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Frantz Fanon

Achieving Justice for George Floyd: Radically Reimagining and Rebuilding America
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Achieving Justice for George Floyd: Radically Reimagining and Rebuilding America

Dr. Maulana KarengaJuly 16, 2020

Indeed, it is a clear and constant given that if we are to achieve real justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and all the victims of this racist violent democracy called America, to paraphrase Min. Malcolm, then we have two interrelated objectives that must be achieved. They are: radically reimagining and rebuilding America; and sustaining the struggle on every level which will make this possible. And key to all of this is holding the ground we’ve gained, building on what we have and fighting fiercely to move forward, day by day, year by year and battle by battle until victory is clearly won.

Righteous Reflection On Being African: A Kwanzaa Meditation
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Righteous Reflection On Being African: A Kwanzaa Meditation

Dr. Maulana KarengaDecember 12, 2019

Kwanzaa is a time of celebration, remembrance, reflection and recommitment. It requires these practices throughout the holiday. But the last day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to deep reflection, meditation on the meaning and measure of being African and how this is understood and asserted for good in the world in essential, uplifting and transformative ways.

Africa, Our Moral Ideal: Radical Reasoning About Ourselves and Our Culture
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Africa, Our Moral Ideal: Radical Reasoning About Ourselves and Our Culture

Dr. Maulana KarengaSeptember 12, 2019

For it is on their tall shoulders we stand and look back into our past and forward into our future, extracting and applying the instructive lessons of their legacy. And it is in their long and sheltering shadows that we continue the legacy they left in the life-affirming and liberating ways we live our lives, do our work, and wage our struggle for liberation and good in the world. Indeed, as Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune taught us, our obligation is and must be a “ceaseless striving” and struggle for the Good for ourselves, others and the world.

Us Reminiscing at Half Century and 4: The Architecture of Our Work and Will
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Us Reminiscing at Half Century and 4: The Architecture of Our Work and Will

Dr. Maulana KarengaSeptember 5, 2019

On this our 54th anniversary, I remember and raise up the momentous marking of our 50th anniversary. I said then and reaffirm now with four added years this. September 7 will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of our organization Us, the introduction of the Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa and Kawaida philosophy), and the establishment of the African American Cultural Center. These signature events and initiatives in our history as an organization also have a unique history in the intellectual and political culture and history of our people. In fact, we would argue, with due modesty, that no other organization of the Black Power period of similar size, with no real budget and no hidden or exposed European hand, influencing or directing it, has had more impact on the political and intellectual culture of our people since the 60s.

Undiscussed Dimensions of Mass Killings: Transforming A Profoundly Sick Society
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Undiscussed Dimensions of Mass Killings: Transforming A Profoundly Sick Society

Dr. Maulana KarengaAugust 8, 2019

We don’t have to be familiar with Frantz Fanon to concede that social conditions create, shape and even determine social consciousness. Nor do we have to be conversant with Kawaida philosophy to realize that ideas do not drop from the sky, grow from the ground or float in from the sea. They come from the society in which we live and learn to be and become the persons and peoples we are. Moreover, although there are numerous ideas which exist in society from which we may choose, the ruling ideas of any society are the ideas of those races, ethnicities, classes and elites which rule. And if we find them oppressive and unacceptable, we have the right and responsibility to resist and radically change them.

‘Keeping Faith with Fanon Reaffirming the Cultural Revolution’
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

‘Keeping Faith with Fanon Reaffirming the Cultural Revolution’

Dr. Maulana KarengaJuly 11, 2019

Indeed, Fanon’s proposal to set afoot a new African person, who is neither a conception nor reflection of Europe or its offspring, finds its ultimate and unavoidable solution on the subjective and objective level, i.e., in the hearts and minds of our people, and in what we do in our daily lives. This mutually reinforcing practice and project which he, Sekou Toure, Malcolm X, and Amilcar Cabral taught and which we of Us have advocated since the 1960s, is no­where more clear than in the process of cultural revolution. For cultural revolution, as they all taught, is a broad, profound and thorough-going social process which leads not only to the transformation of society, but also and simultaneously to the trans­formation of the people involved.

Not Yet Uhuru, Freedom Interrupted: African Liberation Delayed But Not Defeated
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Not Yet Uhuru, Freedom Interrupted: African Liberation Delayed But Not Defeated

Dr. Maulana KarengaMay 30, 2019

And on this day of memory and marking, May 25th, set aside in 1963 at Addis Ababa by the Organization of African Unity as African Liberation Day, we remember first and pay rightful homage to our ancestors. For they are the way-openers, the path-finders, the original freedom fighters, the layers of the foundations on which we strive to build in good and righteous ways. It is they who lifted up the light that lasts, the spiritual and moral visions and values by which we understand and assert ourselves at our best in the world. And in rightful homage to them, we in the Maatian ethical tradition, as written in the Husia, humbly ask of them every day “Ancestors, give us your hand, for we are bearers of dignity and divinity who came into being through you.”

The Compelling Need and Notion of Freedom: Retrieving Our Expansive Concept of Struggle
Dr. Maulana KarengaOp-EdOpinion

The Compelling Need and Notion of Freedom: Retrieving Our Expansive Concept of Struggle

Dr. Maulana KarengaJanuary 24, 2019

As we celebrate each year our strivings and struggles through history, the Black Freedom Movement is always a central focus. But we may not call it by its rightful name, because it has been renamed by the established order as the Civil Rights Movement and this has implications for us in terms of self-determination and how we define our goals, what we count as victory, and the lessons and spirit of life and struggle we learn and absorb from this world historical struggle. Our urgent and constant call was “Freedom Now!” and even now, it is no less necessary.

Righteous Reflection on Being African: A Kwanzaa Meditation
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Righteous Reflection on Being African: A Kwanzaa Meditation

Dr. Maulana KarengaDecember 27, 2018

As Kwanzaa draws to an end and the old year meets and merges with the new, we are, as always, obligated and urged by ancient custom and ongoing current concerns to sit down and seriously engage in righteous reflection on being African in the world. To speak of righteous reflection is, in an Ebonics sense of the word righteous, to talk of thought that is real, ethical and excellent. That is to say, thought that is free from the artificial, false and formulaic and comes from the heart as well as from the head. What is aimed at here is thought which is informed by an ethical sensitivity to the subject under consideration. And this holds true whether in our concern for each other or for the health and wholeness of the world; for the loss of human life or the mutilation of historical memory; and for the deprivation of material needs or the denial of dignity and rights due everyone.