The current and increasing embrace and touting of artificial intelligence was preceded and made possible by the earlier progressive production of the artificiality of life, that is to say, the undermining and diminishing of what it means to be human and natural in all its complexities.
The timeless texts and teaching of Haji Malcolm X are a vital contribution to defining and reaffirming the indispensable, urgent and ongoing need to cultivate and sustain critical consciousness in the service and interests of our people, our liberation struggle and the good of the world.
The brutal public judging and killing of Mr. Jordan Neely, a poor, homeless, mentally-ill Black man in New York City, offers again life-and-death evidence of the need to expand the discussion and solution concerning gun violence to include the American culture of violence itself.
As always, the marking of this year’s Earth Day and Earth Month offers us and humanity as a whole an important invitation and opportunity to focus and reflect on our relationship and responsibility to the health and well-being of the natural world. This is not only because we are to constantly demonstrate through priorities and practice our appreciation of the intrinsic value of the earth, but also because the health and well-being of the world is deeply and inseparably linked to that of our own and the whole of humanity.
It was a beautiful and uplifting gathering of all-seasons soldiers, activist intellectuals, movement lawyers, institution-builders, and consistent servants of African peoples, assembled at the African American Cultural Center (Us)’s virtual forum, Sunday, to pay rightful homage to Nana Randall Robinson whose life, work and struggles embodied all these identities and active commitments.
Whatever other lessons we glean from the targeting, accusation, indictment, trial, trashing and conviction of Mark Ridley-Thomas and the dual response to all this by us and others, we know it’s more complex and questionable than is suggested by the deceptive and disarming phrase “justice has been served.”
Nana Harriet Tubman possessed not only a hearing heart developed and defined by rightful attentiveness, empathetic understanding and appropriate action as requested and required. She also, possessed an amazing mind, a deep thinking, strategic planning mind.
This is the month for celebrating the miracles and wonders we call Black women, that other half of our community which makes us, as a people, whole, these equal and most worthy partners in life, love and struggle to bring good in the world.
There is an emotional, mental and moral sickness eating at the insides of American society and crushing and killing its most vulnerable victims with various forms of systemic violence whether physical, psychological, social or educational. This societal sickness is rooted in and reflective of the ways the ruling race/class feels and thinks about itself and others different and vulnerable and in the palpable and practiced hatred and hostility directed against them.
It is the sacred teaching of our honored foremother, Nana Fannie Lou Hamer, that there are two things we all should care about “never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over. And in revisiting this teaching and our homage to Nana Dr. Carter G. Woodson, we seek to honor this sacred obligation. Again, so we might remember and raise up, pursue and do the good. For he is indeed one of those mighty bridges who taught us where we came from and offered us an unbreakable bridge to carry us
In this month of remembering, raising up and reflecting on our awesome making and movement through history, it is good to remind our ourselves, society and the world of the sacred agency of our people. For this is central and essential to our identity, purpose and direction as persons and a people.
The savage murder and mayhem imposed and inflicted on yet another Black man, a Black person, Tyre Nichols, on his family and community and on Black people as a whole is for each and all of us another great and grievous loss through unrestrained racist police violence.
Every holiday of every hero or heroine we celebrate is, at the same time and in equal measure and meaning, a celebration of our people, indeed a celebration of ourselves. Indeed, whether we believe they are chosen and raised up among us by heaven or history or both, they find their foundation and footing, their mission and meaning in the lived experience, the cultural values and practices and the historical and ongoing struggles of our people.
One of the most critical tasks of our times is to reaffirm, deepen and expand our culture of struggle as a people, with its rich talkings and sacred teachings and its lived and uplifting experiences of “storm riding,” “blooming in the whirlwind,” and daring to “specialize in the wholly impossible” in the midst of the most savage and brutal situations of oppression history had to offer. Indeed, it is as ethically imperative as it is compellingly essential, for it is an anchoring, defining and ongoing project and practice of constantly struggling for African and human good and the well-being of the world.
In the tradition of our ancestors, again and at the beginning of this new year of our people 6263 AFE, we pause and pay rightful homage to the beautiful, strong and unbreakable bridges, past and present, that carried us over.