Saturday, August 05, 2017

KUNTA KINTE?  NO - I'M THE GREAT GRANDSON OF TOBY, MY MAN

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

KUNTA KINTE?  NO - I'M THE GREAT GRANDSON OF TOBY, MY MAN
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I love my people, but sometimes we have a tendency to front-off, flo-show, and become melodramatic on subjects that we know absolutely nothing about. That’s why, with few exceptions, whenever I’m confronted by brothers with those exotic names and African costumes I tend to dismiss them out of hand.  It’s not that I resent their image and/or persona - I think it’s wonderful that they take pride in their heritage - but because I see it as an affectation designed to suggest a knowledge, wisdom and pride that, more often than not, they seriously lack. 
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One such brother came up lecturing me on the need for Black people to come together and join with our brothers and sisters in Africa. He was talking like the entire continent of Africa constitutes one group of people.  I had to point out to him that there’s more bigotry in Africa than there is here in America, it’s just not racial in nature, it’s based on religion, tribalism, and politics.  In fact, the chances are very great that we were sold into slavery by other Africans in the first place.
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African terrorist groups kidnap or kill Black women and children routinely. The African Islamist group Boko Haram captured more than 300 young girls from a school in northern Nigeria. While some of the girls escaped, the group's leader claimed he planned to sell the rest “at the market place.” There’s also the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Allied Democratic Forces, Ansar al-Sharia (Libya), Ansar al-Sharia (Tunisia), Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, Ansar Dine, Ansar ul Islam, and the Ansaru Armed Islamic Group of Algeria - and those are just some of the groups in Africa whose name starts with the letter “A.”  So if he took his African-American ass over there trying to lecture true Africans on “brotherhood,” they’d send his head back home in a basket.
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Certainly not all, but many of these brothers are acting out a role designed primarily to impress rather than to disseminate knowledge.  If they truly took pride in what it means to be Black, they’d realize that what makes African-Americans unique is not just our African ancestry, but the knowledge that we’ve obtained through the adversity of trying to survive slavery and Jim Crow right here in America.
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While it is admirable that these brothers want to identify with Africa, they only tend to speak of the kings and queens of Africa with pride. They completely ignore the African-American slaves who suffered and died to get us to where we are today.  Those were the real heroes, and those are the Black people who I most closely identify with.  So, “Naw, I ain’t Kunta Kinte, White boy; I’m the great grandson of Toby, and I want you to remember that as you’re diggin’ my virtual foot out your ass.”  That’s what inspires me, and I’ve worked every day of my adult life to be able to say that with knowledge, confidence, and conviction - no swagger, no fist in the air, and no exotic name or costume, just the power and knowledge of what it means to be an African-American, a group of people who are completely unique in culture, experience and adversity, and it's that very adversity that has made us MORE rather than less.  So my goal, and it should be theirs, is to make Toby swell with pride as he smiles back from the grave at what he has spawned.
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While it may seem that this is among the worst of times for Black people, it is also a time ripe with opportunity.  We’ve been complaining for many years about how we’ve been forced to compete on an uneven playing field.  Well, now that the establishment is involved in a class war and determined to dumb-down ALL of the poor and middle class, it presents an opportunity for Black people to make knowledge the new “soul.”  We can only be dumbed-down if we allow ourselves to be, because knowledge is free.  Thus, if we focus and bring our unique creativity to the task, Black people can very easily become one of the most knowledgeable groups in America. Black women, who have always been at the cutting edge of our culture, have already recognized that fact.
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The National Center for Education Statistics has reported that "black women are now the most educated group in the United States." According to the report, "between 2009 and 2010, black women earned 68 percent of all associate degrees awarded to black students, as well as 66 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 71 percent of master’s degrees and 65 percent of all doctorates awarded to black students."  The report goes on to say, "By both race and gender, a higher percentage of black women (9.7 percent) are enrolled in college than any other group, topping Asian women (8.7 percent), white women (7.1 percent) and white men (6.1 percent)." 
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So it’s time for Black men to stop frontin’ and join our sisters in their enlightenment.  We must start working toward actually becoming the brothers that far too many of us only pretend to be.  So like with Colin Kapernick, it'll become clear when the Black man is truly ready to be liberated, because we too will begin to realize that knowledge is the path to moving forward - not rappin', not saggin', not swaggerin', and not trying to enrich ourselves as individuals by becoming the horse instead of owning the race track - it's knowledge that is power, period. 
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I've been through two riots, and if history repeats itself - and it generally does - when the shit hits the fan the most militant among us will be the first one's to haul ass, with their dashikis fluttering in the wind.  There's good reason for that.  Because they know better than anyone that we can't out-scream the White establishment, because they control the media, and we can't out-fight them, because they control the police and military.  So our only alternative is to out-think them, but all most militants specialize in is talkin' shit.  If they were true thinkers they wouldn't have time for that.  It was brothers like the ones described who sold out Malcolm during the Civil Rights Movement - and I didn't read that from a book, I was around at the time, so I've been here, and done this before.  Brothers like this are not out to liberate Black people, their out to gain personal notoriety, but unfortunately, many young people tend to follow them due to their flamboyance, and their own lack of knowledge.
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So I'm glad the shit-talkers are the first one's to haul ass, because I wouldn't want to go into battle having to depend on no damn Cornel West to have my back. He talks too damn much, and he's too self-serving to have a backbone.  He's a performer, not a warrior, so even when it's only a war of wits, he's afraid that he might be wounded.  Just take a minute to ask yourself, where is Cornel now in the fight against Donald Trump?  I'll tell you where he is - he's hiding under a rock, along with Tavis Smiley.  Now that they don't have a Black man to attack, their dashikis are fluttering in the wind.
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So regardless to what these performers say, we must always remember that we're only 16% of the population, so the first thing we've got to do as a community is to educate ourselves, and then once that's done, we've got to use our creativity to educate the rest of America on how they're being played.  Barack Obama knew that, and that should be our strategy, but in order to do that we're going to have to become more serious, and more sober-minded to get the people's attention.  We've got to get away from this "Keeping it Gangster" mentality - and YES WE CAN!   If we can teach America to sing, dance, and play basketball, we can also teach them to think - and this time, our way.  The establishment has been using our celebrity and creativity to shout to the world that our mothers are "bitches" and "hoes", and that we take pride in being gangsters, murderers, and dope fiends.  We've got to turn that around, and use that very same celebrity and creativity to re-educate America - just like Bird, Miles and John Coltrane did - to the fact that we weren't just a bunch of grinnin' and mindless Stepin' Fetchits.  So while Kunta Kinte was quite admirable, it's the great grandson of Toby, with all of the knowledge, wisdom, and power of adversity, who now stands before you - and with great pride.

