Black History Month: What does freedom mean to you? By Nina Simone

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*Black History Month - Song of the Day* - Prodigy - My world is empty without you

DOWNLOAD: Prodigy - My world is empty without you



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*Black History Month* Master Teacher Dr Sebi: Cures so called 'Incurable Diseases'

Get to know him...




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Before Reaganomics and Crack Cocaine there was the indoctrination of inferiority

I posted this video because a white person politely asked me once: Why are black people seemingly lagging behind, why are so many on the bottom of the socio-economic scale?

Thought there are many articles that would state that there is an improvement in Black America, more black millionaires etc. It would shock many to know that in many communities the majority of black businesses were better off economically during segregation, and that after integration blacks suffered in a myriad of ways. Before Reaganomics and Crack Cocaine there was the indoctrination of inferiority. When the views of an entire nation is inculcated with the idea that blacks are buffoons, maids, and hired hands, well it's not hard to see what blacks would be faced with, the climb out of this indoctrination has been slow and hard.





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**Black History Month - Song of the Day** (Killah Priest: From then till Now)

Artist: Killah Priest



Song: From then till Now
Listen to the Lyrics....Deep!



Download One of my Favorite Albums:
Killah Priest - Heavy Mental

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(Without a Telescope) How did the Dogon in Mali know about the Sirius star system?

The Dogon people of Mali, west Africa, preserve a tradition of contact which they pass down from generation to generation; and this information by way of initiation is said to have been given to them by intelligent extraterrestrial beings who come from the Sirius star-system. Far out right...?

These beings, who are hypothesized to have taught the arts of civilization to humans, are claimed by the Dogon to have originated the systems of the Pharaohs of Egypt, the mythologies of Greek civilization, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and so on.

These claims have been scholarly researched in the works of various ethnographers like Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen to name but a few. A substantial bulk of there scholarship explores "The Sirius Mystery" using comparative linguistic and mythological sources, pointing out resemblances among the Dogon, Egyptian and Sumerian beliefs and symbols.



The “mystery” beckons the question: how did the Dogon come to acquire knowledge of the star "Sirius B" which is the invisible companion star of Sirius A. If you believe as they believe...then you would believe that the Dogon Tribe obtained accurate information on Sirius B by contact with an advanced civilization.

I have often wondered why we have not been able to find evidence of another more ancient and more advanced civilization that was behind the sudden appearance of advanced civilizations like Egypt and Sumeria. Where did all of this cosmological and architectural knowledge come from? Could it have come from angelic beings, or extraterrestrials whom the ancients would have regarded as Gods worthy of worship?

WHAT ARE THE TEACHINGS OF THE DOGON?

Let us study there "Cosmogony" which is an astrophysical study of the origin and evolution of the universe. (In other words it is a specific theory or model of how things began, below is a video of that very model).



Another good video to watch is: The Dogon Code, Linking Egypt and West Africa (on YouTube in 4 parts, based on the works from an author named Laird Scranton and his book: "Hidden Meanings". Scranton explains how the Dogon tribe in West Africa originated Egyptian symbolism, philosophy, physics and even modern science.

Part 1.


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The Nicholas Brothers: the standard for every dancer since

Th Nicholas brothers (Fayard and Harold) were the most talented and innovative dance team of their time and they have set the standard for every dancer since. Gregory Hines once said that if their biography was ever filmed, the dance sequences would have to be computer generated because no one would be able to perform their moves. This is their most famous routine from “stormy weather”.



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Malcolm X - The Man Martyred on this day *Feb. 21* (1965)

Every year during Black History Month I always hate this particular day just a little bit; because on this very day back in 1965; a bold and gallant leader of the Civil rights struggle was gunned down by assassins bullets. For me he lived in the pages of his autobiography "Malcolm X" by Alex Haley - one of the first books that had changed my life & re-adapted my thinking for years to come. Through his social, political awareness I was made more aware of the world and just how it functions and interrelates racially and within class-systems. I watched the Movie by Spike Lee, and like so many others I was affixed by how daring and bold Malcolm X was, needless to say Actor Denzil Washington played the role of Malcolm brilliantly. I began from there to read other books, about other movements for change and revolution throughout the world. I became more community-centered because of this man, and deep down he was almost like a father figure to me, and one of my greatest examples of black manhood. When reading his words one felt as if they to could say "by any means necessary" just as he had done.

