1:56AI’ve also contacted the Union of Pan-African Collectives. This is an organization out in Brazil that has a lot of African cultural events. And I have not I have not contacted this organization yet, but it’s an organization called the Dominica American Relief and Development Association, and they’re currently working with Dominica to help recover from the hurricane because, as you know, that island as well as many other islands have been devastated by some recent hurricanes. So I’m helping to raise money for them and their cause. So these are some of the activities that I’m engaged in, not only locally but on a Pan-African global scale, because as I said, the issues that we face as a people are global issues, and I believe that we need to unite and create global solutions to these issues.
2:46AThis is another paragraph from the manifesto that I wrote out for this movement. I write, the movement for restoring the African mind takes the position that accepting our African identity is an important step towards restoring the minds of African people. Why do we say this? We say this because of the extremes that the slave masters went to to destroy our identity, so that one may ask, why does does it matter being an African? Why is it important? My answer is that obviously it was important enough for the slave masters to destroy our identity. Those of us living in the Americas were often indoctrinated by propaganda that made us think of Africa as being the dark continent.
3:30AAfricans were presented as cannibals and savages running around the jungles with spears. They did the same thing to the Africans that were living on the continent as well. When the Europeans colonized Africa, they presented what they were doing as a mission to civilize lives, these Africans. And they set up colonial schools in which they also taught the Africans living on the African continent that they were cannibals and savages living in jungles and they had no civilization before the Europeans got there. So in the process of conquering African people, one of the consistent themes has always been this attempt to make us feel ashamed of being African, to make us feel as though we’re inferior people.
4:06ABy doing this, we accept their state of subjugation. And this is also critical too because it has made recovering from what we’ve endured very difficult. We all know about slavery, which lasted many centuries, but the recovery process has been very difficult because of the conditioning that we endured during that process of being enslaved. And Africa went through a similar thing during colonialism. Europeans came in there, made African people feel ashamed of our history and our culture. And by doing this, you know, Africans -- it’s been very difficult for the leaders on the African continent to come up with solutions to really recover from what colonialism has done to Africa.
4:51AOne of the things that I especially want to do with this movement is to educate people on African culture and to bring back that pride and the sense of cultural identity among African people. One of the reasons why culture is important is because it is on culture that people build foundations for institutions. Now, we see this in American history when we study history in school. History doesn’t start at the beginning of American history. It starts at the beginning of European history with Greece and with Rome. And the reason for this is not only to glorify Europe’s history. This is also done because Greece and Rome had directly influenced the creation of the Americas.
5:36AWhen you study the history, you’ll find that many of America’s founders were men who had studied the history of Greece and Rome, were influenced by those ideas, and many of the ideas, many of the Greek and Roman ideas were used in the creation of America. So there is a direct connection to culture and history and building on institutions. As I said, the American political institution was built on previous Greek and Roman institutions. And the problem that we run into as African people is that our history was taken from us, our culture was taken from us, so we don’t really have the foundations on which to build institutions of our own.
6:15AI want to give 2 examples of why culture is important, not only from a historical perspective in terms of understanding our history, but also in terms of culture being relevant to our present-day struggles. The first example is family values. We hear people talk very often about how the problem in the Black community is a lack of traditional family values. And this argument was always interesting to me from the perspective of, we all talk about traditional family values, but there’s never a conversation about whose family values we’re really speaking of. Because you see, there’s obviously traditional family values from a European cultural historical historical perspective, as well as African culture, because we had our own values before we were brought here.
7:02AAnd then this is especially relevant to the current situation we face, because people talk about the Black community lacks family values, and we speak about the number of single Black mothers in the community. But when you study African culture, you find that African culture, it was a very communal society, very family-oriented society. We were stripped of that, and we were forced to adopt the European model, although aspects of original family models still survive, but the family model we have is mostly European model. And one of the reasons why that’s been problematic is that European family model tends not to be as communal or as close-knit as the African model.
7:42AWhen you look at African languages, you find many African languages where the word for father and the word for uncle means the same thing because that’s how close that bond was, or the word for mom or aunt means the same thing because again you’re talking about very close-knit family bond. Now in the European model, we kind of separate the immediate family from the relatives, but that wasn’t something that was done in the African family system. And the problem we run into here is, like I said, when we talk about, you know, the broken households in the Black community, single Black moms, is that in this society, a family is, you know, 2 people get together to create a family.
8:17AAnd if one person in that situation leaves, let’s say, you know, a dad walks out on the family or he’s arrested or killed, now you’re left with a woman or a man who’s forced to raise his family on their own.
8:27CNow, in the African system, as I said, it was very very communal.
8:31AI mean, there’s even an African, a very famous African proverb about how it takes a village to raise a child because it was a village that raised a child. So now in that situation, let’s say, you know, the father dies, there’s a mom to raise the child, but there’s also uncles, aunts, there’s the rest of the village. So you had a communal structure that could step in and raise a child when, you know, the two-parent dynamic broke down. In this society, we don’t have that. So if the two-parent dynamic breaks down, then you are left with a broken household because there isn’t any -- there is not a safety net to take care of that.
