(Crossposted at AfroSpear.wordpress.com)

When this particular thing called “AfroSpear” was created, we didn’t have a three, six, nine, twelve or thirty six month plan. We, the six of us, knew a couple of things: we wanted to do more for Afrikan people in the diasopora. And, we wanted to connect with people in the Afrikan diaspora to facilitate our own growth and that of our people.

We, naively perhaps, thought that we could make a contribution, not by “leading” people, but by providing a place that could function as an incubator for black folks to lead themselves. Think, plan, create, act…and then reflect on the thinkingplanningcreatingacting.

AfroSpear was birthed in April. We’ve come far, but we have so far to go, primarily because we want and need the participation of more of our people. Some have expected the worst out of us and believe that they’ve seen it - from afar. Even a few folks who have come in with goodwill and an open mind have been turned off by our shortcomings.

We understand. We are flawed. We haven’t plugged the many holes in the dyke; of course, we’re still building it as the racist flood waters rush by - over, under and all around us. We’re under pressure to be perfect, to appeal to all of our disparate, unique selves.

How do we make it better? How do we get out of our own way and make this page serve rather than alienate? We need YOU!

I propose that a couple of mistakes be corrected:

1) There should be no distinction between the AfroSpear “Circle/Nation.” We ARE the Circle, ALL of us! The only thing those of us who formed this page should do is facilitate the discussion, moderate the comments, put in our two cents. But our two cents is no more important than yours. Because its all of OURS!

2) Membership & Overmanagement. If you’re black, you are a member. There should be no requirements to “join” this page. Show up and you’re in; if you want to be linked here, BOOM, there it is! I don’t care if people are democrats, republicans, voodoo practitioners…you are one of us. Let’s be an open ended space where the majority feel comfortable communicating and feel like their words have an audience and will be heard and maybe even utilized.

3) Civility and Bans. We want to treat each other here with respect. We know that that is hard for all of us sometimes. I try to use my page for my more “in your face” diatribes, but try to keep the “AfroSpear” page sacred. As moderators, I believe we should keep it clean, as well as real. “Character blassisination,” that masquerades as criticism has no place here; of course, some of the more skilled rhetoricians know how to straddle the line. All I can say is, we should do our best to figure out the difference and ban folk only as a last resort.

4) Brainstorms/Plans/Action. I think its critical to have a “philosophical,” analytical, planning component. Some people are all about action, without reflection, without foresight, without strategy. They just want to “do.” That’s a wonderful sentiment, but in most cases fails miserably. To quote Denzel, “this is chess, not checkers!” My hope is that we use this space to look and then leap, but only after knowing where we’re going and planning for the exigencies that might develop on the way down.

5) Welcome the Fencesitters. There’s a lot of brainpower hanging back, waiting. Maybe they are waiting for us to fail so that they can say, “I told you so.” What kind kind of spectator sport is it to stay detached from an effort to help your people and root for that effort to fail - minus the ingredients you could have added if only you’d wanted to?

Speak. Post here. Pick this thing apart in our faces. This site should be that open that it wants to hear such a critique made to us, not about us. Bring it.

We need all hands on deck. Its about progress, not perfection; we’ll never get far if we don’t have our “stars.” Come Home. HELP. S-O-S!!!

We need to tweak this thing, to make it work. Let’s do it. I’m not wedded to how its done, just that it’s done.

The AfroSpear/AfroSphere/Blackosphere is all the same thing. Let’s keep it simple, open, welcoming and diverse.

Let us be the spot where Afrikans in the diaspora plan and plot our ascent.

Frank Jude Cop Verdict:   GUILTY

This is an extremely intelligent discussion of dating outside the “race” forwarded to me by Terell:

Inter-racial Dating by Asian-Americans

Given that inter-racial dating and marriage, and sexuality and self-esteem in general, is a significant issue among Asian-Americans, I thought it would be appropriate to make a serious, sober, and reasoned statement on the topic (as opposed to the sarcastic, and some would say hilarious, things we’ve said in the past).

