"Los Indios"

Jibaro, My Pretty N@#&

2010-06-23T08:00:00.003-05:00

Se trata de un poema clasico de Felipe Luciano, co-fundador del Capítulo de Nueva York de los Young Lords.

Esto es para todos mis hermanos de piel clara y hermanas que niegan su identidad negro.

Paz!

We are who we are...

2010-06-23T07:46:00.003-05:00

Our ways & actions reflect our perceptions, of people, places, things, and most importantly, about "self". What many do not know, or do not want to know, is that often times our perceptions are not our own. They do not belong to us. They are shaped by the education we recieve from family, friends, and most importantly society (school, media, etc). When we come in contact with a perception differ from our own, we naturally become defensive and deny that which we fail to understand.

Here is a wonderful poem about the so-called "Latino" identity. While the poem is centered around the "Puerto Rican" identity, the message rings loud as many of our "Latino" brothers & sisters deny their African roots & heritage due to systematic conditioning.

Peace!

Quien es usted en realidad?

2010-06-04T08:29:00.004-05:00

This video was put together in celebration of our Indigenous history, roots and identity. Although, many so-called Latinos will not identify as "Indigenous" because of the colonization and conditioning we've been subjected to over the past 518 years. Because of this, any assertion of an "Indian" or "Native" identity has been ridiculed and written off as a form of extremism or revisionist identity. We have been told that there's Indian in us, but that we are not Indian. We are told that Africa is in us, but that we are not African. This is far from the truth, as our cultures, history, and DNA bear witness.

Este video fue elaborado en la celebracion de nuestra historia indígena, las raices y la identidad. Aunque, muchos latinos llamada no se identifican como "indigenas" debido a la colonizacion y el acondicionamiento que hemos estado sometidos a los últimos 518 anos. Debido a esto, cualquier afirmacion de un "indio" o "nativos" identidad ha sido ridiculizado y tachado de una forma de extremismo o de identidad revisionista. Se nos ha dicho que no hay indio en nosotros, pero que no son indígenas. Se nos dice que Africa esta en nosotros, pero que no son africanos. Esto esta lejos de la verdad, como nuestras culturas, historia, y el testimonio de "DNA" soportar.

Paz!

Continuando...

2010-06-04T08:08:00.004-05:00

Peace!

I apologize to all for the lack of posts within the past few months. I have a lot I will be sharing in the coming months, so please stay tuned. Life experiences endow us with understanding, as we continue on the road of growth & development. I will continue to share my understanding with you, for the education and upliftment of our people.

Native & African: "Indivisible"

2010-03-05T10:37:00.001-05:00

Blaxican: The Skeleton in Mexico's Closet

2010-02-26T14:15:00.004-05:00

"Mexico's Forgotten Black History"
by griselda

For decades, he revolted against the Spanish crown. He lead an autonomous community of hundreds whose existence panicked the ruling classes from Mexico City to Veracruz. In 1609, his band survived a devastating incursion from the Spaniards, paving the way to an eventual negotiation - one that would make his community one of the first semi-autonomous communities recognized in the colonized Americas. Had an indigenous chief, rebellious priest or mixed peasant accomplished such a historical feat, it would not be hard to imagine their name still proudly spoken or recognized among Mexicans and Chican@s on both sides of the border. Gaspar Yanga, however, was brought to Mexico in chains. His original homeland is said to be what is now the African nation of Gabon. Aside from a lonely statue and yearly festival in what is now the town of Yanga, Veracruz, his legacy remains largely unknown.

This February, while reading articles on African-American history for Black History Month, I found myself contemplating my own history, and the part of Mexican history that was all but erased following the call of Vicente Guerrero (another Mexican of African descent) to abolish slavery during his short time as Mexico's president. Even though there were periods in which the African diaspora in Mexico greatly outnumbered Spanish colonialists, the modern narrative of Mexico is of a people and history shaped by the blending of two cultures - one European and one indigenous. Any mention of Mexico's "third root" is usually confined to a few scholars or various darker skinned communities in Mexico where African diaspora (many times alongside indigenous communities) were able to hold on to traditions and community.

The majority of Africans that came to Mexico were integrated - by force or social incentives that granted privilege based on race caste - into the post-colonized ambiguity of Mexicans, even as their existence was being conveniently forgotten. Under the influences of white supremacy and its lingering effects, it's not difficult to understand how generations have forgotten or obscured Mexico's African roots.

Sadly, though, even as Mexican or Chican@ nationalism confronted this colonial legacy, the mention of historical Black Mexico seems to offend those who think such expressions are a denial or rejection of Mexican's indigenous past. To this day in Mexico, those who identify as Afro-Mexican are waging a battle with the government to be officially recognized in the Mexican census.

The story of Gaspar Yanga, of the many Mexican "marooned" townships, of Black Seminoles and freed former slaves from the US in northern Mexico, and the eventual blotting out of Black history in Mexico are in my thoughts lately - while I assess the situation of my community north of the border, in this century. US capitalists may have replaced Spanish colonialists, but Blacks and Mexicans still find themselves as commodities, laborers, often used against one another. The divide and conquer tactics the conquistadors first used to split black/brown/white were modified and modernized and now apply to all workers of the Americas. This is partly why, as Mexicans and Chican@s, we should look at Black History not only as allies or students but because it's a part of our own history. And it must be a part of any future if we hope to accomplish what all of Mexico's defeated revolutions were not able to.

To honor Mexico's forgotten revolutionaries, as well as the celebrated ones, we need solidarity in the face of a common oppressor and socialism over a form of nationalism that doesn't engage or recognize all who struggle. We need to reclaim the dreams of those who gave and are giving their lives in struggle throughout the centuries on Mexican soil, and hear Yanga's grito along with Zapata's.

{Although stories of Black-Brown unity projects may not get the media attention, say, of Black and Latino gang rivalries in Los Angeles or disgruntled unemployed workers blaming immigrants, they are popping up in different parts of the country. This month in Georgia, I'm glad to say the Trail of Dreams - mostly undocumented students walking for immigration justice from Miami to DC - is being welcomed and hosted by traditional civil rights institutions as well as Black churches and community members/organizations.}

Original post: http://solidarity-us.org/current/node/2704

Hip-Hop for Haiti

2010-01-29T11:32:00.004-05:00

Peace! I want to thank everyone who came out to support the "Hip Hop for Haiti" benefit show that was held at the August Wilson Center here in Pittsburgh last night. It was beautiful to see our communities rallying behind our universal struggle & oneness. The event featured several conscious artists from the city of Pittsburgh and was our way of extending support & solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Haiti, in light of the tragedy and ulterior political motives taking place as the result.

It is integral that those of African and Indigenous descent do what we can to show our support. We are our greatest resource and it is only through us that we will see the change in the world that we desire to see.

Haiti and it's history stand as an example and inspiration for all oppressed people's, especially those in the Western Hemisphere. The Haitian revolution, an extension of the Indigeneous struggle against colonialism & imperialism waged by Hatuey, Anacoana and others, laid the foundation for the Latin American revolution and liberation from Spain.

As well, it is import that we are Original people and of Indigenous descent extend our selves in solidarity with our Haitian brothers & sisters because of our common origin in the universe. Haitian's are an Afro-Taino/Afro-Indigenous people. Haiti, like Jamaica, retains it's original name "Ayiti" from the Taino, after the lush mountains in the region. Although the majority of the Caribbean Indigenous resurgence movement has been taking place in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, we must be careful to not project exclusivity behind the reclaiming of our identity. This only further the deeply imbedded white supremacy that we've all been working against. Haiti, Jamaica, Cayman Islanders, Barbados, Turks & Caicos, are all "Taino" as well, despite their predominantly "African" phenotypes and the like. Likewise, despite the phenotypes of many lighter skinned so-called Latinos & Creoles, our cellular memories and DNA reveal our Africanness, in the face of our miseducation.

We are the Original people! We are one!

Algonquin Activism & Hip-Hop

2010-01-29T11:06:00.005-05:00

Peace! As struggle continues to be a universal language amongst all people, "Hip-Hop" music continues to be the most relevant contemporary vehicle our youth have in speaking about this struggle.

Hip-Hop was born of resistance and continues to be the voice of resistance for youth around the world. Many elders dismiss Hip-Hop as "black american music" or as some musical monstrousity that corrodes away the values and culture of people. Yet, beyond the images of exploitation projected on televisions and radio by the corporate slave masters, Hip-Hop has remained as much more. It is the voice of our future generations, the children, the wealth of a nation and is one of the greatest tools we have in promoting solidarity amongst our people, and with the global community, in the name of struggle and revolt against the oppression and exploitation that persists in burdening the ressurrection of our mentally dead brothers & sisters.

Indigenous Rap

by Stefan Christoff

Samian: Algonquin alert Algonquin hip-hop artist Samian rants for reservesAlgonquin hip-hop artist Samian raps about the realities of life on First Nations reserves in Quebec. With a growing following on reserves and in Quebec's cities, he's also struck a chord in hip-hop communities everywhere.

Exploding the classic political binary of Quebec's two solitudes, Samian raps about indigenous people and their history in the province. His chart-topping hit La Paix des braves, a duet with Quebec hip-hop crew Loco Locass, appeals for solidarity between Québécois and indigenous people. Samian's recent collaboration with Sans Pression on Premières nations helped cement his role as a key voice in the Montreal contemporary hip-hop scene.

Hour sat down with Samian to discuss contemporary hip-hop in Montreal and the ways the genre is increasingly speaking to, and representing the struggles of, First Nations communities in Quebec, in Canada and throughout the Americas.

Hour: Hip-hop's origins in New York City were rooted in rhymes that addressed social injustices, especially the racism and social exclusion faced by African-Americans. Today in Canada, indigenous people face similar systemic social exclusion: racism, incarceration, substandard housing and medical options and poverty. Hip-hop is increasingly used as a response to this reality and artists are rapping about the social injustices faced by indigenous people. Can you talk about how your work relates to the history of hip-hop as a socially conscious art form? How do you connect your work to hip-hop history?

Samian: Hip-hop has always been an art form through which people have made demands, appealed for change and denounced the social injustices faced by African-Americans in U.S. ghettos. Certainly the history of African-American struggle in the U.S., like we saw with the Black Panthers, is tied to hip-hop music [and] culture.

Indigenous people in Quebec, in Canada, have lived through a history of oppression like African-Americans. Today we are still calling for justice, and hip-hop is a vehicle to call for this change. As an artist, I love hip-hop because it allows for free expression: You can talk about whatever issues are important to you. Hip-hop is a space for me to express myself on many subjects, to denounce injustices. It's also a space to propose positive solutions for social ills, and to reflect on the world around me.

Hour: What are you trying to make people more aware of through your music?

Samian: Our reality, the life on the reserves, the fight to retain our culture, the fact that we are struggling to keep our language. Also I want to make people aware that indigenous people have a rich history and culture that is ignored by the mainstream.

Through hip-hop we are opening people's eyes to our culture and also to our long, long history on this land. I want to speak to youth in Quebec who don't always learn about real indigenous history in the school system. Québécois and indigenous people's history in Quebec are interlinked. This relationship between our cultures has shaped what we know to be Quebec today, and who we are. Sadly our indigenous history is often shoved to the side because it shows an underlying brutality in the national narrative.

Hour: Many Montrealers don't know about the situation facing indigenous people on the reserves here and in Quebec. In this context, how do you see hip-hop as a way to educate people about the indigenous reality here? How do you address these issues in your music?

Samian: I think my music has the biggest impact on the reservations. The music sparks the spirits of the new generation on the reserves, and gives youth pride in our culture, and in our language.

But for everyone in Quebec, I hope my music inspires a more open spirit towards the realities faced on reserves, because people need to wake up to the difficulties and poverty we experience. The mainstream media don't address our situation thoroughly, so I am trying to communicate our reality. Simply put, there are two different realities, two different worlds, two different experiences of life in Quebec - one on the reserves and one off the reserves.

In Quebec, we have a national slogan: Je me souviens. But really, what do we remember in Quebec? In Quebec we forget some of the biggest parts of our own history. How was Quebec and Canada founded? What ever happened to the people who originally lived here? Why does the world forget that there are over 500 languages spoken across Canada, and not just English and French? So much about our history has been hidden or erased, and so young people never learn about the first peoples. These are all questions that - incredibly - aren't well answered in our schoolbooks. The government is also directly responsible for the lack of knowledge about our history, because indigenous culture and history is not a priority, and not taught seriously within the public school curriculum.

Recently, I looked up "Algonquin" in the dictionary and was shocked. The definition read something like "a people that don't exist." I was shaken to the core after reading this - how absurd. I am an Algonquin artist today in Quebec, I exist and my people exist. Today, after thousands of years, we are still on this land as indigenous people. We are still here and are gathering strength; my hip-hop verses express a pride for indigenous people in Quebec.

Hour: As an artist, your hip-hop is unique and has struck a chord in Quebec. What do you think makes your work compelling to so many different audiences?

Samian: I wrote poetry before ever thinking about rap. I eventually fell into rapping almost as an accident. Today I work with amazing musicians who are able to complement my verses with music. I think the relationship between my verses and the musicians that I collaborate with has become richer with time.

My second album is much deeper musically than the first album, and now it feels like things are constantly developing for me in exciting ways as an artist. All my first songs weren't written with, or for, specific music, so now that I work with musicians in developing my verses, the creative process has changed a lot.

At the root, I am an artist, not a politician. My songs are about real issues, but I address those issues as an artist. Many people say that my work is really political, but actually I know nothing about the political world. I address issues that are important to me.

Hour: ...But you are linked to grassroots political movements. Do you mean you aren't tied to the world of politicians and government?

Samian: I am interested in speaking out against injustice and trying to build towards solutions that solve those injustices. I'm not at all interested in official politics or political parties. Actually there hasn't been a major politician in North America, in the U.S., or in Canada that has proposed something really good for First Nations people. No proposal deals with the historical injustices we faced and the contemporary situation.

Hour: Perhaps we could look to Evo Morales in Bolivia as an example?

Samian: [Laughing] Today Bolivia is an exception in the Americas, because Morales is an indigenous president! In Bolivia, indigenous people are the majority, while in Canada we are such a small minority today.

In Bolivia the government of Evo Morales signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into the national constitution. Here, Stephen Harper refused to sign the letter or even vote in favour of the charter at the UN. Harper made that apology for residential schools, but he voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The government in Canada wants us to remain in an unequal position and as a minority, with no political power. Indigenous people live in Third World conditions right here in Quebec and throughout Canada. So, is Canada progressive? In the U.S. there is an African-American president; could you ever imagine a First Nations prime minister in Canada? Indigenous people in Canada should take inspiration from the African-American struggle, which won many rights for black people in the U.S. Actually, we need to wage a similar struggle in Canada, a civil rights struggle.

Hour: Can you talk about the concerts that you've given in indigenous communities across Quebec? Do you feel different about the concerts that you give on reserve and those in the city?

Samian: Actually my concerts on reservations are really, really special for me. I feel that the most meaningful impact from my music is on the reserves. To meet youth on different reserves and to connect with youth, to talk about their realities - this is a big source of inspiration for me.

I can connect strongly with this, given that my own experiences are linked.
My work tries to project the true voice of First Nations people: Those on the reserve that I meet who are always struggling to survive, struggling for justice... I hope my music inspires youth to dream louder and create a better future.

Samian: For more info: http://www.samian.org/

Stefan Christoff is a Montreal-based community organizer and journalist who regularly contributes to Hour. He can be contacted at christoff@resist.ca.

Historia de Allah y Los 'Five Percenters'

2009-10-20T08:51:00.002-05:00

Historia de Allah y Los 'Five Percenters'

Allah físicamente nació en el 22 de Febrero 1928 en Danville, VA. El nacio Clarence Edward Smith. El tuvo artos hermanos. Su madre lo apodó "Puddin". En una joven edad, en los tempranos 1940, su madre fue a NY para trabajar y Allah viajó con ella, trabajando donde podia, uno de que fue un soporte de fruta. El también desarrolló un amor por las apuestas.

El encontró finalmente Wileen Jowars con quien él tuvo a un niños. Para demostrar a su familia él no fue apretado para tener una mujer (la madre de Wileen no permitiría que ella casarselo) él encontró finalmente y tuvo a niños con otra mujer Dora denominado. En 1952 Allah entró en el Ejército y sirvió en la Guerra de Korea durante 7 años. El soporto cada una de sus familias con las apuestas y enbiaba el dinero por correo a cada una de sus familias.

Allah volvió a casa y encontró que su "mujer" Dora había unido la Nación de Islam, y el se unio tambien. Allah pasó 3 años en Mezquita No. 7, que en ese momento fue dirigido por Malcom X. El vendió papeles y llegó a ser finalmente muy capaz en su memorización y recitiation de las "lecciones" o la Sabiduría Suprema como los musulmanes lo llaman. (Nosotros le llamamos “120 grados/degrees"). El vino finalmente a su propia comprensión de que él mismo es Dios y comenzó a propagar esto en la Mezquita. Los musulmanes bajo Elijah Muhammad enseñaron que el hombre negro fue Dios por la naturaleza pero por ellos todavía "veneraron" a un hombre denominada W. D. Fard, un hombre y el cofundador pakistaníes de la Nación de Islam. Allah no se abonaría a esto porque si hay sólo UN DIOS y su nombre es ALLAH, cómo Fard era Dios y "él" no fue? El hombre Original, el hombre negro, es UNO.También, que el "hombre negro" son todos hombres de color- de indios a africano a asiáticos. Esto, por supuesto, incluye llamado latinoamericanos. Todos somo parte de la "familia negra" y manifesto por sombras diferentes de la oscuridad- de la oscuridad para encender. Nuestro "color" viene de nuestra melanina, basado en el "Carbón" de elemento, el elemento "negro". También a causa de nuestro origen cósmico entre el sol, la luna y las estrellas. La oscuridad del universo. La oscuridad de la mente. Todos descendemos de las primeras personas en el planeta.

Allah, siendo de la calle, lo tomó sobre él mismo dejar la Mezquita con otro hermano Abu Shahid (se refirió a como el 'Semilla Marron de Padre'/ Father's Brown Seed). Ellos dejaron las Mezquita y volvieron a las calles (conseguir dinero como Abu Shahid me ha dicho). Ahi fue cuando Allah tomó su nombre y comenzó a referirse a él mismo como "ALLAH". El entonces comenzó a enseñar quién él era a los niños en la calle.

La primera persona que él enseñó fue una juventud 'Matthew', que despues fue llamado "Karriem". Allah le dio el nombre de "Mesías Negro" (Black Messiah). Esto fue porque él fue una semilla "negra" (piel oscura), una semilla del "conocimiento", como decimos (1,2,3-, conocimiento,sabiduría, comprendimiento- negro, marrón, amarillo). Allah entonces enseñó a 8 otros jóvenes, junto con Mesías Negro/Black Messiah, quien es referido como el 'Primero Nacido'. Todos estuvieron entre las edades de 14 y 19. Y ellos son así:

Black Messiah
Bisme Allah
Al-Jamil
Akbar
Uhuru
Kiheem
ABG#7
First Born Prince
I-Salaam

El más joven fue Kiheem (14) y el más viejo I-Salaam (19). Cada uno fue instruido en ensenar a 9 hombres para crecer y multiplicarse. En este momento ellos fueron referidos como Allah's 'Five Percenters'. Allah primero los había traído junto en el 10 de octubre 1964 ('día 1' o el año 1964 son considerados' año 1') instruirlos en su misión.

Mientras en la calle Allah había ligado con una persona que fue anteriormente en la Mezquita pero que la había dejado antes- un hombre llamado Justicia (que fue también referrd a como "Jesus", 'Jimmy Jam' o Cuatro Cifra Akbar/Four Cipher Akbar). En la Primavera de 1965, Allah fue detenido para la alteración del orden público, por negar de separar una "cifra" en medio de una acera en la petición de un oficial.

Allah fue traído antes del Juez Francis X O'Brian, donde él solicitó para defenderse, desde que él fue "Allah". El Juez lo consideró "loco" (técnicamente- 'criminalmente loco') y él fue enviado al barrio psiquiátrico del hospital de Bellevue. Esto es donde él encontró y enseñó el primer miembro Caucasico de las Nación (que tenia15 o 16 anos en aquel momento), quien él denominó "Azrael". Allah fue transferido finalmente interior a Beacon, NY al Hospital psiquiátrico del Estado de Mattewan durante un apagón, en tentativas al seperate él de los jóvenes Five Percenters (debilitar su influencia y separarnos). Allah sirvió 22 meses en individual. El fue soltado en la Primavera de 1967.

Ese fue el mismo año que nuestra Bandera Universal de Islam fue diseñada por Universal Shammgaud Allah. El primer "Parlamento Universal" tomo lugar en abril de 1967 en Mt. Morris Park en Harlem. Al tiempo que esto paso ya habian cientos de jovenes que eran Five Percenters. La extensión del Conocimiento salio de Meca (Harlem) y fue a Medina (Brooklyn) a Pelan (Bronx) y entonces a los otros barrios. Entonces fue a Springfield, Massachussetts y entonces a Philadelphia.

Barry Gotherer, la ayuda al Alcalde John V Lindsay de NY fue hecho responsable con establecer una relación con Allah 'limitar cualquier violencia' desde que nosotros fuimos considerados por las autoridades como un 'la pandilla de la calle de juventud'. Barry Gotherer y Allah llegaron a ser muy cercanos, y con la asistencia de Barry tuvimos nuestro primer Parlamento. El ayudó a conseguirnos alfileres de la bandera Universal de solapa que adornarían nuestros nombres justos, para que podamos ser identificados como Five Percenters y no musulmanes. Barry también consiguió la ciudad para proporcionar autobuses para tomar a los niños al parque y a la playa. También, él pudo obtener el apoyo de la ciudad para patrocinar paseos para el jóvenes. Finalmente, la ciudad en conjunción con la Liga Urbana nos dio nuestra primera escuela, conocido como la Escuela de Alá en Meca, para $1 un mes durante 99 años.

12 de junio, fue la última vez que cualquiera habló con Allah, como él construyó durante horas en la ciencia de hombre y mujer en la Escuela de Alá. Esto fue cuando él reveló a ellos que ellos hacen ya no es el suyo 'Five Percenters', que ellos serían el suyo 'la Nación de Dios y Tierras'. Allah fue asesinado la mañana temprana de 13 de junio, 1969 en el elevador de la construcción de su madre. El fue disparado 7 veces. El asesina nunca fue resuelto.

*Un par de otras cosas para señalar en fue que el nombre de la primera Tierra fue "Hermana Carmen", una hermana de puertorriqueño que fue la mujer de Abu Shahid. La Tierra tiene su propia lista de la Tierra primero nacida que puedo proporcionar a usted en una fecha posterior. También, la primera latina en la Nacion fue una 'Regla nacida del Poder' (o "Power Rule" en ingles- PR, el abreviation para 'puertorriqueño') nombre fue 'Kendu Islam'. Algún otro primer nacido latina fue primo físico de Kendu- Allah Sha Sha, y Monique. Kendu y Sha Sha tomaron las enseñanzas a Puerto Rico en los tardes 1970. Ellos abrieron aún la "Escuela de Alá/Allah's school" en San Juan estuvo sólo abierto durante unos pocos años. Esa fue la primera ves que las enseñanzas fueron llevadas al Caribe e Latinoamérica.

Paz!

(Compuesto y traducido por Sha-King Cehum Allah- 2009)

Reconsidering Columbus Day

2009-10-12T17:56:00.002-05:00

Reconsider Columbus Day and the implications it has regarding America's amnesia towards the Indigenous holocaust.

Proper Education Allows for Cultural Emergence

PEACE!

Indigenous Representation @Pittsburgh G-20

2009-09-24T21:29:00.003-05:00

Myself, Boriken Afro-Taino, present at the G-20 summit in my home city, Pittsburgh. Here is a video of a protest against Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Viva La Revolucion!

"Somos Originales"

2009-09-14T12:11:00.003-05:00

Article from- "Knowledge of Self Anthology: A Collection of Wisdom on the Science of Everything in Life"

“Somos Originales”
By Sha-King Cehum Allah

The ‘Americas’ have long been considered a melting pot of sorts for various cultures and ethnicities. This is especially true when we consider the institution of slavery. Across North, Central and South America, Native, African , European and even Asian chromosomes have been infused through the hard times and hunger brought on by colonialism. Yet, it is the predominance of the African and “Indian” blood and culture that serves as the main pillars of civilization on these continents.

The merging of the African and Indian is what brought forth the reality of the "so-called Latino." For the two centuries we have been told that we are a ‘tri-racial peoples‘, a cosmic combination consisting of African, Indian and Spanish (European) blood. Yet, the focus has always been put on the 'Spanish' lineage as the result of self-esteem issues and cultural conditioning. We have a tendency to associate with that which is 'lighter' or that which is seen as closer to 'white', while at the same time pushing ourselves away from that which is ‘dark’ and embracing 'blackness' because our overseers and educators stipulated it as a 'sin' and equated it with inferiority. This is the unfortunate by-product of the mental and physical slavery we have endured. While there are many black and brown 'Latinos' and Native Americans, a large segment of our populations is 'yellow'. This has been exploited by our oppressors and has contributed to the masses of people's lack of understanding of who they really are. We have been psychological diced up and separated from ourselves. This acquisition and merger of Native and African culture and people is not solely the result of slavery and stands as a testament to who we are, beyond the Spanish interjection and inference. The Spanish no doubt have a role in our history and cultura from language to religion, but can not and are not the anchor for our identity. We are the Original people on this part of the planet earth- Nativos y Africanos. One people.

Many Native Americans, as well as so-called Latin Americans, have the misconception that the mixing of African and Indian was something that was primarily characteristic of the Caribbean, South and Central America, and the U.S. South, as the result of chattel slavery. Research and studies have shown from archaeology and anthropology that African peoples were traveling to the Americas, trading and building with the Native peoples, a considerable amount of time before the arrival of Columbus. Most of the supportive evidence has been found throughout Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. Still much evidence shows and proves this taking place in North America as well, especially from the tribal stories handed down through the centuries, like those of the Anishnabe/Chippewa and the tale of Neganii and Abukar. Upon the advent of chattel slavery, they continued merging together for survival and developed many settlements throughout North, Central and South America.

These interactions between Original peoples reveal more about the “Americas” than we have ever been taught in school, and verify the forging together of a new cultural identity prior to what many Euro-centrists attribute as a result of slavery.

We came together prior to colonialism and not just ‘in the struggle’ and poverty of the urban jungle, cotton fields or encomiendas. The coming together and existing together of both peoples was essentially ‘nation building’ and reasonably the foundation for Elijah Muhammad’s use of the terminology 'Original Nation' in reference to the collective African-Indian population in America. This is a very important concept to understand giving that a large population of so-called African Americans possess Native blood just as many so-called Latin Americans possess African blood. The basis for Native and African peoples coming together is both cultural and political, while usually only seen as political in modern times. The perspective and assumption for it to be solely political, limits our understanding of each other and ourselves, as well as our ability to continue to elevate to our highest state of consciousness and existence. We are brothers and sisters and are literally, one people. The Original people.

We have been bombarded with notions of an “Espana” motherland from the start of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. It was the conquistadores, themselves of questionable ethnic origin, that perpetuated the idea of whiteness based on the ‘one drop’ theory, a contrast to it’s role in North American racial ideology- ‘one drop’ of black blood makes you ‘black’. It is through this mental framework that they would subdue the masses of African and Native people, seizing their identity as they raped and pillaged our women, replacing our self-esteem with obligations to the crown and church. Not only were we separated from our people and our legacy, we were further separated from our true selves by nationalism. New labels of identification were instituted as the countries of the Americas eventually fought for and obtained independence from Spain and other European empires. New labels that forced us to identity with our oppressor and unite under ’his’ common cause.

These labels- mestizo, mulatto, zambo, pardo, and triguena- were conceived with the intent to further divide us from ourselves and each other. Although, these labels would eventually take a back seat in favor of ’nationalism’. It should be noted that the independence movement in Latin America was headed by the intellectuals and elites. As they sought independence from Spain, the cause to fight became the propaganda for a common reality they all shared in being 'oppressed' by Spain. This common reality became 'nationalism' and ended up being to Latin America what liberalism was to the United States. However in many cases the revolution simmered down, people's vision were lost, and the oppression of Spain was replaced by the oppression of the intellectual elite of the European colonizers.

In time, they then sought a common identity, something that spoke out to the universal heritage and infusion of blood throughout Latin America. It was an identity that was to speak to the differences between those born in ‘Las Americas’ and the ‘Peninsulares’ (those born on the Iberian peninsula- Spain and Portugal). This identity would serve to tie them into the 'new land' where many of them were born, and highlighted the bloodline that birthed this new reality. This concept was Indigenismo. Yet, it did not represent truly the identity of the people but rather utilized the notion of the “Indians” as a novelty and placed it within the bounds of being a ‘heritage’ as opposed to ethnic or racial identity. It would later take on even more momentum as a tool against the campaign of ‘mestizaje’ or the ‘whitening’ of society, that took place during the mid to late 1800’s and which still persists today. It would become the rallying cry for such revolutionary figures as Augustino Cesar Sandino and Emiliano Zapata against the oppression of the ruling class.

Indigenismo is a wonderful concept. Even more powerful is it's application and implementation. That is, when the seed is cast out to be sown and takes root amongst the hearts and minds of the people. Something even more eventful than the blooming of flowers and the fruit of the crops. It is the moment when the seed is planted, when it actually resonates within a person or people. Indigenismo has been such a unifying concept through the 'Americas'. Yet like most things positive and unifying, there are those who are opposed to it. Through out 'Latin America' it has been the ruling oligarchies, the Euro-elite, whom undoubtedly were victims of the colonial education system and whose influences came from the European "Enlightenment" period of the 1800’s, who have opposed this idea with ferocity. It is they and their descendants, whom nowadays, have plagued us with the label of being nothing more than a 'mixed raced people', with no real point of origin. Owing ourselves and our livelihood to that 'Iberian connection', a perspective which is termed 'hispanismo'. And thus, the introduction and usage of the term 'hispanic.'

