Black to the Future

As a way of revisiting my left wing radical past, I've been reading a lot of African Centered writers lately. But nationalism, no matter how ethnocentrically enlightening can only completely hold the attention of those who want to be more informed culturally not globally. For the last eight years or so i've been reading spiritual texts, particularly neoclassical Buddhist texts and the writings of Ken Wilber who opened my eyes so wide that I no longer have two.

I found it important to begin to go back a bit, and see if my perception was the same as it used to be. In the last two months i've read Randall Robinson's Defending the Spirit, An Unbroken Agony and The Debt; Aime Cesaire's classic text Discourses on Colonialism as well as C.L.R. James's seminal text on the Haitian revolution The Black Jacobins. Today I began Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks. What i've found out about myself is that most of my past waxings about America, Europe and imperialism were right, but without direction and if you would've called me out about world history then, like made me have to give specific examples of colonial powers and their history of fucking up the world, I would've folded. Of course there are the standard answers; American slavery, South Africa, The Native Americans, Africa in general etc.

But the standard answers in no way get at the specifics; the amount of destruction waged on the recalcitrant native innocents who vowed death before slavery or assimilation, the psuedoscientifc racism used to justify murder, the back room dealings of nations to collaborate with mutlinational businesses to overthrow governments in the name of the almighty dollar; What happens in the light is pale in comparison to what happens on the sun.

Thanks to my father Clyde Miles and my teacher Gaylon Ferguson, I have constantly been made aware that it is not enough to read what is made available to you. It in fact is more important for one to learn how to dig through what is given to you and find out the first hand accounts and perspectives of the people who have lived through tyranny and triumphed if only to write it down so that you don't have to be a slave ever again. Not reading about the lives of people of color during the time of European colonialism is to forget their sacrifice and the lesson that no power will concede without being forced to. It is disrespectful to all people of color, in that it allows the imperial powers to continue their compassionate neocolonialism without being checked by those who know that it's a very old story; people don't want Western influence get branded as bad guys, terrorists, populists etc.; imperialists use media and fringe rebel groups in country to create instability and overthrow populist head; populist head gets overthrown and kills countless dissenters; populist head rapes country until either they make too much noise and need to be silenced by imperialist or gets overthrown by the people. By this time billions of dollars and millions of lives have been lost, usually to line the coffers of those who's only concern is to live a life free from having to know what it means to struggle.

I don't know how long my reading addiction will last, but it feels good and I know it's something I and every adult with melanin ought to do. Dedicate yourself to reading one book at a time and choose a book that will give you insight into the beginning, middle and end of a people of color's struggle. Pick a Latin American, Carribean, or African nation and read about how it was colonized. Get books that give you first hand accounts; it is not only angering and intriguing to hear about the tragedies they befell but also of the immense spirit they possessed at fighting powers that often militarily seemed invincible. But above all read between the lines. Look for the interconnectedness for it is there that you will see that the tale you read...you have read, and will read again.

All claims of ownership are admissions of theft. All things are stolen or come from something that has been stolen. That is simply because all things have to come from somewhere. Similarly all things that are created are theives. They take; money, time, resources... I say this to highlight the importance of sharing as our ancestors did. When we read let it be information worthy of sharing and let us share without merely being voyeurs. Let us read more fundamental wisdom from our ancestors instead of books that entertain or tell us about the latest self help cure. Underneath the creation and destruction of nations lies the crushed lessons of humanity. We are often too busy accumulating and appropriating to see that if we sit still with what has already happened, with what we already know, the fate of us all will spontaneously arise encouraging haste to prepare for yesterday's tommorow.