King Tut

 

Barack Obama Hailed as the New King Tut

News out of Egypt hails President Barack Obama as “the new King Tut.” How cool is that? A modern Black president gets his due in Egypt.

The story first emerged in the blogosphere via the Reuters news agency. But as usual, the U. S. media is yet to mention the connection of Obama with King Tut from the Black perspective. Well, one exception. CBS News’s Jake Tapper mentioned on his blog (05/31/09) that, “One possible aspect at play here is the insistence by some African-American activists that Tutankhamen was black… .” But his following statements digressed into the usual denials that Tutankhamen was a Black man. Zahi Hawass the Egyptian antiquities head is funded by National Geographic magazine, so Hawass is not going to rock the boat over the Black issue. The Egyptians are simply stating the obvious. And the U. S. media, meanwhile, is conducting business as usual. It simply must emerge from its blatant complicity with the old order of things. Well, let’s see how the news plays out in Egypt today during the president’s visit.

--------------Taskforce 21st Century-------------

We won. Civil rights were gained. And we now have a Black President, allotted as icing on the cake, in these United States of America. And yet something just isn’t sitting right with me, right now. Those honorable old brothas and sistahs of the sixties did their part, but something seems to have gone awry. Too many of the new population of Black Americans are resting on the laurels of our forefathers. Frantz Fanon, the Black French journalist, and activist, said it best in his clarion manifesto: “Each generation out of relative obscurity must discover its destiny and either fulfill it or betray it.” This blog entry is to tell you about Taskforce 21st Century, a concept that you can play a part in.

Taskforce 21st Century invites each individual—and that means you—to enlist in a taskforce of your own choosing. Only you know the task that you are most equipped for and able to carry out. Meanwhile, you don’t have to recreate the wheel. In most cases, there’s already someone who’s doing, or working on, what you feel needs to be done.

Begin now, and join on with others, who believe as you do, and dedicate yourself to getting the job done of complete socio-political-spiritual liberation within our community, and society-at-large.

Unfounded criticism of others must become the stuff of a bygone era

Someone has said it better than I can ever say it. They said, “Our status has changed, but our condition, as a people, remains the same.” So, yes, you’ll interact with people with that same ole antiquated thinking, but tell them about the concept of Taskforce 21st Century. The new tomorrow begins with you today.

----------->Available Now at Amazon.com

Prologue
2560 B.C.

From the upper terrace of the Great House, Pharaoh Khufu casually swatted away an insect with his flail as he watched the construction of the Great Pyramid going ahead in the distance. Thousands of noble Egyptian men joined in what was one of the most unifying efforts in the kingdom’s history. In the process, its golden crest and polished limestone finish were beginning to gleam in the sunshine.

The work of constructing this largest man-made structure in the world had required that they erect an earthen ramp around its perimeter as they went ever higher. And now, they disassembled the sloping causeway as they worked downward, capping limestone siding onto the pyramid’s surface.

But after nearly twenty years of construction, its luster had waned somewhat in Khufu’s eyes. Perhaps, due to the persistent quelling of the venomous rumor on why the pyramids had begun to be built in earlier dynasties, he thought. Hearsay arose, ever-so-often, poisoning the workers with a false quote attributed to Imhotep, the great scholar of the Third Dynasty. Essentially, it said that the colossal projects were created to keep the people occupied, that they would be too tired to think of weightier matters such as overthrowing the throne.

Certainly, not true for my era, Khufu mused snugly. Lower and Upper Egypt had now cemented; their union more than merely a physical joining, as in earlier periods. Now, conscripts from far and wide made their way to Giza, the necropolis, with the unified aim of contributing to the kingdom’s welfare. Admittedly, he tired of the occasional need to purge the land of unscrupulous troublemakers, but it was the price of rulership, he conceded.

Overall, the historical condition of war and turmoil, common to earlier periods, had subsided. And he comforted himself in the reality that under his rulership the kingdom had done more than build pyramids. Now, canals linked farther outlying fringes of the dominion than ever before, and the food supply was unrivaled in all the world. Only in Egypt are poor men fat, he mused. The natural supply of fish, meat, dates, melons, grains, beer and wine were the envy of the world. This land of the blacks, resting along the Nile, is Amen Ra’s wonder to the uncivilized heathens, he surmised.

“Queen Henutsen is here to see you, great one,” a voice from the door guards rang out, bringing him back to the present.

“Yes, send her in, I’m expecting her.”