The use of this terminology was then able to tie non-European peoples into an identity centered-around conquest. In lands colonized by English-speaking Europeans- Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, etc., the people ended up viewing “England” as their motherland. Nowadays our people freely refer to themselves as ‘Hispanic’ and especially “Spanish”. Although we may continue to speak in the tongue of our conquerors, let it be understood that “Castillian” is not our original language. Still, many Spanish-speaking people are adamant about speaking the colonizers language, which allows them to relish in the desire to be other than our own selves. The manner in which someone speaks the language is considered a status of one’s social and cultural status, as many countries pride themselves on speaking, what they consider to be, the closest to how it is spoken in Spain. Still, each Latin American countries dialect(s) is unique and is reflective of the Indigenous and African peoples that lived in those areas and very much a mirror of the suppressed identity of the people.

“Inside every mestizo there is either one dead Indian, or an Indian waiting to re-emerge” -Jose Barreiro, Guajira-Taino Scholar and Editor of ‘Indian County’

Since their empires have been built from our blood and bondage, they ultimately fear that which will unseat them from their colonial thrones. So they have down played the Indian and African in us. Yet, it was the Indian and African in us that would not accept a life of servitude. As I have touched on before, to ‘identify with the oppressor’ is the goal of the imperial indoctrination and colonialism. This mentality they have sought to kindle in us to maintain their status quo and prevent 'us' from reclaiming power over our own destinies. Historians, intellectuals, government officials, have often made claims that the 'Indians' in Latin America were all wiped out, especially in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. This outrageous claim is far from the truth. The classification of who and what we are has been in the hands of those who sought to exploit us. History has been recorded by those who have conquered and pillaged. ‘Their’ writings only serve as propaganda to authorize and justify their cruel treatment of the Original inhabitants of this part of the planet earth. But again, they do this to prevent any potential of us destabilizing their colonial power and reclaiming our lands, let alone our identity. They do this to make us think we are all different and to prevent a mass uprising of the marginalized, the voicing of our condition and demand for our rights across the planet. It prevents us from learning and cherishing our history. For a people without a history have no future. They want us to believe our history began in 1492 and that it started with them.

They have fomented a popular mentality that makes a mockery of anyone who attempts to reclaim their Native ancestry. And the most contemporary example would be us, so-called Latin Americans. Making knowledge born (making information known) and attempting to unify people around who we are is simply brushed off by the main stream and viewed as a fledgling attempt at planting our own roots and staking claim to geography (as the U.S. and Latin America colonizers are guilty of). While intension of what appears to be ‘land grabs’ are assumed, this is far from the truth. The truth being that “we are the Original people”. We are “los indios”, whether full-blood or mestizo or zambo. Of course, this is something they do not want to admit because of it’s implications of the eventual displacing of European descendants from our land. All the more reason for the reclassifying job done on race and ethnicity by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000. By placing “Latinos” in the category of ‘white‘, it boosts their population numbers and is an extremely political move. One that will have continued cultural consequences via the constant barrage of Euro-centric propaganda. It's bad enough that we've had to deal with the mind set of "the whiter the better" for over 516 years throughout Latin America. People are still being forced to compromise their identity to move ahead in society.

The revisions in the Census Bureau’s survey classifications on race having merged the "Hispanic" population into the "White" category was deliberate. White people are very aware that they are about to become the minority in their own country and this is just one effort in reversing the state of things and discouraging the unity of the Original people. They take the largest and fastest growing "minority" in America, covering them under the cloak of "tricknowledge" and white supremacy by calling them white. This is what happened in 1846 after the United States ‘stole’ the Republic of Texas from our Mexican brothers and sisters, and called it an "annexation". The majority of white settlers in Texas were slave holders and the U.S. government feared that revenge would be taken by the Mexicans and the other Original people who resided there. To prevent an uprising they classified "Mexicans" as "white" (despite their overwhelming Indian bloodline), a label which continued to appear of Texan birth certificates until the 1960's. "Mexica" is actually the name of the people we refer to as the ‘Aztecs‘. The ’Aztec” was conjured up by historians due to their proposed ancient homeland "Aztlan"- Southwestern U.S.) Regardless to one's actually skin color, there is much more in their bio-chemical make-up that constitutes who they are. Someone may appear 'white', but they aren't. The are light-skinned “people of color”, and their 'blood' and DNA bears witness. As Original people we range from very dark to very light. However, many remain confused due to how we were/are educated and saturated with notions of “Spain’ and Europe, yearning to be other than our own selves.

The people whom descend from the lands of so-called Latin America have a color complex. Many of us still think that “white is right”. We continue to link our reality back to a population and culture who are un-alike us, simply because of language, religion, and certain elements of our traditions. Many of us actuality believe the lies and think that we are “Spanish”, in spite of our latent embrace of ‘indigenismo’. We have been taught that we have Indian in us but we aren’t Indian. We have been told that we have African in us but that we aren’t African. We end up psychologically ‘riding the fence’ and making racial selections to suit our needs in society. Still, by the hand of the oppressor, indigenismo ended up only being a buffer to keep from being called “black”. While it has been documented that 85% of Dominicans have black blood, Carol Amoruso, editor of the Hispanic Village, in her series entitled “Explorations in Black and Tan” noted: “At the same time, a great number of Dominicans still reject their blackness. In an article I wrote for the Hispanic American Village in 2002, I interviewed Dominican aestheticians, specialists in hair relaxing, proud of their ability to make black seem white. Observed one, "…we do not say that we are black. We invent a lot of names for our skin, like indio claro, indio lava[d]o or indio canela, but never black. So, the idea is to make you look white if you are black. They teach us that in the Dominican Republic.”

Indigenismo has been a double-edged sword. While unifying in many ways, it has been used at the hands of the elites to reshape 'Latin American' society in their particular image and taste. They purported that the average everyday Latino was a 'mestizo', a ‘mixture’ of Spanish , Indian and African. However, this perspective was adopted to create a false sense of 'equality' throughout society and served their purposes as a compliment to nationalism, attempting to erase any evidences or situations that could potentially spark future revolutions and revolts. The ‘Indianess’ of indigenismo served to distinguish between being looked at as 'white' and being looked at as 'black', which was far worse for the intellectual overseer's. Once formulated, this concept was then packaged in the form of literature and sent out to penetrate the mindset of the people. Yet all the while, telling the masses of Indian/African people that the majority of Indians died out or had mixed with the Africans so much that no one was actually 'black' or 'African' or 'Indian' anymore. And thus, Carol Amoruso, also noted in her series about recent immigrants to the United States- “The new Latinos come mostly from the Latin American mainland where the culture is more “indio” and European.” Most people from countries such as Mexico, Peru or El Salvador will claim to have "no black in them" when this is far from the truth. Nowadays, biologically speaking, while most people who are so called Puerto Rican, Dominican or Cuban have Indian, African and European blood, so do many other people throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America. The presence of Afro-Indio culture and blood has always been very abundant, even after the decimation of the people, especially population wise . On page 29 of "Black Indians", author William Loren Katz states: "By 1650 Mexico alone had an African-Indian population (some with white ancestry) of one hundred thousand. A new race was being born." Still, many Mexica continue the propaganda that Mexicans are not ‘black‘, and that only certain towns and neighborhoods have "black blood", although the truth continues to remain.

Many of our brothers and sisters who come to the U.S. from Central America are very indigenous in appearance. On face value, through media, we look over these people as 'Mexicans', not aware of their unique history. They too, have had considerable amounts of African blood infused into them, although they may contest it. Especially mi gente from Cuscatlan or as the devil now calls “El Salvador.” Descendants of the Pipil peoples, who are actually of the Maya, Salvi's or Salvadorenos have been institutionally and systemically conditioned to think they are different from Africans and have no African blood in them. They have been the victims of a vicious campaign, similar to that which took place in the Dominican Republic under Presidente Rafael Trujillo when he made every effort to 'whiten' society by killing thousands of Haitians and reducing the African presence in the Dominican Republic down to a myth. This is truth, not a conspiracy theory, and far from a mere political ploy to 'unite' the two groups of Original people under false bonds for the benefit of bi-partisan struggle. Many brothers and sisters who are Indigenous and are of the Pan-Indigenous Diaspora actually exist within the African Diaspora as well. With this truth in mind, while someone may chose to embrace one people over the other (usually due to upbringing or life experience), we must strive to embrace both, as both peoples are who we are.

It is very important to understand our relationship to each other and that we are really all one family- we are all of the ‘black family‘. We, however, exist within distinct degrees of melanin, which we call 'shades of black' within the Nation of Gods and Earths, defined as: black, brown and yellow. "Black" is typically seen as just a 'color' and most often associated with ’skin’ color, but it isn't a stagnant or fixed idea. It is dynamic. What is "black" in social standards varies with countries and cultures to be sure, which is the reason why so many so-called Latinos are reluctant to embrace the term. We also must look at the world and universe around us. Do not be blinded by the illusion of the daytime, for even our ancestors knew that the universe and space is black. The illumination of the Sun was born out of the blackness of this space and subsequently everything else in the universe and our solar system. The first organism of our intellectual and social capabilities to manifest presence on our planet, human being, has been recognized in science and anthropology as "black". This does not mean that were 'as' black as the universe, but a manifestation, in the physical degree, and a supreme embodiment of the sub-atomic intelligence that drives energy through it's different forms and brings forth life and matter. The word 'black' has more of a political connotation for us as human beings, especially nowadays, so someone who is referred to as 'black' isn't literally 'black'. And within the Nation of Gods and Earths we use it to define all people of color, regardless of their shade, as a term of solidarity and reverence for our common origin, whether cosmic or in terms of civilizations. Still, in the mainstream, Puerto Ricans (along with other so-called Latinos) who assert our Blackness are not only outcast by those who identify more so with their Spanish conqueror than their African ancestors, but are also shunned by so-called African Americans who do not see us as ‘black.’ Irregardless, whether someone is Navajo, Quechua, Mandinga, Ghanian or even Hmong or Pinoy, they are “black.”

It has been the traditional perspective, of the Nation of Gods and Earths, of Latinos as being 'Native American' and the Original owners of the Americas, but in no way limits us solely to that category. Nor is it to blanket someone's individual history in favor of the collective identity, as some forms of Pan-Africanism often do, attributing any and everything to the greatness of Africa alone. It is a perspective that links us all to an underlying factor, a common point of reference. It is a rallying cry to all my Indigenous brothers and sisters. A rallying cry of unity and solidarity, as expressed through the understanding of Allah and his will to unite 'all the seeds (shades of the Original man)’.
The Nation of Gods and Earths embraces all Original people by tearing down the labels of nationalism and tribal identity that create barriers, and bring everyone together for one common cause: education and elevation of our quality of living.

It is this perspective that speaks to so-called Latinos, not from a nationalist standpoint, but from a reality that harkens back further than ‘Latin Nationalism.’ It goes beyond state established boundaries and ties us all in to a shared history and ancestral memories. It is not merely the product of intellectuals but a perspective taken on by many Native peoples through the documented history of the Americas. Tecumseh, of the Shawnee, sought to unite all nations and tribes, under one common Pan-Indigenous identity, in attempts to resist and prevent the westward expansion of the 13 American colonies and the genocide against the Original people. He traveled from his home in the Ohio River valley, down south to Cherokee country, amongst the Chickasaw and Seminole, and even west ward a bit until he voyaged back north to Prophet's town (the city that he and his brother established as the center of their mission).

It is in this same vein and vision that we need to unite all those of Latin American descent. We need to unify and create a solidarity beyond our country borders and ethnic prejudices. It is up to us- the Original people, the black, brown and yellow sons and daughters of the Americas, to re-establish who we are and what belongs to us, especially our birthright. We must be determined in the fight for the freedom to define ourselves in today's society. We must reclaim our place amongst our black brother and sisters worldwide, as we are black men and women. Somos las personal Originales del Planeta Tierra!

To order your copy of the book, visit: http://knowledgeofself.viviti.com/

Raices y Cultura

2009-09-07T13:47:00.001-05:00

Accept it or reject it, it is what it is. Somos Originales!

Palante Siempre!

2009-08-18T10:37:00.006-05:00

Lo siento mi gente! I apologize for the brief hiatus. A lot of change has been manifesting within my cipher over the summer. Nevertheless, "resistance blogging" must and will continue.

Remain steadfast and diligent for change. Above all, be prepared and be active in ushering it in.

"Los Indios" continuara en Septiembre!

Que?

2009-06-25T08:18:00.005-05:00

I recently came across a book on Amazon.com entitled "Taino ti"- a native Taino greeting of the Original people of the Caribbean. The artwork on the cover appears to be anime or what many refers to as "Japanime" because of it's origin in Japanese cartoons, such as the famous "Ninja Scrolls" and "Fist of the North Star".

Here is the product description-

"Yuis Rosales can't remember a time when he wasn't haunted by dreams of strange people, jungles,and the gods whose forms only he can create. Just when these nightmares are threatening to overtake him, he meets Felipe, who quickly invades both his waking, and his sleeping hours.

Yuis only wants to see his art hanging in a gallery, but when he leaves for Puerto Rico, he discovers a history so horrifying that his dreams pale in comparison. His past as a Taino shaman collides with a madman's lust for mystical dominion...

Summoning his own power, Yuis must learn to trust his totem beast, Mukaro...and his passionate lover."

It seems that some elements of our Taino culture have been appropriated for someone else's fantasy story, which is not suprising, yet still disappointing. I can't help but wonder what this person's relationship to us is. This also stands out in my mind as another representation of how Native cultures are considered as mythical in and of themselves, putting us in the realm of witches, elves, gnomes, unicorns, etc.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Taino-Ti-ebook/dp/B002CCAICY/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245935739&sr=1-10

Making the Unknown, Known

2009-06-24T08:04:00.004-05:00

We must not be afraid of the 'unknown'. We must embrace the 'unknown' as a medium through which questions about life and reality can be revealed. We must understand that we have become hindered by our lack of understanding of the unknown. Our relations have been divided and severed because of our ignorance of our people. Instead of embracing the 'unknown' and seeing it as a chance to challenge ourselves and our ability to break through societal imposed limitations, we came to accept it and internal it as an assumed static state of humanity, as if we can and will never 'know' beyond what we already think we know.

Many of us claim to know about ourselves and our ancestors. We claim to know about our culture and who are 'people' are. Yet most often times we are only regurgitating and rehashing what was 'taught to us' and told to us by those whom imposed the boundaries, divisions and restrictions of colonization. These people aren't "our" people and so on- perpetuating the 'us vs. them' mentality and contributing to the crumbling of the sacred hoop of life. May of us will rather quickly accept the oppressor and the oppressors children as our own before we embrace other children of the Sun- "melanated" sons and daughters of the planet. So we can bear witness to the deep psychological impact of colonization and slavery, and the survival mechanism and adaptation strategy of 'identifying with the aggressor', as it is referred to in western psychology. Which means, not only have we taken on many of the same behaviors and mannerisms of the oppressor, but likewise, psychologically identify with them and see them as more favorable, and consequently looking at our other oppressed brothers and sisters in the same perspective that they do.

It is critical to our healing that we reunite and bring together the 'Original' nation, the Indigenous family. We must struggle to break beyond the limitations we have inherited over the decades and re-establish our connection with each other. We must not think we 'know' of each other from our exposure to television and media propaganda nor must we allow ourselves to dwell in a pool of ignorance and be content with 'not knowing' or even yearning to know about the other. I assure you, if we embrace the 'unknown' as a chance to heal, we will find that it will bring together all legacies and histories to one point, like the outer points of the letter "X" which meet in the center. "X" in mathematics represents the 'unknown'. And we can solve and 'resolve' the equations of inequality by coming together and realizing our oneness, not just in struggle, but in the universal spectrum of existance.

Native and African Americans chronicle history together for first time in Louisiana
by Carol Forsloff

In Natchitoches, Louisiana history was made today. The Native American and African American communities were separate communities in the South by design of white oppression. Now, for the first time, they are sharing their histories.
The African American and Native American communities of North Central Louisiana, specifically the area around Powhatan in Natchitoches Parish, had knowledge of each other’s existence but at the same time virtually no real social interaction.

Native Americans were second-class citizens and felt different and isolated, while African Americans were the lowest on the social pecking order in a highly stratified society that in some ways remains in certain historical patterns.

Therefore, history has been predominantly oral and genealogical as opposed to written. The “White” or predominant history has included both African American groups and Native Americans, but their intimate knowledge of that history has been limited by the stratification and taboos that took place, according to the participants in a videotaped forum today.

Chief Rufus Davis, Dora Belton, Shirley Love and Vern Fisher met at the Adai Cultural Center today and initiated a shared history platform in order to put together the missing pieces of their ancestral involvement, known about, but never fully shared in conversation.

Chief Davis is the head of the Adai Nation, a tribe of approximately 1800 members in Texas and Louisiana, 68 years old and a resident of the Parish since birth.

Dora Belton, of mixed Choctaw, African American and French ancestry, 93, lived in the Parish until age 18, then moved to Illinois and Texas where she worked as a licensed practical nurse until the age of 65 when she retired and returned to her home in the Parish.

Vern Fisher, 54, is an African American from Mallard, Louisiana, two miles from the Adai Cultural Center.

Shirley Love, 51, is originally from the area surrounding Powhatan in Natchitoches Parish but has been living in Michigan since she left high school. All came together for the first time as a group today to begin a pioneer effort to bring their shared history to each other and potentially to the public. The first segment was videotaped today over a period of more than two hours. I was there today as the moderator of the filming, asking the questions and celebrating with the group what is history making in terms of this shared experience.

Natchitoches Parish is a place rich in history because it is the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase and where various European, African and Native American groups lived separately but shared a common history on some levels.

The problem is the intimate details of that history were neglected due to the imposed restrictions on social interaction. The Native American and African American communities, according to Belton, Davis and Fisher, knew about each other and relied on each other to exchange herbal remedies, quilting and other cultural knowledge, but without deep intimacy and communication. The separate groups were mutually supportive in each other’s survival and grew up knowing “their place” and knew that place was separate from their white neighbors of predominantly French, Spanish and English ancestry.

Today, old stories were shared, some for the first time. This is part of a growing opportunity, initiated by Chief Davis, to help groups provide each other important data that helps to reinforce group identity and integrity.

According to the forum participants, the Native Americans and African Americans had mutual regard for their separate ways, knew from the whispers of their ancestors what shops to avoid and what patterns of behavior to evidence. But these truths have not been spoken or written down in detail, as is now being done.

It was for the participants a stunning occasion, and the ongoing experience will be shared as the stories of shared history take shape. Old neighbors are experiencing communication and interaction in this way for the first time, as the process is taking place for this to be formalized.

Videotaping will allow the preservation of information and the evolution of written documentation to be completed. This “first” brought a celebratory mood to those involved as they take the first steps in cementing a new brother and sisterhood they said today will only enhance their individual sense of community and pride.

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/274667

Astronomical Understanding

2009-06-19T09:22:00.007-05:00

Our people have long been 'scientists' and have had a very keen knowledge and understanding of the the universe. It is this knowledge and understanding that cultivated our understanding of the relationship between the 'heavens' and ourselves. In the post-industrial age where our sky has become polluted to a point that we can no longer view the cosmos with a clear eye nor discern the objects and celestial bodies abound within it, it is beautiful to hear of our people striving to reclaim that legacy. The Universe is 'everything'- Sun, Moon, and stars- and especially U N I (You and I).

While we were at the forefront of agricultural sciences, we must also be able to understand our civilizations as multi-faceted and layered and not regulated to farming alone, although it was a large bound. Our mastery of agricultural techniques often came from our knowledge and understanding of celestial bodies and their movements, which affected weather year round and the conditions of planting and harvesting. We were able to observe and internalize what we learned about the universe, manifesting it in our day to day lives and bringing our peoples into a wholistic worldview and way of living. In this day and time, it is imperative that we continue forward with reclaiming our legacy on all fronts- from agriculture to astronomy- in order to save ourselves from the ignorance perpetuated by 'western science' against our people.

This is one of the many reasons why, within the Nation of Gods and Earths, we place so much emphasis of learning about the universe and refer to man as the "Sun", woman as the "Moon" or "Earth" and children as the "stars', adorning symbols of such on our "Universal Flag". The universe represents the origin of all. The movements and interactions of the celestial bodies display a wonderful example of harmony and order from which we draw inspire, examples which we strive to parallel in our social relationships, according to our degree of understanding.

Andean Astro-Olympics in Bolivia

La Paz, Jun 18 (Prensa Latina) Bolivia will host the First Andean Olympics of Astronomy and Astrophysics receiving this week representatives of South American countries announced the Science and Technology vice minister.

Sessions of the celestial event will take place in Bolivian venues considered natural wonders such as Lake Titicaca and the Archeological center of Tiwanaku, both in La Paz province.

According to a press release by the vice minister the Olympics will run Saturday and Sunday with participation of teams from Chile, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador and the host country.

Bolivia organized the event to coincide with the winter solstice in the Southern hemisphere during which the Aimara peoples receive New Year, 5,517, with ritual traditions.

Among the objectives is the promotion of activities related to astronomy and astrophysics from a regional world view.

Source: http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92953&Itemid=1

Lack of PR DAY Parade Coverage

2009-06-15T09:56:00.003-05:00

Paz!

I wasn't able to attend this year. However, it was brought to my attention that there wasn't really any media coverage of the event as there was in past years. Could it be an attempt to stifle the image of the true cultural, social and political influence we hold within America? Considering the recent contraversies concerning Judge Sotomayor, it isn't surprising. The media and those upset with her nomination coil at the idea that the majority of Borikuas support her. As we have seen in their open remarks to her nomination, the mindset of the ruling class has been churning with disgust and anxiety at a "Afro-Latinized" America. In their eyes it is simply too much power for people of color to brandish as it upsets the long standing status quo in our society. With her proud embrace and relationship to her raices, her roots, Sotomayor has set the tone for many other Borikuas to make similar statements, such as Dem. Rep Serrano (whom welcomed Venezuelan Presidente Hugo Chavez on his trip to the Bronx) and reaffirming the reality that we, as children of Boriken, are to immigrants and stand in solidarity with our Mexica, Mayan and other so-called Latin American family members. It brings attention to the fact that our citizenship is an illusion, and that we continue to remain as colonials of an empire. Despite how many of us have relocated in el norte and assimilated as a mens to adapt, adjust and overcome the impact of colonization on la isla. The Puerto Rican Day Parade is a reminding, and maybe even a slap in the face to the Bible-belt Americanos, that we are Borikua first and foremost.

Here is a video I picked up from mibodegaonline.com:

This quick clip was made to address the lack of media coverage for one of the biggest parades in NYC. The one channel that covered the parade was surprisingly Fox news. The question we have to ask ourselves is A) Why isn’t there really any media coverage of this big traditionally held parade? The Puerto Rican Day Parade has been done every year since April 12, 1958. So why is it so hard to find coverage of this parade?

A Message from the Miskitos

2009-06-10T09:26:00.005-05:00

Peace- Paz-

Each and everyday we find ourselves bearing witness to more changes within societies around the world. As 'change' is inevitable, and the 'only' constant in the universe, 'change' is only good or bad depending upon the perspective. We are seeing more and more Original people being active in their own lives, seeking changes and life outside the parameters established by the 'state' and imposed by colonization. These 'changes' and the struggle to achieve them will not doubt create some friction in our/their lives as we engage the world's governmental systems in order to re-take control of our people's destinies and re-establish our own cultural sovereignty. Despite the mirroring struggle of many of these systems to resist these changes, as we have struggled to resist their tyranny, it must and will happen. For it is, as I understand it, 'universal law'. Justice. Because the ways and actions of those seeking to oppress and exploit the caretakers of the planet and her resources, for their own economic gain, have not and can not be justified. Regardless to how much they try to lie to themselves, they can not lie to the universe or Mother Earth. As she still bears the scars. Likewise, no matter how much some of us may try to lie to ourselves, compromising the 'truth' with fabricating compassion for the atrocities of the past 517 years, the changes taking place both socially and 'scientifically' (climate, nature, etc.) are the evidence of a struggle for justice, a struggle to regain balance and harmony. They are the voice of an uprising, rooted not simply in people's desire to alter the course of history, but rather, deeply rooted in a cosmic, bio-chemical and 'spiritual' struggle for 'peace'. It is the awakening of ancestral memories seeded in each and every sub-atomic particle of existance, an intelligence that flows and 'knows', and seeks to re-establish itself as the foundation for this 'cipher' of human civilization.

Unbeknownst to the western world, many of us are seperating from them. Not separating to become many, but separating to realign with each other and with the oneness of the mind, the oneness of the universe.

An Independence Claim in Nicaragua

PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua — After declaring independence from the rest of Nicaragua in April, a group of indigenous activists from the Mosquito Coast readied a grand celebration to commemorate the occasion. Their feast would be ruined, however, when the regional government sent in the police to seize the main course.

Commercial sales of turtle meat, which has long been a delicacy here, is restricted in Nicaragua because of declining populations of endangered green sea turtles — one of many cultural clashes that the people in this remote corner of Nicaragua, who have eaten turtle for generations, say have propelled them to create their own country, which they have dubbed the Communitarian Nation of Mosquitia.

The Council of Elders of the Miskito people has an extensive list of grievances. For as long local residents can remember, the federal government has allowed outside companies to exploit the raw materials in their jungle territory — everything from lobster to lumber to gold. Little benefit has come to the people who eke out a living here, they say.

Fed up, the separatists seized the region’s ruling party headquarters on April 19 and appointed Héctor Williams as their wihta tara, or great judge. Mr. Williams, a local religious leader whose thin black mustache stretches out toward his deep dimples, said the region suffered from a variety of woes — devastating hurricanes and rat plagues to a mysterious disease known as grisi siknis, which is marked by collective bouts of hysteria.

“We have the right to autonomy and self-government,” declared Wycleff Diego, the breakaway movement’s ambassador abroad, as he held up the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Over the weekend, the ruling party, Yatama, literally “Sons of Mother Earth,” retook the headquarters in what it said was a peaceful operation. The separatists denied that, saying weapons were used, and vowed to continue to fight for independence.

Despite the setback, the budding independence movement is giving the Nicaraguan government headaches and rekindling some of the ire from the contra war that tore through this country in the 1980s. Mr. Diego was a soldier in that war, a fighter for the American-backed contras.
Many Miskito people, who make up one of several ethnic groups on Nicaragua’s diverse Atlantic coast, joined with the contras. They were inspired by their historic animosity toward the rulers in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, which is 15 hours distant over bumpy dirt roads.

As in the rest of Nicaragua, the contra war would leave lasting pain along the coast. The Sandinista government’s armed forces led a fierce campaign to remove Miskitos from their native lands along the Coco River.

President Daniel Ortega, who led the Sandinistas in the 1980s and then returned to power in January 2007, is widely distrusted by local residents, even more so after his government’s lackluster response to Hurricane Felix, which leveled many coastal communities in September 2007.

The breakaway movement, some say, has also been fueled by the Ortega government’s failure to support thousands of impoverished contra war veterans, who had been promised land, housing and other assistance during his presidential campaign.

Even the government’s allies, while condemning the independence movement, concede that Managua could have responded better to the Miskitos’ needs. “We haven’t been the best administrators of public things, but that doesn’t mean we should spill blood,” said Steadman Fagoth, a former Miskito independence leader and contra commander who has since allied himself with Mr. Ortega.

A top Sandinista leader, Gustavo Porras, has accused Robert Callahan, the American ambassador to Nicaragua, of conspiring with the separatist movement in cold war-era fashion. Mr. Callahan, who worked in the American Embassy in Honduras when it was the command center for the Reagan administration’s contra campaign, denies involvement.

“The question regarding any contentious issues that may exist between parts of the Miskito community and the government of Nicaragua is a matter for the Nicaraguans, and one that they themselves must resolve,” he said in a statement.

Two major drilling concessions have been granted off Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, but officials involved in those efforts said that the separatist movement might scare away future investors. “It’s going to send the signal that you can’t do business in Nicaragua,” said Stan Ross, chief executive at Infinity Energy, a Denver-based company.

Concerned about provoking further instability, regional authorities had refrained from forcibly removing the independence leaders from the party offices. Puerto Cabezas has twice been racked by violent protests in recent years: in 2007, when residents complained that the government was not helping them enough to recover from the hurricane, and in 2008, when Mr. Ortega’s government postponed mayoral elections.

“We’re not going to fight between Miskito and Miskito,” Reynaldo Francis, the regional governor, said before this weekend’s action. “It’s not that we’re afraid of that movement.”
Mr. Williams, the separatist leader, who has enlisted the support of hundreds of Miskito lobster divers who are protesting a drop in pay as lobster prices plunge, said he had to discourage the divers this weekend from attacking the party offices.

The only weapons visible during a recent visit — before the weekend eviction — were slingshots, although the separatists said they were seeking financing to train and equip an army of 1,500.
“We’ll defend our natural resources,” vowed Guillermo Espinoza, the movement’s defense minister, who was known as Comandante Black Cat during the contra war. If no guns can be found, he said, the separatists will make weapons themselves.

Blake Schmidt reported from Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, and Marc Lacey from Mexico City.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/world/americas/10nicaragua.html?_r=2&ref=world

Conocimiento de uno mismo!

2009-06-02T20:59:00.004-05:00

It is the gift that all of humanity deserves to be presented with. To know the self. To be imparted with the awareness to constantly explore one’s ideas in the most empowering manner. To delve into one’s nature truthfully and share in a way that betters all. To have the greatest weaponry available to identify and protect oneself from any enemy’s oppressive measures. This is done supremely with knowing oneself.

Knowledge of self, where we know we are the creators of our entire universe and subsequent reality, we are not the first. In the history of the world, many of our ancestral cultures and civilizations shared the idea of man as God and the infeasibility of a mysterious and/or unknown God. However, The Nation of God and Earth truly adds on a unique perspective in many enlightening ways.

Firstly, all of these great, poor, righteous teachers did not look for the right student to expose themselves and their ideas; rather, they presented themselves as God or Earth and allowed potential students from any and all walks of life to inquire. This is a departure from the nomadic Sufis imparting insight and safely vacating to see another day or the Taoist masters who lived as mountain men away from society. The Gods and Earths have openly shared their understanding regardless of the consequences. The consequences have been great from the contradictions and hypocrisies of not living it out, being ostracized from one’s family and community to the direct oppression and harassment of the oppressive governments and power structure to even fatal demise. Still, the Gods and Earths continued to teach.

