I’ll be sharing insight related to what has been a focal point of my activism for the past year – state plans to build a new youth jail in Baltimore. At this season in my “activist life”; I’ve made the decision to focus my limited energy on a small handful of issues as opposed to my former approach of jumping on any and every item of interest that came across my desk. There are a lot of important issues out there – many of which I hope to hear about on Thursday evening – however, there is something to be said about strategically focusing on two to three issues for the long haul and relentlessly working for change in those areas. I’m excited to be one of the presenters for the Ignite Baltimore event and I hope to see some of you there.

For more information click here

Photo Courtesy: Adam Jackson (Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle)

So on that faithful Saturday – at that forum – I finally had to promote the exploration of a new path for my people. Instead of the usual song and lyrics, I offered up for the consideration of the crowd possibilities that are enveloped in practical philosophies that are less popular in this city. I prodded the crowd toward Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism. We’ve been promoting other paths for our people for so long with so few results for the masses that it’s about time that we found the courage to at the very least begin exploring other avenues for communal empowerment.

Let’s not denounce or dismiss Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism from the table of options before we even give it a try. Let’s not disregard these two philosophies because it makes other people uncomfortable. What about the depressing conditions that make our people more than uncomfortable, but uneducated, unemployed, uninsured, and uninvited?

We talk about diversity, but how diverse are the Black voices that we commonly hear speaking about our condition as a people. Even when they appear to be arguing different positions – like the much discussed “debate” between Dr. Cornel West and Rev. Al Sharpton – closer analysis will reveal that they in large measure are arguing nuances of the same position.

As I said “Black Nationalism” and “Pan Africanism” on the LBS panel that day, I sensed an uneasiness with the audience. White people were in the audience and it’s been my experience that Black people get nervous when you start talking Black Pride around White people. – as if cultural pride and love of self are inexcusable offenses. But the uneasiness just might have had to do more with my poor job of explaining what I meant by those loaded terms. Black Nationalism/Pan Africanism isn’t taught in schools, talked about in churches, or examined on television so one must not assume general understanding.

I wish I would have been able to succinctly define Black Nationalism as Bro. Malcolm X does in this clip.

Can any conscious American African person genuinely disagree with what is advocated with the philosophy of Black Nationalism based on that understanding? As one listens to Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) speak on Pan Africanism can the oppressed African masses truly discard its potential power so quickly?

We don’t need a juvenile Black Nationalism which beats its chests to proclaim it’s hatred for White people. Black Nationalism in its most powerful expression revolves around LOVE for African people not hatred of another people. And we don’t need this rhetorical revolutionary Black Nationalism/Pan Africanism which touts the long listing of books on revolution that have been read. With that, as Amos Wilson said, you’ll just die Black and Proud and your obituary will read, “Here lies a Black Revolutionary who read a lot of books, but left no enduring legacy.”

American Africans need to explore and embrace a Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism which holds as its most important action love of self. Only deep and abiding love of self can provide the sustainable energy necessary to re-orient, re-educate, and release African people around these two powerful concepts. Furthermore, a Pan Africanism fueled by love can appropriately re-connect African people in places where the African Holocaust (or MAAFA) fractured and disconnected us.

Think about it – one of the mandatory goals of the MAAFA involved the DISCONNECTION of African people from their names, their language, their land, their history, their cultural ways, their communities, their families, etc. Disconnection prompted discombobulation and we are largely still confused because we’ve lost our unique orientation to the world. Pan Africanism promotes a RECONNECTION to our ancestral identity which has the potential to bring about the communal healing that we so stand in need of. There’s no doubt about it – if African people don’t embrace love of self and its expression in tangible ways in every area of our activity and thinking then we are likely to remain in bondage.

Furthermore, with this reorientation to love-of-self, we must also commit ourselves to the construction of conscious anchor institutions – schools, banks, businesses, cultural centers, spiritual centers, etc. Especially in these cities where the population is predominantly African, we need to start building enclaves which champion our cultural values, orients our children to the world based on our ancestral understanding, and promotes an active unity and interdependence within the community.