Queen Henutsen, a consort queen selected in early childhood by his mother, Queen Hetepheres, and his father, Pharaoh Snefru, entered the room gracefully, her handmaidens accompanying. They followed, demurely, as she approached him, her translucent fine-linen gown swaying regally; her braided locks, luxurious shoulder-length tresses, interwoven with golden threads.

“Henutsen, the radiance of Amen Ra consumes you,” Khufu said admiring her beauty as she came nearer.

“And the light of your countenance reflects his wisdom, your majesty,” she responded.

“What favors may I bestow upon my queen?” Khufu asked, his hands securely taking hers as she joined him on the terrace overlooking the bustling city.

“It is Kewab and Dedefra. Pharaoh’s eldest sons are leading Khafre into a life of waywardness,” she said. “They’ve taken him on hunting expeditions as far as the first cataract, an area we have forbidden them to venture due to the rapids.” She looked up at him steadily, with expressive black-lined eyelids, her ebony face radiant: “Just a month ago a boat capsized near there and three men drowned.”

Khufu was admittedly concerned about the escapades of the young striplings. The Nile could indeed be dangerous. And he was pleased with Henutsen’s diligence in rearing Khafre. The seventeen-year-old was already a natural leader with good people instincts.

Pharaoh could remember his youthful days, as a prince of Egypt, hunting hippopotami and wild game along the Nile. Indeed, navigating the far reaches of the waterway was a rights-of-passage into manhood—something Henutsen could not readily concede. Her nurturing tendencies overshadowed the fact that Khafre had come of age.

“I will talk with the boys myself,” Khufu said, mindful that she would be further discomfited by his decision. He clasped the edge of the ledge firmly, his mahogany arms outstretched. “I’m going to assign them to military training regiments in different nomes. They’re men now. They need constructive work to occupy their time.”

He marveled at the passing of the years as he gazed out at the grandiose construction. It represented a paradox of colossal beauty, yet impending finality.

Nefermaat, Wife Itet and Child

Light Being Shed on Light-skin Ancient Egyptians

Egyptology prior to the Afrocentric movement forgot about light-skinned Blacks, it seems. That’s a classification we as Black people will have to introduce ourselves. Of course all of us have light-complexioned individuals in our families, it's a common part of our culture. Meanwhile, given the current paradigm, former Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Thurgood Marshall, or even Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be viewed as white juxtaposed with the contemporary Egyptology model. Frankly, it's absurd that this kind of whitewashing of Black history is still being perpetuated.

Nefermaat, a brother of Pharaoh Khufu, figures prominently in shedding light on this, heretofore, shrouded area about Ancient Egypt (See Nefermaat, wife and son above). You see, there was a Kemetian architect named Hemiunu, Nefermaat’s son, who seems to have had more done than the work on the Great Pyramid, there seems to have been work done on his face, pun intended. And he’s either very light-skinned or represents the core of the biggest fraud ever played in history.

Hemiunu was allegedly discovered in 1912 in a tomb within the enclave of the Great Pyramid. Scholars, such as Professor Manu Ampim, however, seem to agree that there are some strategically-placed counterfeit Egyptian sculptures that don’t fit the aesthetics of Ancient Egyptian art. His research on the Rahotep and Nofret sculpture is a case in point.

Of course there were light-skinned Blacks and very likely some Caucasians in ancient Kemet--just as there were Blacks in Early America. Nefertiti was certainly a very light-skinned woman in the heart of the New Kingdom’s 18th Dynasty. But whenever I think of the one-drop rule of Black blood in the United States, I say what the heck, those who were purported to be Caucasian by European researchers, were light-skinned Blacks in the ancient world. I'll let the experts rule on which ones were really Blacks and which ones underscore Western frauds. As a journalist, I'll just present the findings.

Prince Kawab

Prince Kawab -- Son of Khufu (Old Kingdom)

Prince Kawab (Kewab) was the eldest son of Khufu (Cheops) -- Dynasty IV. If there are any questions as to Khufu’s African heritage, one needs only look to his children and relatives to ascertain, for certainty, the African origins of the builder of the Great Pyramid, at Giza.

Kawab’s fresco was discovered on the walls of his daughter Meresankh III’s tomb. It is said that he was Khufu's heir apparent, but never took the throne because of a naturally premature death or a rivalry with his sibling Djedefre.

Kawab was a scribe and aspired to rule in the manner of his grandfather King Sneferu, a cultured and wise king.

His brother Djedefre seems to have ruled only seven or eight years, according to traditional records, and was followed in rulership by his younger brother Khafre, whose likeness can be seen on the face of the Great Sphinx.