I NOW STAND FIRM
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ERIC WATTREE, JR.
I now stand firm. My dedication to the power of knowledge is the platform upon which my podium rests. I stand firm, strong, and now free. Free of anger. Free of self-delusion. Free of the folly of empty vanity, and free of the pernicious bane of meaningless pride without substance.
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I stand free to look upon the eyes of other men, reflecting dignity over sorrow, and accomplishment over pain; I stand with a burning passion, fueled by the very flame that forged ancestral shackles,with a deep sense of pride and a pride that flows deep.
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I now stand erect. The steel that once degraded my father, that chained him in bondage to this bitter Earth, now reinforce my character, making me more, rather than less; and the blood and sweat that once drenched his brow, now rage with resolve and a sense of purpose within my burning breast.
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I now stand as a new being - neither simply African, nor simply American, but a hybrid forced to transcend the sum of my parts; no longer simply African, since being torn away from the African motherland to suffer and toil in the fields of America, and more than simply American, after being forced to be more than simply American just to survive within the bowels of this prosperous land.
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Thus, I stand now armed - armed with the wisdom of deprivation, the courage of my conviction, and a deep conviction of my courage; and fortified - with the confidence of a survivor, the empowerment of knowledge, and a ravishing hunger for greatness.
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I now stand the product of love, struggle, and sacrifice; a witness to man's inhumanity to man, and a monument to the hopes and dreams of a million slaves.
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I now stand embraced by my creator, as God now smiles upon my people.
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Yes, I Now Stand Firm.
Firm, Black, and Free.
-Wattree.

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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
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