9:02ASo when we talk about traditional family values, we have to start thinking in terms of whose traditional values are we speaking about? Are we speaking about our own traditional values or the traditional values of other people? The other example I want to get into is economics. Very often many of us go into African history looking for great African kings and great African queens because we’re looking at African history to instill a source of pride in us. And I’m not completely against this, but I think one of the things that we have to start looking into African for as well as economic structures, because you don’t have wealthy and powerful kings and queens without an economic system in place to build that.
9:44AAnd again, this is also relevant to our present economic situation. We talk about not only the economic struggles of African people in the United States, but I mean globally we are still a very impoverished and struggling people. And an aspect of this is that we don’t have our own economic systems. One system that we’ll mention here tonight is One known as the susu. I’m sure people from a Caribbean background is familiar with that, and that comes from a West African system. What that is, is it’s an informal loan system. How it works is, let’s say there’s a group of 5 people. These 5 people will decide, we’ll meet every 2 weeks, and every 2 weeks all 5 of us will throw together a pool, and the pool will be like $100 each.
10:33AAnd at each meeting, a different person within that group gets that money. And not only is this a traditional African system that survived the Middle Passage and slavery in the West Indies and some parts of South America, but it’s a system that works. I’ve come across many examples of people coming here from the Caribbean and they were able to open businesses, buy houses, buy cars, put their children through school using this system. And the interesting thing about this loan system, it’s very different from the traditional banking system in terms of there’s no interest rate, no fees, or that kind of stuff that we usually run into in banking.
11:08AAnd I think Again, one of the issues too with banking is discriminatory lending. You know, Black people have a much harder time securing loans and that sort of thing from banks.
11:17BTrue.
11:18ASo this here is a system that’s traditionally African that we could use to build an economic structure around. So when it comes to culture, I think we need to start thinking of culture not only as culture in terms of what it can do for us in instilling pride, but also culture and how can we apply traditional aspects of our culture to deal with present-day problems that we are experiencing. So as I said, that’s one of the things that I want to start doing with this movement that I want to build. It’s a movement to restore the minds of African people, to get us to appreciate our history, to appreciate our culture, and then use those things to really create solutions to the problems that we are experiencing as a people.
11:59AAnd as I said, this is a global issue, and I think we need to build a global movement to deal with that. Before I get into questions about movement, I just want to bring up some points about some ideas I have moving forward with what I want to do with this movement. One of which is access to books and other educational material that’s relevant to African people. One of the things I want to do is make that more accessible to people because the problem that we run into is there’s no shortage of information on European and other history, but for African people it’s very difficult for us to get a hold of great sources on our history.
12:36AOne of the reasons why I’ve written so many books is just to get that history out there and make it more available for people. So one of the things I want to do with this movement is to make the history more accessible and available to people and get that information out there. The other thing is building institutions. I think institutions is very important, and one of -- again, one of the problems that we run into as a people is that because we’ve been stripped of our history and culture, we don’t really have original institutions of our own. So we always find ourselves having to utilize other people’s institutions, and the problem with that is those institutions may not necessarily have been built with our situation in mind.
13:14ASo we have to develop institutions to deal with are the situations that confront us. And finally, as I said, I want to make this a global Pan-African movement, and I’ve already taken steps to contact people from around the country and around the world. And one of the things I want to do with this is to build a network of people that are working towards the common goal of liberating African people. I’m sure some of you here are involved in other initiatives that I could get involved in, and we could build together on that. So that’s a quick summary of why I organized this movement, the Movement for Restoring the African Mind, and some of the goals that I have for this movement.
13:57ASo next, I’d like to open the floor to any questions or comments. Can you tell us about your books? Like, books, can you describe maybe a couple of them and the benefits of reading them that will help us to restore the African mind? By topic, possibly. Honestly, it’s kind of hard for me to even know where to begin because, like I said, I’ve written 15 books and they cover such a wide range of topics. I really can’t, you know, pick one. But what I will say is the reason why I’ve even written so many books is our history is very vast and very complex. So in those books, I deal with different aspects of the history.
14:41AOne of the books I’ve written about, Essays Towards a Strong African Mind, which is kind of based on this movement that I’m building, that touches on the psychological aspect of the oppression of African people. I have another book that addresses the economic aspect. So what I do with my books is not only do I look at the history of African people throughout the world, but also different elements. So one book might touch on the economics, one book might touch on the psychology.
15:06BAwesome.
15:07ASo that’s, you know, what I try to do with my books. And my hope is that by the time people are done reading the 15 books that I’ve written, they’ll have a very comprehensive view of African history from a global perspective, as well as comprehensive from an aspect of economics, of psychology, of politics. I think That’s one of the things that my books can do to help restore the African mind, is to give people that comprehensive view of our history and who we are as a people.
15:32CAwesome. I have a question. How can we, how can we move forward and get our minds right, restore the African mind, if we do not have the, whatever you call it, the ecology or the ecology or the environment within which to -- for this to grow. It’s kind of like a seed that goes into the ground.
16:05AYeah.
16:06CSo then if we’re in the concrete jungle, right, we’re not going to get the nourishment or the soil that can make this actually expand. So how do you -- what do you recommend that we -- or how do we go about developing ecology where these ideas and everyone can benefit from the harvest, so to speak, of what you’re trying to accomplish?