Stolen Legacy

Click here: Professor Manu Ampim's research, and scroll down

The Stolen Legacy of Classical African Culture

I visited Chicago recently and got a personal view of the new King Tut exhibit that has been touring the country. Surprisingly, there is no protest going on in that city like what was experienced in Los Angeles, during its exhibition.

As a whole, the exhibit was great. But at the exit was the Caucasian picture of King Tut that graces the cover of the June 2005 issue of National Geographic. It stood in stark contrast to what I and other guests had seen throughout the tour.

Frankly, whether intended or not, it was a signal for the Western world to continue its ubiquitous institutional-racism pogrom against Blacks. At the current pace of media on Black history, school textbooks and encyclopedias will still depict Rameses, Tutankhamen, Seti and all the pharaohs, of old, as sterile race-neutral historical figures.

Yes, it’s better than it was during my school days, but kids today are still confused on the issue, and that shouldn’t be so. An exhibit here in Minneapolis made news a few years ago when a Black kid on a class tour asked the tour guide if the ancient Egyptians were Black and the guide said, “no.”

Her parents were in an uproar, and rightfully so. No other history has been as maligned as that of Africans, and the affronts continue unmitigated today. The response of the tour officials in Minneapolis was that the guide had only responded with what he had been taught.

When Legrand Clegg, and other protesters in Los Angeles confronted the exhibitors in that city, the response of Terry Garcia, of the National Geographic Society was: "In this case we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front: 'This is mid-range.'" Mid-range from whose perspective is my question?

As an African in America, it doesn’t take much analyzation to realize that the natural diffusion between Black classical cultures and Sub Sahara Africa was purposely thwarted to keep Black cultures at bay. It’s tantamount to separating the West from the “Golden Age of Greece, or Rome.”

Meanwhile, things are progressing on some fronts. While visiting New York last year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), I perused their exhibit on ancient Egypt and left with a resounding – Amen – it was the best exhibit I have seen to date in an American city.

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------------------------Irukaptah------------------------

  

The Study of Afrocentric Classical Cultures

The question of why we need to study classical Afrocentric cultures is being discussed on many levels today. To most of us, it is the hoped for salve to assuage wounded egos. To others, ironically, it represents an intellectual front that is too far removed from the day-to-day struggles of the common man to matter much.

But is it really too far removed? First, Blacks in this culture have been stripped down to a very limited array of characteristics which, in many cases, creates the conditions that seem to demonstrate that we belong in a collective minority status because of some inherent shortcomings on our part.

Indeed, it does make one feel redeemed to know that ancient Black cultures were creating great, classical architecture, while Europe was still thousands of years from emerging out of the dark forests of the North.

It just makes sense, as a group, to work to dislodge ourselves from the ubiquitous web of racism we find ourselves confronted with. Frankly, we must leave no stone unturned in our efforts to ensure that future generations will enter the world on a ‘level playing field.’

Let me lay out what a level-playing field will look like. Children will enter kindergarten with the same access to ancient Black history as they have to ancient White history. In fact, the demarcations of ‘us versus them’ will be eradicated, as the world’s histories blend seamlessly into the story of mankind as a whole--bereft of racism’s undertones. No longer will we be a people without history, for it will be common knowledge that we started history.

Egypt (Kemet) will be seen as the benign forefather of Greece and Rome; they came along some 2,500 years after the emergence of Kemet. The Phoenicians, best known because of the epic Phoenician, or Punic Wars with Rome, and the legendary General Hannibal Barca, of Carthage, will represent Black contemporaries of Rome and Greece. Note that the ubiquitous depictions of Hannibal today are fallaciously illustrated as Caucasian, for the most part.

The ancient city states of Tyre, Byblos and Sidon, of which Phoenicia derived, will be depicted as Black trading partners with Egypt and Nubia; as will other lands spread out from the Middle East to India. Recent DNA testing proved that the ancient people buried in Phoenicia, modern Lebanon, had the same bloodlines as the ancient Egyptians (Kemetians). Most of the modern Lebanese people, however, are derived from later bloodlines--like modern Egyptians.

From Middle Africa, the Dravidians who settled southern India and the southern Asian countries where Fiji Islanders, Papua New Guineans, Melanesians and Polynesians still abound will begin to make more sense in geographic terms to future non-colonized Blacks.

Africa south of the Sahara, meanwhile, will be proved to have been purposely cut off, by the colonizers, to disallow the natural diffusion of ideas and culture that would have afforded it the ability to blossom like other areas. Fortunately, Ghana, Mali and Songhay, for example, will serve as representative samples of cultures that arose despite deleterious onslaughts against them.

The term “classical” means of the highest order. It relates to the best a people have been able to produce, not the worst. When we show people the best of themselves, and their culture, they rise to the visions and views they hold in their minds and spirits.

