Identity Crisis

Resolving African Identity Crisis.

Africans and blacks in the Diaspora. are having an identity crisis.

Our sense of being as created equal by God among all men whether whites, yellow, red or black has in our present time become distorted due to our a wrong orientation. This is very regrettable.

We need not look too hard or long in order to know that “something is missing in us” as a black people, as Nigerians.

We are happier it seems struggling every day trying to be other people than accepting to be ourselves.

As Nigerians and Black Africans, we have little or nothing left of our once cherished values, our culture our morality and our pride. What we are, unknowingly, embodies “civilized decencies” but we have assisted through our cooperation exterminated them through neglect.

Our languages, marriages, customs, our traditional music of which are a direct communication with our inner Higher-Selves, our souls as well as our industrial potentials have almost become non-existing.

We have come to accept, as Nigerians and blacks that no new knowledge can come from the prevailing subjected circumstances of our present orientation; neither do we have the capacities it seems, to industrialize materials of our culture. We have resigned ourselves to eating crumbs thrown to us from the platters of our colonialists even in the modern times.

In the face of these seeming impossibilities some of us are still hopeful that a New World of possibilities for Africans and the Black Race will emerge in this period and epoch.

To this end, we believe that the only way we can be relevant is to encourage individual and group to work towards perfecting models for the improvement of our indigenous cultural materials for the enhancement of our daily lives through the application of the instrument of science and technology.

It must however be reiterated that the idea of perfecting our material culture as expounded by no less a personality as Africa’s A.U. President and Nigerian Head of State, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo during the Abuja Carnival in Nigeria that revisiting our cultural way of life “…is not a return to primitivity”

could also be said that we are not setting up a new culture in isolation of other “civilized culture”. Cultural interaction among all nations is here to stay. The crux of our “railings” is that we do not have to empty ourselves of our natural elements and be re-composed of the substances of other people in order to feel all right and civilized.

There is need to critically examine the contemporary world we live in with its present orientation and a completely NEW WORLD of our untried possibilities and potentialities based on a new knowledge to re-evaluate ourselves.

Each and every one of us have a duty to contribute to the dignity and pride of the Black People, with a wider reference to the larger African continent for the banishment of ignorance, the enhancement and the re-hauling of our old orientation for the challenges ahead.

To this task and many others that we may consider worth our while to establish us as co-creators and co-partners of our modern day realty we invite all and sundry to girdle up and follow the path to a new world of unlimited possibilities. In that reality the banishment of a self perpetrated African identity crisis will be resolved and fruitful co-relationship and friendship re-engineered.

Blacks Dont Read

I saw this article written by one "mtalent" in littleafrica.com by a caucasian(?)

I hope it will trigger off some positive challenges and not the other way round. you know, sometimes its hard to look at ourselves in the mirror and accept certain truism about ourselves. Enjoy this piece and act with SPEED!

THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES

"We can continue to reap profits from the Blacks without the effort of physical slavery. Look at the current methods of containment that they use on themselves: IGNORANCE, GREED, and SELFISHNESS."

Their IGNORANCE is the primary weapon of containment. A great man once said, "The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book." We now live in the Information Age. They have gained the opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts of their fight for freedom, yet they refuse to read. There are numerous books readily available at Borders, Barnes &Noble, and Amazon.com, not to mention their own Black Bookstores that provide solid blueprints to reach economic equality which should have been their fight all along), but few read consistently, if at all.

GREED is another powerful weapon of containment. Blacks, since the abolition of slavery, have had large amounts of money at their disposal. Last year they spent 10 billion dollars during Christmas, out of their 450 billion dollars in total yearly income (2.22%). Any of us can use them as our target market, for any business venture we care to dream up, no matter how outlandish, they will buy into it. Being primarily a consumer people, they function totally by greed. They continually want more, with little thought for saving or investing. They would rather buy some new sneaker than invest in starting a business. Some even neglect their children to have the latest Tommy or FUBU, and they still think that having a Mercedes, and a big house gives them "Status" or that they have achieved the American Dream. They are fools! The vast majority of their people are still in poverty because their greed holds them back from collectively making better communities. With the help of BET, and the rest of their black media that often broadcasts destructive images into their own homes, we will continue to see huge profits like those of Tommy and Nike. They'll continue to show off to each other while we build solid communities with the profits from our businesses that we market to them.

SELFISHNESS, ingrained in their minds through slavery, is one of the major ways we can continue to contain them. One of their own, Dubois said that there was an innate division in their culture. A "Talented Tenth" he called it. He was correct in his deduction that there are segments of their culture that has achieved some "form" of success However, that segment missed the fullness of his work. They didn't read that the "Talented Tenth" was then responsible to aid The Non-Talented Ninety Percent in achieving a better life. Instead, that Segment has created another class, a Buppie class that looks down on their people or aids them in a condescending manner. They will never achieve what we have. Their selfishness does not allow them to be able to work together on any project or endeavor of substance. When they do get together, their selfishness lets their egos get in the way of their goal. Their so-called help organizations seem to only want to promote their name without making any real change in their community. They are content to sit in conferences and conventions in our hotels, and talk about what they will do, while they award plaques to the best speakers, not the best doers. Is there no end to their selfishness? They steadfastly refuse to see that TOGETHER EACH ACHIEVES MORE (TEAM) They do not understand that they are no better than each other of what they own as a matter of fact, most of those Buppies are but one or two paychecks away from poverty. All of which is under the control of our pens in our offices and our rooms. Yes, we will continue to contain them as long as they refuse to read, continue to buy anything they want, and keep thinking they are "helping" their communities by paying dues to organizations which do little other than hold lavish conventions in our hotels. By the way, don't worry about any of them reading this letter, remember, 'THEY DON'T READ!!!!

(Prove them wrong. Please pass this on! After Reading it..) There is some truth to what this person has wrote and its a shame. The Black television stations like BET are one of the main culprets because we look at television alot and get our identity from it with the videos. If we could stop the music or at least make it more tasteful and begin to promote how to make a business or how to work together it can all change. The media and radio has the power to change the way we think. Our purpose in America is to develop our communities where we don't need to rely on Caucasians for anything. The petty things we care about like having a car and house and bling bling is not going to get it. Free yourself. It is much deeper than material things.