WE CANNOT REMAIN SILENT! Africans in Africa and Around the World in Solidarity With African American Sisters and Brothers

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:


Our brothers and sisters in Africa have sent us a note of  that I am sharing with you.   It was forwarded to me by the Hon. Stanley Straughter of the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs of Philadelphia, PA.  They have observed the heinous treatment of Brother George Floyd and are reaching out across the Diaspora to let us know that we are not along.  We are grateful to the outpouring of love, indignation, solidarity from our Brothers and Sisters in the Mother Land:

WE CANNOT REMAIN SILENT! 

Africans in Africa and Around the World in Solidarity With African-American Sisters And Brothers. 

DAKAR In these strange moments of uncertainty and fear, the news from America has broken our hearts. We cannot remain silent! We cannot remain deaf and blind to the plight of our African-American brothers and sisters. We are shocked by the brutal murder of George Floyd by police officers. The unbearable sight of George Floyd suffocating under the knee of a police officer in uniform looks like a return to the dark ages. George Floyd’s agony and death crowns a long litany of screams and supplications, adding one more atrocity to a chain of brutalities and racist killings. — It has revived in us the old wounds of our souls and summoned painful, shared memories. 

We cannot remain silent because we know how much we have in common with our brothers and sisters in our global black community - our African Diaspora. We know how your ancestors continued the resistance and the struggle for emancipation and dignity during the solitary traumas lived in the hulls of slave boats and the humiliation of plantations, and on the islands of freedom they built through the ages. That is the determined struggle for civil rights that you continue to wage fearlessly. Africans on the continent and around the world are grateful to African Americans and black leaders, writers, and thinkers for sharing with our elders the emancipatory idea of Pan-Africanism and for being connected with our struggles against colonialism and, of course, apartheid. 

No, we cannot remain silent with the cruel killing of George Floyd and the cries of citizens, black and brown and white, in the streets of cities in America and in other continents, declaring to the world that Black Lives Matter. 

How can we be silent when we know that your long walk to real freedom echoes the struggles of yesterday and resonates with the struggles we are waging here in Africa, your mother continent? We are waging these struggles to advance our common causes: democratic freedoms, dignity, equality, social justice, the rights and well-being of women and all minorities, the integrity of leaders and institutions, economic independence, and finally the control of our cultural and historic destiny.

We cannot remain unmoved when we also have good news to share with our African American brothers and sisters; news that goes beyond the clichés, rebukes all forms of racial profiling, and updates old beliefs into fresh reality: a new Africa is truly emerging before our eyes. A resilient Africa carried by our communities and a dynamic and enterprising civil society, animated by a generation of young people and women determined to lift the continent from the fatality of despair, and create a future of unity in freedom, dignity and abundance. Together, we are the soldiers of hope engaged in the building of a new African nation, deeply rooted in our strongest cultural heritage, with the ideological and intellectual contributions of African-American achievements. In this spirit, we the people of Africa are one people, and one nation. We are a 1.3 billion strong nation stretched out over a whole continent, and with you in the African Diaspora, we are millions more. Together we can build the global African nation. It will be our nation, and we will name squares and schools after the countless other heroines and heroes of African descent. In memory of our common ancestry, the new Africa will be conceived as our common home. 

We cannot remain silent! We cannot remain indifferent because we have so many projects to initiate. One common element of our societal (and economic) project will be to revisit together — with courage and honesty — our shared history. But we will go beyond the recent history and look at the Africa we lost. Our history did not begin with the tragic period of slavery. We will explore the distant lands of our forgotten kingdoms and empires, the glorious destinies of our noble leaders, the scientific, technological and social advances that have shaped the evolution of our societies and have largely gone unacknowledged. Our common work should be to finally put at the center of our concerns the education and training of our children so that they are better prepared to face the complex challenges of what will certainly be a complex future. 

Finally Our common task could be to develop mutually beneficial economic partnerships among those of us on the continent and those in the Diaspora, in order to create the conditions for true independence. And while we break our silence, we will claim our rightful place in human destiny. In these decisive moments when humanity is confronted with an existential threat linked to climate change, health pandemics, and a life-threatening rise of social inequalities, we must come together. 

We have never forgotten that humanity originated on our continent. At this critical and fragile moment when humankind feels that it has reached a tragic impasse, it is our duty to help humanity build a better and more sustainable future for itself and for planet Earth, through the path of our founding values —'ubuntu’ and ‘nitté’ (our shared humanity), wisdom, equality, respect, solidarity, and brotherhood and sisterhood, so that our human family finally reconciles with itself in peace. 

Today, in the memory of George Floyd and millions of other black lives who mattered, we Africans in Africa, mourn our loss and honor a rich moment of shared connection. 