Muhammad Ali

Liberation and Evolving Black Archetypes

(Originally published in the Oct. 10, 2005 page of this weblog)

An archetype is simply put, a prototype in which all others of the same representative sample model from as an ideal or standard. In the West, Roman art and sculptures have been used as the ideal in which to visualize the standard representation of modern man.

Colonialism worked to limit the characterizations that were presented to the world about the Black man. The result was negative, even psychically debilitating imagery of the Black so called standard, impacting, subsequently, the African-American potential.

The Al Jolson "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans became the standard during this country's Jim Crow era, where segregation and blatant discrimination were rationalized and tolerated due to how the people of America were informed.

Encyclopedias and textbooks regularly used derisive terms such as "savage natives" to describe Black cultural affinity outside of the White-American context.

A look at how the media portrayed the Black man from the early 1960s to late 1970s reveals that institutional pressures worked to mitigate Black cultural independence within a White dominated social system. Boxing's Sonny Liston and Hollywood's Sidney Poitier, for example, represented the calm, controlled, acceptable Black, in the initial stages of the period.

Meanwhile, the social unrest of the 1960s along with the breakout civil rights movement presented a reprieve from social conventions, paving the way for more pronounced figures such as Muhammad Ali, who defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight crown and Jesse Jackson who went on to run a relatively-speaking successful presidential candidacy in the 1980s to emerge. They, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., however, had not been sanctioned by the status quo, and were much maligned by the mainstream media.

These icons came to symbolize a period of Black independent political thought and action, and forged a major foothold in modern Black archetypical formation. Today, the media continues to work, in many ways, as a watchdog for the status quo. But we can look back on those who have fought and died for the cause of Black liberation, and recognize that indelible archetypes of post-colonialism are emerging.

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Thutmoses III -- Temple of Hathor -----------------

  

Thutmoses III and the New Kingdom’s Expansion

The New Kingdom in Ancient Egypt (Kemet) represented the zenith of Egyptian culture. It was the era of Tutankhamen, Akhenaten, Hatshepsut and Rameses the Great. Ironically, it arose following the humiliating defeat and subjugation to the Hyksos, an Asiatic nation that overran Kemet and maintained power in the North for over 130 years.

In around 1480 B.C. Thutmoses III, a Theban, rose to power having been co-regent with the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, his stepmother, until her death. Modern Europeans refer to him as the Napoleon of the ancient world and not without good reason.

He expanded Kemet’s borders to her most far-reaching boundaries and initiated an imperialism that there-to-fore had been unheard of. The nation before the Hyksos had been protected and shielded by the desert on both sides and had been comfortable in its relatively secluded oasis along the Nile River. Thus, Kemet had in its earlier periods no need to look outward. But look outward Thutmoses did. He engaged in 17 military campaigns and never lost a battle.

Known as a strong but fair-minded leader, Thutmoses III was beloved and respected, during his reign, which re-established control over Syria and Nubia. His victory over the King of Kadesh at the Battle of Megiddo, just months into his tenure, quickly established him as a military genius. He went on to capture territory as far east as the Euphrates River.

One of his hallmarks was the practice of awarding medals to outstanding soldiers who exhibited exemplary prowess on the battlefield -- a custom emulated by America’s George Washington, who introduced the Purple Heart to U.S. forces.

1968 Olympics

  

Protecting the Spirit of Black America, Today

It is one of the most enduring images of Olympics sports history; an image that will inevitably frame the Olympic story of our era. Two-hundred meters gold-medal winner Tommie Smith and bronze-medal winner John Carlos raised clinched black-gloved fists in support of the ongoing Civil Rights Movement in America.

This seminal moment captured the imagination of a generation and contributed to the thrust of the movement.

That’s why I’m rather perplexed by the apparent lack of consciousness among entertainers, in popular culture, who rationalize their complicit corroboration with those whose aim is to crush the spirit of Africans in America.

Reportedly, Damon Wayans, the actor, has recently attempted to copyright the word “Nigga” for a clothes line he has in the works, revealing a callous disdain and social disregard for the masses of Africans, throughout the Diaspora, who might encounter his Nigga brand. It’s likely that he’s ignorant of how semantics can impact the spirit of a people. But just as likely, he doesn’t care, which is even worse.

Let’s define the term "spirit.” It is the inner essence and thought life of an individual, a nation or a people transcending what is seen on the outside. Each individual has an inner life world that is at best nurtured and protected by the cultural forces that be, but in the worst-case scenarios is attacked, vilified and violated.

