but i still don't know what it means to participate in the blessings of freedom...

sorry, but growing up in America I have learned to question catch phrases...I want to understand what is said and asked if I can..

That is pathological, neurotic, and even psychopathic (which you inherited from your oppressors) to place more emphasis on my meager benefits over the predominant dehumanizing effect on Africans world wide. I guess a barrage of nuclear bombs going off around the world would be a good thing considering population control would no longer be an issue. Here's my advice to you...

I agree with you shemsi that the words neurotic, psychotic and pathological are good ones to describe anyone who would even think that someone would even think that anyone was trying to down play the lynchings, murders, burnings, beatings and all else that is a part of the American Slave experience are being down played as you suggest. all these terms are befitting for some one who as you do suggest such a thing.

most people who think like this are hyper critical of anything that they did not bring to the table because they have a smallness complex and have to be so called out front. they often over look the obvious straining for the gnat.

I can see the merit in the question as I mentioned early because I have been trained to do critiques of event to find what went well or as expected, what went wrong and needs improvement, table top scenarios where we do worst case analysis to prepare for the eventuality of catastrophe.

you are afraid to look at the reality of the bloody past and learn from it. you are not leadership material, leaders on the battle field have to sometimes look at even lost battle to learn from them in order to be able to not repeat the actions that lead to the defeats.

no one has at all said anything about placing emphasis on the pros of the cons except you. no one has mentioned the quanitative or quality of either but you. you remind me of the campaign strategy of karl rove who have given us george bush twice with his misinformation that puts emphaisis on things not relative to the process at hand. karl rove never talked about bush, only gore and kerry....

you are found out my friend...

*yawn*

I have given my thesis on what we can learn from our past several times here on BNV, and that has to do with Afrikans for the first time in our existence understanding the cultures of White Supremacy (Arabism/Islam, Indo-European, etc.) that destroyed nearly all of our civilizations in both Asia and Afrika. That understanding can begin through the works of people like Dr. Amos Wilson (Blueprint to Black Power), Dr. Marimba Ani (Yurugu: An Afrikan-centered Critique of European Thought and Behavior) and Dr. Frances Cress Welsing (Isis Papers: Keys to the Colors) so that we can actually manifest effectual action instead of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...which is the classic definition of clinical insanity.

The fact that you look at any material gains at all, whether it is the proponderance of technological utility to economic gains, only demonstrates your lack of intellectual maturity...no matter how old you are. The funny thing here is I just posted a quote from Dr. Marimba Ani in the Metu Ra en Nemsu thread where your psychology of dichotomy (inherited from our European oppressors) has obviously hindered you with a paralysis of analysis. This is why I don't take you very seriously when it comes to these types of threads because you are more of a danger to Afrikan people than a benefit...

Plato had layed an elaborate trap. Once the "person" was artificially split into conflicting faculties or tendencies, it made sense to think in terms of one faculty "winning" or controlling the other(s). And here begins a pattern that runs with frighteningly predictable consistency through European thought, continually gathering momentum for ages to come. The mind is trained from birth to think in terms of dichotomies or "splits." The splits become irreconcilable, antagonistic opposites. Holistic conceptions become almost impossible given this mindset. First the dichotomy is presented, then the process of valuation occurs in which one term is valued and the other is devalued. One is considered "good," positive, superior; the other is considered "bad," negative, inferior. And, unlike the Eastern (Zen) conception of the Yin and Yang, or the African principle of "twinness" (Carruthers refers to this as "appositional complementarity") these contrasting terms are not conceived as complementary and necessary parts of a whole. They are, instead, conflicting and "threatening" to one another. pg. 33

Marimba Ani
Yurugu: An Afrikan-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior

you see shemsi you are just showing how stupid you are time and time again...

i have never said what the positive things that were gained from the horrible experience of American slavery...and son material gains would not be one on my list. Things son are temporal. knowledge, wisdom and understanding last if exercised.

my age has nothing to do with anything except exposure. i know some much younger people who are wise beyond measure and i know lots of snotty arrogant suckers who can pour piss out of a boot with out instructions.

shemsi you are reacing for something that is already there. You are a great example why Africa will still remain dormant if we are depending upon you for directions out of the stupor we currently are in.

thank God you have time to spend here and possibly are not involved in any worthwhile endeavor that you could screw up...

and shemsi brother...try and keep it simple...those of us who are afflicted with genius know that in order for us to affect men we must keep it real. trying to impress some with your command of the 'slave masters' language will not help those of us who are on the 'lower' end.

keep it real son if you can.....

this post really is meant as a reply to bread fruit the mod but also applies to shemsi and the Psychopathic remark


There is a difference between acknowledging the struggles of acceptance that many Africans feel they deserve from white people/ the world, And acknowledging the effects your current environment has had on you, and the way it has determined all of us for good or ill.

And I had to make the title of pros/ cons slavery short. I couldn’t have said for example:

What are the effects, the legacy of slavery for good or ill, has had in the formation of who you are today… could I ?

And I’m sorry but you can be objective about slavery. Not one person here was born a slave… The problems of Africans today has more to do Europeans and indeed, all humans natural ‘fear of the other’ of any thing different. The reason people like Anthony walker had an axe in his head or Stephen Lawrence was murdered was because of simple hatred, plane and simple. Those sorts of people were naturally violent and already filled with hate, hate for any thing different….


I see black kids on the streets fighting at three o’clock in the morning and that’s not to do with slavery. That’s to do with dead beat fathers( here today gone tomorrow), mothers that are incapable…

I like this forum. I definately see value for black people coming to give their opinions, ask questions and give what they feel are answers.

One villager mentioned my age just recently. It has little to do with what needs to be cooked and boiled at this forum to help bring the black race into this age as a forced to be reconned with.

The first problem is the shotgun approach that we have to take to even begin to do anything toward helping bring us up to par. I can tell you definatively that there are no people like black people who have made it or as George Jefferson puts it, "moved on up to the Eastside" who can highside. White people may do it but I don't feel it with them because I don't have that connection.

At one time not long ago, white people in America were so tight that they would never go against one another regardless of class especially against us. It has never been so with us as far as I can tell. We have almost alway sold each other out at the wink of an eye. We will mob and riot, but to sit down and strategize is unfanthomable.

Look at how we are on here. One group telling the other that they know nothing and are stupid (me included) and others I am sure not wanting to give their opinions because they are intimidated and don't want to be dissed.

There are some very smart people on here. Some are very short sighted and arrogant beyond discript. I should be a bit more patient but as it stands I am not giving quarter to them. I dispise arrogance in what ever form it shows it's ugly head.

I want to see my people rise up. I have grand children who I want to achieve...

I will forever put in their heads that there is no obstacle that can not be over come, only they can defeat their goals by giving up.

africa is one of the most diverse continents in the world, but seriously i doubt if it would be much diferent than it is today.

it could have been still great, but becausse of the resources and riches people in power have sold her out for the short personal gain.

when drug dealers move in to a community they choose certain ones to 'bless' to be able to poison the rest of us. once the green is in their eyes it is over...

look at it here also....when we reach nirvana (lots of money) we have to prove to whites that we can sip the bubbly, where flowing gowns, live in housed with 25 rooms and what is worst we become anestitized to the plight of those who we once hurt with. so they have papers drawn up for this or that charity (where does the $$$$ go?) and we set up trips to of all places Africa for a few days and a photo op to show that we 'care'.

this is the potential cadre of our people...the ones who have voices....and the intellectual wanna bes are so far off the track because they want to be accepted by the haves. vicious circle....

if anyone opposed oprah openly she would have them knocked off...