Secondly, the foundation of the teachings, the supreme mathematics made such a complex subject, man’s reality as creator, into a detailed law and order of the universe and description of the Original people with a simple word(s) for each numeral. With this innovation of the science of everything in life so simply defined and ready for application by anyone, these teachings are vital to any age group. It also elevates the insightful teachings of the Nation of Islam, extracted and refined as our 120 lessons, into a mathematical system of study and development.

Thirdly, we are the truth we seek in each and every problem or inquiry of life. A knowledge of self becomes the most empowering tool known because it is an actualizing of statements proven true. The Original man is God/I am the Earth. I am this and I prove it true. What then is within me that enables me to survive and thrive with and for all? Knowing oneself the answer presents itself.

Nothing could be more empowering, beautiful and engrossing as the Knowledge of Self.

Peace, Sunez Allah, Co-Editor

Knowledge of Self: A Collection of Writings on the Science of Everything in Life presents the thoughts of Five Percenters, both young and old, male and female, Black and white, in their own words. Through essays, poems, and even how-to articles, this anthology presents readers with an accurate portrait of what the Five Percent study, teach and live daily. With a foreword by Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian, contributions from Cappadonna and Popa Wu of Wu-tang Clan, early founders of the Nation and Gods and Earths from the United States to England.Featured Writings and Topics Include:

• Love, Hell or Right: The many incredible life stories of Gods and Earths getting a Knowledge of themselves. • Who are the Original People?: Who is Black and Who is Not?; Somos Originales, why the Latino is also a Supreme Being?; Who are the Blacks In China? What is a mystery God? Why don’t we believe in a mystery God?

• The Mind is the Master Key: What is the Mind, its power and how do we augment it supremely? What are the oppressive conditions we are living, how do we identify them and use our mind to change our reality?

• The Martial Law of the Martial Arts: What is the relationship of the Martial Arts and its philosophies and the Gods and Earths?

• The Pedagogy of the Five Percent: What are the teaching styles of the Gods and Earths. How do we educate our youth and save the babies? What is the civilization class? An analysis of the P.E.A.C.E. Course, one of the many courses offered at Allah School in Mecca, the first school of the Nation.

• Life after Life?: What happens when we die? What is the mental death vs. the physical death? The Gods and Earths’ ideas on the afterlife and death are offered in detail.

To preorder the book go to http://www.lavoerevolt.blogspot.com/, http://www.originalcreations.blogspot.com/, or www.myspace.com/knowledgeofselfbook

(Features some writing from yours truly...Please support!)

Who is Indigenous/Original? Simon says....

2009-05-13T15:23:00.006-05:00

Peace! On this day of knowledge and understanding, I wanted to give a hat-tip to Angry Indian (www.angryindian.blogspot.com) for this article. It shows the continuing deterioration of our people's mindset and perspectives due to colonization. It shows how important our monetary relationship with the United states is and in all actuality reveals how much we are 'not' as sovereign as many of us claim to be, because we continue to divide amongst our own just to meet standards by the government. Of course, this "standard" being the ever popular and controversial 'blood quantum' ideology, introduced, undeniably by the oppressors in their quest to pull the rug (land) out from under our feet. It peeves me at times, however, I stand firm in my own understanding of my self and others like me whom are not officially 'enrolled' nor look for or need anyone else's 'thumbs up' approval of our identity. I recognize no 'master' over my self, other than self, and therefore do no give into 'tap dancin'' around for any 'massa' to look upon me favorablely. I am who I am. And for all my Original brothers and sisters still clingin' on to the book that was used to enslave us, I AM THAT I AM. What's even more interesting about this article is how it brings up the refusal to accept other tribal nations by other nations. You very well could be "mixed blood" with many different tribal nations but not be considered "Indigenous" by one, whom you share ancestry with. As well as the continued ignorance by some Northern tribes of the history and lineage of their Caribbean, Central and South American brothers and sisters, as being 'indigenous' men and women. I guess they feel we would be cuttin' in on their welfare checks (government funds). It's so unfortunate, as well as a testament to the necessity for a Pan-Indigenous movement.

From NPR....

As Requirements Change, Just Who Is An Indian?
by Brian Bull

Many Native American communities are struggling with a basic question: just who is an Indian? As tribal numbers dwindle, many are reexamining how they define what it means to be a member. But lowering the blood requirement for membership has both political and economic impacts for many groups.

At a ranch house in Wisconsin Rapids, about 100 miles from Madison, five generations of a Native American family gathered under one roof. Florence Camacho, an 89-year-old Potawatomi elder, helps her grandson Dontae make a traditional piece of neckwear. They've scattered red, yellow and brass beads all over the kitchen table.

"After you're done beading it, you have to tie knots right there," Dontae says. "Then my grandmother's going to have to leather it, right there."

Nearby, Camacho's other grandchild, Mareenah Poulin, cradles her son, Leeam, who is just two weeks old.

Leeam's soft brown eyes open for a moment, then he's back to sleep as Poulin's mom, Amber Malone, looks on. She wants Leeam to learn all about her tribe, the Prairie Band of Potawatomi. Only technically he's not actually a member. Most tribes, including the Potawatomi, require at least one-quarter tribal blood to become official — complete with enrollment card and number. Malone says she's worried how enrolled members will treat her grandson — who doesn't have that one-quarter tribal blood — as he grows up.

"I know of people that have asked for proof," Malone says. "If you don't have proof, then you're not an Indian. In the native culture, some people treat them as substandard individuals. As wannabes."

Malone says there's talk among the Potawatomi of lowering the requirement to one-eighth. That — in a stroke of a pen — could double the tribe's membership, but there's a lot at stake here. Enrolled members enjoy tribal benefits, including health care and education, and there are science and art programs, too. Malone would love that for her own family.

"Anything that's going to better enrich their lives — whereas you have children that are nontribally enrolled, you're kind of stonewalled as far as trying to get them the help and the tools to help better culture their minds," she says.

In recent years, some tribes have gone the other way. They've actually reduced membership. While leaders say it's a matter of legitimacy, critics say it's all about money — namely per capita payments based on casino revenues.

"And to be quite honest with you, I think with a lot of tribes it all comes down to the money issue," Malone says. "They lower the blood quantum, there's a lot more people that are going to be able to come onto the rolls. And that per capita is going to be cut right in half."

Across the room, Malone's dad, Fred Camacho, is watching a ballgame on TV. He says many tribes are considering lowering their blood quantum and that it's inevitable.

"Understanding that if you maintain a quarter-blood quantum, at some point the tribe will disappear," he says. "Unless, and I have seen the argument, you marry another one of your tribe."

The Struggle For Identity

That issue, marriage, is a contentious one among Native Americans. In Madison, Melissa Lompre tells a story: She was looking for a new church and recalls enjoying the services at a local Native American church, until "a man got up, and he made a comment: 'Our Native American brothers and sisters, here, they're not married to or with other Native American people.' I was going to stand up and say, 'Well, I'm here as a Native American person praying with all of you, what does it matter who I'm living with, who I'm married to?' and I just didn't go back to that service anymore."

Lompre's part Menominee, Ojibwe and Delaware, but two of her kids are half Puerto Rican, from their father's side.

"They're less than 25 percent Menominee," Lompre says.

The struggle for identity among Native Americans isn't just about outsiders; Lompre says other natives have looked down on her for not growing up on the reservation.

"I wish there was a magical mutt nation that you could put people in that could have that identity given to them, but there's not," she says.

Even if someone is enrolled and lives on a reservation, that's still no guarantee they'll be considered Indian, as Denise Hobson-Ryan knows — she's half Navajo and half Irish.

In a dry, scrubby park in Phoenix, Ryan swings then hurls a round metal weight across a field. It's all practice for an upcoming Highland Games tournament. As her dad measures the distance, Ryan recalls how other kids on the reservation where she grew up teased her for her lighter complexion.

"Well, they would say 'billagona billasaana' because it rhymed really nice, and billagona means white person, and billasaana means apple," Hobson-Ryan says. "So it was, 'billagona billasaana' I heard that all my life growing up. But I lived with my Indian grandma for awhile when I was little. And she'd tell me some things in Navajo to say back to them. So I would say some pretty mean things back. Probably not something you can say on the radio!"

Hobson-Ryan later went to Dartmouth College where she says the upper-class Indian students routinely questioned her identity.

"I mean, I'd never been to a powwow, I had really nothing to add to the conversation," she says. "I think that was sort of where they drew their traditional ideas was, 'Well, you don't do powwows, then you're not an Indian'."

Vying For Status

In central Wisconsin recently, the Brothertown Indians held a powwow of sorts. The only problem? According to the federal government, they're not technically Indians. Dressed in their finest beaded and feathered regalia, attendees look and sound like other natives. But the Brothertown aren't federally recognized, which limits them in many ways, like their land.

"The parcel of land that we're standing on here is about a three-fourths acre piece of land that was purchased by the tribe a number of years back, in the process of the federal acknowledgment effort," says tribal member Darren Kroenke, as he walks across tribal property in snow and freezing rain.

The Brothertown are among 300-some Indian tribes seeking federal recognition. A storage garage is the only building. Kroenke says tribal members are anxious for a place at the table, with Wisconsin's 11 federally recognized tribes.

"The issue that I raise is that federal acknowledgment is used as a qualifier," Kroenke says. "But it shouldn't have anything to do with that, it shouldn't prejudice or substantiate history or culture."

Kroenke says it's just a fact that the Brothertown Tribe has a long history in Wisconsin. But after decades, they're still waiting for the government to make them official.

Original source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103938042

Pachamama: "Musica de Raices"

2009-05-03T08:17:00.003-05:00

"Musica del barrio que mueve el barrio"

www.reverbnation.com/pachamamaestela

The Great Law of Peace and the Origin of Democracy

2009-04-13T16:25:00.003-05:00

Let it be known and understood that democracy did not come from the colonizers. We were the bearers of democracy and it was from the Original people, and specifically the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). While many may debate such, the truth lies in the annals of American history, as I reveal on the streets of Philadelphia, one time nation capitol and home to "Indian-phile" Benjamin Franklin.

For more history about the Great Law of Peace, please visit the blog of my brother Divine King Allah (Haudenosaunee)- http://www.dkallah.blogspot.com

Colombia's Forgotten Black President

2009-04-08T14:42:00.009-05:00

(Left-photo of Jose Nieto Gil, Right- his 'whitened' portrait)

From The Observers-

"At the end of the 19th century, Jose Nieto Gil was president of Colombia. And yet, you won't find him in a single history book. Why? Presumably because he was black.

While Americans are proud to let the world know they've elected their first black president, the Colombians kept theirs hidden for over a century.

Colombian historian Orlando Fals Borda discovered a portrait of Jose Nieto Gil when digging in a palace loft in Cartagena more than 30 years ago. Fals Borda then spent his entire life trying to do justice to the forgotten politician. But it wasn't until the death of the historian last August that the Colombian media discovered the first African American to reach such an exceptional post.

"This story only proves that racist prejudices are deeply rooted in the Colombian elite"

Anne Losonczy is an anthropologist and director of Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, a graduate school in Paris. A specialist on Colombia, she's particularly interested in the deprived areas of Chocó and the Caribbean coast, where Jose Nieto Gil came from.

Nieto Gil was erased from the history books because he was "mulatto" but also because he came from the Caribbean coast, which is largely populated by people of African descent and has always been considered marginal by the central power in Bogota.

Nieto Gil was a liberal republican. He was a deputy during what is called the "Grenadine Confederation" era and later became a state governor of Bolivia. In 1861, along with several liberal allies, he overthrew the conservative government in power and proclaimed himself president.

His accession was somewhat of an accident. One of his white friends was supposed to become president, but he didn't get to the inauguration in time, so Nieto Gil took his place. He stayed in the post for six months.

His portrait was painted just before he became president. It was immediately sent to France, where it was whitened and altered to make Nieto Gil more "worthy" for the elite of Cartagena, who were racially very closed. The painting was then "re-darkened" in 1974, when Fals Borda found it. But it was only recently that it was displayed in Cartagena's museum.

Nieto Gil is still absent from the official time line, while other presidents who stayed in power for less time than he are regularly mentioned. This story only proves that racist prejudices are deeply rooted in the Colombian elite."

"There’s no way Colombia would elect a black president today"

Juan Carlos Jaramillo is a former Colombian diplomat. He currently works as a political consultant in Bogota.

People were already very racist in Nieto Gil's time. White people didn't even go to the beach in fear of getting a bit tanned, and these prejudices are still very present today.

Indigenous people are also victims of racism, but they're more organised when it comes to demanding rights. They've set up their own pressure groups to weigh in on the democratic assemblies.

Black people, however, even today are literally excluded from politics. They 'ghettoed' to the Choco region. And even there, where they make up 95% of the population, resources, like goldmines for example, are owned by the white minority. The people there are extremely poor, and literacy levels are low.

That might explain why chunks of history, either inaccurate or entirely forgotten, haven't been retrieved by the Afro-Caribbean population.

Power is very centralised in Colombia. It's the white people in Bogota who decide on the country's history. If you look at the police and top civil servants, you don't find the ethnic diversity that Colombia's made up of. There's no way Colombia would elect a black president today.

Honestly this story has interested intellectuals more than the general population. Most people are still none the wiser when it comes to the existence of this man."

Original Source: http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20090324-black-president-colombia-forgot-racism-jose-nieto-gil

Special 'hat-tip' to 'Angry Indian' for this post.

Native Youth Movement

2009-04-06T11:49:00.002-05:00

Piensa!

2009-03-29T09:12:00.003-05:00

Peace to my brother Nasim Allah (Cubanakan Taino)for this video. First and foremost it is quite humorous and raises some interesting questions.

And let us remember, when dealing with the idea of 'immigration' we are ultimately discussing the movement of a people across colonially imposed boundaries.

Piensa!

"Tribu De Shabazz"

2009-03-25T20:52:00.004-05:00

Peace! Paz!

I wanted to send love and support to Rasheed Allah and the Gods down in Mexico City. As we in the North watch and hear about whats taking place in Aztlan/Mexico through the government corruption, poverty and drug-violence- those brothers are walking the streets with it. This is no easy path and I want to commend those brothers for elevating themselves and seeking to be the “founders” (21st degree, 1-40) of a Nation cipher in Master Equality Known (MEX).The Earth belongs to the Original man, every square inch, so it is beautiful to see the Original man reclaiming what is his. And for those who may not be that conscious of so-called Latino culture and life, doing so is a struggle as it is anywhere else- but especially in the face of such concentrated control and influence of the Church, and the predominance of European cultural elements like 'swine'. Our people take more pride in 'pork' than our brothers and sisters in the southern U.S. states, not to mention that they don’t see themselves as one with them.We have been locked into a prison of behaviorism that continues to errode our very being and we have been bound by traditions that were imposed upon us. So it is a tremendous initiative to undertake, taking a stance in opposition of the identify we have been conditioned with. We may underestimate the pedagogy and strategy needed to reach our people outside of the U.S. For those that have, you understand the difficulties not present here in the United States.

Support your Nation! Support independent Hip-Hop!

The Gods in Mexico City are releasing a new mixtape this month, featuring various emcees from Mexico. The mixtape is entitled “Tribu De Shabazz” (“Tribe of Shabazz“) and features some music from yours truly- Sha-King Allah. It is available, along with t-shirts, at: myspace.com/supremese7en

Paz a los Dioses!

Hatuey, Vodou and the Haitian Revolution

2009-02-04T10:22:00.007-05:00

Peace! Paz! Tau!

Today's mathematics is 'culture'. La matematica de hoy es "cultura".

As I reflect upon 'culture' I think about it in regards to the culture and cultures of Original people. Culture is the medium through which a people's knowledge and wisdom continue through space and time. It has been our culture that has served as the drive behind our struggle against colonialism, racism and the continuance of our people into this day and time. As Amilcar Cabral states in his work "National Liberation and Culture"- "Whatever may be the ideological or idealistic characteristics of cultural expression, culture is an essential element of the history of a people."

It is the elements of culture that serve as the catapult for freedom. For within the Nation of Gods and Earths we understand that we can never expel the devilishment and influence of the oppressor and have freedom in our cipher unless we bring culture into the cipher and continue to add on to that culture with the world we are looking to bring about. Your culture will empower you and will foster the drive and ability to change and control our destinies. As our people understood, it was and never will be our destiny to be subserviant to external forces. As Cabral further states," The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination, lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated. Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies."

We have many examples of resistance in our culture. The culture given to us by Allah is in this same vein of resistance because we have and continue to resist the reality that's dictated to us by authority. We resist by taking our lives out of the systems hands and into our own. By not being products of our environment but producers of environment and by redirecting the power of words by redefining them. Indigenous cultures in general provide many examples and inspiration of the resistance that flows through our cellular memory. It is who we are.

Below is an article written by a Taino Elder and my brother, Ni Bon Te Ban. The title is pretty self-explanatory, as it examines the culture of the Taino as it persists in the Haitian people and the power to reclaim the sovereignty over themselves via the Haitian Revolution. For my brothers and sisters within the Nation of Gods and Earths whom may be a little abject to the concept of 'spirit'- you must understand the culture of Native peoples. Indigenous people of the Americas have a lot of natural symbolism in our cultures. Before 1492, we had no concept of religion, spirituality or even 'science'. The aspects of these disciplines were apart and totally inseparable from our way of life. So spirit is not used in the same manner as Western religion. "Spirit" in my understanding, refers to the intelligence and life that animates all living things. "Spirit" can also be used synomously with a energy or 'power' in many Native cultures. To be mindful of this is to be effective in communicating with Indigenous people, without them tuning you out because of your opposition to the terminology many of us use. Learn more about Native culture so you can understand how Indigenous people percieve the world and what parallels with the principles we espose rather than trying to understand their culture on face value, like the Europeans, and overlooking the knowledge, wisdom and understanding to be gained.

With that said, I invite you to 'do the knowledge' to the follwing article and take the best part for yourself. It is a wonderful article and full of information and insight.

Hatuey, Vodou and the Haitian Revolution

The Spirit of Hatuey has continued to make his presence known not only within his homeland of Haiti but across the Caribbean. We call him the Father of the Resurgence or more precisely the Father of the Resistance!

Hatuey was a great Casike, whose name means “Certainty of the Sun”. He had been engaging guerilla warfare in Cuba against the invading Spanish and warning the Taino people of Cuba about the evil nature of the Christian invaders. He warned his people of the cruel and wicked nature of these Christians telling of their loyalty and love for THEIR god, Gold and Jewels (money), making a clear distinction between the object of the Christian’s worship and the Taino understanding of their own “Deities”.

The Christians captured Hatuey (possibly it is said through a betrayal from one of his own), tied him to a stake and prepared to burn him alive. A monk attempted to convert Hatuey to Christianity, and told him that if he believed in Christianity he (Hatuey) would go to “heaven” where there would be glory and eternal rest or if he did not believe in Christianity he (Hatuey) would go to hell, where he would suffer torments and punishment. Hatuey was silent for a short time, then he asked the monk if the Christians went to heaven, and the monk said that the good Christians went to heaven. Hatuey immediately answered that he did not want to go to heaven, but would rather go to hell so as to not be in the same place as the cruel Christians. Hatuey was subsequently burnt at the stake and it is said that his Soul flew immediately to the Sun.

Hatuey refused to submit to entrapment by the Christians, he maintained the integrity of his Soul and Spirit by refusing at a moment of intense torture to compromise with the Christian god whom he knew to be evil based on the actions of this god’s followers. Remember Hatuey had been witness to mass murder, genocide, rape, murder of unborn children and the total desecration of the sacredness of his Yukayekes by these Christians who said that they came in the name of God and Christ. He understood the true deity that these people were worshiping and refused any deals with this evil entity (the beast).

After Hatuey’s death, the war between the Taino and the Spaniards continued. When the Spaniards began to import Africans in the chains of slavery they began with Black Muslims from Spain itself. These Muslims immediately rebelled escaping to the mountains and hills joining with the Taino and forming the first Maroon People. After this the Spainards became afraid to import more Muslims and began bringing Africans directly from Africa, most of whom were following various African Spiritual Traditions, these people also rebelled, many finding their ways to Maroon communities and also developing the tradition of Vodou within the communities and in secret upon the plantations.

As the French gained control of Haiti they launched a massive exploitation of the Land itself and the people of the land, Haiti is still recovering from this exploitation, as well as more modern exploitations of the elite.

Within the tradition of Vodou the Rada Cult is Dahomeyan in nature, more peaceful and sedate due to the influence from the nations of Africa which had solid social structures, cities, centralized authority and stable, peaceful (for the most part) kingdoms. However, the more violent and explosive Petro Cult is born from the synthesis of the tradition of the Taino-Arawak people and the traditions of the Congo and other African peoples. It was the Petro cult that was more rebellious and gave rise directly to the Haitian Revolution that put Fear in the heart of every slave-owner across the planet!

Maya Derens a woman who in her researches into Haitian Vodou becomes an initiate and directly experienced the tradition, writes in her book “Divine Horsemen, the living gods of Haiti” concerning the Petro Cult:

“It led me, further, to sense, for instance, that the Petro dance and drumming were not merely another ritual- not merely a more violent canvas by the same painter- but that they were of a different character- a canvas by another painter altogether. This distinction arrested my attention and I began to observe the difference in major forms, which eventually led me to look for the possible interpolation of another culture, to investigate the history of the Spanish and Indian period of the islands, and finally, to the determination of the Indian influence as elaborated in the Appendix to this book. What emerges from this research is the fact that the African culture in Haiti was saved by the Indian culture which, in the Petro cult, provided the Negroes with divinities sufficiently aggressive (as was not true of the divinities of the generally stabilized African Kingdoms) to be the moral force behind the revolution. In a sense the Indians took their revenge on the white man through the Negro.”

The photo above shows Negre Marron a statue of the African who broke free from Slavery, armed with a Machete, and calling forth rebellion and revolution with a Conch shell (not only a musical instrument but an important Spiritual instrument and Symbol to the Taino).

We can continue to trace the footsteps of the Spirit of Hatuey as he makes his way through history, inciting rebellion and revolution, calling forth for the abandonment of Christianity and the building of independence from colonial powers.

Francis Macandal (a Guinea born man) was a slave on the Lenormand plantation, through an accident he lost his arm in a sugar press, and some time subsequently he escaped and became a Maroon. In 1757 he organized a conspiracy to poison all the whites across St.Dominique (the colonial name for Haiti at that time). Some 6,000 deaths were attributed to him (perhaps exaggerated) before he was captured in 1758 through a betrayal from within (by one of his own). Francis Macandal was a muslim Marabout, meaning he was a medicine man in his own right, he could predict the future and have revelations and had skill at making amulets. He was called the Old man from the Mountains.

When Francis Macandal was captured he was tied to the pole and prepared to be burned January 20th, 1758. However the pole snapped tossing him out of the flames of the fire. This was seen as a sign of immortality by the onlookers. He told the onlookers at his death as he was dying that he was going to turn into a fly and fly away. Eventually the colonists tied him to a plank and threw him into the fire.

In Macandal’s story we can see the trail of Hatuey in the whole incident with the fire, the statement of flying away and the fact that Macandal was a muslim, in opposition to Christianity and that he had the skills of a Bohitu (Marabout in his culture). We see the threads of FIRE, FLIGHT, IMMORTALITY, understanding of the nature of Christianity and the skills of the BOHITU.

Now we come to perhaps the most critical turning point for Haiti, the Vodou ceremony conducted by the Houngan Boukmann at the very same Lenormand plantation, which is historically agreed upon as the moment that began the Haitian Revolution.Boukmann Dutty was a field slave imported from Jamaica. He was conducting a Vodou ceremony on August 14, 1971. During the ceremony “a great storm arose, and there appeared a Negress whose body was trembling violently and who danced a wild dance holding a large knife over her head. As a climax of the dance she sacrificed a black pig. All the participants drank of the blood of the pig, and swore to follow Boukman. A week later the revolution was in swing…. The description of the ceremony makes it clear that it was a Petro ceremony since those are distinguished by pig sacrifices. It is possible that the woman was Marinette, or was possessed by Marinette, the major and violent female of the Petro Nation.” (Quote from Maya Derens book “Divine Horsemen”).

Remember that the Taino had a very intimate relationship with the “Deities” powers and forces of the storm, and a very powerful feminine deity, Guabancex, connected with snakes, the storm and embodying all feminine attributes.

Boukmann stated in Kreyole during the ceremony:“The god who created the Sun which gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules the storm, though hidden in the clouds, he watches us. He sees all that the white man does. The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms and aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all.”

The symbol that Boukmann was referring to was the crosses that slaves would wear around their necks. Here we can hear Hatuey’s voice echoing in Boukmann’s words; The reference to Sun, and the clear distinction between the Deity and Divine Concepts of the African, African-Taino, and the white man. Both men, hundreds of years apart in time were speaking of the same thing, both knowing the manipulation and evil inherent within the Christianity of the colonizers. We also see that the Spirit itself (a female deity of the Petro Cult) performed the sacrifice herself, making it clear that the impulse that brought about the Haitian Revolution came directly from the Spirit itself! And not only the Spirit itself but the Taino Spirit who found an ally and Guaitiou in the African Spirit and together they became the Spirits of retribution that not only eradicated slavery from Haiti but opened the door for the abolishing of slavery over the entire continent and the development of a movement of solidarity across the Caribbean and South, Central America.

A week after this on August 22, 1791 100,000 field hands revolted burning plantations and killing the owners and overseers. Led by the houngans and mambos (female vodou priestess) the field hands were armed by nothing more than machetes and other tools and began what was ultimately a very successful revolution. Boukmann was killed a few months later and his head was placed on a pole in a square in order to intimidate the population. However his spirit, joined with Hatuey continued the struggle.

This revolution lasted until its successful outcome in 1804. A towering figure within the revolution was an African man called Louverture Toussaint Breda. He was the descendent of Arada kings, his father Gaou Guinou through power struggles in Africa was enslaved and shipped to the Caribbean. His father’s name “Gaou Guinou” means minister of war who is always on the battle field, for his father was also a powerful warrior. Toussaint was born on all souls day (November 1) in the Caribbean, and grew up to be a skilled medical practitioner, herbalist, horse rider and African healer. His Vodou name was “Fatara Bato” meaning “he who leads well the ceremonies”, clearly indicating that he was a houngan of some skill. Toussaint became the leading African general inside of the revolution and developed a plan to destroy the slave trade at its roots in Africa and abolish slavery world wide. Through trickery he was captured by the French and died in a French prison in April 1803 but not before he told his captors:

“In overthrowing me, you have cut down in Haiti only the tree of Liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep.”

Not long after this the Haitian revolutionaries completely defeated Napoleon’s army, sending only 4,000 out of an initial 30,000 men running back to France. Napoleon had planned to wipe out all the African Haitian men, women and children over the age of 12 and restock with new slaves imported from Africa, because he knew that the revolutionary Spirit was so powerful in Haiti. Along with the remaining 4,000 French soldiers, 4,000 remaining French colonials also evacuated in a hurry to Jamaica. Dessalines the Haitian leader at this point returned the Indigenous Taino name of HAITI to the country, acknowledging (consciously or unconsciously) the Taino roots of the Revolution! Haiti is the FIRST BLACK INDEPENDENT NATION post-colonialism in the world.

The Haitian revolution spread Terror throughout slaveholders across the Americas. The country itself continues to war against the powers of colonialism which continue to attack it on every level. It is also very important to note that Simon Bolivar came to Haiti to seek financial support for his Bolivarian revolution of independence for Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru at a point when Bolivar himself was very low on resources. The then leader of Haiti, Alexandre Petion gave Bolivar weapons, ammunition, money and Haitian volunteers for his fight for liberty for Venezuela and asked only in return for the abolition of slavery in all countries that Bolivar would liberate.

The Spirit of Hatuey and his refusal to bow to the god of the Christian conquistadors has rippled through this whole continent continually throughout the last 500 years. We can see that at the root of this story is a profound understanding and knowledge of Spirituality and Medicine! We continue to honor the Spirit of Hatuey and his Spirit of Resistance and we continue to look for his trail among the events, wars, battles that have occurred since his time right up to the present.

May the power and blessing of Hatuey continue to expand, influence and speak within our Present! And may we continue to recognize the Spirit of Hatuey in our Brothers and Sisters wherever we may find it! And may the blessings and power of the Cemis, Ancestors, Nkisi, Mpungo continue to be manifest in our lives! Blessings and gratitude for all that they have brought about!

Suggested Reading: Maya Derens “Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti”

The Internal Struggle for Outward Acceptance

2009-02-03T15:04:00.010-05:00

Peace! Tau!

As we move forward we continue to struggle against the condition and brainwashing that has been perpetrated against us in the name of colonialism. As we struggle for freedom, justice and equality, our people still continue the struggle against the internal chains of bondage that we clapped on our brains throughout this journey for cultural liberation. Our mindstate still bears the scars of the internal slavery we ignore because we have become accustomed to. We still struggle to be excepting in a white man's world (society) despite how much we make others believe otherwise. In the strategy of 'divide and conquer' the issue of racial and ethnic identity still presents itself as a sufficient tool to keep our people blind to themselves and from uniting with those more like them than not. We can not move forward and extend our hands to the oppressor and his agents, in an effort to mend the sacred hoop of life, if we do not mend it within us first. And embracing our roots, our ancestral trees, especially as Afro-Indigenous people, as a extension of Pan-Indigenous solidarity, is a path in the right direction.

Black Denial: Latins And Their African Heritage

Why do so many Latin people deny their African ancestry which is so obvious ? That is a question that many people wonder about. It’s pretty much a no-brainer and very sad. Black people are the most hated people on this earth because of the images that have been associated with being black over the years. People come to this country from many different nations day in and day out and they all have one thing in common, a feeling of dislike towards and superiority over blacks. An insider who worked for the Census bureau in Florida during the last one conducted several years ago found that not one out of hundreds of thousands of Cuban Americans the insider and his staff handled checked black as their race. The Census asks you specifically what your ethinicity is and hispanics have a second choice of being white or black. Did any of you guys see the Cuban Olympic team ??? I guess all of those players were white right ??? The Miami Herald did a very in depth investigation into why latins are so much in denial. This is part one of the article:

Nearly all Dominican women straighten their hair, which experts say is a direct result of a historical learned rejection of all things black

By Frances Roblesfrobles@miamiherald.com

SANTO DOMINGO — Yara Matos sat still while long, shiny locks from China were fastened, bit by bit, to her coarse hair.