There has been a very real thrust to diminish the energy and vital force of our struggle, and the hearts of our people. Traditionally, we buttressed our spirits with our songs, whether in popular culture or our spiritual foundation the church.

In the glory days of “Soul Music” we could count on our vocalists, whose roots derived from the church, to evoke lyrics of spiritual sustenance; vocals that penetrated the soul and revived the broken in spirit--so we marched on. Amidst a backdrop of societal oppression--we trudged onward. The church and our music helped us to fan the flames of an inner pilot that could not be extinguished by institutional suppression of our cultural heritage

Wayans, and those of his ilk, meanwhile, represent a new breed of celebrity ready to sell their brethren down the river for thirty pieces of silver. That was not the case of brothas like Tommie Smith and John Carlos. They turned their backs on product endorsements and, instead, faced death threats and censure from those who opposed them.

The arguments of the turncoats, like Wayans, is that they are just responding to the forces of the marketplace. My response is: so were the slave traders of Africa’s past.

How can we protect the spirits of people culturally? We must affirm them through our literature, our songs, our historical heritage, our legacy and our God.

Taking away the positive legacy and traditions of a people is spiritual violence. And to replace it with belittling imagery and semantics is spiritual homicide.

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Relationships

 
 

Male-Female Relationships, a Key to Liberation

A strengthening of Black male-female relationships is key, I believe, in rebuilding functional African-Americans families. Colonialism, in this hemisphere, intentionally worked to weaken this primary institution that is clearly the building block of any forward-moving people.

Egypt and classical cultures are the focus of this weblog. Thus, we look this month--Black History Month--at the importance of marriage and male-female relationships among our ancestors.

Reliefs and pictures indicate that the men and women of Ancient Kemet (Egypt) worked closely together and viewed the marriage relationship as significant, and highly esteemed. Men and women are shown holding hands, and children are often pictured in conjunction with their parents.

Husband and wife spent time chatting, enjoyed music together, and threw parties and social affairs together. The wife often went along with her husband on hunting forays to keep him company. In addition, Egyptian women shared with men important legal rights that in many other nations were totally alien to them.

Egyptian husbands realized that it took two to make a marriage. Wise advice to a husband: "Thou shouldst not supervise thy wife in her house, when thou knowest she is efficient. Do not say to her: 'Where is it? Fetch it for us!' when she has put it in its proper place. Let thine eye have regard, while thou art silent, that thou mayest recognize her abilities."

In Ancient Kemet women were allowed to own land, operated businesses, testified in court, and brought actions against men. The women of Kemet enjoyed greater freedom than any of their counterparts from other parts of the ancient world.

More advice to the men: “If you take a wife...Let her be more contented than any of her fellow-citizens. She will be attached to you doubly, if her chain is pleasant. Do not repel her; grant that which pleases her; it is to her contentment that she appreciates your work.

”If you are wise, look after your house; love your wife without alloy. Fill her stomach, clothe her back; these are the cares to be bestowed on her person. Caress her, fulfill her desires during the time of her existence; it is a kindness which does honor to its possessor. Be not brutal; tact will influence her better than violence; . . . behold to what she aspires, at what she aims, what she regards. It is that which fixes her in your house; if you repel her, it is an abyss. Open your arms for her, respond to her arms; call her, display to her your love."

Excerpts from The Precepts of Ptah-Hotep
2200 BC

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Imhotep

 
 

Imhotep, the Father of Medicine, Architect…

Imhotep has been described as one of the most fascinating people of the ancient world. Considered a genius, he rose from the ranks of the non royals of Kemet (Egypt) to become even more recognized than the pharaohs he served.

Called the Father of Medicine, Imhotep outlined more than ninety anatomical terms and forty-eight injuries in a papyrus he wrote, known today as the Edwin Smith Papyrus. Historians tell us that Imhotep "diagnosed and treated over 200 diseases, 15 diseases of the abdomen, 11 of the bladder, 10 of the rectum, 29 of the eyes, and 18 of the skin, hair, nails and tongue. Imhotep treated tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout and arthritis. He also performed surgery and practiced some dentistry. Imhotep extracted medicine from plants. He also knew the position and function of the vital organs and circulation of the blood system."

In later centuries, he was revered by the Greeks as Asclepius, the god of medicine. And it is believed that he initiated a school of medicine in Memphis, which was noted for over two-thousand years as a place of learning in the ancient world. Today, the serpent and staff symbol of the American Medical Association is derived from traditions surrounding Asclepius.

Also an architect and statesman, Imhotep is attributed with constructing the first pyramid of Egypt, the Step Pyramid, in honor of Pharaoh Djoser, at Saqqara. It still stands today and has been called one of the outstanding engineering feats of the ancient world.

