Blueprint for Black Power excerpts (chapter 2)

Please purchase this book from your local Black-owned bookstore or http://lushenabks.com/

pg 28

These power resources include property, organization, race consciousness, and ideology. We do not include state politics in our discussion at this juncture because in the context of contemporary Afrikan American social, political, and economic culture and the more basic issues it must resolve, state politics is of secondary importance to the Black community. Black politics and activism without the Black ownership of and control over primary forms and bases of power such as property, wealth, organization, etc., is the recipe for Black political and non-political powerlessness. The rather obtuse pursuit of political office and the ballot box as primary sources of power by the Black community and its politicians without its concomitant ownership of and control over important resources, has actually hindered the development of real Black power in America.

...The community’s concern with the election and appointment of Black political figures helps it to maintain false hopes that their attainment of office will significantly resolve its problems. The activities of Black politicians, given the current inadequacy of social organization and economic resources, harmfully distract the Black community’s attention from recognizing and eradicating the true causes of its problems and the remediation of its powerlessness.

We shall presently look at ethnic groups whose economic, educational, social, and political progress in America have been phenomenal and often surpasses that of Black Americans, yet, who have not acquired one elected or appointed official to high political office. We will see that it has been and is their effective acquisition and application of more fundamental power values or resources which are far more responsible for their progress and power than their political-electoral activism or lack of it.

pg 43

Most often the institutional or social chain of command is not perceived by those subject to it as coercive and as an expression of dominance by a particular scoial class for which the command structure is designed to undemocratically benefit. The chain of command or class structure is generally perceived by those who benefit from it the least, or who are oppressed by it, as functionally necessary. In this instance, compliant behavior, even when such behavior perpetuates gross inequities, is seen as morally compelling...

pg 48

The history of group economic relations in racist America demonstrates quite clearly that the "ideologies of ethnicity" - ideologies regarding group identity and interests, intergroup roles, relations and positions - have been and are key factors in streggules for group survival, advantage, defense, equity, achievement and sepremacy.

pg 51

Well-organized socially coherent and cohesive nation-states provide the best means for the accumulation and exercise of collective power resources. To the degree that a social group can approach nation-state status, even on an informal, non-declared level, it can create, accumulate, and maximally utilize its collective resources as media of its social power and will. The failure of the Afrikan American community to exercise considerable economic and political power despite its large population and broad national expanse as well as ample human and material resources, is directly linked to its failure to conceive of itself as a nation within a larger White American-dominated nation and to organize itself as such. Consequently it is dominated and exploited by White America and is economically monopolized and exploited by Whites, Asians, Arabs and any other ethnic group that possess a modicum of social solidarity and organization.

Committed to self-defeating dogma; Dedicated Ignorance 1/

Dead Prez - They School

Blueprint for Black Power excerpts (chapter 1)

Please purchase this book from your local Black-owned bookstore or http://lushenabks.com/

from page 10-11, Blueprint for Black Power by Dr. Amos N. Wilson:

However, at this juncture we should note that current forms of domination of Continental, Caribbean, North, Central and South American Afrikans, respectively, by Europeans, is secured by more subtle and efficient means of political control than by the use of oppressive physical force. Consequently, the "independence" of Afrikan countries and former Caribbean colonies and the social "assimilation" of Afrikan Americans into the mainstream of White America by no means represent the lessening of European and Euro-American domination of or a fundamental change in the nature of European and Afrikan power relations in favor of the Afrikans, as persons so erroneaously assume. Quite to the contrary, these historically apparent social/political changes instead represent the increased subtlety and efficiency of European domination of Afrikan peoples. It should be noted that the ability to use physical/militaristic force as the final arbiter of power relations still lies overwhelmingly in the hands of Europeans and Euro-Americans. It is this "force" differential that Afrikans across the Diaspora must in some way resolve, neutralize or frustrate if they are to gain true parity with Europeans and Euro-Americans and indeed gain their liberation from European domination.

pg. 13

The often anemic self-concept of subordinate persons and groups, their low self-esteem, their ignorance of their actual strengths, are more the causes of their subordination that is the actual strenth of their oppressors.

pg. 19

Rules, beliefs and consent are manufactured by those in power to justify, lefitimate and serve their interests. In its origins White American power was not legitimated (i.e. voluntarily or contractually consented to, morally justified or politically-socially ratified) by Afrikan Americans who at the time of its origination were held in captivity (slavery) and to this point in time have been largely excluded from signficantly participating in American legitimation processes.