Add your name by following this link: http://chng.it/XgF7rL4z 

SIGNED BY:

Youssou Ndour

Akon

Salif Keita

Dikembe Mutombo

Samuel Etoo

Djimon Honsou

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

Lamido Sanusi

Princess Esther Kamatari

Precious Motsepe

Rama Yade

Paolo Gomes

Prof. Abdoulaye Bathily

Zainab Badawi

Isha Seesay

Amadou Mahtar Ba

Alain Foka

Denise Epote Durand

Frannie Leautier

Bineta Diop

Hafsat Abiola

Hassan Ba

Pierre Thiam

Angelle Kwemo

Amadou Gallo Fall

Dr. Ebrima Sall

Prof. Achille Mbembe

Dr. Fatou Sow

Prof. Muhammadou Kah

Prof Issa Shivji

Prof. Alioune Sall

Prof. Penda Mbow

Dr. Natasha Issa Shivji

Dr. Bouchra Sidi Hida

Dr. Salwa Beheiry

Prof. Jimi O. Adesina

Momar Nguer

Alain Nkontchou

Fatima Karume

Prof. Mamadou Goita

Prof. Brahim El Morchid

Dr. Tijan M. Sallah

Fatou Jagne Senghor

Dr.Stigmata Tenga

Dr. Ebrima Ceesay

Prof. Abdoulie Saine

Samba Bathily

Mamadou Toure

Prof. Ousmane Thiare

Prof. Jainaba M. L. Kah

Dr. Assan Jaye

Linus Gitahi

Demba Sy

Debo Adesina

Rebecca Enonchong

Moustapha Mellouk

Prof. Bernard Founou Tcuigoua

Dr. Tendai Kedenhe Mhizha

Prof. Noel Magaloire Ndoba

Coumba Toure

Babacar Ngom

Amadou Diaw

Didier Acouetey

Harouna Ly

Mamou Daffe

Hamet Aguemon

Seynobou Dia

Masego Madzwamuse

Sefa Gohoho

Obi Asika

Edgar Gnansounou

John Githongo

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GOD BLESS BLACK PEOPLE/GDW

Guest Article: Back to Africa - Black Press Business/Economic Feature Week of July 26, 2018

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:



The evidence is more and more compelling that our ties between ourselves, the Diaspora, and our Motherland, Africa, are strengthening and growing more and more solid.  As a result, we have to become more and knowledgeable about the issues and opportunities that exist or are potential between us - especially since every other force on the planet is trying hard to keep us apart, separated, ignorant, victimized and poor.

We are coming up on the 400th year of our captivity and kidnapping from Africa, our enslavement, and the first ship landing on American soil in 1619.  The fact is those ships of horror historically have already left African shores with our precious ancestors stacked on top of each other, or thrown overboard.

We had actually begun our initial reunification in the 1920's, thanks to the wisdom, knowledge and insight of Marcus Garvey - but the effort was stopped by the combined efforts of British and American forces (the same forces that enslaved us to begin with) coming together and conspiring to sink our ships, incarcerate our leaders, and break up the relationship between Africa and African Americans by telling each of us lies about the other.

The second major effort of reunification between Africa and African Americans came in the 60s during the Black Power Era, when we truly began to return to our African roots.  We started truly returning to our African roots by wearing natural hair, Afrocentric clothes, making movies, writing books, poems, and making pilgrimages to the Motherland to trace our African roots.  We changed our names to reflect wherever we thought we came from, learned African dances and traditions, and made plans to repatriate to our homeland and build our homes and our futures there.  We even demanded that African and African history be taught in the schools so our children would not continue to be whitewashed.  

Sekou Toure - Guinea

Stokeley Carmichael

First Black Model with Afro

Kwame Nkruman

The upshot of the whole thing is the deliberate destruction of our relationship - via the so-called "Cold war" between Russia and the US - something Africa had absolutely nothing to do with - by fighting it out on African soil.  Subsequently, while Africa was aggressively shedding her colonial monsters - they had the audacity to try to claim that Africa owed them money for their seizure of her lands and the subjugation of her people. 

Coming into the 21st Century there has been a resurgence of African/African American relations - aided in large part by technology - internet, cell phones, overthrow of despotic colonial dominated leaders - and the progress was such that, once again conspiracy has raised iit's ugly head - via the new Chinese invasion to siphon off African autonomy via pseudo building of properties that are not reflective of African needs or wants.  

But this time, something is new - African Americans and Africans are more in tune with each other and collaborating with each other than ever.  Perhaps it's in part because the first Black president of the US is also of African Heritage (Kenyan); but it's more likely that there has been growing interest in Africa long before the 2016 election, with increased travel between the US and the Continent - making the roots deeper and more solid that ever before.  Both Africans and African Americans have been victims of a common enemy - and suffer from "post traumatic slave/colonization shock syndrome" (yeah, I just came up with that).  

But we also share a resiliency and a determination to not remain under the foot of ignorance or oppression - and the opportunities are now even greater for the regeneration of a full fledged successful, progressive amalgamation of our ingenuity, skill, creativity and talent.  This time we cannot afford to be caught on the late show.  We cannot be ignorant of this wonderful opportunity to ensure our and our children's futures.

Interestingly enough the movie "Black Panther" -  a work of science fiction (fact) has reawakened our nascent African affinity on many levels.  While there had already been some stirrings among African Americans,  this movie has catapulted our interests in the possibilties 1000%.  