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Pharaoh Menes 

Menes, First Pharaoh of Kemet (Egypt)

According to the most ancient of sources, Pharaoh Menes is attributed as having been the unifier of early kingdom states along the Nile River in what became known as Kemet, the Black Lands.

The Palermo Stone, a black basalt fragment dating from the 5th Dynasty contains the earliest annals of Kemet’s (which is known as Egypt in modern times) pharaohs. The stone which is believed to have been derived from an ancient Egyptian temple, points to Menes as having emerged from the area’s prehistory to become King of its 1st Dynasty.

According to Diodorus Siculus, Menes was the first lawgiver who helped to establish the divine principles that would distinguish Kemet from the pagan tribes of the world during that period.

Scholars differ on exactly when Menes lived, but generally settle on around 3000 B.C. – 2920 B.C. as a standardized starting point.

Menes’ dynasty is well known because many of the temples of the royal necropolis at Abydos were found nearly intact underground. And the hieroglyphic writings found there corroborate the Palermo Stone and other extant sources.

Also known as Misraim, Aha and Narmer scholars agree that he founded the city of Memphis.

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Ancient Love

Ancient Egyptian Love Poems...

Note: They called each other sisters and brothers, like we did in the 1960s.

Your love has penetrated all within me

Like honey plunged into water,

Like a perfume which penetrates spices,

As when one mixes a drink... .
Nevertheless you run to seek your sister,

Like the steed upon the battlefield,

As the warrior rolls along on the spokes of his wheels.
For heaven makes your love

Like the advance of flames in straw,

And its longing like the downward swoop of a hawk.

_________________________

Is my heart not softened by your love-longing for me?

My sweet fruit which excites your passions

Not will I allow it To depart from me.
Although cudgeled even to the "Guard of the overflow,

"To Syria, with shebod-rods and clubs,

To Kush, with palm-rods,

To the highlands, with switches

To the lowlands, with twigs,
Never will I listen to their counsel

To abandon longing.

_________________________

The Beau

Thou beautiful one!

My heart's desire is

To procure for you food as your husband,

My arm resting upon your arm.
You have changed me by your love.

Thus say I in my heart,

In my soul, at my prayers.

The Femme

"I lack my commander tonight,

I am as one dwelling in a tomb."
Be you but in health and strength,

Then the nearness of your countenance

Sheds delight, by reason of your well-being,

Over a heart, which seeks you with longing.

_________________________

I am your darling sister,

I am to you like a bit of landscape,

With each shrub of grateful fragrance.
Lovely is the moisture-conduit in it,

Which your hand has discovered,

While the north wind cooled us.

A beautiful place to wander,
Your hand in my hand,

My soul inspired My heart in bliss,

Because we go together.
New wine it is, to hear your voice;

I live for hearing it.

To see you with each look,

Is better than eating and drinking.

_________________________

Edited by Les Lester 2005

This text is part of the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook.

© Paul Halsall, January 1999

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Diamond Cluster 

Diamonds on the Soles of Their Feet

Despite the repeated negative media reports about Africa, the facts bare out that she is the richest continent in natural resources. The rest of the world knows this, and that is why there has been fighting for control of that landmass since, at least, the time of the Greeks.

Meanwhile, the African Union, the NAACP and even TransAfrica have failed to adequately address what is probably the most can’t miss issue of the twenty-first century. Gold and diamond cartels run by outsiders control the mineral wealth in the land of the Blacks. And without nary a complaint from African leaders around the globe.

Imagine if Blacks owned all the gold, diamond and other mineral rights in Europe; someone would eventually figure something was fishy. That, my friends, is colonialism; when a group which has no right to, owns the wealth of another group. Why, that was what started the American Revolutionary War. The British owned practically everything, while the Americans had to work for them to survive. And to top it off, England taxed the Americans.

If it was the right thing for the founders of America, then it’s the right thing for Africa’s new and emerging leaders to do--insist on the complete return of the countries' mineral resources. Let me point out, as a caveat, however, that we can’t expect people with something to lose to join full heartedly in this struggle. It’s going to take some serious young people who see the revolutionary benefits of owning some gold and diamond cartels to take charge of this movement.

Currently, wars are being fought in the Congo and Angola to gain control of the richest mineral deposits on earth. Fidel Castro, in the past, sent Cuban troops to help thwart incursions of U.S. and South African backed mercenaries, and today guerillas from Rwanda and Burundi have joined in the fighting, with no end in sight. If Africa is to gain a foothold in the current Western controlled economic system, she must gain control of her natural resources.