16:29AI mean, I think in terms of the conditions around building this movement, I feel very optimistic that the conditions are there already. I mean, we see this in how widespread the Black Lives Matter movement has been, what’s going on right now in the NFL, the protesting. So I think we’re in a situation right now where African people are more conscious than we’ve been in several decades, it seems like. I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement, that’s a national movement. I mean, think about it, we haven’t really had a national movement that large since the 1960s with the civil rights movement. And I could even take that outside of the United States.
17:00ASome of the stuff you see going on in the Caribbean, for example, a couple years ago, Haiti had an uprising. Barbados right now has recently had a lot of strikes against the government. Togo, right now Togo is going through -- Togo is in West Africa -- they’re going through a revolution right now against the dictatorship. So one of the reasons why I feel confident in forming this movement at the time that I’m doing it is when I look around the world, I see African people all around the world are kind of struggling and they recognize the situation. So I don’t think necessarily we’re planting in concrete because like I said, the conditions there, I’m seeing, you know, areas where people are moving and trying to improve the situation African people are in.
17:39AAnd as I said, I’m contacting different people around the world, so I feel like there is an environment for which we can plant this movement and make it grow. I don’t feel like I’m planting in concrete while I’m doing this. Does that answer the question?
17:55CYeah, definitely. The reason why I say that is because, for example, you mentioned Black Lives Matter, right? It seems to be more reactionary.
18:02AYou know what, I mean, that is and that’s one of my issues with Black Lives Matter. It’s reactionary, but I’m still encouraged because it’s a reaction. I mean, if that’s going on and the people aren’t reacting, then, you know, you’re in a difficult situation.
18:15CWhen you have your own ecology, your own environment, you’re not reacting to the political, social-political whims of the system.
18:25ANo, yeah, I agree with that. I mean, that is one of the critiques I would make of Black Lives Matter, but I’m still encouraged because it’s easier to build with the people that are reacting than to build with the people that are oblivious and not reacting. So, I mean, the conversation would then be, okay, instead of constantly having to react to these things, we should build our own institutions. And certain issues we shouldn’t have to deal with in terms of policing. I mean, why can’t we take over our own communities, control the police in the communities, that kind of thing? That’s a conversation I don’t really see happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. But the fact that they’re reacting lets me know that these are people that want change, and then we can engage in that discussion about change. But if there’s no reaction and people accept whatever is going on, then --
19:04CYes.
19:05AThen you’d be, like you said, then you’d be trying to plant in concrete. concrete jungle.
19:09CYeah, yeah, so they’re trying to fight that. Thank you, appreciate it.
19:15BThank you.
19:18AYou have any comments?
19:20BI’m just listening, and, uh, I feel the movement is very necessary. I’m just wondering how we link it into, uh, Africa, because the problem, uh, of course it exists in America, in the diaspora, different places. But even the continent of Africa itself, you know, is, is running towards traditional cultural values, and it seems to be striving towards reflecting the West, Western culture.
19:59AYeah.
19:59BYou know, in so many ways. And what do we do about that? You know, it’s almost like traditional African culture is considered primitive, and that’s just not even here. And I, you know, I just returned from Africa very recently, like about 30 days ago.
20:19AWhich country?
20:19BAnd the experience -- I was in Ethiopia. And, you know, I lived in Nigeria, you know, for about 3 years. And in Nigeria you do find people grasping onto their culture. And it’s a very, you know, important part, you know, of their existence, you know, to relate to their culture. You know, so far as, take for instance, religion and things of that nature. Most religions are looked at as primitive and how could you, you know, be practicing that kind of voodoo and, you know, that kind of craziness when, you know, it’s just the king’s, you know, the King of England’s religion now, you know, which is all a part of, you know, enslaving us mentally.
21:11AYeah.
21:12BBut if the situation is serious, You know, it goes beyond America and the islands and, you know, places like that. The main problem is Africa itself. You know, like, you’d be surprised at the people that’s striving, I just want to go to America, you know, like, where, you know, life is going to be better, and I’m so tired of, you know, this backwards, you know, traditional culture that we have here. Like, the best thing is like America or London or places like that. that, that’s what people are striving towards. So if we want to start a movement, don’t you think it has to begin there, or at least make us aware of the problems there too?
22:02CYeah.
22:02BYou know, even pre-slavery, you know, it was the Africans who sold out each other, you know, and made it very easy, you know, for our people to be enslaved, you know. And even being an African today, I see that that slavery mentality as a part of culture almost, where people don’t mind, where, you know, I’ll serve you, you know, I’ll come to your house and just if you allow me to exist, you know, I’ll cook your food, wash your clothes, wash your cars, you know, basically be your slave, you know. And my evaluation of the situation was it was white people that probably visited visited Africa as visitors and said, oh my God, if these people would do this, just think what we could do in America. You know, so let’s get these people to come over to America and we’ll use that kind of subordinate system to work here. It wasn’t like, you know, these white enslaving people were so mean they just, you know, chained us up and brought us It’s all.