Not that Matos has anything against her natural curls, even though Dominicans call that pelo malo — bad hair.

But a professional Dominican woman just should not have bad hair, she said. “If you’re working in a bank, you don’t want some barrio-looking hair. Straight hair looks elegant,” the bank teller said. “It’s not that as a person of color I want to look white. I want to look pretty.”
And to many in the Dominican Republic, to look pretty is to look less black.

Dominican hairdressers are internationally known for the best hair-straightening techniques. Store shelves are lined with rows of skin whiteners, hair relaxers and extensions.

Racial identification here is thorny and complex, defined not so much by skin color but by the texture of your hair, the width of your nose and even the depth of your pocket. The richer, the “whiter.” And, experts say, it is fueled by a rejection of anything black.

“I always associated black with ugly. I was too dark and didn’t have nice hair,” said Catherine de la Rosa, a dark-skinned Dominican-American college student spending a semester here. “With time passing, I see I’m not black. I’m Latina.

“At home in New York everyone speaks of color of skin. Here, it’s not about skin color. It’s culture.”

The only country in the Americas to be freed from black colonial rule — neighboring Haiti — the Dominican Republic still shows signs of racial wounds more than 200 years later. Presidents historically encouraged Dominicans to embrace Spanish Catholic roots rather than African ancestry.

Here, as in much of Latin America — the “one drop rule” works in reverse: One drop of white blood allows even very dark-skinned people to be considered white.

LACK OF INTEREST

As black intellectuals here try to muster a movement to embrace the nation’s African roots, they acknowledge that it has been a mostly fruitless cause. Black pride organizations such as Black Woman’s Identity fizzled for lack of widespread interest. There was outcry in the media when the Brotherhood of the Congos of the Holy Spirit — a community with roots in Africa — was declared an oral patrimony of humanity by UNESCO. “There are many times that I think of just leaving this country because it’s too hard,” said Juan Rodríguez Acosta, curator of the Museum of the Dominican Man. Acosta, who is black, has pushed for the museum to include controversial exhibits that reflect many Dominicans’ African background. “But then I think: Well if I don’t stay here to change things, how will things ever change?”

A walk down city streets shows a country where blacks and dark-skinned people vastly outnumber whites, and most estimates say that 90 percent of Dominicans are black or of mixed race. Yet census figures say only 11 percent of the country’s nine million people are black.
To many Dominicans, to be black is to be Haitian. So dark-skinned Dominicans tend to describe themselves as any of the dozen or so racial categories that date back hundreds of years — Indian, burned Indian, dirty Indian, washed Indian, dark Indian, cinnamon, moreno or mulatto, but rarely negro.

The Dominican Republic is not the only nation with so many words to describe skin color. Asked in a 1976 census survey to describe their own complexions, Brazilians came up with 136 different terms, including café au lait, sunburned, morena, Malaysian woman, singed and “toasted.”
“The Cuban black was told he was black. The Dominican black was told he was Indian,” said Dominican historian Celsa Albert, who is black. “I am not Indian. That color does not exist. People used to tell me, ‘You are not black.’ If I am not black, then I guess there are no blacks anywhere, because I have curly hair and dark skin.”

THE HISTORY

Using the word Indian to describe dark-skinned people is an attempt to distance Dominicans from any African roots, Albert and other experts said. She noted that it’s not even historically accurate: The country’s Taino Indians were virtually annihilated in the 1500s, shortly after Spanish colonizers arrived.

Researchers say the de-emphasizing of race in the Dominican Republic dates to the 1700s, when the sugar plantation economy collapsed and many slaves were freed and rose up in society.
Later came the rocky history with Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Haiti’s slaves revolted against the French and in 1804 established their own nation. In 1822, Haitians took over the entire island, ruling the predominantly Hispanic Dominican Republic for 22 years.

To this day, the Dominican Republic celebrates its independence not from centuries-long colonizer Spain, but from Haiti.

“The problem is Haitians developed a policy of black-centrism and . . . Dominicans don’t respond to that,” said scholar Manuel Núñez, who is black. “Dominican is not a color of skin, like the Haitian.”

Dictator Rafael Trujillo, who ruled from 1930 to 1961, strongly promoted anti-Haitian sentiments, and is blamed for creating the many racial categories that avoided the use of the word “black.”

The practice continued under President Joaquín Balaguer, who often complained that Haitians were “darkening” the country. In the 1990s, he was blamed for thwarting the presidential aspirations of leading black candidate José Francisco Peña Gómez by spreading rumors that he was actually Haitian.

“Under Trujillo, being black was the worst thing you could be,” said Afro-Dominican poet Blas Jiménez. “Now we are Dominican, because we are not Haitian. We are something, because we are not that.”

Jiménez remembers when he got his first passport, the clerk labeled him “Indian.” He protested to the director of the agency.

“I remember the man saying, ‘If he wants to be black, let him be black!’ ” Jiménez said.
Resentment toward anything Haitian continues, as an estimated one million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, most working in the sugar and construction industries. Mass deportations often mistakenly include black Dominicans, and Haitians have been periodically lynched in mob violence. The government has been trying to deny citizenship and public education to the Dominican-born children of illegal Haitian migrants.

When migrant-rights activist Sonia Pierre won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2006, the government responded by trying to revoke her citizenship, saying she is actually Haitian.

“There’s tremendous resistance to blackness — black is something bad,” said black feminist Sergia Galván. ‘‘Black is associated with dark, illegal, ugly, clandestine things. There is a prototype of beauty here and a lot of social pressure. There are schools where braids and natural hair are prohibited.”

Galván and a loosely knit group of women have protested European canons of beauty, once going so far as to rally outside a beauty pageant. She and other experts say it is now more common to see darker-skinned women in the contests — but they never win.

CULTURE PULL

Several women said the cultural rejection of African looking hair is so strong that people often shout insults at women with natural curls.

“I cannot take the bus because people pull my hair and stick combs in it,” said wavy haired performance artist Xiomara Fortuna. “They ask me if I just got out of prison. People just don’t want that image to be seen.”

The hours spent on hair extensions and painful chemical straightening treatments are actually an expression of nationalism, said Ginetta Candelario, who studies the complexities of Dominican race and beauty at Smith College in Massachusetts. And to some of the women who relax their hair, it’s simply a way to have soft manageable hair in the Dominican Republic’s stifling humidity.

“It’s not self-hate,” Candelario said. “Going through that is to love yourself a lot. That’s someone saying, ‘I am going to take care of me.’ It’s nationalist, it’s affirmative and celebrating self.”
Money, education, class — and of course straight hair — can make dark-skinned Dominicans be perceived as more “white,” she said. Many black Dominicans here say they never knew they were black — until they visited the United States.

“During the Trujillo regime, people who were dark skinned were rejected, so they created their own mechanism to fight it,” said Ramona Hernández, Director of the Dominican Studies Institute at City College in New York. “When you ask, ‘What are you?’ they don’t give you the answer you want . . . saying we don’t want to deal with our blackness is simply what you want to hear.”

Hernández, who has olive-toned skin and a long mane of hair she blows out straight, acknowledges she would “never, never, never” go to a university meeting with her natural curls.

“That’s a woman trying to look cute; I’m a sociologist,” she said.

Asked if a black Dominican woman can be considered beautiful in her country, Hernández leapt to her feet.

“You should see how they come in here with their big asses!” she said, shuffling across her office with her arms extended behind her back, simulating an enormous rear-end. “They come in here thinking they are all that, and I think, ‘doesn’t she know she’s not really pretty?’ “

Maria Elena Polanca is a black woman with the striking good looks. She said most Dominicans look at her with curiosity, as if a black woman being beautiful were something strange.

She spends her days promoting a hair straightener at La Sirena, a Santo Domingo department store that features an astonishing array of hair straightening products.

“Look, we have bad hair, bad. Nobody says ‘curly.’ It’s bad,” she said. “You can’t go out like that. People will say, ‘Look at that nest! Someone light a match!’ ”

‘IT WAS HURTFUL’

Purdue University professor Dawn Stinchcomb, who is African American, said that when she came here in 1999 to study African influences in literature, people insulted her in the street.
Waiters refused to serve her. People wouldn’t help Stinchcomb with her research, saying if she wanted to study Africans, she’d have to go to Haiti.

“I had people on the streets . . . yell at me to get out of the sun because I was already black enough,” she said. “It was hurtful. . . . I was raised in the South and thought I could handle any racial comment. I never before experienced anything like I did in the Dominican Republic.

“I don’t have a problem when people who don’t look like me say hurtful things. But when it’s people who look just like me?”

Originally from: http://www.zimbio.com/Erasmo+Lara-Pena/articles/3/Black+Denial+Latins+Their+African+Heritage

African Prescence in the Americas?

2009-02-03T14:43:00.004-05:00

DR. RUNOKO RASHIDI
Presents
AFRICAN PRESENCE IN MEXICO GROUP TOUR

"BEGINNING WITH THE OLMEC"

Escorted by
DR. RUNOKO RASHIDI
May 2 - 16, 2009
Special Feature: The Ivan Van Sertima Symposium
Prices beginning at $2689.00 double occupancy
AFRICAN PRESENCE IN MEXICO TOUR

"BEGINNING WITH THE OLMEC"

It is accurate to say of the Americas that, not only did Columbus come late, but that African people had a profound presence long before the beginning of the trans-Atlantic trade in captured Africans.

The first civilization of ancient America is called the Olmec. It was located along the Mexican Gulf Coast and began almost four thousand years ago. The most significant artistic representations reflecting the presence of Africans in the ancient Americas are to be found among the Olmec. At least seventeen enormous stone heads, weighing from ten to forty tons each, have been revealed in Olmec sites along the Mexican Gulf Coast. Many of them can be viewed today in Mexico's many museums. One of the first European-American scientists to comment on the Olmec heads, archaeologist Mathew Stirling, described their facial features as "amazingly Negroid."

There has also been demonstrated an African presence in ancient Mexico's other great civilizations, particularly among the Maya but also the Aztec and the Totonac. And, of course, we have those African communities in Mexico as the result of enslavement itself.
In early May 2009, I am returning to Mexico to see the Olmec and I want you to come with me. The US dollar is strong in Mexico, you don't need a visa to enter the country, you don't have to take any shots, and the flight from Houston to Mexico City is less than five hours.
We will visit many of Mexico's most important archaeological sites, view a lot of artifacts (particularly the colossal Olmec heads), see some beautiful countryside, meet some friendly people, visit some African named towns, partake in some cultural activities, and do a little shopping.

And to cap off the trip we plan to have a bit of a symposium to discuss the African presence in Mexico from the most remotes times and summarize the highlights of the trip. We will call it the Ivan Van Sertima Symposium.

If this sounds exciting to you, if you always wanted to go to Mexico but did not want to go alone, if you are in search of the African presence in the Americas before slavery, if you like museums and ancient ruins, if you enjoy traveling the world with like-minded people, if you want a unique travel experience, then I request that you block out the time, save your money, and make your plans. I promise you a unique travel experience and a trip that you will absolutely cherish.

Tour Features Include:
Roundtrip Economy Airfare (from Houston)Roundtrip Airport Transfers Accommodation 4-, 5-Star hotels Breakfast & Dinner Daily (Pre-selected)Welcome Dinner / Reception Farewell Dinner / Reception"Meet-the-People" Activity Cultural & Educational Activities Visiting the Cities of:Vera Cruz, Xalapa, Villahermosa, Bonampak, Palenque Visit Numerous Ancient Ruins Museums Markets for Shopping Luggage TagsTravel Bag Information Kit and much more.....

Payment Plan available
Travel arrangements: R.G. Gainey & Associates International Tours(Tel: 410-433-0774)E-mail: http://us.mc525.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rggainey1217@%20aol.com
Space is limited so don't delay!
Runoko Rashidi(210) 337-4405email: mailto:Runoko@yahoo.%20com

*Prices subject to change until paid in full for air and land.Rate is based on double occupancy, per person

From the Global African Prescence website

Tecumseh: The Power in Pan-Indigenism

2008-12-27T13:48:00.006-05:00

"When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts arefilled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." -Tecumseh

Tecumseh was a Shawnee leader, born is what is now Ohio, March 9, 1768. He was vary instrumental in the War of 1812 and fighting against the westward expansion of the 13 American colonies by seizure of Native lands. His name meant "Shooting Star" and/or "Crouching Panther". Interestingly enough, many of his own people followed behind his vision and movement, instead moving westward as the colonizers advanced. Still, the movement which sprang from his brother's, Tenskawatawa, religious visions' would leave their names in the book of life. Tenskawatawa, originally born 'Lalawethika', claimed to have had a "vision" and from this, began to teach against European occupation, advancement and against Native peoples adoption of white culture. Bearing witness to the devastation these things had on Native life, Tecumseh supported his brother and became the key voice in promoting the message. It would essentially become a Pan-Indigenous message and movement of identity, solidarity and sovereignty.

"The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided."
We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave.

Brothers -- My people wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace; but where the white people are, there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosom of our mother. Where today are the Pequot? Where today are the Narrangansett, the Mohican, the Pakanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people?

They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun." -Tecumseh

Although they were opposed by many Shawnee and other Indigenous leaders, they managed in rallying many behind them and uniting Indigenous people in one common cause and effort. Each tribal Nation continued to maintain their traditions and way of life. Still, they united in the understanding that only their solidarity and movement as a body could preserve it. Regardless to the uniqueness in the manifestation of their specific cultural perspective and traditions, they recognized their commonalities as Indigenous people and their origin in this part of the planet earth. It was agreed that only a return to their people's ways, the wisdom of their ancestors, and a rejection of the devil's, could they succeed in the salvation of their people.

"But, brother, I mean to bring all the tribes together, in spite of you, and until I have finished, I will not go to visit your president. Maybe I will when I have finished, maybe. The reason I tell you this, you want, by making your distinctions of Indian tribes and allotting to each a particular tract of land, to set them against each other, and thus to weaken us.

You never see an Indian come, do you, and endeavor to make the white people divide up?"-Tecumseh

Tecumseh traveled across Indian land, seeking audiences and speaking to the people. He taught extensively and promoting the "oneness" of the Original people. His brother Tenskawatawa, The Prophet, continued teaching as well from their center in "Prophetstown", in Indiana. Over time it was said that Tenskawatawa become more fervent and militant with the teachings. Tecumseh eventually forbid his brother was speaking out too aggressively against whites or engaging in any conflict with them whenever he was not around. The movement flickered out in 1811, when Tecumseh was on a trip to meet with southern " 5 Civilized Tribes" and Tenskawatawa led his people into battle against future U.S. president, William Henry Harrison. Reportedly, Tenskwatawa sought to establish grounds for a peaceful talk with the then military commander. Yet, Tecumseh arrived to find Prophetown burned and destroyed.

"How can we have confidence in the white people? When Jesus Christ came upon the earth, you killed him, the son of your own God, you nailed him up! You thought he was dead, but you were mistaken. And only after you thought you killed him did you worship him, and start killing those who would not worship him. What kind of a people is this for us to trust? "- Tecumseh

Their vision and message continue on. Not just amongst the neo-political and Indigenous sympathizers. Not just on the reservation or in the mindset of the those marginalized by America. It is a, idea, message and vision that re-verberates within the ancestral memories of our senses and cells. Pan-Indigenism is the desire to be as 'one' with our brothers and sisters, from the Artic circle to Tierra Del Fuego. Just as we understand all of creation being are relations in the most fundamental form. It is this universal oneness that should bind those of us from the First Nations whether colonized by the English, French or the Spanish.

"Thus were we created. Thus we lived for a long time, proud and happy. We had never eaten pig meat, nor tasted the poison called whiskey, nor worn wool from sheep, nor struck fire or dug earth with steel, nor cooked in iron, nor hunted and fought with loud guns, nor ever had diseases which soured our blood or rotted our organs. We were pure, so we were strong and happy."-Tenskwatawa

We are the Original people on this part of the planet earth. The fathers and mothers of civilization as his has been known by our people in this hemisphere from the earliest of recognized space and time. It is time to re-unite the different organs of the body, so that we may harnass the power of change and seize the direction of our future. We must move with strength in our numbers and mobilize to become more self-sufficient and sovereign. We must build where we are at and within our communities, applying the supreme intelligence we are endowed with to enhance and elevate our condition. Through tribal networking and grass roots organizing, we can tap into our greatest resource, ourselves. We can not think that government and those who came to oppress are going to be the ones to assist in our relief. We must as well, not seek to return to the days since past. We must preserve the best of what we can from amongst our traditions and move forward with complimentary and progressive ideas that will both honor our ancestors and ensure our future survival. We can no longer linger in the tensions and problems between tribes as in the past. We must adapt, adjust and over come. Seeking unity beyond difference and victory beyond defeat. By isolating ourselves within the island of our own prejudices and cultural comfort, we create an environment for 'internal' decay. We become so self-absorbed as if colonization and globalization won't be able to penetrate us. We become strangers to our own brothers and sisters and apathetic to each others trials and tribulations, if we have not all suffered at the hands of the same oppressive entity. We allow the swiftness and currents of other words, ways and actions to strain relations with our universal family, swallowing us up in the remoteness of self-responsibility. Being responsible for ourselves means both our immediate family and our community and people, our collective 'self'. This is the path of righteousness, the way of the supreme mind.

"Do not eat any food that is raised or cooked by a white person. It is not good for us. Eat not their bread made of wheat, for Our Creator gave us corn for our bread. Eat not the meat of their filthy swine, nor of their chicken fowls, nor the beef of their cattle, which are tame and thus have no spirit in them. Their foods will seem to fill your empty belly, but this deceives you for food without spirit does not nourish you."- Tenskwatawa

We must reclaim our ownselves and find the sweatlodge within 'self', the the kacike of your own 'consciousness' and the vision quest in your own veins. We must awaken our cultural kundalini and let it rise like smoke from the ceremonial pipe. We must free ourselves from the encomienda of miseducation and move forward with the furthering of Pan-Indigenous consciousness and activism.

"I am Shawnee! I am a warrior! My forefathers were warriors. From them I took only my birth into this world. From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own destiny!- Tecumseh

Peace!

Original source of quotes: www.indigenouspeople.net/tecumseh.htm

"Thanks-taking" and Imprisoning Disingenuous Commemorations of Benevolence

2008-11-27T09:50:00.009-05:00

The Kites in 13 Bars

Imprisoning Disingenuous Commemorations of Benevolence

By Sunez Allah, courtesy of Lavoe Revolt (http://www.lavoerevolt.blogspot.com/)

“I form rhymes in alphabet soup”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

It is that We be ‘softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; Stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.’ The nature of these coming rains, they distill the eloquence of proper protest in actualization we must make. We, the 2 million, once prepared our roasting with a shared feast by funneling the fumes of squalor. Something like the moments where the diving petals of our Iris Germania tend to scour the Earth for a savior prior to their loller. This harvest festival like none other, where livelihood was unclothed with poisoned blankets, turkeys stuffed while infants snuffed commence the inauguration of unbonded words of treaty decorate coming banquets.

A scholar of much repute but little merit uttered that “these holidays say much less about who we really were in some specific Then, than about who we want to be in an ever changing Now.” Another dollar to rebuke is the only way to cherish with honor what has fluttered. The wholly Ways only the sincere may sense, shaped around those who have suffered from a horrific heathen. The end of truth can only provoke an ever exchanging How? for an endlessly decadent now.

“From the rhythm of the spoon, I transform the loop”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

The fashion of American protest is often the makings of clever concession. Time and again, we underwhelmingly reason with someone using the weaponry of oppression in the most worthy of manners. It is those immense few who realize that the nature of the supreme self is mathematical and the way of life is filled with these equations. These equations allow us to plot moments as patterns, with a special some that we may all commemorate with unique remembrance. These calendars have come to be labeled by our rulers and the flow of our mindset is mapped.

It is the great pressure of the popular pattern that adhere us to follow. So when pilgrim lore proliferates, bellies promote emptiness and the mind feigns fullness. That we have had enough of the idea of our peoples’ dead and gone; rather, I will eat and eat with thanks and praises as a Roman in his Yuletide. Yet the season of the heathen feast ends in fleeting moments where we are thankful our slaughter has been postponed. That our masters did not slay every last man, woman and child. Our annual productivity has once again spelled our captors as to our successful assimilation.

Yet, it is only the truth of oppression that can provoke the plots of liberation. Any living moment of man must never perish in memory without the lesson learnt.

“With the steam of the bowl I make the special effects”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

When the fires of awareness warm the mind, the dangers of ancestral anguish begin to dissipate into the solutions of understanding in one’s culture. To supremely prepare a feast with neither grain nor vegetable, vegan meat or tofu sweet is the fast of great statement. To turn the popular pattern of celebration with a contrasting sum of refusal gives one the forum of change. That we see the refusal to partake as the opportunity to create an actualization of what must be learned, allows us to share an enlightening truth and rejuvenate ourselves through reaffirmation.
From the rebellious statements of Cesar Chavez’ to the preparation unto the sweatlodge, the supreme Way effects change in the special embrace of non-doing.

“Add a dash of spice, only God can detect”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

The people will gather their belongings of necessities and treasures, mercifully account for necessary relations and finally remunerate loved ones with priceless tenderness. As they thank the mysteries assigned for their givings, the knowing 5% left must see the Way prescribed.
There is no mysterious Being, energy or force that merits appreciation and that the culture of today is based on the understanding of yesterday. For the tomorrow that arrives must be a personal making of our powerful equality where the One as All see equanimously. Our cipher divine becomes such with our own endeavoring and every idea, action and insight matters.

“Got a word to make a bear return to his cub”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Share. The nature of all creation is the relationship of sharing. As we create, our creations inspire us. The reality of the Creator is sharing, the balance of giving and receiving. To offer thanks in such unassuming fashion, we slowly forgo the awareness that allows sharing to produce life. The simple belief of a better today dishonors tomorrow with such unfounded specters of hope. It is this inhibition to share the truth that has turned a natural state into an undesired responsibility of duty. A duty that provokes little more than assimilated survival in the children.

“A word that make a girl come home from a club”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Love. The relationship of supreme understanding that makes a home the nest of ideas. It turns recreation of satiety into the procreation of elevation. The possibility of revelation of purpose in every action becomes the way of life. No longer is it a militant act to rebuke commemorating the tales of past falsely told; rather, it is an embrace of equations personally calculated with fear of reprisal dissipating. What may be written in the time of feasting to fill our minds? How much beatitude fills the Earth when the words of what truly once was engage the dialogue of what can be?

“A word that make a demon return back to God”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Enlightenment, the endless accumulation and adherence of truths. It is a state that is only recognized with the awareness of mere survival’s ineptitude in shaping supreme beings. That the society that has passed through these Gregorian calendars doesn’t pattern a civilization. That the awareness of a greater civilization can provoke the righteousness of act for that greatest civilization forthcoming. And that the weakness provoked by fear and complacency has allowed wickedness to be unrecognized. The few that take the forum of truth on a day of assimilated reckoning step closer to the return to their essence. The death of mysterious cause with the answer of Self for all things first.

“And the word that help Dorothy get home from Oz”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Perfection. The world of corruption is but a magic show of illusion. Most hope to walk the path toward riches and wear the yellow robe of understanding. But can gold be alchemized to melanin? Without mistakes, the enlightened compose and perform the way of lessons to their children. How else can our ciphers zig zag zig and fulfill this endless path?

“Thirty frames per second, these films we be reflecting”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Turkeys gobbled and stuffing excreted until another special undertaking we follow. If the slaves continue to merrily move each season, what plantation does not seem incredible?
Today, knowledge shared is a passive aggressive act. The truth is offered to us as a challenge of its own merits. ‘We killed them all. So what?’ For it to become wisdom, we must involve it in a superior pattern where insight is the possibility offered to our young. These little deeds of non-involvement, active refusal, cherished non-doing, dynamically embrace the films to pass on.

“Scenes of light put through all projection”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Illusion may direct dissatisfaction into immense action. However, awareness of illusion can provoke satisfaction into the action of questioning. It is not enough to know a truth and say it has no power. We must learn to give the truth a forum and allow it the ease of comprehension to all. In this, the most virtuous reality is not the imposing of a war but offering the choice of peace, the absence of confusion.

“Electricity, connectivity”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

The intensity of the truth is measured by the conveyance of sincerity and the virtue of its usefulness to all at the right moment. We have sought the simple ways of obedience to connect us all. Yet there is no spark of our nature in this. There is only the fantastical utopia of infinite tolerance where all is accepted yet nothing is understood.

“Audio and visually,”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

Actualization makes an idea seen and heard. In a society of forums offered with control, what is seen and heard is enjoyed but rarely discerned. To merely feast and thank the heavens for family’s continued survival is the most important medium of sharing lost. Does not the world look to the Supreme Nation for guidance, the Supreme Nation look to it’s Greatest societies to be well builders, these Great Societies to build up families of virtue, these Virtuous Families to instruct enlightened children?

“Physically and mentally”
RZA – “Life Is A Movie”

We will have some meal during Thanksgiving. It will slowly shape and mold us. This act of Thanksgiving will continue until the film rolls true and we direct our own future. Clearly, our principles are at stake. Whom must make rain, hail, snow and earthquakes if not my family Allah?

Si Se Puede!

2008-11-05T08:31:00.004-05:00

"We don't ask him to be a revolutionary, we don't ask him to be a socialist, only that, as a black man about to become president of the United States, he take his place in history..." - Hugo Chavez

Si Se Puede!

'Dia de los Muertos': Physically Dead But Not Mentally

2008-10-30T12:52:00.009-05:00

Peace,

Today’s mathematics is understanding cipher. 'Understanding' is the ability to see clearly, through the knowledge and wisdom present. A 'cipher' is a person place or thing. To gain an understanding of the cipher is to see clearly the reality of it and to be able to interact with it and relate to it accordingly. It is better to have an understanding than it is to be understood. So it is your own understanding and mental clarity that will elevate all circumstances and individuals.

Dealing with or showing understanding often means ‘empathizing” or conceiving of one’s relationship to someone or something. As adults we have the ability to draw up our understanding about something according to our own knowledge and experience. Children, because of lack of knowledge and life experience, can not. Still, they conceive of their own understanding, as it relates to them and their lives. So it is not to say that they are incapable of understanding, b-u-t rather, their understanding may not be as clear as an adults. That is why it is integral to be involved with the education of our children, hands on. To foster their growth and development and understanding of themselves, their culture and all other ciphers in the world/universe. Raising children outside the parameters of normal Western standards usually means combating against cultural ideas that do not parallel with our own. Especially in a individualist and materialist Judeo-Christian society. Yet, we continue to educate, encourage and raise our children to be efficient and effective with advancing in this society. To do so means that must have a understanding of the cipher. Regardless to the structure and environment we set up for our children we must recognize the fact that at some point in their lives there will be socialization with other people who think and live differently than them. We need to prepare them.

One way a children internalizes concepts about who they are is through cultural affairs, such as days of celebration. Every culture has days of observance or celebration, which have specific cultural significance to them. As Original people, many of our customs and celebrations have been destroyed and diluted through the menacing hand of colonialism and the church. Yet, many survived because of our enduring determination of self-preservation. Many of us have created our own days of recognition and celebration is the march towards to self-determination and preservation, as has the Nation of Gods and Earths. Whilst our traditions may only be 44 years old, this past October, our traditions and cultural celebrations are very important and significant to us. We observe days such as the Father’s Degree Day (Allah’s physical birthday), Days of the Babies, Universal Shaamgaud Day (the designer of our national flag), etc. Many observe October as being the foundation and first month in the birth of our Nation, others acknowledge the season of Fall. Some Gods and Earths observe the “Asiatic New Year” which is the Spring equinox. All of these are integral with created an a progressive and healthy environment for our children, instilling in them a strong sense of pride and love for one’s self and people. As with all cultures and people. Especially when we as adults decide to reject the ideology of the ‘system‘. We may be very comfortable with refraining from observing and/or celebrating Euro-centric or Capitalist holidays, however our children still don’t understand or warm up to the idea of them not being able to ‘do what the other kids do’. Even though we may educate them and give them knowledge as to why, the understand must come in time and must eventually be present. Otherwise they can end up resenting how they were raised because of it’s disconnectedness with other children. And kids being kids, it is developmentally appropriate for them to want to socialize and do what others do, in the name of fun. Despite the subtle or overt messages being conveyed in such celebrations as Halloween or Christmas, they simply do see it like that. They don’t have a historical framework through which to understand the science behind these days. They simply become magnetized and attract, because of it’s un-alikeness. So how to we compliment their curiosity and development while maintaining our own cultural principles, and still allow them to become orientated with the world and other people, especially their people. And by this I mean the millions of Original people who still observe and celebrate colonial and religious traditions. Because, despite the person choice we have made as adults to exclude ourselves and our families from such acitivities, many of our people still observe them and we must be careful not to cause divisiveness in our children’s thinking or cause them to think they are ‘different’, even though we raise them differently.

“…He wants us to think we are all different.”- 7th degree, 1-14

Allah understood this. He disagreed with religion strongly, and he didn’t see himself as having any obligation towards 'holidays' except in regards to the children. While it may be very controversial Allah understood what it is that he was doing. He didn’t instruct us to refrain from celebrating Christmas or Easter. Primarily because he was focused on reaching the children and wasn’t opposed to anything to put a smile on a child’s face. He understood that the Muslims and other black groups opposed Euro-centric holidays and sought out substitutes such as Kwanzaa (which is feasible in my perspective, for those seeking transition into a more culturally attuned lifestyle or even just as a seasonal event for children). Ultimately, Allah understood that if you take something away, you must be able to give something back. And many children were risking abandonment (many were already abandoned) by their families and being ostracized by their family, peers and society for advocating what he was teaching. So he dealt with understanding, and allowed them to entertain themselves with certain aspects of childhood in America. As well, Allah understood that celebrations such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, etc, would be events which attracted many of our people who needed to be educated. So to exclude yourself from their social equality would be to exclude yourself from that population who needs you the most. It’s a worthless effort to try and educate someone about the history of Thanksgiving during the summer. Because that’s not where their mindset is at. It would be more effective to try and share some knowledge and wisdom with them at the table during Thanksgiving dinner and the only way to do that is to be with amongst them. As Allah had shown us, God doesn’t drop down upon the people, he comes up, from amongst the people. Thus, we need to strive to be in the world and not OF the world.