Anglo American Gold, DeBeers Diamonds and their concomitant subsidiaries are illegitimate heirs to Africa’s fortunes.

Al Jolson: white man in blackface

Liberation and Evolving Black Archetypes

An archetype is simply put, a prototype in which all others of the same representative sample model from as an ideal or standard. In the West, Roman art and sculptures have been used as the ideal in which to visualize the standard representation of modern man.

Colonialism worked to limit the characterizations that were presented, to the world, about the Black man. The result was negative, even psychically debilitating imagery of the Black so called standard, impacting, subsequently, the African-American potential.

The Al Jolson "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans became the standard during this country's Jim Crow era, where segregation and blatant discrimination were rationalized and tolerated due to how the people of America were informed.

Encyclopedias and textbooks regularly used derisive terms such as "savage natives" to describe Black cultural affinity outside of the White-American context.

A look at how the media portrayed the Black man from the early 1960s to late 1970s reveals that institutional pressures worked to mitigate Black cultural independence within a White dominated social system. Boxing's Sonny Liston and Hollywood's Sidney Poitier, for example, represented the calm, controlled, acceptable Black, in the initial stages of the period.

Meanwhile, the social unrest of the 1960s along with the breakout civil rights movement presented a reprieve from social conventions, paving the way for more pronounced figures such as Muhammad Ali, who defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight crown and Jesse Jackson who went on to run a relatively-speaking successful presidential candidacy in the 1980s to emerge. They, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., however, had not been sanctioned by the status quo, and were much maligned by the mainstream media.

These icons came to symbolize a period of Black independent political thought and action, and forged a major foothold in modern Black archetypical formation. Today, the media continues to work, in many ways, as a watchdog for the status quo. But we can look back on those who have fought and died for the cause of Black liberation, and recognize that indelible archetypes of post-colonialism are emerging.

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King Tut and Queen Ankhesenamen 

King Tut Whitewashed by the Major Media

Twenty-eight years ago when the King Tut exhibit first made its way through Chicago, I was just coming out of high school and had not been taught one iota about the Black origins of Ancient Egyptian civilization. But thanks to Third World Press and other African-American publishers, an undercurrent of this much-needed knowledge was available, which gave me a heads up when the Tut tour hit town.

At that time the afrocentric movement was just getting its legs, thanks to great Black pioneer writers such as, J.A. Rogers, Chancellor Williams, Asa Hilliard III and John G. Jackson; but despite efforts from some activists fronts, not as much as a murmur was heard in the mainline media concerning his skin color.

Black-on-Black crime continued to be a favorite subject of the networks, however. And occasionally, we were lauded with another first Black this or that. But for the most part, Africans in America, in Chicago, and the rest of the nation, remained oblivious to this shining example of ancient African classical achievement. At best, media pundits would deflect criticism by saying that skin color was not important in the instance of Egypt. They even went as far as maintaining that the Egyptians were not a race-conscious people.

Well, America certainly is, and Tutankhamun is back in the United States. The exhibit is currently on its first stop, in Los Angeles where it began on June 16, and will remain until mid-November, before heading to Ft. Lauderdale for a December 15 - April 23, 2006 presentation; then on to Chicago from May 26, through January 1, 2007, before concluding the exhibition in Philadelphia from February through September 2007.

But this time things are different. The average person can now simply enter Tutankhamun on his or her World Wide Web search engine and loads of true-to-life portrayals of the pharaoh will emerge. One of my favorites is the exquisite throne back-rest depiction of the king along with his wife Ankhesenamun. In addition, Internet surfers can pull up tomb-wall paintings and study them to their hearts content.

Meanwhile, the purveyors of negative Black imagery are attempting to conduct business as usual. Despite a scientifically conceived and recognized lifelike reconstruction of Tut agreed upon by Britain and New Zealand in 2002, that he is of Negroid lineage; a second group has emerged with a new Caucasian-looking bust, which sits outside the exhibit where passersby will passively assume Tut was Caucasian.

The clarion call must be made that it’s now or never, brothers and sisters. Blacks around the world must declare who we are, who we’ve been in the past, and how we will be dealt with in the future.

Already the voices of Black activists in California are beginning to be heard. LeGrand Clegg, a historian and City Attorney in Compton, along with the Compton NAACP have been protesting daily, to ensure that the exhibitors don’t hoodwink the huddled masses further. Smartly, LeGrand and the NAACP demonstrators have affixed pictorial representations on their placards depicting Tuya, and other clearly explicit Black-Egyptians of the 17th and 18th Dynasties.