This statement only represents the views of Lopan and I, the founders of this site and online community. It does not represent the views of our members, of whom we have many men and women of varying ages and ethnicities.

I begin with this: we believe that inter-racial dating and marriage is a good thing. At its best, and in its healthy form, based on love and mutual respect, it transcends ethnocentric boundaries of race, nationality, religion, and culture, and nurtures an atmosphere of acceptance and an appreciation for diversity. Diversity is good, love is good, and understanding the “Other” and integrating that “Other” into the “Self” is good, and is something for which people should generally strive, regardless of involvement in race and gender politics.

The effect of colonialism and racism is that it distorts social and economic structures, and perverts fundamentally “good” things or ideas into something less good, and potentially harmful. Take the idea of “equality” for example. Early, or classical, Liberalism was founded on the notion that all women and men were equal and should be treated “equally.” People began to notice, however, that because of power imbalances in the social, economic, and political structures, treating everyone the same, or “equally,” resulted in gross inequality and the oppression of women and minorities (be they ethnic, sexually-alternative, or disabled). As a result, people began to advocate for specific groups and causes, and proposed “special” (or “unequal”) treatment for women and minorities to try to balance out those inequalities. As a result, “total” or “absolute” equality is now regarded by advocates and rights groups as a bad thing, even though it was intrinsically a good idea, but ended up perpetuating or exacerbating colonial and racist distortions.

Read the full article here.

 

The roots of any revolution begin with the revolutionary seed, born within courageous human beings. Revolution, be it personal or societal, is born in truth.

I remember when I was first exposed to black history, Malcolm X, militant politics. I was fascinated; a thirst I didn’t know I had, was quenched. What I ended up doing in my youth and naivete, was clothing myself in the information, without allowing the profundity of its meaning to permeate my spiritual/emotional/pyschological life. It never reached the cells, the tissue, the DNA. The books I read morphed into a compensatory personna that I would periodically bash other people with and use as a shield to protect my fragile, unexamined, inner-life. I was hiding the wounded soul behind kente cloth.

I could talk from the book, I could talk about what I read, I could spout positions and so much rhetoric - but I couldn’t tell you who I was. And didn’t want to know. And didn’t know that I did NOT want to know.

Alcoholism saved my life. Drinking took this process of inner evasion to amazing heights and depths. Mainly depths. I was so strung out on chemicals and the double-triple life that I was leading, that when I/It crashed into a heap, I was done. No facade could shield me from the psychic, spiritual abyss that I had plummeted into. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. The facade, the shingles, the siding, the multiple paint jobs - had all been power-hosed and I was left with the gaping wound that was me.

What could mend me, what could really heal me? The only thing I’ve found that does the job is God, the truth, brutal self-examination, friendships that hold a mirror up to my face - with likeminded people who have the sensitivity and courage to criticize me and themselves whenever its necessary.

Becoming is a process in this world. Casting off the garbage foisted on you from family, from so-called friends, from this culture, is a lifetime endeavor…if you want to be real. However, if one wants to stick with their “compensatory personality,” the one they borrowed, versus the one that they sweated bullets for, unearthed from the inner journey - well, its as easy as the crack pipe. And just as fine a short-term hit.

A friend of mine asked me recently why I write things on my blog directed at people who don’t like what I have to say and have made it plain that they don’t. Two reasons really: One, I’m not really writing stuff for their benefit at all. What I learned in recovery is that there are some people who haven’t gone as far into the disease as others. They may be able to avoid going to the depths that others of us have gone by hearing about it first, hearing someone else’s story. They can take what they like and leave the rest. And, Two, I need to be reminded of how I was and how I DON’T want to be. I was as belligerent, narrow and absurd as any of my “opponents.” They were and perhaps, are me. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

The idea of recovery is powerful and appropriate for what we confront; but even in the context of 12Step recovery, one often finds the well meaning-tyrant, who has only half-understood what they’ve read, only half-understood their story, and now they are experts on you, me, life itself. They NEVER talk about themselves or the concepts of growth, change or process. They’ve adopted the “compensatory personna,” climbed into their own personal gun tower, the sniper’s nest, where they can pick off those who think with their whole being, rather than the sliver that is their puny ego.

