event took place in a martial arts studio in Dekalb County. Since my experience are in the form of an "unpublished blog post" that is still in my mind and the pictures on my camera I won't go into great detail yet.
In summary in response to a previous post in which my wife and her friend said that they would not go to a Tae Kwon Do class that was taught by anyone other than a Korean I got pissed at them. Last week as I walked into a Black owned martial arts studio - despite being significantly underfinanced as compared to the one that my kid's go to - I though that I had a reference that proved them wrong.
In the first part of the program the instructor indeed went through with his "COINTELPRO" narrative. The event appeared to be a combination "youth mentoring" / " martial arts school skills demonstration" program. Again I'll go into the details later - but the key point of my diversion is that this school took the platform of martial arts and the beneficial "rites of passage" framework and used it to insert their (I am at a loss for the proper word) ideological agenda.
The posters on the window said "Do not support 'The China King'. They don't support the Black Community" - as a warning of the business that was right next door. I have no idea about their past interactions so I can't say what motivated the sign.
The instructor said that he had been a martial arts champion some years ago and found that "Koreans are racist against Black people" and thus he started his own school. Again I will go into all of this later.
The hook between this experience and the "Final Call - The Food We Eat" special is that, apparently, certain Black people who have a certain ideology need to be in a constant STRUGGLE in order for them to institute the cultural rites of passage, the academic system of matriculation, the business operations that THEY SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY as a testament to their equal humanity and self-sufficiency.
The Black Man Must Produce His Own Food - Because The Government And Corporations Want Us To Starve Or Make Us Obese
"I was for the program of the Nation Of Islam before I was against it".
For the life of me I can't figure out why "the struggle" is so ingrained within the DNA of the Black community so much so that even when we have all of the key's to the kingdom the ignition won't be turned unless someone tells us that we can't drive.
None of this is surprising because "the struggle" against provides the glue and the locomotion of the movement they seek to erect. If you play that video featuring Amiri Barack you will hear him predicting "future struggle" even after Obama gets into office. They have a vested interests in their prediction coming true in the future. The future that they will lead. "They know how White folks work", after all.
WHY??
This is where the "Final Call" lost me in its coverage.
The same federal government that handed out $2.16 billion and you seek to get your health care from is seeking to destroy Black people? If nothing else - if I could reconcile the conspiracy theories that are popular with some people and have them to keep their actions in line with the rational conclusions that their thoughts should lead them - I would repair 500 years of damage in no more than 30 years.
Why can't certain unsolicited "competency development efforts' be initiated because:
- It will create jobs for the unemployed
- It will feed "the least of these"
- It will trigger the creation of scientists who will apply their skills to resolve certain production problems that are created
- It will create a more stable tax base
Instead a conspiracy of a corporations, the government or White people seems to have a more predictable effect.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Has Been Hijacked
How does one get from this message to the ones listed above?
4 comments:
The instructor said that he had been a martial arts champion some years ago and found that "Koreans are racist against Black people" and thus he started his own school. Again I will go into all of this later.
RE: black people creating their own food. Wow, I just now posted a blog on food ghettos and other economic causes of obesity: www.stuartbramhall.com.
CF,
I think the struggle mantra is has a unifying effect and for some people the idea of an outside threat is what moves them to action. As long as they're moved to positive action on some basis, I prefer to see that than to have the idea that we're victims result in folks not being able to move forward because the "white man is holding me back". Besides co-intelpro was a very destructive thing that was imposed from without and folks do need to know about it. But they also need to recognize and deal with the internal factors imposed from within as well.
Food production is going to be key as we move forward. I was reading today about the number of unemployed in Oregon who were coming to the end of their benefits and as I was reading about this, I thought about how useful it would be for people to know how to grow their own food, sew their own clothes and just generally do a number of things that folks did back in the day to eliminate the need for money. This is critical given the severe economic contraction that we're going to encounter. In a way, the argument about what the state should do in terms of unemployment benefits, public assistance and etc is mute at this point given the insolvency of federal government and many state and local governments. There are many things that we'll need to do for ourselves such from the standpoint of surviving. Given that many of our people are posed at the altar of state for certain things, this presents a huge exposure when those things disappear and we really need to be ahead of that curve.
Greg L:
More people focus upon the presence of the retail store down the street than they do in a long term strategy that insures that they will be eating in 10 years.
Their struggle against capitalism (Wal-Mart, corporate farming,etc) is not going to be won in the courts though class-action lawsuits and regulation.
Instead they are going to need to walk past the retail outlets that have these items on display and instead take over the food production supply chain.
NOT because corporations are EVIL but because they see the need to engage more of their own people into the production process and thus they will sculpt their own future.
Post a Comment