Why is this so important? Let me explain clearly. When the children of tomorrow are born, they ought to arrive in a world that has expunged the burlesque caricatures and parodies that permeated our existence prior to the 1960s; where Rome and Greece were the standard and Black classical cultures had been severed from Africa, leaving her as if she had only spawned traditional societies.

How would Europeans appear if we created propaganda that depicted them as, in total, having bad teeth and playing bajos? Cutting them off from Greece and Rome, we might cast them as mere paleolithic Gauls and barbarians.

Conveniently, given a couple of thousand years, Romans would be portrayed to appear Black, and we would begin to see the Greeks and Italians as mere former slaves at the behest of our great glory. And Europe, it would be cast as the people of the dark forests; severed from the light of our apparent intellectual prowess.

This is not a time to remain silent, brothers and sisters. Let your voices be heard on this issue.

Les Lester is a journalist living in the Twin Cities -- Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. He has worked in magazine, newspaper and broadcast media. He can be reached at leslester@usfamily.net.

Culture 

Culture's Cultivating Process Can Liberate Us

In traditional societies, through thousands of years of trial and error, our ancestors developed cultures that sustained them and their way of life. Today, we have the vantage point of history and can readily see how specific cultures have impacted the people groups of the world.

A culture reflects a people's way of doing things and how they interact with one another and the larger society around them. Cultures, essentially, cultivate groups much like farmers cultivate land--and crops. Cultures exist wherever there is a meeting of people, from the smallest to largest of groups. The family, the office, the school and the athletic team all manifest their unique culture.

Interestingly, what each of us bring to a group influences the strengths or weaknesses of the culture at hand. I agree with the mantra that as Black Americans, wherever we are we carry the flag of our people group. Each of us owes it to the other to be the best that we can be.

Black America today is, unfortunately, saddled with the residuals of a condition born of the oppressive forces of enslavement in this country. And for the first half of the twentieth century—as someone has so aptly described it—"we were in a literal concentration camp," here in America. Meanwhile, since the 1960s, the counterbalancing forces of drugs and dysfunctional families have worked to render our liberation thrust to a near standstill.

Fortunately, conditions can be altered for the better. And a clearer understanding of the role culture can inculcate in the collective purpose of our people is paramount. Inherently, culture in itself can foster an unseen structure that is ‘self perpetuating,' negatively or positively.

Recently, while driving down Interstate 94 in Minneapolis, I noted a young White woman in her late teens, perhaps early twenties, standing on an overpass grandly waving in swell swoops a huge American flag to oncoming traffic in a rallying call of the American spirit.

And who shall ever forget the unselfish gallantry of Japanese Kamikazes who plowed their fighter planes into Allied ships, in honor of their throne, during the second world war. The perpetuation of their whole as a people was more important to them than life itself.

Indeed, we as Africans in America, have much to be proud of. The Black Panthers, World Class Athletes, and the likes of Martin King and Malcolm X remind us of the ready icons we have at hand to perpetuate our ideals.

Booker T. Washington and others, soon after the slave era, built universities, churches and other institutions that have assisted us, even to this day, in galvanizing our resources and aims for best effect. They have, essentially, given us a track to run on.

Now, we must rise to the occasion of counterbalancing the oftentimes negative impact of the mass-consumer marketing forces on our culture, which I believe, have contributed greatly in thwarting our best-laid efforts of awakening the masses of our population in this country. Prior to the 1960s, what has become known as the mass consumer market was to a great extent nonexistent. Much of our consumption of goods and services was very much reminiscent of the forerunner agrarian society that the world had recently emerged from. Milk, food and other basic consumer goods, for example, were still largely produced and distributed by local farmers or relatively small distribution networks.

Today, huge multinational conglomerates, along with mass media, in their thrust to reach each consumer demographic have used all kinds of advertising and promotional gimmicks to influence purchasing decisions, creating a manufactured reality that is bereft of the soul and cultural support system that marked earlier periods.

The music industry, for one, before the 60s, lacked the intense distribution networks that have emerged. Back then, the bottom line of corporations was kept in check by a more strident moral culture, so the consumer was somewhat protected, relatively speaking.

The fallout has resulted in millions of unwary consumers and youth exhibiting commercially induced value systems bereft of the standards championed just a generation ago. We need a new generation of Americans across ethnic and so-called racial lines to arise, utilizing the precepts gained from our post-modern understanding of culture.

Les Lester is a graduate of the University of Minnesota's Interdisciplinary Program on Global Change, Sustainability and Justice. He received his undergraduate degree from Chicago State University, in Mass Communications.

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