Black Panther's WAKANDA  started a Paradigm Shift

Whites - especially the New York Times - are already smelling the possibilities and our  progress and have started staking their claim - Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa - are all in their gun sites - just to mention a few.  If they know this, we should be so far ahead of the curve that they will be trailing behind us.  This may be our last opportunity for reunity.  We cannot afford to be weighed in the balance and found wanting.  If we are going to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of slave ships coming to the US, it should be by the reverse, with as many of her descendants having a pivotal interest in the Motherland from which they were stolen.  The time to start is now; the ones to do it is us.  This is an effort at a wake up call - regardless of what your educational or financial level.  This s our time to not be on the late show.

NOTE:  Please be advised that when I say Diaspora, I mean all Black descendents of African Heritage - USA, South America, Haiti, the Caribbean - wherever those ships landed and dropped us off - i.e., ECLECTICALLY BLACK PEOPLE!!

Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria 

Black Press Business/Economic Feature Week of July 26, 2018
By William Reed

Back to Africa

Former US President Barack Obama went to his ancestral home in Kogelo Village, Kenya. Obama’s grandmother lives in Kogelo where he danced at the opening of a youth center launched by his half-sister Auma Obama's Sauti Kuu Foundation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/world/africa/obama-kenya-visit-africa.html 

Obama in South Africa on Mandela's 100th Birthday

The first Black American president is leading what’s expected to be Black families and descendants back to Africa. A son of Africa, Obama’s primary gig in Africa was Johannesburg to give the 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture. In reality, Obama’s appearance was made in partnership with the multi-billion dollar-endowed Motsepe Foundation. Obama’s benefactor, Dr. Patrice Motsepe is founder and chairman of African Rainbow Minerals and one of Africa’s Black billionaires. Celebrity Net Worth reports that both Barack and Michelle Obama’s net worth as $40 million. Both are examples of the up-and-coming contemporary African in the Diaspora. 

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2018/07/16/barack-obama-visits-kenya-during-first-post-presidency-trip-to-africa/36908899/

The requested action is “Send money back to Africa.” The continental African Union (AU) union consists of all 55 countries on the African continent. The Diaspora is an AU ambassadorial post to "invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union". The African Diaspora are people who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries, with their largest populations in Brazil, the United States and Haiti. The AU defines the African Diaspora as consisting: "of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent".

Her Honor Arikana Chihombori-Quao - President of the African Union

Thirteen million Africans were shipped to the New World; 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. Large numbers of Diaspora Blacks live and work in high-income countries and among prosperous populations. Most Diaspora members' incomes are modest by the standards of rich nations, and their savings might seem meager in the world of development funding, but collectively they can add up to staggering amounts of money. Worldwide, African Diaspora members have accumulated an estimated US$53 billion in savings ad remittances.

Mounds of opportunity exist in the African Diaspora. Moving cash within Africa is an untapped opportunity for money transfer. Remittances to sub-Saharan-Africa rose to $37.8 billion in 2017. The development potential for Africa's Diaspora is “in human capital" of knowledge and expertise gained while working abroad. The World Bank and other development partners say that the total money transfers by African migrants to their region or country of origin grew to $35.2 billion, in 2015.

We should think Blacks of the Diaspora share values, interests and heritage. The Diaspora’s Blacks could all get rich by connecting and working together. According to the AU, links between the African Diaspora and African development are already happening. Diaspora members already invest in real estate, entrepreneurial businesses, and capital markets. Sometimes they pool their money with friends or form an investment consortium.

Merging of the mindsets and monies of Africans of the Diaspora is the AU’s goal. Blacks can be Diaspora benefactors by matching keen entrepreneurial sensibilities, strong cultural ties to partners in the ancestral homeland. Africa’s Diaspora accumulates an estimated US$53 billion every year.

The African Union Commission is seeking to implement the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA). The African Continental Free Trade Agreement is a noteworthy achievement in African diplomacy, trade, and economic development. The CFTA has the potential to cover 1.2 billion people and over $4 trillion in combined consumer and business spending. The CFTA opens the continent to new investors and better opportunities for its entrepreneurs.

Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, a Ghanaian national (from Zimbabwe), is the Permanent Representative of the African Union Representational Mission to the United States of America.  She recently invited the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Quartey Thomas Kwesi to Washington to discuss next steps for implementing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA).  The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) is a noteworthy achievement. A groundbreaking achievement in African diplomacy, trade, and economic development the CFTA has the potential to cover 1.2 billion people and over $4 trillion in combined consumer and business spending opens up the continent to new investors and better opportunities for its entrepreneurs.  Intra-African trade is expected to skyrocket, and with it, industry and manufacturing. At the same time, the agreement introduces opportunities to re-approach existing trade relationships, like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), to make trade more beneficial for all.

William Reed is publisher of “Who’s Who in Black Corporate America” and available for projects via Busxchng@his.com

 NOW THAT YOU KNOW

WHAT ARE YOU 

GOING TO DO 

ABOUT IT?