I have myself adopted a similar approach towards dealing with own my children. In our household we observe various days significant to the Nation of Gods and Earths. As someone of the Indigenous Diaspora, I as well observe certain days and traditions of Native and so-called Latin America origin. I chose to do so in the vein of promoting Indigenous and Latin solidarity and as a means to instill pride in my children concerning their specific ethnic lineage. Being a ‘Five Percenter’ has marginalized me in many ways from the day to day affairs of my brothers and sisters without knowledge of self, such as cerdo (pork) and religion. However, I still have a duty in elevating them and uplifting them, as well as making sure my children do not alienate themselves because of their lack of understanding, I.e. when my babies approach other Spanish-speaking children, proclaiming themselves as ‘black’ or that they don’t bear witness to God being in the sky. Likewise, I do not want my children to look down upon their own people just because they may not have a true knowledge of themselves. I strive to bring forth understanding in the cipher.

“…they are Original people…”- 3rd degree, 1-14

A particular day that is observed in my household is ‘Dia de los Muertos’. While it may have huge religious overtones, Dia de los Muertos or ‘Day of the Dead’ is actually a ritual celebration that predates the Spanish arrival in the Americas and extends back 3,000 years amongst the Mexica (Aztecs) and their celebration of the goddess 'Mictecacihuatl'. Mictecacihuatl was seen as "Lady of the Dead" and was thought to be the guardian of the underworld and the preserver of bones. People often compare Dia de los Muertos to ‘Halloween‘, and while at first glance there may appear similar, the two celebrations are actually quite different. ‘Halloween’ is a European holiday, or Celtic origin, that is based in their concept of death. This is quite different from the original Mexica meaning. The Mexica beliefs were very similar to the Kory/Aboriginal beliefs of Australia, whereas this ‘life’ is considered to be a ‘dream’ and when you die, you awaken. A concept the Kory call “Dreamtime”, the history before history. Skeletons and skulls were used as symbols for death and rebirth by the Mexica. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it and considered it a “moving-on” to a higher level of consciousness. Halloween, on the other hand, is celebrated with witches, demons and monsters. The Mexica originally celebrated Dia de los Muertos in August, however by influence of the church it was moved to the beginning of November (1st and 2nd), as they enforced “All Saint’s Day” and “All Soul’s Day” in efforts to erase the Indigenous tradition. The contemporary version most celebrated is a synthesis of Mexica and Catholic tradition. People throughout Mexico and Central America (and some places in the U.S.) make skeletons masks and costumes and have parties celebrating their ancestors. It was during this time that the ancestors are supposed to return and walk amongst the living. So people build altars in their home adorned with ancestors’ favorite drink and food, accompanied by pan de muerto, cookies and other food items, made in the image of skulls and skeletons. Many families in Mexico take these items, along with candles, to the cemetary where family members are buried, staying up at night to welcome their ‘spirits’, singing or telling stories, and honoring the memory of the ancestors.

“…never has revealed anyone returning from a physical death, but there is a chance for the mentally dead..” - 13th degree, 1-40

I will be both honest and respectful in saying that I do not subscribe to any of the above mentioned ‘beliefs’ about goddesses, ancestors and spirits. So how do I embrace Dia de los Muertos in my home, you may ask? We embrace it as a day of memorial for our ancestors. A day to celebrate their lives and legacies and to become closer with physical death, a reality of the living. We take time to build about those ancestors or relatives we may have recently lost, as well as those in our history, especially the Gods and Earths who made it possible for me to have knowledge of self and who illuminated the path of self-discovery and actualization for me. I take the time to explain to my little ones what ‘Dia de los Muertos’ really is and how it’s celebrated by most people, and why WE as Five Percenters don’t subscribe to the same ideas. It is important for them to understand that within our cultural paradigm, our ancestors live forever, in the hearts and mind of the people and why Allah told us that he could never die. Because very similar to the Aborigines and the Mexica, we advocate that everything in our lives is based on ‘thought’. We dialogue about Mexica culture and other similar traditions amongst other groups of Original people. Some activities we do is make paper masks of skulls with the kids, as well bake some ‘vegan’ pan de muerto and sugar cookies in the shape of skulls and skeletons. I am not appalled at the site of these images, for I have understanding of the cipher and strive to assist with the same in my babies. The skulls and skeletons are a way for them to become more comfortable with physical death, as a part of life. All things having a beginning and an ending. We build on the science of ‘transitioning’ (physical death) and energy as it transforms, since it can not be created or destroyed. We also study the bones and the body, so that can become more familiar with ‘themselves’. Referencing the role of 'Mictecacihuatl' in 'perserving bones', I like to add on about bones and them being related to the earth, and with the Original woman being 'the Earth' within the NGE paradigm, discuss the relevance between the 'physical' body and the physical world. The bones, being the only remains after someone physically perishes, which speaks marvels about the role of bones in our bodies. In Daoism, the bones are seen as holding significant life force, and proper meditation and exercise make the bones solid and ‘eternal’, as fundamental Daoists’ strive to become ‘immortal’. The 206 bones in the human body are also responsible for the production of red and white blood cells and the storing of vitamins and minerals. Which allows me to touch on the science of being “weak boned and wicked” (30th degree, 1-40) and the psycho-biological relationship in human beings. As well, the role that Mother Nature and the Original woman have in nurturing, nourshing and strengthening our bodies and bones through the right foods she provides.

For me and my family, Dia de los Muertos is a day to celebrate everyone who came before us and those we have lost along the way. It is a day to reflect upon are ultimately oneness with our ancestors, as we are the result of hundreds and thousands of years of their struggle, especially the last 516 years. For my children, to learn and understand that there are no ‘spirits’ coming to speak to them at night, because they are their ancestors, from cell to cell, brain to bolas. For as Allah taught us, any boy that doesn’t know who their ‘daddy’ is, all they need to do is look in the mirror and they’ll see him. They’ll be looking right at him.

Our history can’t be accurately documented by the Western world because of their bias and their absence when most of out history was being made. They have failed in both their attempts to trace our origins and plan our disappearance. The Original man has no beginning or ending. So with every attempt at erasing us from history, with every lie that the ‘Indians’ are long gone, we persist and continue on. We are living testaments to their lies. We haven’t gone anywhere and neither have our ancestors. I am them and they are me. For those who wish to sit and wait to talk to ‘spirits‘, to each his own. However, my ancestors speak to the world when ever I post a blog, write an article or put in work in my community.

Peace!

Before Columbus...

2008-10-08T18:56:00.006-05:00

...The Original Nation in the wilderness of North America.....as well as South...

Es importante aprender su historia....

Pow Wow In Pittsburgh: Beike & Taino Creation Stories

2008-09-26T09:27:00.004-05:00

American Indians share their culture through Pow Wow

By Sandra Fischione Donovan for THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Miguel Sague of Verona is a member of the Taino tribe, the Caribbean Indians who greeted Christopher Columbus in 1492. So he has a ready jokeabout Columbus' arrival in the Bahamas, where he landed while searchingfor India.

"He was lost, and we found him," says Sague, a native of Santo Domingo,Cuba, and member of the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Centersince 1977.

While Columbus' voyages are known worldwide, information about the Taino tribe is not as readily available. But Sague will help familiarize people with his tribe Saturday and Sunday at the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center's 30th annual Pow Wow in Indiana Township.

Sague will tell stories that are traditional to the Taino and other tribes. He will wear different costumes for each tribe, including the Senecas, who settled in this area, he says. Sague, medicine man for the council, will invoke the male spirit of life and energy, and the female spirit of Mother Earth and nurturing.

Sague's extended family also will participate in the Pow Wow, orcelebration. His sister, Rosa John, and her husband, Melvin John, of Alberta, Canada, will act as masters of ceremony. The Johns and members of their family will perform various dances as part of the Kehewin Native Performance Troupe of Canada.

Russell Simms, executive director of the center, says the Pow Wow is important for a variety of reasons.

"It's a place where Native American people gather in fellowship, make new friends, share our culture and have fun," Simms says. "Because of who we are and how we do things and view life, we do not have a problem with sharing portions of our life. We invite the public to take part.We're trying to encourage the general public to participate so they canlearn."

The Pow Wow will open each day with a grand entry featuring all native dancers. Among the entertainment will be drumming, Aztec dancers, a hoopdancer, and men's and women's fancy dances. Native American crafts will be featured, and vendors will sell Native American foods such as buffalo burgers, native chili, fry bread and corn on the cob. American fare like hot dogs and traditional hamburgers also will be available.

Proceeds from the Pow Wow will go toward the Council of Three Riverscenter, a United Way agency that promotes the socio-economic developmentof 8,000 to 10,000 American Indians in the Pittsburgh area.

The center operates a Head Start program, a child learning center, afoster and adoption program, an elder program and employment centers inthree states and the District of Columbia, among others. Some of itsprograms are open to people from non-Indian backgrounds.

Council of Three Rivers 30th Annual Pow Wow

2008-09-19T14:29:00.004-05:00

Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center's
30th ANNUAL POW WOW

Will Be Held On: September 27th and 28th
Noon to 7:00 p.m. (rain or shine)
Donations: Adults-$6.00, Elders & Children Under 12-$4.00
120 Charles Street, Dorseyville, PA 15238-1027
412-782-4457 or www.cotraic.org

Singing, Drumming, Dancing, Arts, Crafts
Demonstrations & Native Foods
No drugs or alcohol allowed!

Special Features Include:
The Aztec Dancers from Mexico, Hoop Dancer,
Dramatized Legend “The Eagle’s Gift”

Taino Music & Dance Dramatization of the Legends
“How the Ocean Came to Be” and “Turtle Mother”

And more...

For more information please contact: powwowies1@hotmail.com

Quilombo: Self Savior and Slave Revolts

2008-09-19T12:25:00.007-05:00

Paz! Peace! Tau!

El grado en el supremo alfabeto es 'salvador es un mismo'.

So often when learning about our history do we place emphasis on slavery, both mental and physical. The effects of it have been documented and the rammifications of it are undeniably seen in the ways and actions of the people. Not only did it do so much in the stripping away of our identity, it also served as an incubator for many elements of African and Indian culture, to be nurtured into other displays of dignity and identity. So much is made of the eventual conquest of our people and so little is mentioned of the uprisings and rebellions. It should be no surprise to understand that such events would no doubt serve as the seeds to usher in further rebellion and restlessness in the people. The oppressor has subsequently worked hard at the propaganda for their campaign against us, for the last 516 years and miseducation has been a major pipeline for the dispersal of lies and 'his-story'. Another important factor in the silencing of the resistance movements against colonialism has been to instill in us a sense of being docile, of being naturally 'unable' to even conceive of revolting against our oppressor. This is especially true when discussing the history of Boriken (Puerto Rico) and the false identity painted for us by the likes of various politicians and elitists throughout the last 110 years.

One thing that has also been in the forefront of our agenda was 'saving of selves'. Self-preservation is the first law of nature and a mechanism inherent in all creatures. However, in order to make someone think that you have complete control over them, you have to get them to the point where they think they have no power over themselves. You make them think they are incapable of relieving themselves from harsh conditions with the intent of lodging into the brains of their generations to come, the assumed inevitably of their servitude.

The reality is far from what we are cordially given. Indians and Africans frequently rose up against the colonizers and planned escapes into the deep forests and jungles of Amekikia- North, Central and South. In the Caribbean, these 'runaways' were called 'maroons'. They fled to the hills, mountains, jungles and caves to live a life of freedom and harmony. Many of these settlements or 'quilombos' flourished for years and waging multiple battles against the Europeans. As William Lorenz Katz points out in his article entitled, "Africans and Indians- Only in America":

Centuries before the Declaration of Independence talked of natural rights and sanctioned rebellion against tyranny, African-Indian alliances acted on these concepts as they pursued their American dream in the mountains beyond the white settlements dotting the coastline. In 1537 Viceroy Mendoza of Mexico, lamenting an insurrection by Africans, admitted, "the Indians are with them." As slave revolts rocked the new European outposts in the Americas, they also enjoyed Native American support.

In hard-to-reach backwaters of the Americas, two people of color people began to build their own "maroon" colonies. Some were outlaw bands, raiders who preyed on whites, slaves and Indians alike, and lived a short, brutish life. But other maroons depended on family farming and herding and built peaceful relations and trade with Indian villages, slaves, and former masters.

European officials judged maroons, in the words of a French historian, "the gangrene of colonial society." Their success as independent economic societies refuted white claims of African inferiority. Each day Maroons proved once slaves wrenched free they could govern themselves and prosper. Further, maroon encampments served as beacons for discontented slaves in a radius of a hundred miles, and stood as a clear and present danger to the European conquest. Some whites saw maroons as a knife pressed against the thin line of their rule, and they had a point.

In a clockwork of military and legal reflexes, European authorities sought to eradicate Black Indian contacts and pit Red against Black. In l523 a Royal Order to Hernando Cortez banned Africans from Indian villages. "Division of the races is an indispensable [control] element," said a Spanish officer. "Between the races we cannot dig too deep a gulf," announced a French official.

Well-trained European armies ordered to crush maroon colonies met their match in distant mountains and jungles. "[Maroon] self-respect grows because of the fear whites have of them," a white Brazilian wrote to King Joao of Portugal in l719. Maroon songs resonated with victorious pride:

Black man rejoice. White man won't come here.
And if he does, the Devil will take him off.
(from- http://www.williamlkatz.com/Essays/History/AfricansIndians.php)

One of the most famous was called Palmares, in Brazil. By the 1690's , the population of Palmares was around 20,000. There was a movie produced in 1984 called "Quilombo" that goes into the details of the struggle against slavery in Brazil, by are enslaved brothers and sisters there. It in many ways can be likened to a South American version of Alexis Haley's "Roots" saga. Please check out the following clip:

Fast forward to the here and the now. What you see is the government taking the necessary steps to dismantle what could be precieved as modern-day 'quilombos'.

Through 'genetrification', we see the battle against crime and poverty by the reinvestment and redevelopment of previous undesirable lands, lands we were forced to reside within. And being very well aware that the power resides within the people to change their own conditions, the government is dismantling the once communities of color and attempting to break the bond that fo so long allowed brothers and sisters living next to each other had, the common denominator of 'struggle'. The oppressor also knows and understands that power is in numbers and by dispersing our communities they quell even the 'potential' for uprising.

To be the savior of one's self we most be self-sufficient...

Protect and Preserve Community! Only the 'hood can save the 'hood!

"Renewing History" and the 2012 Prophecy

2008-09-08T11:08:00.005-05:00

Peace! Tau!

In a time of turmoil and destruction on the planet, many people think it is the end of the world. For years Europeans have clung to the Bible for interpretations of events in time, especially the future. They have also held a special place in their paranoia for the predications of Nostradamus. What they and others have failed to understand is the predicating the future is a matter of forecasting events based on the NOW. The events, and behaviors of beings on the planet that usher in these events and conditions, can be analyzed, assessed and understood through general sociological, psychological and anthropological frameworks. History is made based upon these predications, take for instance the actual price of oil and what determines it. It is then that history has been predicted by the 'wisest' amongst us. This is understood within the Nation of Gods and Earths- that 'now' is the past, present and future. Yet, in their search of religious and spiritual understanding and fervor, modern 'new agees' have pointed their fingers at the Mayan cosmology and the 2012 prophecy as the latest fix in figuring out the fate of humanity.

Unfortunately, because of this, many scholars, scientists and of course, politicians, have dismissed the Mayan prophecy as amongst the usual cultural folk-tales of the pre-Columbian world. When the reality is that the Popol Vuh and Mayan cosmology has some scientific basis for us to understand ourselves and the universe. The idea of a cyclical period of time coming to an end and ultimately renewing is not new and surely isn't limited to the Quiche Maya.

The Popol Vuh is a wonderful work on Indigenous literature. The Mayan credit the founding of there cosmology and culture with Votan. Votan is mentioned in the Popol Vuh and is sometmimes referred as "an old black God". Votan is said to have arrived from the East, across the Ocean wearing a robe, as well was his followers. He is known as a 'magician' of time, because of his understanding of mathematics and numbers, as a 'language' for understandingman's relationship to the cosmos and vice versa. He is said to have made the statement "All is number. Hunab K'u (God) is a number. Hunab k'u is in All." This is an interesting way to express the Maya's understanding that we are interconnected with each other and the universe. All of life is structured by the same basic, re-occurring mathematical patterns. Thus, the Mayan civilization and cosmology is based on their extensive understanding of mathematics and in particular the movement of celestial bodies which they base their calender on. They had two calenders which they used, the Long count and the Short count. The Short count was based on 260 days and the Long count calender on 360 days. It was through these calenders that the Mayan calculated time in accordance with the movement of the Sun, Moon and Earth. Votan supposed taught them about the science of time and "ages", cycles of time lasting 26,000 years. Sumerians, Tibetans, Egyptians, Cherokees, Hopi, and Mayans all refer to this same 26,000 year cycle in their cosmologies.

"Who wrote the Holy Qu'ran or Bible? How long ago? And will you tell us, why does Islam renew it's history every 25,000 years?"

The Holy Qu'ran or Bible is made by the Original man, who is Allah, the supreme being, blackman of Asia. The Holy Qu'ran will expire in the year 25,000, 9,080 years from the date of this writing. The Nation of Islam is all wise, right and exact. Planet Earth's, which is the home of Islam, circumference is approximately 25,000 miles, so the wise man of the East (the blackman) makes his history or Qu'ran equal to his home cricumference, 1 year to every mile. Thus everytime it lasts for 25,000 years, he renews it for another 25,000."

This above question and answer is the first degree in a set of lessons referred to as the 1-40, within the Nation of Gods and Earths. The lessons we study are sets of questions and answers between Fard Muhammad and his student Elijah Muahmmad. They are shared by the Nation of Islam and the Nation of Gods and Earths and for us, serve as a general body of information from whcih we extract a clearer understanding about life from. As one can see, Fard and Elijah were familiar with the plantery phenomena known as the 'procession of the equinoxes', which is the 'wobbling' of the Earth, making the Sun appear (except to the naked eye) as if it is making a revolution or full circle in space. It takes the Earth in actuality 25,800 to 26,000 years to complete one 'wobble'. This movement was very significant to our ancestors and their understanding of the Sun and Earth's relationship, as it pertained to their calender and events on the planet. Let us recall that the 'Sun and moon have attracting powers on our planet' (8th degree, 1-40) and affect not only the magnetic field around the planet but also the life existing within it. The electromagnetic relationship of the Sun with the Earth varied at different points of the year due to the position of each celestial body. The Sun and Moon both have attracting powers on the water on the Earth's surface and in vary mouch the same way, affect the water in our bodies. This is what supposed brings about the distinct characteristics of people born at different times of the year and the 'zodiac' figures that represent those times. The Mayan had there own 'zodiac' and it played such an important role in their daily lives. "A person's date of birth also had enormous significance: it determined the course of the rest of his or her life, including name and career.." states Adrian Gilbert and Maurice Cotterell in their book "The Mayan Prophecies."

Elijah Muhammad referred to this 25,000-26,000 year calender as the "Asiatic calender". The above mentioned degree was compiled in 1934. As we renew the history and further investigate the subject at hand, we find that Elijah, basing his understanding obviously on pre-existing conceptions of history and time, projected the end of this time period to be "9,080 years from that date of this writing", which would have at that time, being the Asiatic year 15,020. However, 9,080 years would only take history to the date of year 24,100. Providing the missing 900 years (thus making the calculation 9,980 years) would take us to the year 25,000 which would be the Gregorian year "11,914". This is a huge gap. And as I've said, through further investigation, studying, & learning we come to find out that the Original man- whether Votan himself or the Mayans (Natives) who supposedly travelled from the East, or the people Votan travelled away from, calculated the most accurate calender regarding the movement of the Sun and Earth. Let us be mindful that the Gregorian calender actually has daylight savings time and leap years to allow it to function because it is not aligned with the celestial bodies. Especially now, time as Western scientist's have determined is based on the number of vibrations of a Cesium atom (measured with an 'atomic clock').

So what does all this mean? It means that Elijah Muhammad was 'right' although not 'exact' because the Mayan astronomers (wise men) calculated this time of renewal as December 22, 2012 in the Gregorian calender. Likewise, it means that more credence must be lent to the Mayan prophecies and approached more seriously. It also means that the various religious books of the world hold 'some' truths as it regards man's recording of events and their relationship to the world as they knew it. Whether it be the Bible, Qu'ran, Popol Vuh or Rig Vedas. These books were authored by man, the Original man, and divinely inspired only so far as being a manifestation of man's divine intelligence. For the wisest amongst us have always been able to take a look at our history, to understanding the present, and tell of what 'could' come of the future. Remember, as we authored the book, through our awareness and activity, we have the power and ability to re-write it. This ultimately was Votan's message. As the ending of this age, means more so an end of the old world and way of thinking (which got us into the situation that exists on the planet) rather than the 'end of the world' as religious fanatics and pseudo-spiritualist believe. The Mayans refer to this as the end of the 'age of God' or, the 'end of religion' if we look further into it. And as Allah taught us within the Nation of Gods and Earths, we got to "kill all religion". For it is religion that has allowed the people to succumb to mental death and power and flung Nation against Nation in warfare. Now is the time for us to truly 'wisdom our equality' (26) and apply more balance to ourselves, the planet and ultimately the universe . 2+6= 8, which is Supreme Mathematics is "build and destroy", today's mathematics. So it is through the end of this age do we continue to build and add on for a better tommorrow or be destroyed by our own devilishment. GOD= G(7)+O(15)+D(4)= 26 and 2+6=8. So the Original man (black, brown(red) and yellow), who is Allah (GOD) or Hunab K'u, will ultimately determine the construction of a new world and the destruction of the old.

Peace!

A Plus degree: Making the lessons applicable to this day and time....

"Who wrote the Popol Vuh or 'The Community Book'? How long ago? And will you tell us, why does mathematics renew it's history every 26,000 years?"

The Popol Vuh or 'The Community Book' was made by the Original man named Votan, who is Allah (Hunab K'u), the supreme being, blackman of Asia. The Popol Vuh or 'The Community Book' will expire in the year 26,000, 4 years and 3 months from the date of this writing. The Nation of Gods and Earths is all wise, right and exact. Planet Earth's, which is the home of Islam, circumference is approximately 25,000 miles, so the wise man of the East (the blackman) makes his history or 'Popol Vuh' equal to his home circumference, 1 year to every mile. Thus everytime it lasts for 26,000 years, he adds on and renews it for another 26,000."

A 'Taino' Documentary

2008-09-07T23:40:00.008-05:00

I found a documentary about nuestra gente, the Tainos. The documentary looks into the history of the Taino people and examines, to a degree, the resurgence in Taino identity in the Caribbean community. While the scientist seems rather skeptical to admit validation of a true modern Taino identity (probably because of the standard set forth by the department heads of his particular, who cut his check) he does brings about a some worth noting- that the Spanish brought Indigenous slaves from other Islands and places around the Caribbean. This means that someone may be from Puerto Rico, Cuba or Jamaica, etc., and have Indigenous blood, but not Taino blood. Especially later, as the French began transporting Native slaves from the Great Lakes area to the Caribbean to sell. It is a shame that, as author Vine Deloria J.R. used to speak on, we allow Western science to be used against us in the same manner as Western religion. We tend to accept things from various fields of science without ever really questioning the motives and agenda of the institutions themselves. The 'lie' is in how scientist claim to approach their research with so much unbiased when in reality they are financed by governments, universities and areas of the private sector to do their work in the first place.

"He likes the Devil because the Devil put fear in him when he was a little boy."- 8th degree, English C. Lesson No. 1

We have been lied to since the earliest age and throughout our lives through the educational institutions, government agencies and media that sought to assume their paternalistic role over us. We were told that the 'Indians' were extinct and taken through a wicked maze of blood quantum propaganda. And generations of children have thus perpetuated myths about our identity, in fear of retribution from our oppressor. However, Amekikia is awakening and the Wilderness of ignorance that stifles our peoples road to peace and happiness will clear. As the light of knowledge is shown on the path of the those who seek it.

So-called "Hispanic" Heritage Month

2008-08-26T09:15:00.002-05:00

Despite my own contentions with the term "Hispanic" because of its obvious conveyance of Spain's cultural dominance over our identity, the following article is good. It shows the denial and reluctance to accept who we are as so-called "Latin Americans" which stems from the conditioning and miseducation we received over the past 516 years of oppression. This labels of identity, fostered by someone other than our own selves, that we ultimately aligned ourselves with and pledge allegiance to, as if the people who created these terms had the majorities best cultural interest in mind.

Afro-Latino’s View on National Hispanic Heritage Month
Written by Christopher Rodriguez - Blacktino.net

"National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated throughout the nation between the dates of September 15 and October 15, to observe the historical contributions Hispanics/Latinos have made in the United States especially in the arts, literature, music, politics and education.

Since I was born in the United States, this was a great opportunity to celebrate the diversity of people, which has become a hallmark of our nation’s history.

It is one of my favorite times of the year that allows me the opportunity to attend numerous cultural events and I can taste food samplings from all over Latin America and the Caribbean. I get to see dance troupes, panel discussions, keynote speeches highlighting the positive aspects of Hispanic/Latino culture.

However, in the late 1980’s, I was serving as EEO Manager at a major scientific research and development agency, and I decided that it would be a good idea to celebrate the contributions of Africans in the Americas. I invited Dr. Marta Vega, a pre-eminent Afro-Caribbean Scholar and founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center in New York City. As a History major, I was taught by Puerto Rican and other Latin American Scholars that Latino culture is an amalgam of Spanish, Indian and African cultures. I was working on the assumption that it would be interesting for everyone, especially African American employees who were not aware of the African presence in the Spanish speaking Americas.

I naively organized this event to educate employees in our federal workforce about the diversity of Latin American culture, and showcase the African contribution to Latino culture, as we know it today. Much to my dismay, I received a flood of phone calls from Latino employees asking why was I planning a Black activity during Hispanic Heritage Month. I was truly amazed at the uneducated responses, because these employees were individuals with advanced graduate degrees, who had received training at some of the most prestigious universities in the world. Yet, they were totally miseducated about the African contributions in their homelands.

Even when I presented the callers with historical facts, I was unable to assuage their concerns, because they may have seen my actions as divisive. They perceived this activity would elicit racial discussions, which will divide employees based on race. I decide to go ahead with the event despite the fact that they decided not to attend. The activity was well attended by primarily a non-Latino audience, who appreciated the new found knowledge they received from Dr. Vega. I guess my Latino compatriots decided to go on strike and not attend the event.

Initially, I was emotionally wounded from this experience, because I started remembering my own grandparents who were people of obvious African descent, who could not celebrate their time and contributions on this earth. How could it be divisive to celebrate my own family? Even though while growing up my Christian parents shielded me from the whole discussion of race, because according to them we were all children of God. Obviously, these arguments were a pretext for something which was deeply ingrained in the cultural upbringing of most Latinos.

I did not want to dismiss it as simply racism, but the question remained what are the historical roots of these sentiments, and how can I address this issue in a strategic fashion? The idea came to mind to, that I must write a book about the roots of these racial sentiments and attack the mythology that racism is not a factor in Latin American and Caribbean culture. The experience of researching and reviewing historical documents of the race based immigration policies; abolitionist’s movements in Spain and the Caribbean; educational policies and labor laws governing people of color in the Americas; was a journey comparable to Alex Haley’s famed book “Roots.”

As a result, I have gained incredible spiritual strength from my wounds, and this has led me to places I would never have imagined. The ancestors showed me how to turn this experience from being a lemon into lemonade. As National Hispanic Heritage Month comes closer, I want to encourage all Afro-Latinos to think about what will be your contribution to the education of our people, and serve as a bridge to Latinos and African Americans and highlight the commonalities of our legacies in the U.S. and the rest of the Americas."

Christopher Rodriguez is an activist, author and lecturer and has written a book entitled the Latino Manifesto: A Critique of the Race Debate in the U.S. Latino Community. For more information go to www.Latinomanifesto.com.

© Copyright 2007 Blacktino e-News Network

Original source: Blacktino.net

The Universal Language

2008-08-20T13:03:00.001-05:00

Struggle: The Universal Language
Written by Infinite Rahe Allah

“It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.”
Juvenal (55 AD - 127 AD)

This coming August 15th 2008, Paraguay will be inaugurating their new president, Fernando Lugo, sometimes referred to as “the bishop of the poor.” The people of Paraguay are hoping for a leader to bring radical and broad sweeping changes to the country. They are hoping for a strong president with firm leftist views. The poor of Paraguay are looking for someone to address the issue of land reform.

In Paraguay, the wealth is the land. According to the Paraguayan constitution, every person is entitled to a piece of land. Currently, 1% of the country’s seven million people own 77% of productive land. In the meantime, 45% of Paraguay’s population is in poverty. Much of the poor are landless people. Paraguay’s poor rely on subsistence farming. They need the land solely to grow food to feed their families. There is a dire need to redistribute the land amongst the poor. The poor are growing weary of requests from the government to be patient. There lives are on the line.

This dissatisfaction is leading some of the poor to resort to land invasions of the wealthy. These land invasions result in destruction of property, burning of tractors in some instances, as well as reports of hostages taken. Desperate actions like these will undoubtedly force the government to put down such uprisings with violent force (police, military). Unfortunately, if it comes to the use of force to resolve these matters, the poor in Paraguay will be painted as savages in much the same way as the poor in Louisiana trying to survive Hurricane Katrina.

The events in Paraguay impact original people in the U.S. by serving as a reminder of the constant hurdles many of us face. Those hurdles are comprised of lack of educational resources in inner city public schools, fewer prospects for decent paying jobs, and societal ills like drugs and crime.

In poor urban areas populated by black and brown people, school resources like textbooks, class space, and staff are often scarce. This reality often leaves our children at a disadvantage. Overcrowded classrooms place an undue burden on instructors to adequately provide the learning environment our children need. Class sizes are often as large as 35-40 and in some cases 50 students in a class.