He addressed the frustrations of those times...


"Nobody can give you freedom, nobody can give you equality or justice. If you're a man...you take it" - Malcolm X

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Black History Month: Nelson Mandela - 20th Anniversary Of Prison Release

Africa is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s freedom from prison. On February 20, 1990 Mandela was released from a Cape Town, South Africa prison after being a political prisoner for 27 years.

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Stacey Muhammad: Film Director - "Out of Our Right Minds"

Via: jessemuhammad

Stacey Muhammad: I’ve been studying Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome and the writings of Dr. Joy Leary as well as books like “Rock My Soul, Black People and Self Esteem” by Professor Bell Hooks for quite some time and have long believed that the traumas Black people experienced in slavery were directly related to, and actually responsible for many of the psychosis, depressions and mental disorders we deal with today.

However, nothing could prepare me for this subject more than my own personal experience with depression a few years ago. Although it was short-lived, it was quickly debilitating and I knew that if my life were to ever get back on track I needed to figure out what was going on with me and with so many other brothers and sisters who were suffering in silence. What I learned during this time is that Black folks really don’t talk about depression and mental illness nearly as much as we need to. Black women often feel that we’ve endured so much that a diagnosis of depression isn’t something else we can add to our plate. But, it’s real and sisters are hurting and suffering and living unfulfilled lives for a myriad of reasons. So, this film explores what’s happening in the minds and in the hearts of Black women.

Afrocentric Schools in Toronto - How do you feel about it?

Every time a debate of this kind comes along, we will have in one corner - the Martin Luther King liberals, who will want nothing other then a colour-blind world where people are judged by their character and not by the colour of their skin (that's great), but offer no real serious critique or analysis of the system that generates the opposite (that's bad). Then you have the conservatives who invoke MLK but at the same time staunchly oppose anything that is so-called "entitlement mentality" which is basically another way of saying that they don't want tax dollars spent on yet more social engineering, and their solution is usually something simplified like; more discipline and less gangsta rap (these are usually the same kinds of people who are for things like Mandatory Sentencing).









Then...


You've also got the black-identity political agenda people who warmly embrace the idea of an African centered school. The city of Toronto has approved the opening of an Afrocentric School in September of 2009, and it will occupy the unused space at Sheppard Public School, near Sheppard Avenue and Keele Street. I personally can't see how a concession like this one from the very people who couldn't fix the problem in the first place is gonna work. The school districts within urban areas had been met with a surprise, unhappy minority families embittered by perennially sagging test scores wanted something done about an alarming 40% drop out rate (and their right, something should be done). But do these parents really think that children who learn more about their heritage will score higher in subjects like science and math? What about the black students who already score well in integrated schools, shouldn't their reasons for success be studied? Perhaps those students were in better school environments among teachers who weren't racist and targeting their students in a discriminatory way.



What's my opinion? I'll tell you straight...

I think the school board in Toronto is shifting the focus of responsibility away from a structure of power relations (one that they refuse to admit exists) and their placing the educational problems that do exist in densely populated urban areas on to the people who have been and remain oppressed by it. It's not clear to me whether this solution has become the desirable solution because parents prefer their kids to learn largely or exclusively alongside others like them, or because they want schools that have a sense of community. An Afrocentric school is not a segregated school in the sense of that word 'segregation' which was clearly a system of superiors imposing on a class of people seen as inferior, the jim crow era cannot be compared with what is happening now, and that word should not be used to describe this chartered school idea of Afro-centricity. But...and this is a very strong but...Afrocentric schools are a desperate attempt at best, a band-aid solution that isn't addressing the social malady that undergirds what's really at the root of the problem - Systemic Racism.