Stay Blessed &

ECLECTICALLY BLACK 

Gloria

Resurrection Time: Learning from the masters; MARCUS GARVEY AND CARTER G. WOODSON

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

It's amazing, but Black people spend more time looking back and discussing the  past than they do building or fighting for the future.  I know that we have this rhetoric that "he who does not know his past is bound to repeat it" - but then we study it an nauseum, and still continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.  Not only do we not learn from our past errors, when we have saints and sages from the past who had the solutions to our problems, we also fail to implement them.

Dr. Carter C. Woodson - Founder of Black History Month

"We must not allow anyone or anything to diminish or to dismiss the uninterrupted relevance and importance of Black American history, culture and intellectual genius. The “fundamental truth” about the glorious and triumphant history of peoples of African descent needs to be retold and appreciated by all people throughout the world.

We are a proud people. We are an African people. We are the Black family, community, nation and global community. We are a people of the long centuries-long struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Our history did not begin or end with the tragedy and holocaust of transatlantic slavery. The history of African people begins with God’s creation of humanity. We are the original people. Human civilization had its birth in Africa!" CGW

Take Marcus Garvey and Carter G. Woodson for example.  Everybody talks as though Garvey's Back to Africa movement is the only Back To Africa Movement that there will ever be.  That the principles and means by which he marshaled millions of Black people world wide to join together to build their own businesses, own their own homes and educate their own children to higher standards that the whites had during that time is the only time that can ever happen.  So, no one has tried to do it on the scale that he did since then.  Yes, we talk about Garvey; we laud the principles of the UNIA - Universal Negro (Black) IMPROVEMENT Association; and if you say, "Up You Might Race You can Accomplish What You Will!" most people know that Garvey said it.  

Marcus Garvey founder of BACK TO AFRICA and UNIA 

But what is the good of that if we are not taking what works and working it. Why have we wrapped Garvey and his principles and PRACTICES in mothballs, put it on a shelf, and only take it out on his birthday and during Black History Month???

The same is true of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the brother who founded Negro History Week, that later evolved into Black History Month.  Our self hatred has led us to make him the butt of stupid jokes such as,  "Black history month is the shortest month in the year because the white man always shortchanges us."  This ignorance has been repeated by more moronic negro comedians than I care to count.  And it's not only a stupid joke, it shows they know nothing about their own history, and have even less respect for it.  Since Woodson started Negro History Week to instill pride in Black people for Black people who done great things for Black people, he wanted to honor two men whom he felt had done more to help people - up to that point - FREDERICK DOUGLASS (born February 14) and ABRAHAM LINCOLN (born February 12) - so he chose February as the month to begin honoring Black people. 

The stupidity of the whole thing is that he was trying to get us to respect our history - not distort it.  Which is why he started the program in the elementary schools where the children could begin to learn about these and other Black historical figures and accomplishments.  Woodson had traveled to Africa, the Caribbean and South America and knew first hand that whites were doing everything they could to either destroy or distort Black accomplishments and history.  He meant Negro History Week to encompass ALL BLACK PEOPLE - but of course there had to be focus on those in the US because most of the Black teachers had little to no knowledge of Black people outside of the US.  In fact, they had very little to no knowledge of the history of Black people in the US.  Hence, Woodson would provide them with the material and information for the students - since the white schools weren't going to do so - hence the establishment of the Association of the Study of African American Life and History (of course back then it was "Negro.")

I am sharing two links for you in reference to these two great Black men.  You need to study and learn from them.  There is a reason these men have been deliberately destroyed - especially Garvey.  Whites did not and do not want an educated Black population who knows about themselves, their accomplishment, skills and abilities - especially if it leads to Black autonomy, empowerment and success.  It was for this reason that the US and Great Britain conspired to get Garvey out of America because if he took millions of Blacks back home to Africa, it would kill the Brits stronghold on the rubber plantations an other industries in Africa because Africans and African Americans would begin to work together, consolidate their knowledge and produce the products themselves for the good of Africa.  

The other reason is because the US would lose its massive subservient base - which would then require them to change their societal levels.  At that time Blacks were on the bottom - how dare they now not only stand up to whites, but begin to build their own businesses, start their own schools, own their own homes, upgrade their own communities.  

Garvey was taken out of the US to Britain where he had a following, but not nearly as large, and where it was cost prohibitive for Black Americans to travel back and forth between the two countries to support and defend him.  I.E. they isolate, incarcerated and lied about him.  They used the lie of mail fraud as he reason for jailing him.  Then they sabotaged the shipping lines that Blacks were to travel back to African on; and lastly, but most importantly, they lied to an African chief and told him that Garvey was coming to Africa to push him off the thrown so he could take over his people.  

Most Africans are not aware of this important glitch in the history of African and African Americans reuniting - some think it didn't come about until around the 60's - but that was the second major attempt (then the US and Russia used Africa for their personal battle ground, and drew ignorant so called African leaders into the fray and forced them to choose sides - when will we ever learn what our Original American Brothers already know:  "white man speak with forked tongue?"