Statistics from the 2007 U.S. Census reveal that black and so called Latinos 18 years and older are graduating from high school at approximately the same rate as whites. Although blacks and Latinos are graduating at the same rate as whites, they are not as well prepared academically for college. At the four year college degree level, black and Latino people dip in their stats. 10% of blacks and Latinos finish four year degrees compared to 20% of whites. This is certainly a recipe for failure. A four year degree is a useful tool in a competitive job market where the goal is a career or job that can provide financial security.

Before the college level, the poor prospects of securing decent paying jobs for blacks and Latinos complicates the education of their children. According to the 2006 U.S. Census, 20% of black and Latino families are living below the poverty line compared to only 7% of white families. Black and Latino parents are often forced to work two jobs to provide for their families. This leaves them little time to reinforce their children’s learning at home. By the time parents get home, they are often too exhausted to review homework and stay up on issues with children in school.

This is a spiraling effect because poor families that live in impoverished communities have to send their children to public schools that are underfunded because of the tax bracket of that community. Let’s face it: those parents are products of that same poor public education system. They need to review the “new math” themselves before they can offer any assistance to their children.

The “new math” is not just the struggle to remember some old algebra and geometry concepts. On another level, it can be viewed as the systemic calculations that multiply the impact of drugs and violently divide the community between the living and the dead. The impact of drugs and violence has put to sleep the community scholars, revolutionaries, and young stars who never had a chance to shine.

Whether you’re in Paraguay without access to useful land or in the U.S. without access to quality education, decent jobs, and stable communities, the underlying reality is lack of resources equates to a constant cycle of poverty. In Paraguay, land reform is desperately required and in the U.S education, employment, and community reform are required to reverse the cycle of poverty

Original Source: www.originalthoughtmag.com (Get a subscription, burros!)

"Unifying the Body"

2008-08-20T12:44:00.003-05:00

Venezuelan Indian Affairs official seeks solidarity among hemisphere's indigenous peoples

Visit to Sioux Nation is first step in forging unity

CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX RESERVATION, S.D. - The Venezuelan vice minister for Indigenous Affairs visited four Lakota communities in early August to explore possibilities for friendship, student and cultural exchanges and other mutually beneficial projects between the Native peoples here and in the South American country.

Aloha Nunez, a member of western Venezuela's Wayuu tribe, spent five days among Sioux Nation people at Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, Rosebud and Pine Ridge. At 25, Nunez is the youngest person to hold a ministerial office in Venezuela. She was accompanied by Yancy Maldonado, a Yekwana tribal representative from Venezuela's Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, and Sabine Kienzl from the embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington, who acted as an interpreter.

The Ministry for Indigenous Affairs was created in January 2007 in order to boost policies that benefit Venezuela's many Native communities in line with the country's 1999 constitution, which guarantees indigenous rights for the first time in Venezuela's history.

''This has been a particularly exciting experience,'' Nunez said of her visit with the Lakota communities in a press release. ''We have been able to witness how the traditions and culture are still alive here. This has been a first step for the contact of our peoples. We hope to come back and establish more direct contacts with other communities in the United States.''

More than 200 people welcomed Nunez to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's reservation, where she spoke about Venezuela's current programs and plans to benefit that country's indigenous communities. She also explained the ministry's goal is to forge unity and solidarity among all the indigenous peoples of the Americas ''in their struggle and resistance for more than 500 years of oppression. Before, we used to be ashamed of our backgrounds. Nevertheless, we are now experiencing a revival of our ancestral roots and traditions.''

The Lakota communities participate in Venezuela's CITGO Petroleum Corp.'s discounted heating oil program, which was established in 2005 to help poor communities deal with harsh winters and rising energy costs. More than 200 tribal communities across the northern U.S. benefit from the program.

But the vice ministerial visit was to foster personal relationships and exchanges, Kienzl told Indian Country Today.

''It was really a great trip. The object was to just start a dialogue with Native people here, to get to know each other and to cooperate in various areas in the future. Native tribes in Venezuela know very little about tribes here in the U.S. It was a very good opportunity for the vice minister to see the reality of the U.S. Native tribes, which is very different from what is being portrayed by the media outside.''

One of the issues that she said shocked the vice minister is the high suicide rate among Native youth.

''This cannot be. This is terrible. Twenty-seven people committed suicide just on the Rosebud Reservation in the last three years and 80 percent of them were young people! This is not acceptable.''

Native peoples in Venezuela don't share these same problems, Kienzl said.

''The whole system is different there. The Native peoples are not considered dependents. They have their own territories, their own land where they can practice their own legal system, their own criminal system, their own rules and their own cultures, but they also have representation in the government since they are not nations apart like here.''

She said Native peoples here know little about their counterparts in Venezuela, too.

''People on the reservations generally know nothing about what's going on in Latin America. The Indian peoples in Latin America have become very, very strong political actors in the last decade. There is so much going on so I think putting people here in touch with their counterparts in Venezuela would really enrich both parts.''

Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Joseph Brings Plenty could not be reached for comment because he was already in touch with some of his counterparts by attending the Inaugural Indian and Anti-Imperialist Warriors of the Americas Congress in Caracas along with two other Native representatives from the U.S.

The congress gathered delegations from throughout the world. During the congress, Chavez swore in 18 delegations from various countries as nonviolent warriors who will fight against ''misery and imperialism.''

In an e-mail to Kienzl, which she shared in part with ICT, Joseph Brings Plenty wrote, ''I love Venezuela. It has been great being here. I have had so many wonderful experiences. I got to meet and see some of the peoples and their cultural dances. I also participated in one. It was lovely. The vice minister also danced. It was wonderful.

''I was very impressed by her tribal people. The indigenous peoples of South America are beautiful. I felt like my spirit had truly been lifted. I'm witnessing a unity of indigenous peoples that I have never witnessed before in my life.''

That's the whole point of exchange, Kienzl said.

''People here, especially on the reservations in the Midwest, because of their difficulties - the oppression, the problems with alcohol, the drugs, the unemployment - I feel the people are sad and they've become resigned to a certain extent and they need to be motivated.

''They need to see that alternatives are possible, that there are Native peoples in other countries that also faced very difficult situations in the past, but they became strong and got united and they achieved a lot both in the political and economic areas. It's possible to get out of this situation. This was one of the most important messages of the vice minister: that only through unity is there strength.''

Original source: www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417959

Posted from: www.angryindian.blogspot.com

A Novel Discusses Asian Latin America

2008-08-19T11:53:00.003-05:00

Monkey Hunting: Asia meets Latin America in a novel

The newest novel by Cuban-American writer, Cristina Garcia, narrates the story of five generations of a Chinese-Cuban family

"What do you get when you cross thousands of years of Chinese dynasties with the sugarcane plantations of 19th Century Cuba and the rhythm of the African slaves? Well, in addition to an exciting travel in time, you get Monkey Hunting (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) Cuban-born Cristina Garcia’s latest novel.

“This was the hardest thing I’d ever written because it was so far from my own experience,” Garcia said in a recent interview with the independent paper, LA Weekly. “I had to keep fighting off self-inflicted charges of ‘Fraud!’ every working day of it. Basically, my main character is a 19th-century Chinese male. Need I say more?”

That man is named Chen Pan, a failed farmer who left China after signing a contract to work “beyond the edge of the world to Cuba.” But as soon as he arrives at the island, he’s sold to slavery and forced to work in a sugarcane plantation. The novel spans five generations of the Chen family, including Chen Pan’s granddaughter, Chen Fang, who’s raised as a boy in China, and Domingo Chen, Chen Pan’s great-great-grandson, who after the Revolution migrates to New York and ends up in Vietnam...."

Original link: http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/may16-03/monkey.htm

Asian Ancestry in the Americas

2008-08-19T11:31:00.002-05:00

The visitors are descendants of Koreans lured to the Yucatan Peninsula a century ago by false promises. In ensuing decades, they spread to other parts of Mexico and abandoned the Korean language.

By Hector Becerra, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 16, 2008

The teenagers and young adults struggled as they rehearsed an ancient Korean song, a kind of lamentation to leaving home.

"Uno, dos, tres," began Fermin Kim, 48, a chaperon for the group.

Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo. . . .

The words burbled out in a discordant drone, tentatively and unsteadily -- sounding very much like, well, Mexicans suddenly asked to sing in Korean.

The young Korean Mexicans had arrived from Mexico City, Tijuana and the Yucatan Peninsula on a recent afternoon and come to a sprawling Lynwood shopping center designed to look like Mexico. As they were dropped off by shuttles, they passed a statue of Mexican independence leader Miguel Hidalgo and a replica of the Angel of Independence in downtown Mexico City.

They came, perhaps fittingly, to Plaza Mexico -- a place that was created by a Korean American who has a habit of slipping into Spanglish.

Los Angeles is a city where the large Mexican and Korean communities co-exist in ways that both bring them together and separate them. They share the immigrant experience and communication barriers that come with it. But the different languages -- Spanish and Korean -- can also be an obstacle.

Here, however, the fusion was literal. The teens and twentysomethings bear strong Korean features but consider themselves true Mexicans. Even their older chaperons, Fermin Kim and David Kim, 70 (not related), no longer spoke Korean -- though they are third- and fourth-generation Korean Mexicans who have no Mexican blood.

The group of 20 were to perform that night for Korean and Mexican dignitaries in one of the banquet halls. They practiced the Korean folk song over and over, as Korean Americans and Latino waiters looked on. They only really felt comfortable when they started to consider which Mexican song to perform.

"And all for what, and all for what, if in the end you lose?" Rafael Kim, 23, of Mexico City crooned.

They were the descendants of Koreans lured in 1905 by ship to plantations on the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico. Instead of finding a better life, they were sold to plantation owners and forced to cultivate henequen, a plant whose tough fiber was used to make things like rope.

The Koreans and their descendants would come to be known as the Henequen, in part because they were so hardy and hard-working. They had fled a Korea that was under Japanese rule, and despite their struggle, they sent money back home, hoping to help their countrymen gain independence. But few ever saw their homeland again.

In the ensuing decades, they spread to other parts of Mexico -- and increasingly intermarried with Mexicans. Little by little, they abandoned the Korean language. Alberto King, a 23-year-old college student in Tijuana, said that although his mother looked Korean she spoke only Spanish. Her own parents had stopped speaking Korean.

"The Mexicans at first would not accept them. So their own parents decided to cut off the language and just talk Spanish," King said. "It went really badly for them because of the language."

Fermin Kim said fights were a part of life in grade school, when they would be called chinos (Chinese). In the beginning, intermarriage was strongly discouraged. He said he had a Mexican girlfriend and his grandparents reacted by asking, " 'Where did you find her?' They got mad." He ended up marrying another Korean Mexican. David Kim, his fellow chaperon, said that despite being one of the older Henequen, he married a Mexican woman.

For decades, as Korea struggled under foreign rule and wars, the Korean Mexicans were largely forgotten. Various estimates place their numbers at up to 30,000. But as South Korea began to prosper economically and the centennial of the Koreans' arrival in Yucatan drew near, attention focused on them.

They were visited by South Korean politicians and were invited to their ancestors' homeland. Korean Mexicans were flown to South Korea to get special job training. South Koreans built hospitals and schools in Mexico and were feted by Mexican officials.

"When the centennial happened in 2005, we almost got celebrity treatment," Fermin Kim said. "That's something we never had in 99 years."

That year, a group of Korean Mexicans was brought by the Korean-American Foundation to Plaza Mexico in Lynwood. The visitors were surprised by how many people of Korean descent live in the Los Angeles area.

"We didn't even know there was such a large Korean community so close by," Fermin Kim said. "We didn't even know there was a Koreatown. We hadn't integrated with Koreans here."

Plaza Mexico, which opened in 2002, was the vision of Donald Chae, a Korean American who grew up among Latinos and who has traveled throughout Mexico. Chae tells people that, "I don't speak Spanish. I speak Mexican."

"I am a Korean American Mexican," he quips. "I'm still waiting for my pasaporte."

The center was built with Mexican stone and boasted touches like a swap meet with a facade designed after the colonial-era governor's mansion in Guadalajara and a shrine for the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Chae said that when he spoke to the young Korean Mexicans, he could tell they were surprised he spoke Spanish fluently. He in turn was struck by how strongly their identity was rooted.

"They're real Mexicans," Chae said. "They have a real Mexican way of talking. They use a lot of doble sentidos (double entendres). Mexicans use a lot of double meanings."

But he said it was important that they learn about the other culture that informed their lives and those of their ancestors.

"When you don't know your culture," Chae said, "you get lost."

By 6:30 p.m., the spectators had taken their seats. A Korean woman dressed in a blue sequined dress sang the American and Korean national anthems. A few of the Korean Mexican youths tried to gamely mouth the words of the latter.

The consul generals of Mexico and Korea gave speeches. Four of the Korean Mexicans performed a tea ceremony as Hyun Kim led them with hand signals. Then a Mexican folkloric group and a Korean dance troupe took turns on the stage.

Dressed in their mix-and-match outfits, the young Korean Mexicans looked on with mouths slightly agape as the teenage Korean girls used wooden sticks to rapidly beat elevated drums.

Then the 20 Korean Mexicans took the stage.

Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo. . . . The song describing a woman, looking as her husband walked away up a crooked road.

The audience smiled and clapped. Moments later, the youths jumped into the Mexican song they had decided to sing: "Cielito Lindo."

From the brown Sierras,

Heavenly one, they come descending,

A pair of dark eyes, heavenly one. . . . .

Ay ay ay ay, sing and don't cry. . . . .

As people streamed out of the hall, Rafael Kim said he was moved most of all by the Korean girls who danced so gracefully and full of purpose, as if they knew full well who they were.

"You feel a sensation of pride, because you're a Korean descendant, just like them," he said in Spanish. "I see them dance so beautifully, and that I didn't know of things like this as a child, it makes me a little sad. It's a feeling of discovered feelings."

As he walked away, Woo Jun Lee, a stocky middle-aged Korean American, ran over to Kim so they could all take a picture together.

Waving his hand, Lee cried out: "Hey, paisano!"

hector.becerra@latimes.com

"The Indigenous Intifada"

2008-08-18T13:23:00.002-05:00

The trigger of South America
By Hamid Golpira

The Indigenous Intifada of the Americas has won another victory.

With 90 percent of the ballots counted, it seems that Bolivian President Evo Morales received over 60 percent of the vote in Sunday’s recall election, ensuring that he will stay in office until his term ends in 2011.

Morales, who is a member of the Aymara ethnic group, became the first indigenous leader of Bolivia in nearly 500 years after his inauguration in 2006.

The indigenous people of Bolivia and the rest of South America have suffered through five centuries of oppression, which began with the European invasion and conquest of the Americas.

In Bolivia, the situation has been terrible for the Native Americans, even though it is one of the few indigenous majority countries of the Americas.

The “white” upper class of Bolivia has monopolized power for 500 years while the indigenous people have lived under a caste system which places them at the bottom as virtual serfs.

The upper class of Bolivia identify themselves as descendents of the white European settlers, although many are actually light-skinned mestizos, so there is also an element of denial in the country’s racist caste system, which is often the case in racial caste systems.

The indigenous people of Bolivia were kept down, their rights were trampled upon, and they were given little or no access to social services, adequate health care, and higher education. In addition, they were rarely given the opportunity to acquire higher-paying jobs and most are still not even earning a proper living wage in Bolivia, which is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, despite its vast natural gas reserves.

The “white” upper class retained their privileged status through this caste system, which marginalized the Native Americans for centuries.

And these are the same people who are behind the efforts to oust Morales and the illegal autonomy referendums recently held in the provinces in the eastern lowlands of the country, where many of the “whites” live.

Morales’ victory in the 2005 presidential election struck fear into the hearts of the “white” upper class because they realized that they were beginning to lose power.

When Morales took office and began implementing his plan to restore the indigenous peoples’ rights, rewrite the Constitution, redistribute wealth to the poor, and renationalize the country’s hydrocarbon assets, the “white” community became even more desperate.

The illegal autonomy referendums were a part of their counter-revolutionary response to the threat to their power and privilege.

Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia and his remains were interred in a secret grave there for 30 years until they were discovered in 1997 and sent to Cuba for reburial in a more dignified grave.

It is said that the revolutionary sprit of Che lives on in Bolivia.

Indeed, in one of his first acts after taking office in 2006, Morales hung up a portrait of Che Guevara in the presidential palace.

Commenting on the importance of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Frantz Fanon once said: “Congo is the trigger of Africa.”

And across the ocean, in Africa’s twin continent, South America, which separated when Pangaea broke up millions of years ago, Congo has a sister country, Bolivia.

For today, Bolivia is the trigger of South America.

Bolivia is now the center of the Indigenous People’s Movement of the Americas.

The winds of change are blowing across the continent of South America, from Tiahuanaco to Ecuador and Venezuela.

In the early 1990s, the Native Americans decided that they could no longer tolerate the fact that an official holiday named Columbus Day was being celebrated on October 12 to commemorate the arrival of the European conquistadors and settlers, so they renamed the day Indigenous People’s Day.

On October 12, 1992, Native Americans across the hemisphere united from Kalaallit Nunaat to Tierra del Fuego to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, on the very same day the European settlers were celebrating the 500th anniversary of the invasion of the Americas. Many say it was the first time that the Indigenous People of the Americas had ever united for a common purpose.

Something really changed on that day and things will never be the same. The collective consciousness of Native Americans was reawakened.

At one of the many ceremonies held throughout the double continent of America on October 12, 1992, a traditionalist Native American made a speech in which he said that most of the Indigenous People of the Americas believe that time is cyclical.

He went on to say that Indigenous People’s Day 1992 marked the end of the 500-year cycle of oppression for Native Americans and the beginning of a positive cycle for the Indigenous People of Great Turtle Island, which is a very ancient name for the double continent of America first mentioned in the Walam Olum of the Lenni Lenape nation.

In addition, according to the Maya calendar, the current time cycle began in 3114 BC and ends on December 21, 2012.

Bolivia is the trigger of South America. And Bolivia is also the trigger of all of Great Turtle Island.

And what will happen when the trigger is pulled and the shot is fired? Changes that we can’t imagine.

As the I Ching says: “Change proves true on the day it is finished.”

Original source: http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=175270

Much respect to Intelligent Indigena for the post.

Indoamerica

2008-08-13T11:40:00.003-05:00

Chavez proposes renaming Latin America to Indian America

MEXICO, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has proposed renaming Latin America to Indian America, the Mexican media reported.

"Let's call our continent Indian America instead of Latin America," Chavez told a meeting of the Indian community in Caracas, capital of Venezuela.

He said the notion Latin had been enforced by the Europeans, while Indians were the continent's indigenous population.

The outspoken Venezuelan president, who has led his country since 1999, said his move was aimed at restoring "historical justice."

Mexican political analysts believe Chavez' surprising idea stemmed from his nationality.

Chavez is of mixed Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish descent. He is an outspoken opponent of globalization and U.S. foreign policy.

Originally posted by "The Latin Americanist"; Original source- http://en.rian.ru/world/20080812/115976867.html

Popol Vuh and the History of the Black Family

2008-08-12T19:32:00.004-05:00

Paz! Tau!

Within the Nation of Gods and Earths, we advocate that the Original man is the Blackman, and that "black" comes in shades, which manifest into the various hues of brown, "red" and yellow. Thus, making all people of color- "Original people" and "of the Black family". While it may be the perspective of many in indigenous communities that they are 'not' Black. Likewise, those skeptical that there was indeed vary strong interaction between African and Native American peoples. There seems to be some evidence in the traditions of our people. Such as the Dine (Navajo) creation story of the "Black God" and his arranging of the stars, or as we may find in the Mayan "Popol Vuh", Voltan, who was said to have come East from across the ocean. While many in traditional tribal communities may dismiss the teachings of the Nation of Gods and Earths and to a degree the Nation of Islam as politico-cultural-byproducts from the Civil Rights Movements, the spawn of Black Nationalism, our teachings actually draw from earlier traditions in many ways, irregardless to their more recent introduction into the mainstream America, via the 1960's search for identity and unity. The truth is the truth, and will only be seen by those who are pure of heart and open to embracing a clearer understanding of our history on this beautiful planet and more insight into our oneness. Below I have posted an article written by my brother Supreme Understanding Allah (of Bengali descent, for all those who claim that the Five Percenters are an exclusively "African-American" movement). It is very introductory and serves as a platform to begin approaching and exploring of the Popol Vuh.

Popol Vuh: The Community Book
By Supreme U. Allah
April 19, 1999

The “Popol Vuh” is known as “one of the rarest relics of aboriginal thought,” part of the richest mythological legacy of the Americas, that is, that of the Quiche Indians of Guatemala (Bancroft 42). It has been subtitled “The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiche Maya” (Goetz IX), though a more accurate translation of the title would be “The Book of Community”, of the “Book of the People”. The Popol Vuh contains the popular traditions, mythology, religious beliefs, migrations, and development of the Indian tribes which populated the territory of the present Republic of Guatemala after the fall of the Maya Old Empire. For this reason, it is an invaluable resource to us now, as much so as it was in its antiquity.

The book itself is said to have existed “long ago; but its sight is (now) hidden from the searcher and the thinker (Goetz 18).” It is supposed to have descended from a long tradition of preservation by oral tradition (according to most western scholars), thought it’s inscription by the use of the Mayan hieroglyphs is also quite possible. We are told that the Popol Vuh is indeed an old book which ancient kings and lords would draw upon for inspiration as well as prophecy and divination. It was first transcribed in Latin script from the Quiche language sometime between 1554 and 1558, but the document was not found until 150 years later by Father Ximenez of the Dominican Order in a town the Spanish had renamed ‘Santo Tomas’.

Of the numerous puzzles related to this book, one is the question of the identity of its original author. It is suggested that he was a learned Quiche Indian who had memorized the traditions of his people and, upon learning Spanish from the missionaries, putting them in writing. Father Jimenez (to who we owe the translation of the title as “Book of the People”) came upon the Quiche document, most likely due to his benevolent treatment of the Indians in his attempts at converting them, and took it upon himself to single handedly translate it in whole. It is speculated that he then returned the original book to its owners, but whatever its fate, the original manuscript of the Popol Vuh is now lost to the world.

The mythology found within the Popol Vuh is of an interesting character. It describes the gods (who are clearly man-like, if not simply man) as very human characters, displaying tendencies to act in ways that can be summarized as similar to the Greek gods, and in much the same way, a conflict between man and God is ever-present. There have been numerous attempts to discredit the authenticity of the Popol Vuh by comparing its creation account and some of its later storytelling with that of the Old Testament. Some scholars claim that the native element was overridden by strong Christian influence, and even the narrator of the Popol Vuh himself states “we shall write now under the Law of God and Christianity,” and continues to say, “we shall bring it to light because now the Popol Vuh, as it is called, cannot be seen anymore, in which was clearly seen the coming from the other side of the sea and the narration of our obscurity, and our life was clearly seen (Goetz 79-80).” Was the tradition tainted by missionary influence? Possibly yes, but the creation account could just as easily have been borrowed from the Aztecs as from the Bible, and the Popol Vuh’s description of the waters from which the world emerged are authentically native, though a striking similarity may be evident.

Another problem comes up in the issue of translation. Scholars claim faulty translation as far back as Ximenez’s attempts to record, word-for-word, the Quiche story in Spanish. Numerous versions of the book exts now, each offering slight differences in wording and interpretation. The version I purchased in Mexico describes the creation of the first man as resulting in “a heap of black clay with a stiff, straight neck, a wide, crooked, toothless mouth, and blind, discolored vacant eyes poorly placed at different levels on each side of the face near the temples. (Gomez 9)” The account continues, “However, the new creature had the gift of speech and sounded more harmonious than any music that had ever been heard before under the heavens. (Gomez 9-10)” Though the gods would continue to make three more races of man before finally arriving at one which they were satisfied (the second and third were violently destroyed), the first, the Black race, was allowed to live and given time to multiply and improve their kind.

I have not found this in the other translations I have come across. Another significant fact to note is the repeated use of the color ‘black’. The first speaker at the Black Christ in the Americas symposium in Cosby Hall at Spelman College (November 20th, 1998) mentioned briefly that “Ritual use of the color black was widespread in the Mesoamericas,” and that there were sacred connotations associated with deities and the otherworldly. I have found ‘black’ to be the single most-used color found in the Popol Vuh, with no other color coming near its frequency in use. The first race described is Black, as are pots, stones, animals, and so on, however, the final race is created from yellow and white cornmeal dough, (Gomez 16) and this all may allude to the racial makeup and migrations of the Native Americans. The first two migrations (there is said to have been one 35-40,000 years ago, and another, more definite one 16,000 years ago) from Asia were “Diminutive Blacks” (Van Sertima 253), while a third migration approximately 2000 B.C. lending the Americas its Mongoloid strain. With the Spanish conquest, the white race of man is finally added to the picture. Could the yellow and white formation of man point to his most recent development in the Americas (or in the world)?

The Popol Vuh is full of mysteries and puzzles that lay unsolved; it has been designated the “Bible of the Americas” for all that it contains. One must study it with the same eye for profound insight and esoteric knowledge as any book of its caliber, in order to begin to grasp the spectacular cosmology of the Native American peoples.

Works cited:

1. Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The Native Races of the Pacific States. Vol. 3 San Francisco, 1883.

2. Goetz, Delia, and Sylvanus G. Goetz. The Popol Vuh. Trans. Adrian Racinos. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950.

3. Gomez, Ermilo Abreu. The Popol Vuh. Yucatan: Dante, 1992.

4. Van Sertima, Ivan., ed. African Prescence in Early America. New Brunswick: Transaction

Racial Profiling: Traffic Stops and Tyranny

2008-08-05T13:08:00.003-05:00

Paz! Tau!

Las matematicas de hoy es "poder". En Ingles.., "poder" is "power". It was once said that 'true power', only comes through the truth. It is through the power of truth do we see the essence of what it means to be "powerful". Not powerful in terms of money or material accumulation. Not "power" in terms of forcing your will upon others. Power, as in the ability to influence people, places and things and most importantly, ones' self. The "power" to bring change to our own lives. Unfortunately, we live in a society where power is abused. It is misconstrued as a privilege and not something that beings are endowed with from their creation. Thus, it is dangled in front of our faces and we are taunted and teased by the misconception that we "have no power" over the conditions in our lives, especially in regards to the government's influence in out lives. They create policy that allows them to excercise unnecessary displays of economic, social and cultural heirarchy and which further instigate tension amongst the masses. "Power" is very much in perception. If you are perceived as "powerless" then there is always someone seeking to have "power" over you. And those who think that they have "power" over you are, in the universal scheme of things, really the powerless, because they operate not on their own accord, but on someone else's. They operate under someone's influence and will. Just as the police do. Nevertheless, the disgusting display of abused power is nothing more than a tool or method of instilling paranoia and fear in the population. Can someone say terrorism?

"FIGHT THE POWER!"- Public Enemy, from the 'Apocalypse 91' album

So what power do we have against or over racial profiling? Let's build!

Traffic stops and race

Most traffic stops in Illinois end in a ticket or a warning and nothing more. But in a small percentage—about 1 in 100—the police ask to search the vehicle.

That's called a "consent search." New statistics show that about 9 out of 10 times, drivers—white, black or Hispanic—say OK.

The stats also show that these searches are impressively productive in turning up drugs and other contraband.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and others want these searches stopped because of a disparity revealed in those statistics: The cops ask Hispanics and blacks more frequently to consent to searches than they do whites.

You're three times more likely if you're black and more than twice as likely if you're Hispanic to be subjected to such a search during a traffic stop.

That is unfair and unwarranted, the advocates say. For that matter, police find contraband less often with black and Hispanic motorists than they do with whites.

But let's slow down here. These stats show that such searches are:

•Rare. The number of consent searches was small—slightly more than 23,000 out of the more than 2.4 million traffic stops conducted in the state last year. Police in the state searched 1.9 out of 100 black motorists who were stopped, 0.6 out of 100 whites and 1.5 out of 100 Hispanics.

•Valuable. The searches often find contraband like drugs in vehicles. Almost a quarter of the time, police find contraband in vehicles driven by white drivers. They find it about 14 percent of the time in cars with black drivers and 11 percent of the time with Hispanics. That is a significant success rate.

Racial profiling—stopping motorists because of race or ethnicity—is unjust and repugnant. It is toxic to public confidence in law enforcement and the cornerstone notion that we enjoy equal protection under the law.

We've supported the collection of statewide data on such stops, which began in 2003 at the urging of then-state Sen. Barack Obama and other lawmakers.

And we continue to support more scrutiny into whether police are making stops for reasons that involve race or ethnicity.

The answer, though, isn't to ban all cops from asking motorists to agree to a search. That's a valuable law enforcement tool. The better alternative: Train cops about when searches are warranted and ferret out cops who abuse the authority.

Article originally posted by "The Latin Americanist"; original source- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0731edit3jul31,0,7794156.story

Africa in Mexico: Like It Or Not

2008-07-29T15:08:00.002-05:00

Paz! Tau!

Below is a video and a brief article about the African influence in Mexico.
And while some Mexica continue the same propaganda, that Mexicans are not black, and that only certain towns and neighborhoods have "black blood", the truth continues to remain. These are the same people who give praises and exalt their "European" roots over their African and Indigenous roots. Why? Throughout so-called Latin America, we, the people, are 'Indios y Africanos'. The mindset that states otherwise is a mindset of colonialism. It is the product of 515 years of self-hatred and identity crisis', psychological and emotional rape and servitude. This is not a conspiracy theory and far from a political ploy to simply 'unite' the two groups of Original people under false bonds. It is the reclaiming of a rich and wonderful history shared by both and the re-bonding of those peoples whom who were taken away from that history. We are 'one' because we are Original peoples. Black, brown (red) and yellow....some may have more African or some may have more Indian. Understand that our legacy extends farther back than chattel slavery.

Black Oaxacans Demand Recognition

Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca - Seated in the dusty front yard of her ramshackle home in the El Ciruelo community of Pinotepa Nacional, Elena Ruiz's bright white blouse accents the deep ebony color of her skin. "We (Mexican) blacks are not even in the history books," she laments. "It's as if we were invisible in the eyes of the government."

Further down the road from El Ciruelo is Llano Grande, another predominantly black community of the municipality of Pinotepa Nacional where, says local farmer Fulmencio González Mariche, "there's not even anybody left to see us." A few children play in the street while their grandparents relax nearby in hammocks, but people of working age are noticeably absent. "The young folks have all gone to North Carolina," says González Mariche.

