Emancipate This Too...

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds..."Robert Nesta Marley

To many, these lyrics and accompanying melodious guitar strumming that leads in that song, their appeal is raceless, timeless and powerful. 

Most of us will never have 'dreadlocks,' but together with our flesh eating 'imitation rasta' brothers we shake we 'dread' to the 'woesome' lyrics and haunting beat and croon along with Bob everytime we hear it.

Many who hear those words lose the meaning or they're considered too idealist for reality, but perfect for a song while for others its a guide and a wondrous play on words that make us ponder every time we hear it; is it possible that we could ever be that conscious, that alive, if it were really possible to unshackle the mind?

I was not going to write on Emancipation Day because there are enough bullshit artists out there already milking it for what it's worth and I would rather say nothing than have to lie, but as there are a few who follow my writings and who would expect that I say something I feel compelled to so here goes:

I really don't understand what the African Diaspora in this country has to celebrate, and the abolition of slavery how ever many years ago seems to be the point at which 'westernized' African descendants have stopped developing 'as a people'.

If you are intellectually stunted, racist to your core or very sensitive to sensitive topics I suggest you stop reading right here as I do not expect to win or lose friends over this, but I would like to hopefully kick start some sort of debate that leads to positive change, or, at the very least, understanding.

Trinidad being what it is though, i'd be surprised if it did.

I am not black.

I do not know what is the politically correct term now, 'negro', 'african', 'afro-trinidadian', black, so I'll use all interchangeably and allow others to 'pull me up' after.

I wont use the word 'nigger' though, because I am neither part of the hip hop culture nor am I an American redneck, so I cant really pull that off.

I wanted to lead in by listing all the positive things I know that came out of Africa and contributions of noted Africans in History, of how they have changed the world by their contributions in the development of art, science, education, astronomy, music, etc, but sadly this is written to focus on the negative and hopefully provoke a positive discussion so apologies for the absence.

There are questions that need to be asked and dealt with both as a nation and from the perspective of the Afro-centric sector of our national community, and to me in my opinion, until we can address these issues we cannot advance.

Questions like:

1) How do black people excuse having the poorest per capita results in all matters education?

2) Why do black people outnumber every other demographic in the criminal court system and jails and excel at crime and criminal pursuits?

3) Why do black people think marrying up means marrying straight hair, or better still white skin? (To me the biggest hold over from both slavery and colonization, successful blacks see a white mate as a trophy. Michael Jordan, Brian Lara, Tiger Woods, Dwight Yorke, and many others have all demonstrated this tendency/desire.)

4) Why do black people mess so much with their hair?

(Or why are so many black men preferring baldness to natural african hair or why is black beauty now associated with straightened hair? Would Beyonce be less beautiful/talented/sexy with an afro? Oprah? Tyra?)

5) Why are black people so willing to climb up on other blacks just to leave them behind?

6) Why is it so easy for black people to kill other black people?

7) Why the disproportionate violent response?

8) Why the willingness to be used as drug mules and drug addicts?

9) Where are the real Black Leaders who are willing to at least talk about this?

I would think that to be qualified as a true black leader one would WANT to help address these issues.

Look, I am not Black (well not in the strictest sense of the word), so I cannot agitate for blacks nor can i ever really be a black leader devoted to the upliftment of the race. If I could though, I'd recommend a few things to my black brothers and sisters:

I'd tell black fathers to grow up and marry at least one of your 'child mothers' and stay home and paternally raise and support the family.

I'd tell black men that if they spent half the money they spent on clothes and crap for their cars on cutting a track and making a way for their children, they too might benefit from the unwritten social contract, and they too would have successful, sane and civilized loved ones to take care of them in old age.

I'd tell black people to boycott the drivel on Synergy and all other media that portrays black youth specifically and blackness in general in a negative stereo type, of being over sexed, party crazed, pistol packing thugs and ho's and would instead encourage more stereotypes in the likes of the Cosby Show and the Hughleys, of upwardly mobile, family oriented, positive people.

I would tell my Afro Trinidadian brothers and sisters to use days like Emancipation Day to not only reconcile your past with your present, but to link your present to your future, so you can achieve set goals based on realistic models not tied to issues long dead.

- To work for your children and to teach them strong family values.

- To support black owned businesses and businessmen and women, so as to build up the community from within.

- To establish a code of conduct that would see a turning away from the violent response and a joining of hands in a community response.

I would tell them black pride isn't a tee shirt slogan but a mindset and a feeling in the spirit that no man, no history and no word could take away.

I would encourage them to love all their neighbors, but to especially love their black neighbors and to work hard at building the bonds of trust and support that would spin into a web of extended family and community, that could become a safety net for children and grandchildren to hold them and mould them and guide them forward to a better day, and to catch them and right them when they slip.

- To form groups that work towards emptying the jails and filling the universities with blackness side by side with brownness and whiteness.

- To step forward into the global family as one people with a vision for the african condition now and for the future.

- To have words like ambition and devotion as watch words.

- To be brothers and fathers and sisters and mothers to all who need it, but specifically as an example to those who don't yet know it.

The 'successful' (read here those with wealth and little or no jail time) races don't have special days of special garb and dances, those days are every day for them.

It should be that way for all if we ever hope to function in a more civilized manner across the board, and to reduce the ills that plague society while we strive to lift every one up together as one people, regardless of race.

"Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom, 'cause all I ever have, are Redemption Songs. Songs of Freedom..."

Something to think about...