So, I'm providing you the links to both Garvey and Woodson - educate yourselves - we have to stop walking around waiting for America to do right by us.  It's time we did right for ourselves - or as the brothers said FUBU - For Us By Us - 

MARCUS GARVEY:

http://www.black-matters.com/books/Marcus-Garvey-Phil-and-Opinions.pdf

CARTER G. WOODSON:

https://devontekwatson.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/miseducation-text.pdf

And this time when we  reunite, let's don't get stuck on stupid and allow caucasian interference or our own ignorance/jealousy/insecurity/fear/greed, or puppet leaders - to destroy it.  

Most Africans scholars and "leaders" of today are still trying to live up to a euroamerican standard of business instead of realizing that African prople are COMMUNALISTIC -i.e. they work together - in much the same way the Japanese do - interdependent -  not individualistic.  Like Japan, Africa is about family - but there have been some who have adopted heinous ways of treating each other - and have resorted to egregious acts against their own people.  We have to get back to the real essential residual African Senghor spoke of.  

*NOTE: In fact, it was Carter G. Woodson who first pointed out that not only did Africa and Japan have thriving business and trade together - pre the invasion of slave ships from Portugal, Italy and England - but they shared common customs and languages in some of  the different tribes.  Bamboo, coconuts, rice, certain fruits, as well as crafts were shared between Africa, Japan and China.  In fact, Japan tried to warn several African chieftains of the pending invasion of whites but they didn't believe it was possible.  The slave trade is what caused Japan to close its shores to all europeans for centuries.  (I have recommended that if Africa wants to build its economy, country and people, they should be working with the Japanese - not the Chinese, the Brits or the US.  Japan has a sense of quality control, will teach and share, and have a respect for cultures - hope someone from Africa is listening - SMH)

THE FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE QUOTES FROM MARCUS GARVEY - JUST TO WHET YOUR APPETITE:

I simply cannot read Garvey and not quote him - or be inspired by him!

"God Almighty created all men equal, whether they be white, yellow or black, and for any race to admit that it cannot do what others have done, is to hurl an insult at the Almighty who created all races equal, in the beginning. The white man has no right of way to this green earth, neither the yellow man. All of us were created lords of the creation, and whether we be white, yellow, brown or black nature intended a place for each and everyone."
"If Europe is for the white man, if Asia is for brown and yellow men, then surely Africa is for the black man. The great white man has fought for the preservation of Europe, the great yellow and brown races are fighting for the preservation of Asia, and four hundred million Negroes shall shed, if needs be, the last drop of their blood for the redemption of Africa and the emancipation of the race everywhere. "

"To me, a man has no master but God. Man in his authority is a sovereign lord. As for the individual man, so of the individual race. This feeling makes man so courageous, so bold, as to make it impossible for his brother to intrude upon his rights. So few of us can understand what it takes to make a man—the man who will never say die; the man who will never give up; the man who will never depend upon others to do for him what he ought to do for himself; the man who will not blame God, who will not blame Nature, who will not blame Fate for his condition; but the man who will go out and make conditions to suit himself. Oh, how disgusting life becomes when on every hand you hear people (who bear your image, who bear your resemblance) telling you that they cannot make it, that Fate is against them, that they cannot get a chance. If 400,000,000 Negroes can only get to know themselves, to know that in them is a sovereign power, is an authority that is absolute, then in the next twenty-four hours we would have a new race, we would have a nation, an empire, resurrected, not from the will of others to see us rise,— but from our own determination to rise, irrespective of what the world thinks. "

",,,,,so that others may laugh at us today because we are agitating the question of a free and independent Africa, but tomorrow, who knows, Africa will loom up as the greatest Republic in the world"

"The Image of God

If the white man has the idea of a white God, let him worship his God as he desires. If the yellow man's God is of his race let him worship his God as he sees fit. We, as Negroes, have found a new ideal. Whilst our God has no color, yet it is human to see everything through one's own spectacles, and since the white people have seen their God through white spectacles, we have only now started out (late though it be) to see our God through our own spectacles. The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob let Him exist for the race that believes in the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, the One God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship Him through the spectacles of Ethiopia.."  (I hope this answers the question about what color is God - we still seem to be hung up on that one - GDW)

"The Negro as an Industrial Make-Shift
The Negro's prosperity today, limited as it is, is based upon the foundation laid by an alien race that is not disposed to go out of its way to prepare for the economic existence of anyone else but itself; therefore our present prosperity as far as employment goes, is purely accidental. It is as accidental to-day as it was during the war of 1914-18 when colored men were employed in different occupations, not because they were wanted, but because they were filling the places of men of other races who were not available at that time. NOTE:  THAT'S OVER 100 YEARS AGO FOLKS) 

Negroes are still filling places, and as time goes on and the age grows older our occupations will be gone from us, because those for whom we filled the places will soon appear, and as they do we shall gradually find our places among the millions of permanent unemployed. The thing for the Negro to do therefore, is to adjust his own economic present, in readiness for the future.
A race that is solely dependent upon another for its economic existence sooner or later dies. As we have in the past been living upon the mercies shown us by others, and by the chances obtainable, and have suffered there from, so will we in the future suffer if an effort is not made now to adjust our own affairs. "

We talk about these two great men all the time.  I realized that I personally had not read their works in its entirety for quite some time, only snippets here and there - And their relevance is even more serious now, in the 21st century.