It’s an enormous task that is possible by taking measured steps. For instance on the way to organizing an Afrikan-centered Public School System that is independent of the government funded public school systems; we can start a Saturday academy or after school programs in partnership with kindred spirits. Don’t just try to jump up and build a whole school system! Start one quality program and learn how to run it well before trying to organize a system. On the way to food sovereignty for our community – where we return to eating only what we grow ourselves; start a community garden or assume responsibility for a vacant plot of land. Grow there and supplement your diet with what you grow with your own hands. Learn how to grow and manage a garden well before you jump out there to run a farm! In the way of economic empowerment, perhaps a first step is to organize a Giving Circle before you begin talking about starting a credit union or bank.

These steps can present building blocks toward greater manifestations of what is needed. The American African community must embrace self-determination, self-government, and most important of all – SELF LOVE.

The question now is can we love ourselves enough to even consider different modes of understanding that will give rise to different communal behaviors that can potentially lift African people exponentially?

Photo Courtesy of: Adam Jackson (Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle)

I was asked to serve as a panelist at the first Freedom Forum hosted by the think tank focused on policy analysis and community change. The theme of the event was Baltimore’s Youth Movement: Are They Ready To Lead? And it’s funny because I remember when I was squarely included in the crowd of city youth leaders, but more and more I’m being informed that my license has expired!

I couldn’t help, but sit there though and think about the days when folks like Bro. Farajii Muhammad, Hassan Giordano, C.D. Witherspoon, Ezekiel Jackson and I would run the same type of events. Gatherings focused on serious discussion about our generation and our city. We would link up with the Elders who weren’t threatened by us and examine the many ideas that sprung forth from our minds – pretending to be new ideas.

It was a very reflective moment for me to sit on the LBS panel at yet another forum and just think about all the ideas and all the perspectives that I’ve heard over the few years that I’ve been grinding for social justice in Baltimore. I just couldn’t sit there and regurgitate the same responses that I’ve been giving and hearing for all these years. I feel like I’ve been chasing after a family of rabbits in a field…feeling a sense of accomplishment by catching up to one of them only to have another one of them run across my path and entice me to chase it. In a very fragmented and compartmentalized way, I’ve been running after the rabbit of “better economic opportunities for Blacks in Baltimore” then chasing down “youth mentoring for young Black men” then being lured to leap after the prison industrial complex then better schools then gentrification then street gangs then youth jobs then then Then THEN!

No doubt, some gains have been made, but the masses of my people are still in bondage on so many levels. Surely, chasing after all these different rabbits was doing more to keep me preoccupied and assured of my self worth than it was providing holistic systemic change for my community.

I sat on that LBS panel unwilling to once again serve up a fractured picture of the plight of my beloved and beleaguered community in Baltimore. We need fresh insight. New ideas. New understanding. And a holistic framework which not only pinpoints the cause of our collective pain, but also provides a path to our communal wholeness. I just couldn’t sit there and pretend as if all we need is one more Black person on the corporate board, one more Black politician in office, one more Black Student doing better on the MSA’s, one more Black firefighter or police officer, one more Black church or preacher and then all would be right with the Black world. This incremental approach to community empowerment has not worked for the masses of African people.

Think about it.

How many quarters would you put in a vending machine that didn’t provide you with the snack you selected? At most you’d put 2 quarters in the machine and if by chance you did put a third one in and it still didn’t work, you’d start kicking or rocking that machine trying to get your honey glazed donut. Some of you would even call that 1 (800) number on the sticker not so much because you wanted your quarter back, but because the machine did not provide you with what you know you deserved and you felt cheated.

In that same way, African people in cities across the country have been investing in strategies and systems that have not yielded the desired results for the masses. We’ve been promoting and preaching incrementalism…just go along and we’ll get along-ism…just wait on the benevolence of White folks-ism.

I’m reminded of that quote by the Great Ancestor Amos Wilson who said, “One reason for the condition we’re in today is a leadership that has not yet decided it will determine a new reality and develop an Afrocentric reality, one that is suitable to the advancement and development of Afrikan people.” It’s a statement that rings truer and truer to my ears.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Fast forward 147 years.

