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HatHaruhotep · (#139 (**permalink**))

Im Hotep Sistren,

I can certainly relate to what you've said here. Let me tell you what happened to me on Saturday before I continue with my response: I went to the gas station at about 8 in the morning and there were a bunch of brothers I recognized from when I used to go to the mosque years ago. They were standing around a van, selling incense, soap, shampoo, and kufis. I said "salaam" to all of them and even bought two bars of that black soap. Then they tried to sell me some of the prayer outfits, and I told them I'm not a muslim anymore. Instantly they changed into enemies, telling me that I was damned and that it was stupid to practice Afrikan religions because "Afrikan niggas are the ones who sold us into slavery." I replied that they "sure did, because Islam had them so brainwashed that they had no problem selling the "infidels" to the whites and the arabs." It got silent then. The arabs treat them like GARBAGE at the mosques. They don't speak arabic, but I do! I heard them calling us slaves and monkeys and making comments when we use the bathroom about penis size.

The point of this story is - look how we have been taught to hate ourselves and our people. The arabs are over there in Saudi Arabia selling Black people to this very day, and in the Sudan, they are taking turns on 5 and 6 year old Black girls. Yet we are so loving and respectful of the arabs in the mosques and our own people are "Afrikan niggas". In the US, people will come to blows with you if you try to say they are Afrikan. Nooo, they will insist that they are AMERICANS, and that they don't "know nothing about them damn Afrikans". Sistren, when you hear this, what they are actually saying is "I am a creation of the West. I had no history, no language, and no culture, but then the white man came along and made me what I am today." This is due to a flaw in Afrikan culture that we really need to address, and it is this:

WHATEVER THE WHITE MAN MAKES IS BETTER THAN OURS.

As soon as the white came to Afrika, suddenly everything he had was sooo superior to what we had. Our palm wine and honey beer wasn't good enough anymore. No, please Massa, give me some of your scotch! Here, take 100 slaves, just give me your scotch. Where was "let's figure out how to make it and distill our own scotch"? No, the white man's is better. The missionaries showed up and it was "Let's look cute and important and talk to the white man and learn his religion." His religion was "better" than ours. Calling yourself an Afrikan doesn't put Massa's name in your identity, and it makes slaves nervous. They have to say they are Jamaican because it puts the white man's hand in their past, present, and future. It's scary and lonely out in de big worl' widout Massa. Noooooooo, call me Black British, I'm not an Afrikan. Put Massa's name in it. Call me British. WAAAAAAA!!! YOU DIDN'T SAY MASSA'S NAME! (stomps foot) Oh, please don't kick me off yo' plantation, boss. I don't care nothin bout no freedom, I loves you Massa. I'm not no Afrikan. You made me, boss. I'm an American. I'm Puerto Rican. I'm Brazilian. I ain't neva belonged to no Afrika, Massa. I've always been yours. I always will be.

This is how the violence, ignorance, poverty, and disease stays in our community. The biggest sickness is the one in most of our heads. I have gotten to the point where I just don't give a damn anymore. Yes, you can find me in Cleveland rocking Kenyan and Tanzanian outfits, rolling down through the ghettoes with Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie blasting out of my Oldsmobile, enjoying MY PEOPLE'S CULTURE and I don't care who stares. Of course, I get the most stares from the slaves.