I'm posting the links to each of their publications in hopes that you'll take the time to reacquaint yourself with their work - it's applicable in every thing we do - whether private, public or collectively.

Both Woodson and Garvey believed that only a slave or a fool expected the enemy to give their children a quality education - it was not in their interest to do so - their concept was to only suit them to learn enough to continue being subservient to them.  

The philosophies of these two great men are applicable regardless of whether we're in Africa, the Caribbean or the US.  

MARCUS GARVEY:

http://www.black-matters.com/books/Marcus-Garvey-Phil-and-Opinions.pdf

CARTER G. WOODSON:

https://devontekwatson.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/miseducation-text.pdf

STAY BLESSED &

ECLECTICALLY BLACK 

Gloria 

 PS: If the links don't work, they're on Google - interesting, we don't even have our own Black version of Google so that we can at least archive and reference our own culture and writing.  SMH

Leaving you in the words of Marcus Garvey:

UP YOU MIGHT RACE!  YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH WHAT YOU WILL!! 

Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu - The Greatest Inventor of All Times

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

I just posted a video on my Facebook page about Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu - one of the greatest inventors of all times - having 3,032 inventions and still going at the age of 87 - he started inventing at age 5 -so that means he's been inventing of 82 years!!!

Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu - Inventor par excellence -  Just where do you think the idea for the iWatch came from? 

Somewhere around 1989 I came across his book, "What a Great Idea!!" which taught how to use your imagination and creativity to invent or transform whatever you turned your mind to.  It was fascinating!!  I was so pumped by it, I taught my kids and any other kids who came into my environment that there was no such thing as a stupid idea - that they had the capacity to transform their environment or use their minds to invent new things.  I had kind of always believed it, but his book had methodologies and examples - he was great.  

Now, mind you, there are some things he does, that I most like won't be trying - like the underwater concept - but it may work well for others.

The reason I'm posting this interview with NakaMats here is because we, as a Black people, need to begin moving beyond this ersatz educational system they currently foist on our kids here - and begin to learn as others more advanced than we are, learn.  And that's the Japanese -the US's biggest competitor in technological, ideological, and medical/healing developments.  We can no longer afford to allow our children to be MIS-EDUCATED by whites - who themselves are behind the rest of the world in education and development.

African and Japan need to link up - Japan has a great many of the inventions - as do our brothers and sisters in Africa, but Africa has the raw materials that Japan lacks - put them together and you have a wonderful symbiotic relationship - not the parasitical one that is currently happening under the Chinese, Americans and nu-euros.  

On Facebook,we've seen time after time young African children coming up with inventions and concepts to improve their environment - these inventions are not being honored or expanded - they would be with the right relationships with such great inventors as NakaMats -- and simultaneously, those nascent African geniuses could also be learning the methodology that needs to be replicated in Africa to cultivate even more geniuses.

Add to that W. Edward Demings methodology of quality control, that made Japanese products so great, bring that to Africa and to African American development and creativity, and we've got the formula for broad based, widespread success.  

So this is the interview below:  

                                                      What a great idea!!

An Interview with Dr. Yoshiro Nakamats

By Chic (?)

Dr. Yoshiro NakaMats holds the record for inventions, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, with over 3,200 to his credit—three times that of his closest rival, Thomas Edison. Dr. NakaMats’s inventions include the floppy disk, the CD, the DVD, the digital watch, Cinemascope, and the taxicab meter.

All of these accomplishments inspired me to consider interviewing Dr. NakaMats. However, when I realized that he came up with almost all these brainstorms while swimming underwater, I knew I had to personally meet this man and share our creative secrets.

The NakaMats method of invention involves diving underwater without an oxygen tank or snorkel and staying below the surface for as long as possible until an idea bubbles up. Upon resurfacing, he then writes down the idea on a dripping-wet Plexiglas tablet. When asked if all that underwater breathing was dangerous to his health, he said yes, but that dying was not part of his research.

NakaMats, doesn’t mind being called eccentric. He is a graduate of the University of Tokyo and completed a doctorate program in engineering. Now seventy-eight years old, NakaMats refers to himself as a middle-aged man, thanks to his theory of longevity, which emphasizes equal attention to five basic elements: spirituality, food and drink, muscle training, sleep, and sex. His most creative time is between midnight and 4 a.m., and then he gets four hours’ sleep.

NakaMats believes that if you sleep more than six hours in any twenty-four-hour period, your brainpower decreases. He eats only one meal a day—at dinner—with a maximum of seven hundred calories. He also photographs every dish he eats to recall the stimulating ones.

NakaMats doesn’t drink or smoke, and does daily weight lifting and swimming. He is a big advocate of the twenty-minute power nap in the special Cerebrex chair that he, of course, invented.