In Collantes, which like El Ciruelo and Llano Grande, is one of the "pueblos negros," or "black towns," of this southwestern corner of Oaxaca, resident doña Fidela Bernal Noyola regretfully admits that "the majority of us never went to school, and as a result, we don't know how to read or write." Trapped in poverty, Bernal Noyola has managed to eke out a meager living by shucking corn, making coconut oil, or hauling gravel from the nearby river.

Corralero is another riverside community of Pinotepa Nacional where "the fish are all gone and the earth is dry," say local residents. Corralero local Anastasio Colón Rodríguez, admits that "nobody really knows where my ancestors came from, although around here they say that our roots are in Africa, which, owing to the color of my skin, I don't deny."

Along the Costa Chica, or "Little Coast" of Oaxaca, lie dozens of small communities inhabited primarily by Mexicans of African descent. Exactly how many African-Mexicans live here, or in the rest of the country, is uncertain, because blacks are not counted as a distinct minority by the federal government. Instead, say community members and leaders, African-Mexicans are largely ignored by government services, marginalized by racist attitudes and, like doña Fidela Bernal Noyola, relegated to lives of poverty and illiteracy on the fringes of society. As a result, many black communities like Llano Grande are experiencing an exodus of young African-Mexicans who are leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere.

DISCRIMINATION

With indignation, Elena Ruiz asks: "If our ancestors fought for the cause of independence, why is it that Mexican history does not recognize us in textbooks? It's just one more form of discrimination against blacks and it makes us feel bad to know that we have no place in history."

Ruiz is the granddaughter of Artemio Ruiz, one of a group of castaways from an African ship that reportedly made its way to Puerto Minizo, Oaxaca, in the early 20th century. The other members of the African-Mexican community here are descendents of 17th- and 18th-century slaves brought here by the Spanish.

Elena remembers that as a child, others would tease her with the name "negra vendepescado" or "black fishmonger." Sometimes she even used her fists to defend herself, she said, "because the color of my skin is a source of pride, not ridicule."

Gladis Arellanes Herrera, a teacher at the secondary school in the community of Llano Grande Tapextla, related how discrimination and racism has affected her. "My partner, with whom I lived in a common-law marriage, was getting a lot of flak from his family," she says. "They would tell him: 'Are you really going to marry a black? Those blacks have some really ugly customs, you know,' and so he left me with a child that he doesn't even know."

LOSS OF IDENTITY

Obdulio Serrano Morales, a 75-year-old fisherman from Corralero, said he has little idea of his ancestry. "I don't know anything; no one has ever told us the story about how our ancestors got here," he says. "All I know is that this is where I was born."

The organization Mexico Negro, or "Black Mexico," is now working to help African-Mexicans like Serrano Morales to learn about their heritage. Pedro Baños, director of the local cultural center and a researcher for Mexico Negro, says that the first Africans arrived at Costa Chica on the southwest corner of Oaxaca state 470 years ago as slaves who were brought to pick cotton. Many died from disease upon arrival, he says.

The Africans who came to this area were primarily from the Congo, Mozambique and Angola, says Baños. His organization is also working to help the black community recognize its rights and to embrace its cultural identity.

"The problem of the loss of cultural identity, along with that of racial discrimination, is that even some black people will deny their own racial heritage," said Elena Ruiz.

Gladis Arellanes Herrera, the Llano Grande teacher, recalled that when she finished her master's degree, her mother told her: "Now you are old enough to marry, but please don't marry another black. Just imagine what that would mean for your children."

POVERTY

According to Pedro Baños, the black population of the Costa Chica is slowly beginning to die out due to a poverty-driven exodus. "Since about four years ago, there has been a large migration of people trying to escape the bleak economic situation," he says. Today Baños estimates that there are little more than 5,000 people of direct African lineage left on the Costa Chica, and another 15,000 of mixed AfricanMexican descent.

"People are leaving because there's no work here," says Higinio Guillermo Verónica Cruz, a municipal representative from Tapextla who only recently returned from a five-year stint as a migrant laborer in North Carolina. "The cornfield is no longer producing, and so there's no money to be made here."

In the "pueblos negros," the lack of proper sanitation is alarming. "There's no sewage system nor waste treatment centers. The health clinics don't have doctors nor medicine. You have to drink from the wells because there's no other source of potable water, and the dusty roads and dusty floors of most homes make the children sick with bronchitis," says Verónica Cruz.

Surrounded by this scenario, Fulmencio González Mariche sits at his Llano Grande home beside his bed-ridden wife, waiting for the traveling doctor to make his visit to the town. He's at least 30 days late. "There's not even anybody left to see us," repeats the elderly farmer.

from: http://www.banderasnews.com/0506/edat-oaxacans.htm

Palante! Despite the Propaganda

2008-07-02T10:03:00.003-05:00

The following article was originally posted by 'Vivirlatino' and then cross-posted by 'The Latin Americanist', I wanted to post it and share it as well. It is an interesting and important topic to be discussed.

It is an issue that reveals the propaganda that is used and can be used against us within this society. As the article states, a larger issue is the perpetuating of the stereotype as so-called Latina women as hyper-sexual, lustful baby-makers. A perspective that Anglos have long carried with them in their relationships with our people. We must only harken back to the days in Puerto Rico of forced sterilizations and experimenting of the birth control on Original women. Also, the large numbers of Native American women who were forcefully sterilized throughout the United States. We need to continue to educate our people and provide for them so that we can raise our babies in the best conditions possible. We should continue to reach out and aid our sisters in need. Not just to avoid being labeled or prevent an issue from being used as propaganda against us. But so that we can do what's right and what's best for our ninos. Of course we want to resist, and fight against the labels and stereotypes projected upon us. But it is better to have understanding then it is to be understood. First and foremost, our ways, words and actions should be concentrated on the progress of our families and our communities. So that we can show our children ways to be successful within this society, without sacrificing la cultura, and so that they do not simply repeat whatever efforts we have made in the struggle. We have to create avenues for this to be possible.

Those who seek to do so, will continue on teaching falsehoods about us and slandering our people on the world stage. They will continue to fabricate and formulate propaganda against us to mislead the masses. They will continue to be 'them'. We need to continue to be 'us'. And still, be wise. La matematica de hoy es 'sabiduria'.

Making Babies is The Cause of Latino Population Growth, Not Immigration (and no one else is concerned with this framing?)

We'll say it once and I'll say it again, all those new brown faces in your hood are not coming from across the border. They are being born here. A study done out of the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute shows that the growth in the Latino population has to do with births increasing, not immigration.

This natural increase — more births than deaths — is accelerating among Hispanics in the USA because they are younger than the U.S. population as a whole. Their median age is 27.4, compared with 37.9 overall, 40.8 for whites, 35.4 for Asians and 31.1 for blacks.

And while the blogosphere and the media is using this study as an opportunity to say, "I told you so" to anti-immigration activists, My concern is another direction that this information could be used in.

There is a growing resurgence of the stereotype of Latina women as prolific breeders, reducing the role and image of mujeres to animals concerned with feeding their hot blooded lust and then feeding the babies that follow. There is a growing concern in the anti-immigrant movement with "anchor-babies", a disgusting way of describing children born in the U.S to undocumented women with the idea that these children will allow the women to stay in the U.S. or to take the fucked up analogy, anchor them to the U.S.

For declining counties, many in the Great Plains, the growth in young Hispanics may be the only way out of a population spiral.

"Demographically, they can't recover unless something like this happens," Johnson says. "There's no way older white populations can replace themselves."

Because more than half of births to Hispanic immigrants are to low-income women who have no high school degree, a natural population increase challenges communities, says Steve Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes limits on immigration.

"It's a huge growth in low-income population and low tax payments," he says. "If the town is not viable economically, immigration is not going to fix that problem."

Along with the image of the perpetually hot, knocked up mami, comes the image of what people expect to happen after children are born. These Latina women and their children are assumed to go onto the welfare rolls, to overwhelm the public school system, the change the language and way people communicate.
Just read some of the comments under the original USA Today article (if you can keep from going off).

Immigration activists and all (hey feminists want a cause to get behind), need to be on point for a resurgence of eugenicist calls that only certain people, meeting certain requirements should have babies (these requirements of course based on the intersections of race and class). Be prepared for calls for mass sterilizations and forced birth control.

There is no analysis of what families consume more. Be prepared for so called environmentalist pointing their green fingers at brown mamis and their babies.

Surviving 'La Migra'

2008-06-25T16:19:00.006-05:00

As the devil's civilization continues to fall from it's plight, the government, despite it's facade of racial and cultural tolerance (remember the "American melting pot" idea?), marches on in it's crusade against anyone who was not born within U.S. borders. They persist with making our day to day lives more and more difficult with their policies of discrimination and exclusion. The policy of racial profiling has been and remains very contraversial, as it affects so many people, especially those whom are technical not in any violation of the law. However, as time goes on, we bear witness that just being who you are, in and of it self, is a violation of U.S. law. It was the census bureau and social scientist, along with urban anthropologist's that gave the prediction of people of color outnumbering "white" people in the U.S. by 2050. Which is quite frightening for those with racist tendencies. Especially considering that a large portion of that population may not even be U.S. born, or at the very least, 1st generation. This matters in the mindset of the racially privileged and economic/political elite because the majority would have more of a popular influence behind policy in the U.S. and therefore those policies which complimented the old majority would be more than likely re-written or altered in order to compliment the new majority. And as we see, today's mathematics is 'wisdom power'. The words, ways and actions of the Original people having the greatest influence or power over daily life in 'Amekikia'. That which is only the inevitable (we outnumber them, of European descent, on the planet Earth) is seen by the right-winged politicos as some sort of conspiracy to destroy the "American way of life", a code phrase for "white way of life". In the mean time, we can't go to the 'mercado', the bus stop, the park with our 'ninos' without extreme paranoia, a sense of being picked up and swept off to some Guatanamo prison for 'spics and darkies'. They ultimately want to prevent a "colorful uprising", something that was feared by the Spanish Empire for years throughout their colonies. In the early 1800's the colonial government of El Salvador, after abolishing slavery, halted all immigration of those of African descent in their country. Many countries, while not abolishing slavery or completely halting immigration, simply set out on campaign's to incourage European immgration and settlement in their countries in efforts to combat the strong African-Indigenous prescence. Whilst, in places like Puerto Rico, whom had a considerably large "free-colored" population, the European immigration only widened the gap in numbers between the white populus and the sector of color. At various points in Puerto Rican history the number of 'free-blacks' rivaled those of whites and despite being 'free', they were still non-white and were stigmatized by a view of having non-white 'ways' which threatened those culture of those in 'power'.

Is Riding the Bus a Ticket to Jail?
By Caroline Kim and Jenna Loyd

In December 2007, Artemio and two of his friends were traveling by bus through Syracuse, New York on their way to their homes in Mexico. Rather than celebrating Christmas with their families, however, the three men were arrested by immigration agents at a bus station. They were then detained at a county jail before being transferred to the ICE facility in Batavia, New York, and eventually deported to Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also known as the Border Patrol, confirms that its agents in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo check the citizenship status of travelers passing through by bus and train every day. These three cities are within 100 miles of the US-Canadian border. But more important than the border zone is the location of these cities on a major transportation corridor linking the Northeast (New York City and Boston) with the Midwest (Cleveland and Chicago). Border Patrol agents use Syracuse’s location as the functional equivalent of the border to police people traveling within the interior of the country.

Agents check for citizenship in the bus and train station—often waiting at the Greyhound ticket counter, or watching people as they disembark for food—and onboard buses and trains already filled with passengers. People who have witnessed or been subject to Border Patrol agents questioning describe two practices: agents explicitly target a group of people or ask everyone on board about their citizenship status.

According to reports from the Detainment Task Force, a Northern New York group, people routinely singled out for questioning include those who appear to be Mexican, Central American, South Asian, Asian, Afro-Caribbean, or Middle Eastern. Border Patrol officials deny that the agency racially profiles, insisting that they look for suspicious behaviors and, “question people with blond hair and blue eyes as much as anyone else.” But common understandings of race in the U.S. fuse nationality and ethnicity so that some groups are permanently deemed to be “foreign.”

The story of Tomas, who is from Guatemala, illustrates the ways in which law enforcement’s use of racial profiling—and the collaboration of local law enforcement with Border Patrol agents—impedes people’s ability to travel.

In July 2007, Tomas and his friend Salvador were driving to a doctor’s appointment. As they pulled out of the toll plaza from the I-90 throughway in Syracuse, a state trooper stopped them. Tomas has a valid U.S. driver’s license and a properly registered vehicle. The state trooper gave no indication of why he had stopped the vehicle, but he did ask Tomas and Salvador about their immigration status and then called Border Patrol agents. “The police officer stopped us because we have Hispanic faces,” Tomas said.

Tomas has had the same experience traveling by bus. Last October he was traveling to Syracuse on Greyhound when Border Patrol agents boarded the bus at the Rochester bus station. “The Border Patrol agents questioned all the Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian passengers,” he recalled. “They did not question any of the white passengers except some women who were wearing veils. Border Patrol had dogs with them and checked the whole bus. They even looked in the bathroom.”

A separate incident occurred in December when Tomas was at the Syracuse bus station with another friend. They were speaking to each other in Spanish as they approached the ticket counter where a Border Patrol agent was stationed. “As soon as the Border Patrol agent heard us speaking Spanish, he asked me for my papers,” he said.

Even when Latino travelers produce documents proving their legal status, they are not safe from harassment.

When Tomas finally boarded the bus and arrived in Rochester, Border Patrol was there as well. “I saw them [Border Patrol] on the platform questioning two Hispanic men. The men gave them permanent resident cards. The Border Patrol agent didn’t believe them. He took the cards and called somewhere else. The men had to wait for twenty minutes.” The two men were eventually released.

Tomas’s testimony is not unique. A professor at Syracuse University who is a naturalized citizen originally from the Dominican Republic has been questioned multiple times in his travels and a Syracuse University student who is a U.S. citizen of South Asian descent was separated from his wife, a legal permanent resident, and both interrogated about their status.

Original source: http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=304

Descanse en Paz

2008-06-22T19:08:00.005-05:00

Peace! Paz!

I wanted to send my eternal positive thought and meditation to my sister- 'Queen True Reality Earth', of Now Justice (New Jersey), rest in peace- descanse en paz. As well as my condolences to her physical family, of Ecuador. She has recently transitioned and succumbed to the evils of domestic abuse, and unfortunately by someone who 'claimed' to be "righteous". Unfortunately, the truth is that the effects of colonialization are still ingrained in many of us, in varying degrees. Despite this, violence, especially against our women and children, is inexcusable and unacceptable.

Murdered woman's life, pain recalled
BY ED BEESON AND HEATHER APPEL

RANDOLPH — Josephine Hoppe feared for her daughter's future whenever she saw the bruises left by the man Maria Hoppe called the love of her life.

"She always came back with finger marks around her neck, and I told her, 'One of these days, you're not going to get up,' " said Josephine Hoppe, the mother of the 26-year-old Randolph woman whose body was found this week inside a Paterson apartment.

A mother's warning didn't convince Maria Hoppe to leave.

Maria Hoppe returned to the Paterson home of Randy Martin, her boyfriend and father of her two small children. It was here where police investigators said she met her end. Some three weeks after authorities said they believed she was killed, Hoppe's body was discovered Tuesday stuffed in a plastic garbage bag inside Martin's 12th Avenue apartment. Martin, a 37-year-old ex-convict, was arrested by Paterson police officers Tuesday and charged with murder. He is being held in Passaic County Jail in Paterson on $1 million bail.

Shortly after Josephine and Fernando Hoppe returned to their Morris County home on Thursday from the Norman Dean Home for Services in Denville that is handling Maria Hoppe's funeral on Saturday, her parents spoke to reporters for the first time about their daughter's death.

Her parents, natives of Ecuador, spoke in Spanish longingly for their 4-foot-11 daughter and spitefully of the man who authorities said took her life. When a friend brought them a framed photo of Maria Hoppe, her father touched it, turned and let out a mournful wail, which echoed across the hilly apartment complex where they live.

The Hoppes said they felt their daughter was headed for disaster in a relationship they felt powerless to stop.

They recalled their daughter as a bright child who played piano and danced to the Latin American rhythms of cumbia.

She grew into a romantic young woman and wrote poetry to express her feelings, Josephine Hoppe said. Her parents, who had longed for a daughter, nicknamed Maria "pequeña flor," Spanish for "little flower."

As a student at Randolph High School, Maria Hoppe decided to become a psychologist.

Her goals changed after she graduated, but she always had a career in mind.

She chased a series of degrees and training certificates from area community colleges: In business and then computing. At the time of her death, Maria Hoppe was a month shy of completing a degree in massage therapy at Dover Business College, her family said.

Maria Hoppe's relationship with Martin began five years ago when she met him while working at an office in Fairfield, her mother said. It was not clear whether Martin worked with her.

Josephine Hoppe said her concerns about the relationship mounted right away. She began to notice bruises appearing on her daughter's body, but Maria Hoppe always told her mother that the marks were an accident. Maria Hoppe was otherwise reluctant to talk about her relationship with Martin, her family said.

Nevertheless, family members said they saw what was happening.

"He was cruel. He always hit her," her father, Fernando Hoppe, said. "He turned her green, brown, blue."

There were moments when she seemed at peace. "But that was when he was in jail," Josephine Hoppe said.

Maria Hoppe stayed in the relationship with Martin. They had two children: a daughter, Jewel, now 2 years old, and a son, Zahir, who was born in January. Family photos show Maria Hoppe beaming as she held Jewel. Her son's birth invigorated her as well, her family said.

"I never saw her look so beautiful," a cousin, Jessica Hoppe, said, recalling the days after Zahir's birth. "She was glowing."

The state Division of Youth and Family Services twice intervened and took custody of the children, according to the family. Jewel and Zahir are now in the care of Josephine and Fernando Hoppe.

Maria Hoppe's final days remain mostly a mystery. She left her parent's home for the last time on May 13. Two weeks later, Josephine Hoppe said she had her last telephone conversation with her daughter.

On May 28, a state Superior Court judge in Morris County signed an order against Martin, forcing him to pay $150 a week in child support, plus $966 in arrears, court records show. The Morris County Office of Temporary Assistance had filed the child support lawsuit on behalf of Maria Hoppe, according to the court. The family reported Maria Hoppe missing to authorities on June 10.

Her relationship with Martin evidently took a toll on her mind, too, according to the family.

"Love is pain and suffering, she used to say," Josephine Hoppe said. "She said, 'You'll care for people, but you will never know love, because love is pain.' "

Her daughter's words stunned her mother. "I said, 'If that's love, then I don't want to know love,' " Josephine Hoppe said.

E-mail: beeson@northjersey.com and Heather Appel at appelh@northjersey.com

Original article: http://www.northjersey.com/news/northernnj/No_Title_-_MARIA0620TR.html?c=y&page=1

Yoca"Who?": Yuca, You and Yocahu

2008-06-19T11:06:00.003-05:00

Mi Gente. My people of the SUN. If you have ever been to a ‘bodega’ you might have seen one. It you have ever been through the “international” vegetable section at your local supermarket you may have caught a glimpse of some. If you’ve been amongst those of so-called Latin-American or Caribbean descent, you may have even tasted it. It’s called “yuca” (pronounced- “yoo-kah”).

Yuca is a popular dish in Boriken (colonially named “Puerto Rico”) and throughout the West Indies. As a matter of fact, yuca, also referred to as “cassava”, is a very common dish throughout most of Latin American, Africa and some places in Asia. It is considered a staple in some parts and it is a sacred food amongst Taino peoples. Nutritionally, yuca is very high in calcium (50 mg/100g), phosphorus (40 mg/100g) and vitamin C (25 mg/100g) but it very starchy. Yuca can be served a myriad of ways especially since it is a root, like a potatoe. It can be boiled and eaten, mashed, dried and powdered, and used as flour. It’s root and it’s leaves also have some medicinal properties which have been used for thousands of years in traditional medicine. We cultivated many other crops such as sweet potatoes, beans, squash, guava, and pineapples, however yuca was our principle one. As many of the Indigenous tribes of North and Central Amekikia (America) hold ‘corn’ in especially high reverence, because of the sustenance it provided for the people, Taino’s held the same reverence for yuca.

The following is a great article, written by a Caney-Taino (Cuba) shaman, a ‘bohike’, here in Pittsburgh, regarding the ‘spiritual’ symbolism behind ‘yuca’ and it’s relationship to the ‘divine’.

Yoka Hu Bagua Ma-Orokoti
By Miguel “Sobaoko Koromo” Sague

Yoka Hu is the Lord of Life and energy. He is the spiritual manifestation of all that lives and the essence of Life itself. Yoka Hu is also Energy. He is the spiritual manifestation of all energy but especially the energy of combustion, Fire, Explosion, The sun itself.

The magic of Yoka Hu is found in the warmth of a baby's breath as well as the intense heat of a raging bonfire. It can be encountered in the searing sun-blasted force of a cloudless tropical noontime sky.

Because the heat that brings life to the surface of the Earth comes from the sun (who is called ‘Boinael’ in Caney tradition) the Caney culture sees the sun as the primary manifestation of Yokahu's presence. But the sun's energy can not really be used directly by humans and animals to live. It must be transformed from radiant energy of sunlight to food energy that can then be utilized by animals and people to stay alive. The task of converting the sun's rays into food falls to the plant people. Green plants capture he rays of the sun and through the process of photosynthesis they convert that energy into starch food. Then they store the food in their tissues. Plants thereby become repositories of solar energy. Animals and people come along and eat the plants. By doing this they release the solar energy into their bodies in the form of nutritional calories and burn it to support the business of living.

All green plants store caloric starches in their tissues but there are certain plants that excel at this task. Most of these high-starch plants have been adopted and revered by the various cultures of he world and recognized as the life-supporters that they are. They include WHEAT (the "daily bread" of Christian tradition), RICE (the staple of most of Asia), and MAIZE CORN (the staple of Central American Indians). In South America and the Caribbean root crops were adopted as the main providers. In the high Andes mountain homes of the Inca Indians the potato sustained a vast empire, and in the Amazon and Orinoco river rain forests the high-yield yuca (manioc) is the sacred provider. These two plants bear high-yield nutritious roots that sustained large populations.

The yuca of the Amazon/Orinoco basins and the Caribbean, is in fact, the namesake of Lord Yoka Hu. For his name literally means SOUL OF THE YUCA PLANT. In him is contained all the reverence and awe that we humans hold for the mighty solar life-giver and the green plants that turn his hot rays into living breath.

The yearly round of the sun or an annual crop plant provides the imagery that illustrates Yoka Hu as a living entity with an actual life cycle.

In this drawing Yoka Hu appears at the extreme bottom as an embryo within the nurturing warmth of Ata Bey's Cosmic womb, gestating during the Winter Solstice when the sun is furthest away toward the South. As the cycle moves clockwise towards the left side of the drawing, Yoka hu is born in the Spring Equinox emerging from Ata Bey's womb when the sun begins to return from his southern sojourn. The cycle keeps moving clockwise up to the top position at the Summer Solstice when the sun is at his highest strength and Yoka Hu reaches full maturity and vitality. As the deadly hurricane storms of late Summer and Fall raise the specter of death and destruction Yoka Hu wanes and finally dies at the Autumnal Equinox on the extreme right of the cycle image. The harvested plant similarly must die to rise to its ultimate destiny. Death brings on new Life as the tissues of the harvested plant are sacrificed to feed the people.
From: http://hometown.aol.com/caneypath2/yokahu.html

Much love to Brother Sague! I seek not to perpetuate any corruption in the understanding of Taino spirituality, but only to interpret it through the paradigm of the Nation of Gods and Earths and the mental framework of Allah's mathematics. As I see Native perpsectives on religion and spirituality not as literal but as metaphoric interpretations of natural forces and phenomena, products of human reasoning and therefore subject to critique, as is anything born out of human being.

Essentially, you ‘are’ what you ‘eat’. If you eat life giving foods, then you become ‘life’, ‘living’. “Yoka Hu is the Lord of Life and energy. He is the spiritual manifestation of all that lives and the essence of Life itself. Yoka Hu is also Energy. He is the spiritual manifestation of all energy but especially the energy of combustion, Fire, Explosion, The sun itself. “ With all things in life, I draw them in the 'heavens'. As I understand that it is the Original man's nature to renew history and not repeat it. This, to me, shows the ancient perspective of the relationship between the Original man and the “sun”. As within the Nation of Gods and Earths, the Blackman is symbolic to the “sun”, as the foundation of his family, his solar system. He is the life-giving force, mentally and physically, within that cipher. The provider. As ‘man’, he is a manifestation of ‘energy‘, as all things exist in degrees of energy, the Original man is the embodiment of the life-giving/taking force within the universe, in this degree of reality, here on Earth. For he is the Original man and the 'Father of Civilization'. Etymologically one could say that ‘man’ means ‘mind’ and therefore reasonably conclude that ‘man’ is a manifestation of his ‘mind’, the universal spring of divine intelligence. Man is ‘Yokahu‘. Whereas as the Original woman, being symbolic to the Earth, is paralleled with 'Atabey', or "Mother Earth".

The transitioning of the sun’s energy into the food we eat is a further example of why the phrase ‘ you are what you eat’ holds so much weight. As many of us already know. As bohike Sague further states…“But the sun's energy can not really be used directly by humans and animals to live. It must be transformed from radiant energy of sunlight to food energy that can then be utilized by animals and people to stay alive. The task of converting the sun's rays into food falls to the plant people. Green plants capture he rays of the sun and through the process of photosynthesis they convert that energy into starch food. Then they store the food in their tissues. Plants thereby become repositories of solar energy. Animals and people come along and eat the plants. By doing this they release the solar energy into their bodies in the form of nutritional calories and burn it to support the business of living. “ As a science, it was understood by our people and was appreciated and celebrated symbolically through tradition, storytelling and dance- methods for the cultural transmission of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. It was the ‘sun’ whom we held as responsible for our dietary sustenance. Thus, the ‘sun’ was viewed as the source of the force behind creation and of course, food. And the Taino name for the “supreme being” is ‘Yokahu’ or ‘Yucahu‘, which as stated above, means “Soul of the Yuca”. As the Original man is symbolic to the 'sun', so is he symbolic to the number one (as sun or 'sol' in spanish, i.e 'solo'), which in our Supreme Mathematics is 'knowledge' (conocimiento). It is the sun's light that stimulates the natural elements in the Earth and brings forth life, just as knowledge stimulates wisdom to brings forth understanding- 'growth and development'. The cosmic information that is carried in sun-light and is deposited into the soil to bond with the elements in order to bring for the vital foods, packed with the 'foundation' of a healthful life- vitamins and minerals, needed for life. These vitamins and minerals are necessary factors for healthful living and healthy DNA (your biological 'information'). All putting you in tune with your 'foundation'. Your 'self'.

It is this manifestation of the ‘sun’, 'man', that continues to cultivate the yuca and thus, keeps transforming the power of the sun, via the power of the plant (the 'Earth), into the power of creation and of divine intelligence (brain power!). It is 'we', who continue to bring forth this creative intelligence, shaping and molding the universe as we know and understand it. Allowing the mathematics of 'change' to continue to take place.

From 'knowledge to born', only 'self' is the savior. Whether it be with traditional or western religion, we need to stop looking outside ourselves for what exists inside.

PEACE!

Kahentinetha Horn Attacked at Border

2008-06-17T07:11:00.001-05:00

Kahentinetha Horn, beaten and hospitalized at the border, Katenies in prison

Monday, June 16, 2008
By Brenda Norrell

Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, was beaten by special forces at the US/Canadian border and suffered a heart attack. Kahentinetha is currently hospitalized in Canada. Katenies, who was accompanying her, was taken to prison at an undisclosed location. Please read the following message, which has been confirmed as true, and contact the leaders of Canada and demand both women be released and justice served to the perpetrators.

Kahentinetha's articles on sovereignty, mining on Indigenous lands, corruption and border rights have made her a priority target of the Canadian government for assassination. While on the Arizona border in November, at the Indigenous Border Summit of the Americas II, she challenged the Tohono O'odham Nation's incarceration of Indigenous migrants in the outdoor "cage," construction of the border vehicle barrier through the ceremonial route and the digging up of O'odham ancestors for the border wall by the contractor Boeing.
As the borders were increasingly militarized by Homeland Security and Canadian corporations increasingly seized Indigenous Peoples lands for mining, Kahentinetha and Katenies, were targeted with death threats.
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject: Kahentinetha Horn, Katenies attacked at the border!

ONE ELDER SAVED BY A HEART ATTACK - ANOTHER ELDER MISSING IN ACTION: MOHAWK GRANDMOTHERS ATTACKED AT CANADA-US BORDER CROSSING ON UNCEDED HAUDENOSAUNEE LAND

Monday, June 16, 2008Mohawk Elder and Grandmother, Kahentinetha Horn suffered a heart attack, Saturday, June 14, 2008 during a vicious, unprovoked assault by OPP and border agents at Cornwall, in Akwesasne community. She had been beaten and handcuffed when she collapsed. Earlier when she was pulled over, Kahentinetha immediately contacted her brother, a lawyer, on her cellphone. The entire incident was being filmed as her brother rushed to the scene just in time to call an ambulance for her.Meanwhile, Elder and Grandmother Katenies of Akwesasne was beaten and taken prisoner to an as yet undisclosed location. We are very concerned about her safety. We demand to know of her whereabouts and that she be> released immediately. A few months ago, Julian Fantino put out the word, warning Kahentinetha not to set foot in Ontario or else. She is the publisher of MNN and regular internet reports that are very critical of police and government actions toward Indigenous people. Her articles often clearly state the legalities/realities of the situation that Canada is a corporation plundering unceded Turtle Island. The land and resources belong to the Ongwehoneh people. Canada's huge debt to us will bankrupt them forever.The other day, while Stephen Harper was making a public apology to Indigenous for the crimes of the residential schools, he was also preparing to send the army in at 6 nations. Brantford city mayor has requested it, stating his city police cannot handle another "Mohawk uprising", in other words, peaceful protests against housing development where non resident, non Natives attack the protesters while the police watch.