In the context of black liberation, this is incredibly important - the ability to tell the difference. Tell the difference between those who have done their work and are doing their work; and those who cower beneath angry, secondhand lingo to throw the scent off of their own fear that they secretly wallow in.

I was speaking with a very good friend of mine the other night. She was saying how she’d attended a couple of these “Covenant on Black America” spectacles and how appalled she was. The “experts” on stage were trying to outdo each other, trying to win debating points. And the crowd was lapping it up like good little sheep. The ability to discern solutions or a program, from a rhetorical exercise was absent, even among the mighty brains engaged on the stage. I’ve watched a couple of them on cable - for fifteen minutes - and felt the same thing. Jive. Spectacle. Sitcom. Good shit said and said well.

Human beings have to be willing to descend into a place within where angels dare not tread. I was lucky - it was go there or die. It wasn’t a choice; to survive, my only option was to go there. And it ain’t ova! Looking back many years on - seeking truth, depth, the darker, uglier places within, is always optional. I know people who had softer bottoms than me who failed to look or learn and kept on plummeting. The “character blassasinators,” whose fingers constantly point outward and NEVER look within, are the shallow ‘friends’ who offer the addict crack or heroin - when you’re trying to kick the habit. “You know you want some more of this.” They want company in their prison cell.

Resist, resist I say. Be yourself, which means taking an inner voyage for the rest of your life. As a man, the journey for me has been to feel, feel the feelings men aren’t supposed to feel: hurt, shame, abandonment, fear. The positions one takes on interracial relationships, black women or black men don’t make you “real” or “authentic” or “black.” They can just as easily make you, ignorant, ridiculous, pathetic and white-minded. No, your relationship with “You” is what counts…and the quality of that relationship with yourself.

Is your mirror pointed outward or inward? Do you really know who you are - or is the point to not know?

Is it your intention to be an armored tank blasting your incipient emotions, reflected in others? Is that what I’m doing here?

You think you’ve heard this one before? You have. At intervals, your intuition, that inner voice that knows, has tried to get your attention when you were hard at work running from it.

Stop. Look. Listen. Feel. Then, think. Me and You and Everyone We Know.

Mingus, Dolphy, Jordan, Richmond, Coles. Beautiful black men.

Part I: 

Part II: 

From “Conquest” by Andrea Smith:

“…Many scholars have noted, Native religions are practice rather than belief centered…Christianity is defined by belief in a certain set of doctrinal principles about Jesus, the Bible, etc…What is of primary importance in Native religions is not being able to articulate belief in a certain set of doctrines, but being able to take part in the spiritual practice of one’s community.”

I was reading comments during a recent blog war where a brother asserted that he’d observed a tremedous amount of black hatred among the “peace and black-militant-love” crowd who populates that particular site. Something struck me about what he said. Some of the most vicious haters of black people on the ‘Net, are so-called “pro-black/freedom fighting/black man or woman-loving” (at least in name) black folks.

These folks appear to be completely clueless as to the venom and hate boiling out of them like bitter lava, that scalds those with the misfortune of being black and having a contrary opinion to theirs.

Then I recalled this idea of Native or indigenous practice versus the espousal of a belief system. One requires that your behavior be congruent with your spirituality, or your spiritual/political rhetoric. In fact, spirituality and behavior are synonymous in the practice-centered equation. The belief-centered mode, which is decidely European in nature, requires only that one quasi- understand and/or, parrott a set of principles about their particular religion/ideology - a continuance of the compartmentalization/desacralization process that Marimba Ani has highlighted.    Belief, without any anchorage practice, is enough.