He has appeared on American TV shows, such as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and Late Night with David Letterman, and has been given the distinctly American honor of throwing out the first pitch at a major league baseball game (in Pittsburgh).

NakaMats’s inventive career started at five years old, when he came up with the idea for a landing stabilizer for his model airplane. A few years later he saw his mother struggling to pour kerosene out of a big container, so he devised an automatic pump. His mother was a schoolteacher and encouraged her son to build models of his inventions and then helped him apply for patents.

His biggest success came in 1950 when, as a student at the University of Tokyo, he manufactured the floppy disk. After six of Japan’s leading corporations turned down his request to have them produce the floppy disk, he granted the sales license for the disk to IBM, which now holds the patents for sixteen of his inventions.

While studying or working on his inventions NakaMats usually listened to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on 78 rpm records.  He kept getting distracted by the hissing sounds from dust and popping sounds from scratches on the records. So he realized he must create a higher quality recording device and the CD was born.

NakaMats’ latest project is a revolutionary house that is energy self-sufficient and has themed rooms that either relax or stimulate his mind. In his home, NakaMats uses three areas to spark his creativity:

• First, there is a “static room” with a rock garden and running water to provide a serene background for free thinking.
• Second, there is a “dynamic room” with special audiovisual equipment to play music to refine his ideas.
• Finally, he spends hours underwater each day in his pool jotting brainstorms down on his Plexiglas writing pad.

Dr. NakaMats’s new home is filled with three hundred of his inventions and dominated by a home-theater system with a two-hundred-inch (508cm) screen. The home also features white NakaMats floor tiles with special energy-regulating properties to keep the room’s heating and cooling to a minimum.

Dr. NakaMats is also an idea promoter. He can be seen on Japanese television demonstrating his “Bouncing Shoes” to improve athletic performance or his “Perfect Putter” that is almost guaranteed to hit that little white golf ball into the hole.

There’s a “techie” adage in Asia that the nail that stands up in Asia gets hammered down, while the nail that stands up in Silicon Valley drives a Ferrari and has stock options. Having developed a complete ideation process of freedom, expression, creation, and action, Dr. NakaMats is a nail that keeps standing taller with each new invention.

Now here is my interview with Dr. NakaMats, in which he describes his unique theories of creativity and freedom.   The Interview NakaMats:

In my country, the drive to succeed—and the competition—is unbelievably intense. From early on, Japanese children are under enormous pressure to learn. I was fortunate that my parents encouraged my natural curiosity, along with my academic learning from the very beginning. They gave me the freedom to create and invent—which I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember.

Chic: What are the teaching methods used to prepare Japanese children for the strong competition they face? And how does this affect creativity?

NakaMats: One method is memorization. We teach our kids to memorize until the age of twenty, for we have discovered that the human brain needs memorization up to that point. Then young people can begin free-associating, putting everything together. That’s how geniuses are formed. If a child doesn’t learn how to memorize effectively, he doesn’t reach his full potential.

Chic: So you feel that creativity comes from a balance of regimentation and freedom?

NakaMats: Yes, and freedom is most important of all. Genius lies in developing complete and perfect freedom within a human being. Only then can a person come up with the best ideas.

Chic: We have a difficult time in this country because we don’t allow ourselves that kind of freedom. We have what we call the Protestant work ethic that says, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” To me, trying too hard stifles creativity.

NakaMats: That’s unfortunate. It’s crucial to be able to find the time and the freedom to develop your best ideas.

Chic: Then tell me about your routine to spark creativity. I’ve heard that you come up with ideas underwater!

NakaMats: Yes, that’s part of a three-step process. When developing ideas, the first rule is you have to be calm. So I’ve created what I call my “static” room. It’s a place of peace and quiet. In this room, I only have natural things: a rock garden, natural running water, plants, a five-ton boulder from Kyoto. The walls are white. I can look out on the Tokyo skyline, but in the room there is no metal or concrete—only natural things like water, rock and wood.

Chic: So you go into your “static” room to meditate?

NakaMats: No, just the opposite! I go into the room to free-associate. It’s what you must do before meditating, before focusing on one thing. I just throw out ideas—I let my mind wander where it will.

Chic: I call that naïve incubation.

NakaMats: Yes, it’s my time to let my mind be free. Then I go into my “dynamic” room, which is just the opposite of my “static” room. The “dynamic” room is dark, with black-and-white-striped walls, leather furniture, and special audio and video equipment. I’ve created speakers with frequencies between 12,000 and 40,000 hertz—which, you can imagine, are quite powerful. I start out listening to jazz, then change to what you call “easy listening,” and always end with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. For me, Beethoven’s Fifth is good music for conclusions.

Chic: And finally you go to your swimming pool . . .

NakaMats: Exactly—the final stage. I have a special way of holding my breath and swimming underwater—that’s when I come up with my best ideas. I’ve created a Plexiglas writing pad so that I can stay underwater and record these ideas.

Chic: That seems to fit very well with the strategy I teach in my creativity workshops: Discover and use your “idea-friendly times.”