So when the clock struck 12 midnight and 2010 was ushered in, I was with my church family in worship. I got home and got a little rest, but was up and moving by about 10AM in order to make my way to a 12 Noon vigil organized in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their allies. Sponsored by the local chapter of the international peace group, Women in Black, people from various parts of Maryland and DC came together on a COLD first day of the year to show our support for the Gaza Freedom March and the Palestinian struggle against apartheid -which is being imposed on them by the Israeli Government.

In the video below, I interviewed David Hosey, a good brother, Christian missionary, and National Media Coordinator for the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. He speaks briefly about why he is involved in this effort.

Enjoy the video.

Like many of you, my heart has been heavy for the people of Haiti this week as they have endured a tremendous earthquake and successive aftershocks. A country that was already struggling and surviving in the midst of extreme poverty; is now trying to dig out from significant infrastructural collapse and heart wrenching loss of life. I join you in sending prayers to God on behalf of our sisters and brothers in Haiti.

What you may not know is that I was planning to be in Haiti in 2 months for a trip of reverse mission with a ministry in Washington, DC called Faith & Money Network – an offshoot of sorts of Church of the Saviour. I’ve had Haiti on my heart for a couple of years now and this trip of reverse mission was going to be a highlight of my year. I learned yesterday, however, that because of the quake, the trip has been postponed. Even by March, there will be significant rebuilding and re-gathering of life still going on. I’m prayerful about another opportunity that may still grant me the blessing of planting my feet on Haitian soil.

I’m still processing all that has happened this week in terms of Haiti and plan to give a more thoughtful response to things in a few days, but I wanted to at least provide some avenues of assistance as many of you are looking for ways to help. I contacted my sister in DC who lived in Haiti for a while and has sincere relationship with Haiti’s people. She recommended the following organizations for those looking to make financial donations:

Doctors Without Borders, Partners In Health, and Beyond Borders

Kevin Powell also provided a resource sheet of vetted organizations called “How to ‘Help’ Haiti.” Being sensitive to the sad tendency of some to capitalize on the misery of others and to the reality of some organizations being popular in name, but questionable in connections “on the ground,” this resource was created to help us support those organizations – ones particularly led by Haitians and people of color- who are providing support.

Finally and to me most importantly, let us commit to something more urgent than money, speeches, sermons, or even blog articles – let us join together in PRAYER and as we listen let us respond in Love.

Don’t miss this folks. An impassioned dramatic presentation featuring the voices of those that mainstream society has attempted to silence, purposely mis-interpret, or completely ignore. Narrated by Howard Zinn, and based on his best selling books A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History, The People Speak captures the spirit of struggle for justice and peace. It’ll air on the History Channel on Sunday, December 13, 2009, 8PM.

For those in Baltimore, there will be a showing of this presentation tomorrow night, Saturday, November 21, 2009 at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson. More info below:

Two Shows! Sat Nov 21, 6pm & 9pm.
$20, $18 stus & mbrs. Adv tixs sug.

A ONCE IN A LIFETIME CAST! The most brilliant arts leaders in one of the world’s most vibrant arts communities speak truth in the words of our country’s visionary leaders. As Howard Zinn’s performance version of his powerful, alternative history splashes nationally with Hollywood’s A-list, CA responds with Baltimore’s own – from a MacArthur “genius” to an activist with the arrest record to prove his committment. Rafael Alvarez, Olu Butterfly, Rosiland Cauthen, Sheila Gaskins, Sine Jensen, Joseph Stands with Many, Kay Lawal-Muhammed, Liz Lerman, Naoko Maeshiba, David Mitchell, Fernando Romero, Bashi Rose, Joyce J. Scott, Marc Steiner, Vivienne Shub, Koli Tengella and Brendann Walsh join Zinn’s co-editor Anthony Arnove. Directed by veteran activist theater director Luisa Bieri de Rios, this staged reading with music by The Shape Note Sisters benefits ACLU of Maryland and Voices of A People’s History.

Come early! Work by Baltimore’s Native American youth are exhibited in True Native – American Angel Warriors with opening reception from 3:30-5:30pm in our lobby.