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.
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.
In celebrating our organization Us’ 56 years and 224 seasons of service, work, struggle and institution-building, we are inevitably and unavoidably led to the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles of Kawaida philosophy and Kwanzaa.
It is good to sing and celebrate ourselves, to dance in honor of the divine spark and specialness within each of us, and to rejoice in the midst of the sacred music we together make in the many ways we love and struggle to do and share good in the world.
As we celebrate the graduation of our young people stepping into the world and continue the critically important struggle for quality education for our children, I think of all the Seba, the teachers of the good, the right and the possible, that I’ve known.
This is tambiko for Min. Malcolm X, an offering of words and water in reverent remembrance of his legacy-rich life, his jihad of righteous self-raising and liberational struggle, his awesome sacrifice and his continuing powerful presence in the interest and advancement of African and human good in the world.
To really go forward without woeful confusion and paralyzing contradictions, it is indispensable that we work within a philosophical framework which grounds our collective vocation of work and struggle.
In the tradition of our ancestors of ancient Egypt, who wrote letters to loved ones who had passed from earth and ascended into the heavens, I again write you Limbiko Tembo, beloved sister and sacred friend. Let it be said countless times, you live in our lives, in the good we share, the work we do and the struggles we wage.
Gun violence, economic disparities and media representation were among the topics debated at the panel discussion sponsored by city of Los Angeles and Our Authors Study Club.
Indeed, Malcolm reminds us that the rulers of this country talk of peace, but they continue to make war everywhere.
The 2018 theme for Black History Month, as given by Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s organization, the Association for the Study of African American life and History (ASALH) is “African Americans in Times of War”.
The long history of racism of Donald J. Trump has come home to haunt him and to hold him up to a withering and rightful world-wide moral outrage, criticism and condemnation. And his vulgar and morally reprehensible offense must not be dismissed as normal and diminished as unimportant nor rightful criticism be diverted in other ways. On the contrary, this criticism must become an ongoing ever-present part of the overall resistance to his crude, cruel and destructive regime. Indeed, he has waded in the squalid swamp of racist comments and practice for decades, viciously attacking as citizen, candidate and president the various peoples of color: Africans, Native Americans, Latinos and Asians.
The histories and holidays of the oppressed, colonized and enslaved are, of necessity, different from the history and holidays of the oppressor, the colonizer and the enslaver.
The Mission Statement concludes with a challenge and call to us, ourselves, to sustain and institutionalize this moment and Movement.
It is clearly an irony of history that such serious subjects as race and racism would find a place of protest and resistance on the playing fields of America, sites of entertainment and distraction from the pressing problems of society and the world.