NakaMats: Yes, but in doing this, you must prepare your body. You can only eat the best foods. You cannot drink alcohol.

Chic: I’ve heard that you’ve come up with your own “brain food.”

NakaMats: Yes, these are snacks I’ve invented, which I eat during the day. I’ve marketed them as Yummy Nutri Brain Food. They are very helpful to the brain’s thinking process. They are a special mixture of dried shrimp, seaweed, cheese, yogurt, eel, eggs, beef, and chicken livers—all fortified with vitamins.

Chic: How many people—technicians, researchers, and assistants—do you employ to help with your inventions?

NakaMats: In all, I have 110 employees.

Chic: And what exactly do they do?

NakaMats: They work with my ideas, make prototypes, and give other assistance with details.

Chic: Do you come up with ideas at night?

NakaMats: I come up with ideas anytime! I only sleep four hours a night.

Chic: That’s interesting—that’s very similar to Thomas Edison. Do you take naps as he did?

NakaMats: Yes. Twice a day I take twenty-minute naps in a special chair I’ve designed—the Cerebrex chair. It improves memory, math skills, and creativity, and it can lower blood pressure, improve eyesight, and cure other ailments.

Chic: How does the Cerebrex work?

NakaMats: Special sound frequencies pulse from footrest to headrest, stimulating blood circulation and increasing synaptic activity in the brain. Twenty minutes in my chair refreshes the brain as much as eight hours of sleep.

Chic: So, like Edison, you’re awake most of the time. Do you agree with Edison’s claim that ideas are 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration?

NakaMats: No, now it’s just the opposite! Now it’s 1 percent perspiration and 99 percent “ikispiration.” Now, more than ever, we have to have ikispiration. This means I encourage myself to go through my three elements of creation: suji—the theory of knowledge; pika—inspiration; and iki—practicality, feasibility, and marketability. In order to be successful, you must go through all three stages and make sure that your ideas stand up to all of them, which is ikispiration. Also, these days, the computer saves time and cuts out the 99 percent perspiration.

Chic: Do you find that most research-and-development firms take themselves through your three stages?

NakaMats: Most are very thorough with suji, or theory, but don’t concentrate on the iki, marketability. Hardest of all, of course, is pika, the creative inspiration. Researchers often have trouble with pika because they’re too focused on one particular element. A genius must be a well-rounded person, familiar with many things—art, music, science, sports. He or she can’t be restricted to only one field of expertise.

Chic: Well, you certainly appear to practice what you preach. You know so much about music, about art, about sports.

NakaMats: That’s what genius is, when you’re able to discuss, and to be good at, many things. As much as I enjoy hearing about the things you [Chic] have invented during your chemistry career, about your teaching, about your video programs, I’m most fascinated by the fact that a person who can be a chemist and a teacher and a speaker can also be a cartoonist. And at such a young age!

Chic: Well, people do kid me about looking young, but I could say the same thing about you.

NakaMats: That comes from eating the right foods and participating in the right athletics. Certain activities I believe aren’t good for creativity. To be creative, you must have perfect freedom. I don’t believe sports like jogging, tennis, and golf are conducive to the brain waves for creativity. Swimming is the perfect sport for freedom.

Chic: Hmm. I know a lot of people who feel they come up with their ideas when they go out jogging. Maybe, for Americans, because we don’t allow ourselves to have perfect freedom at work, we can get part of the way there by jogging or golfing—that’s the only time we give ourselves permission to be free enough to come up with new ideas.

NakaMats: Maybe so, but they won’t be your best ideas—you’re not at your peak creative performance if you have to use athletics or techniques to get your ideas. It’s only when you have perfect freedom that your best ideas come out.

Chic: I’m very impressed by your openness to discuss and to spend so many hours with me. So many people who have one or two good ideas don’t share them with anyone. They’re afraid that people are going to steal them.

NakaMats: My rationale is very simple: We need to open up the world. We need to share and interact. I always tell young inventors to forget about the money and create ideas out of love for benefiting mankind. Love is the mother of invention. And, by inventions, I don’t just mean visible inventions. There are invisible inventions, too.

Chic: Invisible inventions???

NakaMats: An invisible invention is something you can’t see but you can use. It’s a new way of teaching something, a new way to spark creativity in others. Invisible inventions are just as powerful and far-reaching—if not more so—than visible inventions.

Chic:How empowering it is to consider a great classroom teacher as an invisible inventor! Thank you, Dr. NakaMats, for such a wonderful afternoon. My brain is alive with invisible ideas and I hope that my sharing this interview will generate the love for mankind that I hear in your voice. ____________________

Dr. Yoshiro NakaMats’s Web site is www.nakamats.com or http://whatagreatidea.com

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ALSO CHECK OUT THIS SITE:

Dr. Nakamats: Patently Strange | VICE | United States

www.vice.com/video/dr-nakamats-patently-strange--3

Vice

It should come as little surprise that Japan, home to the world's most advanced and strangest inventions, would give rise to an inventor like Yoshiro Nakamatsu.

NOW THAT YOU KNOW

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Stay Blessed

Gloria