From the historical point of view of Native and Afrikan Americans, White power, in whatever form, is illegitimate. This is because such power rests essentially on the near physical and genocidal decimation of Native Americans, the theft of their properties, on the exploitation or the forced labor (enslavement) of Afrikans, and on the systematic exclusion by Whites of both Black and Native Americans from the influential exercise of practically all forms of "legitimate" power and authority in the United States. The rules and beliefs which provide the means for legitimating White power were in fact pre-established, pre-ordained and imposed on Blacks against their will by Whites from the beginning. The illegitimacy of White American power is founded on the illegitimacy of its original sins - genocide, theft of property, and eslavement.

pg. 22

Even if the American political-economic system is now "colorblind" or race-neutral, which most assuredly it is not, this counter-factual sitation occurred after almost three and a half centuries of White racial prejudice toward and oppression of Blacks. It was during this long period that Whites developed and accumulated the collective cultural, social, political, familial, and individual capital that their domination of Blacks afforded. These accumulated advantages are used by Whites, even in a race-neutral egalitarian society, to provide themselves with further huge advantages compared to Blacks who have suffered three and a half centuries of accumulated disadvantages. A contemporary race-neutral society, in terms of its neutrality alone, would in no way resolve the problem of gross inequities between Whites and Blacks. In fact, such a society would function only to maintain, if not in actuality enhance them. Blacks must develop means of overcoming White sociopolitical and socioeconomic advantages regardless of the racial status quo.

pg. 23

...manipulation may involve the most dehumanized, and as far as we are concerned, perhaps the most dehumanizing exercise of power of all because, unlike the exercise of obstructive physical force, visible coercive and authoritarian power where the intent of his adversaries and the sources of assault and frustration are known to the subject, manipulation "is a form of power that cannot be openly resisted by the power subject since he is unaware of the powerholder's intent or even sometimes of his existence. There is no visible command for him to disobey, no identifiable adversary against whom to assert his freedom."

The manipulation of Afrikan American political and economic attitudes by the White ruling elite is designed to effectively secure, enhance and exercise power while not appearing to do so; while appearing to provide Blacks with power or options equal to that or those of Whites. The point of this type of manipulation is to win the acceptance by Blacks of the legitimacy of White power, its moral integrity, its legitimating ideology, and the acceptance by Blacks of their obligation to obey the directive of White power while believing their obedience to be expressive of their own free and moral will. Only by basing their behavioral orientation on their own Afrikan history, culture, values, interests, consciousness and identity can Blacks prevent their behavioral manipulation by self-serving Whites and act under the influence of their own self-generated enhanced power.

pg. 24

"...the determining feature of race relations is not prejudice toward blacks, but rather the superior position of whites and the institutions - ideological as well as structural - which maintain it." - David T. Wellman, Portrait of White Racism

To be continued...or just go buy the book and read for yourself.

Malcolm X: Make It Plain (14 parts)

Welcome

I think Morpheus from The Matrix can help me explain what this blog is about:

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life; that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there like a splinter in your mind...driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about? The Matrix. Do you want to know what it is?

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work; when you go to church; when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth...that you are a slave. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the [white] pill, the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the [Black] pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Remember, all I'm offering is the truth...nothing more.

Now, read the quote again, but replace "The Matrix" with racism or white supremacy. This blog is meant to be the Black pill to help equip you with the knowledge (mental medicine) to critically examine the system in which you live...a path on the road to an Afrikan-centered consciousness. This is not about putting other people down. It's about elevating Afrikans all over the world, acknowledging our history, and taking steps to achieve self-awareness, self-respect, self-determination.