These are very OLD institutions that haven't modernized themselves for the post-Obama world that we live in. Newer constructs need to be devised, and devised quickly because we are all entering into a very unique economic global climate. The tools needed are different and the curriculums needed to make the youth of tommorrow ready are going to have to be different as well. This penny in the jar type thinking is small change, and all the books one could read about African Kings and Queens isn't what's gonna cut it in a very real competitive world. These kids are dropping out of school because they all want to make money, and their parents who are apoligists for this system of checks and false balances are too weak to really effectualy create change. Ask yourself the question: Which segment of the population largely and popularly supported and VOTED a 'capable' blackman into the office of president of the United States? Was it not the youth...

INVOLVE YOUR YOUNG PEOPLE in the decision making progress, you'd be surprised when you realize how aware and ready they are for the leadership that awaits them. A re-surfacing of fresh ideas that includes everyone, and none of this marginalizing along flimsy racial lines under the guise of "black history isn't being taught". Depending on what school you go to...it is being taught to whites and blacks alike in Toronto, and that hasn't changed the scope of the underlying problem.

More some other time...

Please Comment...

Black History Month & Black Cinema

What should one study?


In his pioneering rap poem, entitled Black History, by Gil Scott Heron :

I was wondering about our yesterdays and started digging through the rubble...And to say the least somebody went through a hell of a lot of trouble...to make sure that when we looked things up, we wouldn't fare too well...that we would come up with totally unreliable, portraits of ourselves.

Many groundbreaking thinkers understood that it was vital for African Americans to know their history, a people who were robbed of their cultures, religions, names, lands and material possessions. The tradition and practice of Black History month has extended to other areas around the globe, furnishing race-pride which has become the antidote for prejudice. The occasion was first called Black History Week, and it was begun in 1926 for Americans to learn what had been left out of their history textbooks and newspapers concerning African Americans - it's inventor was Dr. Carter G. Woodson. February was chosen to honor Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays are both in that month; and that's probably why there is so much corresponding coverage on CNN about both Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln - drawing a comparison between the two presidents. I personally don't ascribe to the hype that is often placed on black history month as I did in years past, simply because I now view my history as a piece of world history. An evolution in the way that African history is distributed is what I look for now.

History of the lunch counter sit-ins
It's been done...over and over and over...LET'S EVOLVE


Because I'm a media-nerd, I've decided to give you Black History Web-surfers an interesting piece of history to look up. In 1915, Woodson established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, this was to become the basis or foundation for what is Black History Month now. In that same year (1915) a film called "Birth of a Nation" was released. It was the most profitable American film of all time until Disney's Snow White & the Seven Dwarves came out in 1937. Imagine that...that this film virtually held box-office sales prisoner for an entire 23 years.

I remember seeing a clip of this film in a Wu-tang music video.


The film depicts a mid-19th century south plagued by mulattos and abolitionists who scheme to keep the white man down and raise up the black man in what is, to its intended audience, an obviously grotesque perversion of natural order. In government sessions, the reconstruction-empowered black politicians (played buffoonishly by white actors) take off their shoes and feast on fried chicken. Luckily, the chivalric Ku Klux Klan rides to the rescue.

This film was pretty much the accepted version of history until well after World War II. The film even received a special screening at the White House, where president Woodrow Wilson supposedly remarked, "It [the film] is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." The quote was later argued to be from someone else but the film was still marketed as "Federally-endorsed."

The same year Birth of a Nation was released, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company was founded in Nebraska. Organized by brothers George and Noble Johnson with the aim of encouraging black pride while upholding the social order of the day, it was the first company to produce what came to be known as "Race Movies," which tried to balance an accurate depiction of black folks' lives and at the same time actively promote a positive image. If you wanna learn more about this piece of black history - CHECK OUT this blog article.