Love is almost entirely absent from these sites, as it is from this American society; the European-ness of these militants in terms of their behavior (as opposed to their dogma) is quite revealing. There is great intelligence, wisdom, cleverness on some of these sites, but in love’s place is a fear, a terror, a self-hatred projected outward, at those who challenge their mask. Mask.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar

We Wear the Mask

 

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

 

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

 

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Today, many of us wear another kind of mask, a mask that debilitates individually and collectively. Those who wear this mask are oblivious to the havoc they create, insisting that they are real, authentic, infallible - tru black. When children create masks for protection, they sometimes forget to discard them. Instead, they squeeze their adult form, mind and spirit into the protective armor of their little kid. Pouring academic, technical info into a ‘grown-baby’ creates an educated fool. Though it may the wearer, that facade can’t fool everybody.

You can’t see this charade unless you’ve gone on your own emotional/spiritual inner voyage.

Do you have the courage to take that trip?  Are you still on it - or have you graduated to “omniscient Negritude?”

Do you wear the mask?

Do you know how and when to take it off?

I’m not a meme guy, forilla, but Duke asked, so it is given. But let me get the rules outta tha way:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Bam:

1. I’m a psychic. No, seriously.

2. Blew a full scholarship to Howard U. The cause: excessive drinking and whorishness.

3. Bought my first car at 37 years old. I’ve since gotten rid of it for public transpo and biking.

4. Do not pay war taxes. I believe in taking my reparations upfront.

5. I have a total of seven tattoos: Mingus, Miles, the AA logo, “love” in Chinese script, my daughter’s name and two Yoruba symbols: Gye Nyame - except for God/the supremacy of God; and Aya - symbol of defiance, independence and fearlessness. And my daughter’s name tatted on my chest, which is the smallest, yet was the most painful of all.

7. I’m an anarchist. I do not believe in government of any kind, do not believe that government was created to “help” people in any way, other than for those who control governments to divest the people of their money and their liberty. Government can NEVER solve that which it is dedicated to oppose: the authentic rule of ALL of the people. Government is artifice, illusion, the Matrix, ‘a prison made for your mind;’ and we wear it well.

8. I have played tennis for 42 of my soon to be 47 years.

Nu Vision For A Nu Day

Bitch Who Blogs

Black Amazon

ChangeSeeker

Eddie Griffin

Exodus Mentality

Wandering Ether

Super Weed

Follow the rules, ya’ll and lemme have EIGHT!!!

“I don’t think I have a completely original style, though I do have an identity. An identity is when someone who knows jazz can say, ‘that’s Lee Morgan playing,’ but my basic style is composed of a strong Fats Navarro/Clifford Brown influence, and Miles and Dizzy, and then again a Bud and Bird thing. I think a definite style comes with living and experience and travelling until you play what you are, you play yourself on the horn.”

First the “Jena Six.” Now this!?

Read this shit from Yolanda @ Genderrace.Com:

“Four African American lesbian women from Newark, New Jersey were sentenced this past June 14th to excessively long prison terms in New York for the crime of defending themselves against homophobic harassment and violence. These young sistas were railroaded by both a dismissively misogynist judge and by the reactionary, sensationalist media.”

This case is clearly political. ‘We can’t have women - of any color - believing they can mete out street justice to sexist, homophobic men - of whatever color.‘ These women were assaulted and battered by a black homophobic male - yet, they were convicted of the crime.

How can it be legal to shoot an intruder in your home - to protect your home and property - and it be illegal to protect your body on the street? Clearly, property in this sick ass culture, is of greater value than your own person.

And if you’re a woman, of color, AND gay, Lawd have mercy?! You need to dress your “otherness” down so as to be less provocative…and take your whipping like the leper that you are.  We don’t want people believing that they can be themselves after all.

Insane, yet, what other conclusion can one come to from this verdict based on the “facts?” What if they’d killed the fool? Death row?!

If the law is illogical, or its application is ludicrous, breaking it is not only warranted, but necessary to dismantle this unjust system.