The Ontario Conservatives call for military intervention every day. On Saturday, border agents were pulling over every Native person. Kahentinetha and Katenies were traveling in Akwesasne in the course of their regular activities and were caught up in the dragnet. Did Fantino set up a trap for the two outspoken, Mohawk grandmothers? We suspect that Kahentinetha would have been killed at a secret location had she not had a heart attack and been taken to hospital. Immediately following this incident, many Mohawks and supporters started to gather at Akwesasne. Kahentinetha and Katenies' attackers want them to accept being Canadian or else they will kill them and anyone else who resists colonization. This low level warfare is playing out on the "border" between Canada and the US, an imaginary line drawn right through the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and through Haudenosaunee territory which is a vast area on BOTH sides of the Great Lakes. This Great Lakes area is also a proposed center for the NWO. Many military plans are underway including nuclear submarines in the Great Lakes and JTF2, Aerospace Warfare Center and NATO FOB (Forward Operating> Base) at a new base being built at Trenton, near Tyendinaga Mohawk community.

Tyendinaga was attacked by OPP/SWAT in April when Mohawks protested housing development there. If Canadians are so damned sorry about the abuse of Native people, why is this still happening? Why do people remain silent when Mohawk elders and grandmothers are attacked like this? We are under constant surveillance> and threats and attacks while our land continues to be plundered and pillaged. Was this a failed assassination attempt ordered by Julian> Fantino, commissioner of OPP and head of the biggest gang in the area? We must demand answers and get answers. This attempted genocide must cease. We will never give up.>> Call or write to politicians, media, action lists including international. Get the word out now!!! K..... will be speaking with Kevin Annett on live radio today at 4:30 pmMontreal time.Iakoha'ko:wa Sharbot Lake, Haudenosaunee Territory

PLEASE SEND YOUR OBJECTIONS TO: QUEENIE ELIZABETH II, Buckingham Palace,>> LONDON UK; Governor General MICHAELLE "Haitian-Against-the-Nation" JEAN, 1>> Rideau Hall, OTTAWA, ONTARIO info@gg.ca; Canada Prime Minister STEPHEN>> HARPER, House of Commons, OTTAWA, ONTARIO harper.s@parl.gc.ca; Ontario Premier DALTON McGUINTY, Queen's Park, TORONTO, ONTARIO mcguinty.D@parl.gc.ca; United Nations unat@un.org; Indian Affairs Minister Strahl.c@parl.gc.ca; Brantford Mayor Michael Hancock 519-759-3330 nborowicz@brantford.ca; Ontario Attorney General 416-326-2220 or 1-800-518-7901; Minister Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Michael Bryant % Lars.Eedy@ontario.ca, Neil Smitheman, Brantford ambulance chaser n.smitheman@fasken.com 416-868-3441; Aaron Detlor adetlor@sympatico.ca; Bev Jacobs bjacobs@nwac.hq.org; Julian Fantino OPP Commissioner julian.fantino@jus.gov.on.ca; s "Paul Leblanc of \"Indian\" Affairs" , Sylvia McKenzie Justice Canada , Emanuel Chabot Public Affairs 7 Emergency Preparedness, Louis-Alesandre Guay "Justice Canada lguay"@justice.gc.ca, Gilles Rochon Aboriginal Policing> , "Chuck Strahl Minister of \"Indian\" Affairs" See http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

Update re Kahentinetha Horn - Mohawk Grandmothers Attacked at Canada-US Border Crossing
June 16, 2008 1pmKahentinetha Horn has been transferred to an Ottawa hospital while the whereabouts of Katenies remain unknown. Outrage is growing in Indian country. Who will be next in the roundups? There is no doubt that this incident 'an attempt to take a human life', of Kahentinetha Horn - makes the false apology given by the Harper government to Native peoples for past tortures and maltreatment completely null and void.

Token drugstore Indians like Phil Fontaine paraded around on TV to receive this apology are all on government payrolls. They represent and speak for no one but the government. It shows the hypocrisy insidiously embedded in the Harper government.This incident was not carried out by regular border patrol personnel. It was carried out by a team of professionals who are installed at this particular border crossing for the sole purpose of apprehending Miss Horn and doing away with her permanently.

Behaviours and actions like this only come about when ordered and sanctioned by the highest levels of Harper's government and CSIS. This attempt on Miss Horn's life failed this time, but we are confident that Harper, CSIS and Fantino will continue in their efforts to silence Ms Horn forever. This attempt is just a variation of extraordinary rendition where one is whisked away to an undisclosed location, tortured and later found dead in a ditch somewhere.Karakwine will be speaking with Kevin Annett on live radio today at 4:30 pm Montreal time. Stop the Genocide. Speak out while you still can!!!Iakoha'ko:waSharbot Lake, Haudenosaunee Territory

PLEASE SEND YOUR OBJECTIONS TO: QUEENIE ELIZABETH II, Buckingham Palace,LONDON UK; Governor General MICHAELLE "Haitian-Against-the-Nation" JEAN, 1Rideau Hall, OTTAWA, ONTARIO info@gg.ca; Canada Prime Minister STEPHENHARPER, House of Commons, OTTAWA, ONTARIO harper.s@parl.gc.ca; OntarioPremier DALTON McGUINTY, Queen's Park, TORONTO, ONTARIOmcguinty.D@parl.gc.ca; United Nations unat@un.org; Indian Affairs MinisterStrahl.c@parl.gc.ca; Brantford Mayor Michael Hancock 519-759-3330nborowicz@brantford.ca; Ontario Attorney General 416-326-2220 or 1-800-518-7901;Minister Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Michael Bryant % Lars.Eedy@ontario.ca ;Neil Smitheman, Brantford ambulance chaser n.smitheman@fasken.com 416-868-3441;Aaron Detlor adetlor@sympatico.ca; Bev Jacobs bjacobs@nwac.hq.org; Julian FantinoOPP Commissioner julian.fantino@jus.gov.on.ca; s"Paul Leblanc of \"Indian\" Affairs" , Sylvia McKenzie Justice Canada , Emanuel Chabot Public Affairs 7 Emergency Preparedness , Louis-Alesandre Guay <"Justice Canada lguay"@justice.gc.ca>, Gilles Rochon Aboriginal Policing , "Chuck Strahl Minister of \"Indian\" Affairs"

See http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

SAY IT LOUD! BLACK AND PROUD

2008-06-10T06:32:00.002-05:00

Senator Piedad Cordoba of Colombia

Paz!PEACE!Tau!

Over the weekend, my family and I stayed in New Jersey, while attending the Nation of Gods and Earths Annual Show and Prove event in Harlem, NYC (Mecca). For those who may not be aware, we refer to our women (and all Original women) as "The Earth", for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons can be found in the traditional perspective of many of our ancestors, in the parallel symbology of the woman and the planet- Mother Earth, Atabey, Pachamama, etc. Within the NGE the traditional dress of the Earths is with a headwrap and a long 3/4 dress, representing the planet and it's being covered on the surface by 3/4th's of water. A manifestation of modesty. Similar dress can be found throughout many indigenous culture, especially head coverings (see Georgia Scott's book "Headwraps: A Global Journey") however 3/4th's within the Nation is more similar to how Rastafari women and sister's of West Africa dress. For those familiar with the paradigm of the NGE, it would be no surprise. For those who view our women and sister's at a first glance, they are often awe struck and downright confused. Take for instance, this past weekend.

As me and my Earth walked into a record shop on Westfield Avenue (called "Little Colombia") in Elizabeth looking for some new cumbia cd's, the shop keeping began to converse with her, when she inquired about buying a Colombian flag. Although she may be what we refer to as a "yellow soil" ("light-skinned") she is still very noticablely "other than white". Adorned in her 3/4th's, the VERY Euro-looking shop keeper then inquired about where she was from, to which she replied she was born and raised in Bogota, only for him, the extremely Euro-looking one, to reply that she looked "anything but Colombian"....It had more to do with her choice of wardrobe than it did with phenotype. An example of the effects of colonialism of how we are "supposed to" conduct and view ourselves- with Europe as the Motherland and European values (cloaked in so-called "Latin Americanisms") as the focal point of all rational thought and action.

The Rise of Latin Africans

Hugo Chávez is known as a revolutionary in many contexts, especially his defiance of the United States. In recent years, however, he's also broken ground on a far less well-exposed subject: the question of race in Latin America. The saga began two years ago, when, during a tour of Gambia, Chávez surprised observers by declaring that "I've always said that if Spain is our mother, Africa, mother Africa, is much more so." Since then, the Venezuelan leader has often revisited the theme at home, even drawing attention to his own African roots. It may not sound shocking. But such language would have been inconceivable from a major Latin American leader just a short time ago.

That's now changing, due to a black-consciousness movement stirring in Central and South America. Emboldened by the success of their indigenous countrymen in pressing for resolution of long-ignored grievances, Afro-descendientes (people of African descent), as they are known, are now lobbying for recognition of their own communities' land rights and for increased spending to improve living conditions in urban slums and rural villages. Local activists have begun urging Latin blacks to take pride in their culture, and with the help of the Internet, leaders are reaching across borders to share tactics and compare notes with their brethren in the Caribbean, the United States and Africa. This "black-power movement has gone way beyond anything that has happened in the past," says Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, director of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. "People are making critiques of racism in their own societies, and there's been a real shift in black consciousness and involvement."

Black power isn't entirely new to the region; for some time now the descendants of African slaves have wielded political clout in a few corners of the hemisphere. That's especially the case in the English-speaking Caribbean, where black heads of state are the rule. And in Brazil, where nearly half the country's 192 million people have African ancestry, Joaquim Barbosa, arguably the most influential member of the Supreme Court, is black; so is recording artist Gilberto Gil, who served as Culture minister under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for five years. Moreover, Lula's predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, once announced that he himself had "one foot in the kitchen"—a colorful way of admitting intermarriage among his ancestors (albeit one that earned him criticism at the time).

In the rest of Latin America, blacks remain a small (they're thought to number about 20 million, though activists claim the figure is much higher) and marginalized minority. Demographics highlight their second-class status. For example, Ecuador's blacks, who make up 5 percent of the population, suffer a 14.5 percent unemployment rate, higher than that of the country's nonblack majority and twice that of indigenous groups. In neighboring Colombia, which is home to 10.5 million Afro-descendientes—giving it the third largest black population in the hemisphere, after Brazil and the United States—only one in five blacks has access to electricity and running water (compared with 60 percent of the rest of the population), and the black infant mortality rate is more than three times the white level.

Now, however, black communities are organizing and pressing for change. In Honduras, for example, locals of African descent, who are known as Garifunas, have staged protests in Tegucigalpa, the capital, against a proposed constitutional amendment that would permit foreigners to purchase property along the Atlantic coast, a region the Garifunas have called home since 1797. And in Ecuador, more than a hundred black housewives and working women joined forces in 2006 to seek more government assistance for housing to combat racial discrimination in the rental market.

The epicenter of the new black activism, meanwhile, is Colombia. That's due as much to circumstance as design: more than a third of the 3.2 million Colombians uprooted by the country's long-running civil war are of African ancestry, as are many of the ragged street vendors and beggars who approach motorists at busy Bogotá intersections. Foreign and local NGOs are now working hard to publicize their plight. Though a landmark 1993 law enshrined the right of Afro-Colombians to obtain formal title to their ancestral lands, including 5 million hectares along the Pacific coast—a unique experiment in ethnic self-government—implementation has lagged, as unscrupulous agribusinesses and paramilitary warlords have seized communal property with near impunity. But recently, as part of its ongoing effort to win U.S. approval for a free-trade agreement, the government of President Alvaro Uribe has begun to expel these companies and restore 8,000 hectares of stolen land to Afro-Colombian community councils.

Throughout the region, individual blacks have also begun blazing new trails. Graciela Dixon became the first black woman to head Panama's Supreme Court in 2005, and Luis Alberto Moore, a cop in Colombia, has reached the rank of general—a first for an Afro-descendiente. "I hope I will serve as an example for other black people in Colombia who will say, 'If General Moore did [it], then so can I'," says the 48-year-old Bogotá native.

But many other Latin blacks remain reluctant to openly acknowledge their background, which makes it hard for their communities to increase their influence. In 2005, for example, when Colombians were asked for the first time to identify their ethnic background in a census, less than half the country's blacks described themselves as such. Doris de la Hoz, a senior Afro-Colombian official in the Ministry of Culture, says that even this percentage represented progress, since more than 4 million people did acknowledge their heritage. But "there is still a strong separation of people by groups," she says, "and many black families try to convince their lighter-skinned children that they are white."

Yet such attitudes also seem to be shifting, albeit gradually. Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, 48, is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and grew up in middle-class Caracas, where she was usually the only black in her classroom and, later on, her office. Over the years she's endured her fair share of cruel jokes. Starting in her 20s, however, Laurent-Perrault, a biologist by training, began to develop a passionate interest in her culture and its links to Africa. She is now working on a Ph.D. at New York University analyzing the topic in the context of Venezuela. "There is [now] more pride in being black," she says. "People are mobilizing, and organizations have arisen in almost all of Latin America to expose inequality and demand that this must end."

Such organizations are drawing inspiration and financing from foreign, largely U.S., sources. In February, African-American journalist Lori Robinson launched a new Web site called vidaafrolatina.com that spotlights news, cultural events and commentary by and about Afro-Latinos. Leading members of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, like Rep. Gregory Meeks, have taken a special interest in Afro-Colombians and dispatched staff to advise black Colombian legislators. USAID has funded a variety of social and economic development projects in predominantly black areas of western Colombia, and has provided money and technical assistance to an association of black mayors and groups working on behalf of internal refugees. The groundbreaking presidential bid of a certain young U.S. senator hasn't gone unnoticed in the region, either. "A triumph of Barack Obama would be extraordinary," gushes Ernesto Estupiñan, mayor of the predominantly black Ecuadoran city of Esmeraldas. "It would be a huge encouragement for all of us in terms of minority participation in politics." Indeed, if Obama does reach the White House, one of his familiar slogans could soon take root in the hearts and minds of his fellow Africano-Americanos south of the border: "¡Si se puede!"("Yes we can!")

With Steven Ambrus in Bogotá, Maria Amparo Lasso in Mexico City and Phil Gunson in Caracas

© 2008

Original source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/139401/page/1

"Mexicano Minstrel"

2008-06-05T13:47:00.002-05:00

Once again, as I've stated before, and will continue to remind my people, you can act as if your "white" all day long. But as comedian Paul Mooney stated, "white people knows whose white and whose not white." This is what they think of us. So all you so-called Latinos who fight so hard to not be associated with "black" people, wake the fuck up. Por favor! Despite being all in the same boat (having been subjected to white supremacist rule- colonialism), we all have deep running AFRICAN roots. Stop being ashamed of it and embrace it. By the way, this video comes to us by way of England and is only about twenty-years old. Much thanks to "The Latin Americanist" for posting this.

Afro-Uruguayans and the 'Power' of Candombe

2008-06-05T08:21:00.005-05:00

Within the Nation of Gods and Earths and the value system we live in adherence to, the "Supreme Mathematics", the number '4' represents 'culture'. The following number '5' represents 'power'. The reasoning for this is because as all life is based in a basic order (i.e. "mathematics") the numbers progress, not simply in quantity, but in the quality of the principle they represent and the quality of the degree of 'life' that they represent. It is 'culture' that gives us to environment to grow and it is 'culture' that transmits a people's knowledge, wisdom and understanding through space and time, continuing on, for future generations to embrace and live out. Thus, it is culture that brings forth one's 'power'. La cultura is what empowers us and gives us the strength to continue in the name of self-determination, severing the clutch of colonialism from our mindset and being. Las matematica de hoy es "poder".

Uruguay: Spirit of Afro Resistance Alive in Candombe
Written by Marie Trigona

In the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans celebrate an often-ignored part of their history - Candombe and resistance. For more than 200 years Afro descendants have maintained the tradition of Candombe, a rhythm that traveled from Africa to Uruguay with African slaves. The music carries centuries of resistance and liberation.

The word Candombe literally means "place and dance of Africans." The musical tradition evolved during the colonial area. Africans brought to Uruguay for slave labor used the rhythm of the tambores, or drums, to communicate with each other and defy colonialists.

Today the music thrives in Montevideo's working class neighborhoods, where African descendants have kept alive the tradition of the Llamadas, parades where Candombe is played. Candombe drummer Mitchel Navos says that Candombe didn't originate in Africa, but with Afro-descendants in Montevideo. "Candombe is specifically from Montevideo. Candombe like Montevideo's Candombe doesn't exist in any other part of the world." He also asserts that Candombe's spirit has been passed down for generations despite a historical void surrounding the music's origins.

Origins of Candombe

Montevideo's colonial district is the birthplace of Uruguay's Candombe music. Africans from the Southern and Western regions (Bantu regions which include Congo, Angola and Mozambique) were brought to Uruguay and Argentina through the slave trade beginning in 1750. "Africans arriving from the Bantu region brought with them the Candombe rhythm," explains Navos. "Being from different nations and regions, they didn't have the possibility of communicating through language."

In whatever time their white masters allowed, slaves communicated through drums and dance. The first Llamadas took place at this time. Some historians assert that the word Llamadas - "parade of calls," refers to the drums Africans played to call out to each other in their homes. Each tribe had a particular rhythm that could be identified from afar.

Within these living quarters, African musicians gave birth to a rhythm and tradition which has been passed on for generations. Martin Silva is a young musician from Montevideo's Barrio Sur. His grandparents taught him the Candombe rhythm and the origins of Candombe. "Before the llamadas were held in Ansinas, which was a conventillo or a housing complex here on Isla de Flores and nearby streets. It was a huge housing complex where hundreds of families lived. The llamadas were held there, they paraded inside. It was a different kind of festivity. It's not the same as today."

Upper class whites tried to ban Candombe gatherings in the 19th century. One of the earliest historical documents tracing Candombe music is an 1808 police record, when citizens of Montevideo requested that these dances be severely repressed and completely prohibited. Afro descendants took their music underground, to defy the oppressive conditions of slavery.

"We can't refer to anything before 1900 with historical certainty," explains Navos. There exists an extensive historical void regarding Candombe practices between 1800 and 1900. "What exists today is what we could hide and preserve, which has led to the transformation of Candombe in what it is today, from generation to generation," he continues.

"Barrio Sur and Palermo were where the meat curing plants were located. Many of the black slaves had to work in the meat curing plants, but also many lived in the curing plants. That's where music from Africa mixed with Catholicism." Many historians assert that the first Llamadas took place in clandestine music halls, until they went public with the abolishment of slavery in the late 19th century. "The first Llamadas held was a procession from the Meat curing plants toward Montevideo's main cathedral, in the Old part of the city. In commemoration of Day of the Kings, they made a procession to give a tribute to the Catholic Saints of the Masters. That's when Western Traditions got mixed in. That's when the term Llamadas, or walking procession, came to be. Before it wasn't about walking in the streets, it was held in a hall or like a band performance."

Symbols of Afro descendants' painful past

The dance and music are filled with symbols of African descendants' painful past. The troupes the perform the Llamadas are called comparsas, and are made up of cuerdas (drummers) and dancers. The drummers walk very slowly, barely separating their feet as they walk. This rhythm and style of procession is meant to symbolize Afro-descendants' past and historical roots when their ancestors were made to walk with chains and shackles.

Three main characters lead the llamadas: the Mama Vieja (Grandmother), Gramillero (Old Doctor), and Escobero (Wizard). The Gramillero walks with a cane as if he's about to fall over. The Mama Vieja carries an umbrella attending to the Grammillero. The Escobero sweeps the ground with a great baton.

Navos describes the significance of these three characters. "The Escobero, I don't know if he's a magician or wizard, he's the person in charge of taking charge of the spirit of the comparsa. The Escobero walks in front of the flags to clean the bad spirits opening the way for the comparsa."

The Gramillero and Mama Vieja symbolize two key figures in Afro-Uruguayan history: the old doctor who uses medicinal herbs to cure and the grandmother, the matriarchal figure. Navos explains the significance of those characters. "Those characters are as important to us as our grandparents. In a family they are the roots. They are the oldest people in the comparsa. Their dance is about that. Simulating the pain in their slow dance, there's an expression of fatigue in their dance."

Candombe as a cultural tool

Some of the city's Candombe troops feature more than 50 drummers and dozens of dancers. Each neighborhood has its own rhythm and style. In Barrio Sur, where slaves took the music underground in the 19th century, new Candombe troops are emerging today.

According to Mario Suarez a young musician playing a traditional African drum in the Isla de Flores comparsa, the Llamadas is more than a performance. "The Llamadas and Candombe for the Afro descendants are a passion and a tradition. We have to maintain the tradition. The identity of the comparsa of Isla de Flores is strong, because it's part of the identity barrio Ansinas and Barrio Sur. The first Llamadas took place here in the barrio Ansinas and the barrio Sur."

Today Afro-Uruguayans number around 100,000, or about 6 percent of the population. For many Uruguayans of Afro descent, Candombe is part of everyday life and resistance in a continually discriminating society. The Llamadas ispracticed all year long, not just during Carnival. Uruguayans have also adopted the increasingly popular Candombe music as part of their national identity. Especially in the past 30 years, the music has influenced White musicians. The music was used to express resistance to the repressive regime during Uruguay's bloody military junta from 1973-1984. Today, Candombe isn't just heard in Montevideo but has spread to Uruguay's interior and echoes in Argentina.

"Candombe is not only a question of skin color, it's a way of thinking and being," says Diego Bonga Martinez from the Afro-cultural movement in Buenos Aires. In Buenos Aires, the Llamadas have been continually repressed by police and government officials. Martinez adds, �Candombe is a cultural weapon we have used to defend ourselves with, for our culture to live on." From the size and sound of the growing number of comparsas participating in the Llamadas in Montevideo, this tradition will be passed on for generations to come.

Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com

Article originally from: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1145/1/

Puerto Rico Libre!

2008-05-27T14:53:00.002-05:00

Puerto Rico's Turn
By RICARDO ALARCÓN de QUESADA

On June 1, primary elections will be held in Puerto Rico. For that reason, politicians and journalists will travel to the island to pay to it an attention they never paid before and to turn their visit into part of the spectacle of marketing of politics that in the United States is called "democracy." In this case, however, the spectacle becomes insulting.

The Democratic candidates will compete there for the favor of voters who are not part of U.S. society and therefore have no vote in the U.S. general elections next November. In theory, Puerto Ricans can decide who the Democratic candidate will be but cannot vote for him, or her, or the Republican rival, or any other candidate to the presidency of the United States.

Once the farce is concluded, politicians and journalists will pack their bags and go away, not to deal again with Puerto Rico for the next four years. Once again, they'll try to ignore the interests and aspirations of its noble and generous people.

This time, however, it won't be so easy. The following week, on June 9, the United Nations' Committee on Decolonization will again discuss Puerto Rico's status, as it has done every year since 1972. Many voices have been raised there, and in other U.N. entities, to demand that the United States put an end to its colonial regime and return to the Puerto Rican people the right to decide their fate, a right that was wrested from them more than a century ago.

It was not necessary to travel to another country to hear that demand. It was repeated, one summer after another, for more than three decades, from the skyscraper on Manhattan's First Avenue, in the heart of New York. But the major U.S. media and its politicians pretended not to notice.

This year, their disdain will be a bit more difficult. Before the Committee will speak representatives from the whole of Puerto Rican society, including representatives of all the parties and political movements on the island, along with the Socialist Internationale and the Conference of Political Parties of Latin America (COPPAL), which brings together the main parties in the continent, including several parties that now are governments.

They will raise a petition for the U.N. General Assembly to discuss in depth the case of Puerto Rico, as we unanimously agreed at the International Conference of Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence, which we held in Panama in 2006 and reiterated this year in Mexico. In the name of all those who participated in those two events, Dr. Rodrigo Borja, former President of Ecuador, will address the Committee.

This Latin American demand echoes the one made in Havana in 2006 by the chiefs of state and government of the nonaligned countries.

Latin America is living through a new era, and Puerto Rico is not absent from it. Its turn, Puerto Rico's turn, is very near. It is coming much faster than some people in the North, drunk with demagoguery and ignorance, think.

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada is Cuba's Vice President and President of its National Assembly.

http://www. counterpunch. org/alarcon05272008. html

Amerikkka the racist....

2008-05-27T09:57:00.004-05:00

Paz! Peace! Tau!

Let the truth be told and let it continue to be manifested by those he do not fear persecution by those who seek to distort and destroy it. Although I do not think Barack Obama is going to be the 'savior' to Original people here in the United States, I do think he's winning of the presidency would do wonders for the self-esteem and motivation of people of color. Which, honestly, is something that the elite in power do not want and will not tolerate. All the more reason why WE have to continue to educate ourselves and mobilize, progessing our involvement and participation in the devil's 'poli-tricks'. We can not allow our 'hopes' and aspirations be dependant upon one person. Otherwise we will not succeed. This is why Allah, the founder of the Nation of Gods and Earths, did not want to be 'worshipped', despite what many may think due to his naming himself "Allah". That was not his purpose nor aim. He simply, came to the self-realization and actualization of who HE was and lived it out irregardless to what other's may have thought. He didn't teach us to be followers, but leaders in our own right. He knew, that with any organization or movement (political or cultural), if the head was taken off, the body would fall....And within the days and times we live within, calling out the reality of America's racist undertones is deemed un-patriotic. A perpsective manufactured by the elite in power and the media, in our to quell any uprising or opposition to the the government. They are attempting to sell this perspective to the people and many buy it, unfortunately. Except those who experience it and live it. And those peope of color who DO buy it are the one's who are attempting to steer clear or conflict, out of FEAR. Uncle Tom's, Uncle Tonto's, Uncle Tomas', and Uncle Tang's...

Ecuador's president says U.S. too racist to elect Obama

QUITO, Ecuador – The United States is too racist to elect Barack Obama president, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa says.

Correa, who studied in the U.S., told local news media late Wednesday that he “knows American society” and that Obama rival Hillary Clinton is more likely to defeat the Republican nominee, John McCain.

Advertisement“They're still quite racist there,” the leftist leader said.
Correa complimented Clinton, calling her a “very brilliant, beautiful and charismatic woman,” but said Obama's positions are closer to his own. Clinton and Obama are battling it out for the Democratic nomination.

U.S. relations with Latin America will change “drastically” if a Democrat is elected in November, Ecuador's president said.

“Both could be extraordinary candidates because they represent a break” from current President George W. Bush, but a Democratic presidency is “far from certain,” Correa said.

Correa, 44, said he was “completely opposed” to McCain's positions, but suggested that his campaign was quite strong.

“He's a Vietnam war hero who doesn't have the wear and tear from powerful rivals in the primaries,” like the eventual Democratic candidate, Correa said.

Correa – an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – obtained his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois, where he studied from the late 1990s until 2001.

Loiza Aldea

2008-05-15T13:17:00.003-05:00

"The Legends of Loiza are many but perhaps the most popular one is about the only female Taino Cacique (chief) named Yuiza ( Yuisa, Loaiza, Luisa, Loiza). Of all the Taino Chiefs of the Caribbean there were only two who were women, only one in Boriken ( Puerto Rico).

When the Spanish Conquistadores invaded Puerto Rico and enslaved the Taino Indians, the Indians resisted. They never adapted to slavery, most of the Taino men were killed. Many of the women lived on as wives of the Spanish sailors.

Legend has it (that to protect her people) Yuiza became the lover of mulatto conquistador Pedro Mejias and because of this she was killed by other Taino Caciques ( who felt she was a traitor to have been with a Spaniard). She actually was a hero and greatly admired by her own tribal people, even today. This may be the legend that gives meaning to the mix in Loiza of black Africans and Taino Indian, or it may, in fact be a historical truth. In actual fact, there are no historical documents to prove this, her marriage with Mejias.

History records show that the colonial government of Puerto Rico, by a crown decree from Spain in the 1600's, was instructed to place runaway slaves from the British colonies in what is today Loiza Aldea. This area was chosen by the Crown because it was the weakest flank of defense of the island, and they hoped that the freed slaves would help defend the island against British invaders. It is said that the majority of these Africans were from Nigeria.

Somewhat inexplicable would be the great quantity of fishermen among the people of Loiza Aldea. Fishing by escaped slaves was considered an aberration because slaves were traditionally taught a fear of the sea as a way to keep them enslaved. Historians argue that the Africans of Loiza developed their fishing skills through direct contact with the Tainos of Puerto Rico. The presence of Amerindian mtDNA in Loiza, supports this hypothesis. Loiza is populated by the largest community of African descendents on the island of Puerto Rico

In later years Inigo Lopez de Cervantes y Loayza, a prestigious Spaniard, had great extensions of land in this region. His second last name could have been used to name this territory.

Foundation: In 1692 Loiza was appointed as an urban section because it had approximately 100 houses and 1,146 inhabitants. In the year 1719 the Spanish government recognized its importance by declaring it an official town. Its founder was Gaspar de Arredondo. It wasn't declared a municipality until August 16, 1970.

The Catholic congregation of Loiza is the oldest established congregation in Puerto Rico. The church has been rebuilt, but is still significantly old.

" . . The legend is that the name Loiza was that of a Taino woman, Chief Loiza or Yuisa, who governed a territory called Jaymanio in the margins of the Cayrabon river now named the Rio Grande de Loiza."

. . . let us stick to the legend of this stately Taino Chief, Yuiza. In 1972 an artist from Loiza had a vision in which Loaiza came to her. She ( Lolita Cuevas) painted her vision in the dark at 2 am. Loaiza spoke to her and asked her to paint her but said she would not return. This drawing now hangs in City Hall in Loiza."

from: elyunque.com

The Great Sun and the Pyramids of North America

2008-04-25T13:31:00.003-05:00

Paz! Tau!

Here are two videos that I wanted to share. The give some information and insight to the truth about our people, the Original people on this part of the planet Earth. Through exploitation and lies we were made to appear as "savages" and as simply running around in loin cloth, living in tee pees and hunting buffalo when the Europeans arrived. Some tribes maybe. However overall we were building. For the Earth is to be built on. As well, we often just associate "pyramids" in America with the Mexica (Aztec) and Mayan civilizations. However, pyramids were and are being found all over the wilderness of North and South America (Abya Yala). The first video is about the city of Cahokia and the pyramid city of the Mississippi. the second video is about the pyramids in Georgia. More to be revealed.