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-: "The worst insult a dark-skinned boy as a child, ever got is to be called African," Jason said. "You can call me anything in the book when I was younger. Just don't call me African," he added. Jason said people equate Africa to "savage."
This is the attitude I alluded to when I questioned whether or not diasporan Africans ever considered how continental Africans might help them. This attitude is pervasive, it is what causes African-American comedians to refer, publicly, to continental Africans as "buck-wild" and induce roars of laughter from predominantly African-American audiences.
It is why none but Joe Fraiser and "few" dark-skinned woolly-haired Africans took objection to Muhammed Ali's reference to himself as pretty and to Fraiser as a Gorilla.
This shame is the result of ignorance of our own heritage, and the time has come to stop making excuses and blaming slavery. The chains came off our hands and feet a long time ago, The only remaining chains are in our minds and the responsibility for breaking those rest solely on our shoulders, individually and collectively.
Millions of African-Americans die every day from diseases and maladies which are alien to continental Africans.
Why are there no African-American scientists researching and consulting with Africans on the continent to find out why this is so?
Even the "coconut heads" in the Caribbean are capable of making a contribution to this kind of research, especially since being the majority population on most islands, they were able to hold on to some of their traditional remedies.
We need to learn to value ourselves as a people. This is where most of our leaders fail, the focus is too much on assimilation.
When I ask where are our scientists, our doctors, our economists, our warriors, its not that I'm looking for a way to eradicate the "white" race. I need to know why there aren't any of these professionals working exclusively on the ways and the means toward total African liberation.
The winds of change are blowing, however, and like Kamau Kambon, I know the "One" is just beyond the horizon. I hope some of us are ready and able to recognize her/him, whatever shade of black he/she might be.
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The Sun didn't make me Black:
Wouldn’t you like to be Black like me?
Black like the hour of infinity
Under the night's unblemished sky,
In the throes of orgasmic ecstasy.
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