Dr. Umar Johnson

Dr. Amos Wilson

Dr. Ivan van Sertima

Dr. John Henrik Clarke

Dr. Joy DeGruy

Dr. Marimba Ani

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Claud Anderson

Dr. Sebi

Dr. Boyce Watkins

Dr. Ray Hagins

Dr. Francis Cress Welsing

These are just a few of my personal mentors. I’ve watched, listened to, took notes on, written songs about, drawn maps of the wisdom that these and plenty others have tried to impart onto ‘Black’ people. I am forever a student but I would wager to guess that in this Age Of Information, I’m quickly approaching the 10,000 hour mark.

Many of us understand that Black people inherently function well under socialism and that capitalism, at its core, is anti-African. We don’t have to necessarily understand politics to see the signs of this:

Under capitalism, all of the world’s ‘wealth’ is in the hands of people who have less resources in their lands, who have copied or stolen most of their teachings from other cultures, and whose infrastructure is built on the labor of dark skinned people – while those dark skinned people live in squalor and fight just for scraps.

Although this situation is enough to make any self-aware person upset, I also do not believe in self-pity.

I think there is always an infinite number of ways to overcome any scenario.

In particular, the problem that Black people face as victims under this global system is relatively simple to maneuver. In doing so, we do not have to “defeat” white supremacy in so much as we have to challenge it with a greater or at least equally powerful frame of mind.

In the following article, I am detailing concepts that are common between all of the people previously listed, in what I believe are the three simplest steps toward effectively combating the global system of white supremacy.

Knowledge Is Power

In my opinion, this has always been the easiest step. However, the capitalist infrastructure which is slowly destroying the planet and it’s inhabitants has simultaneously made access to information easier than ever before. With a network of libraries, universities, communication towers, distribution and personal transportation methods – we don’t even have to touch on the ability to access massive amounts of information at your fingertips via the internet; it is easy to be consumed by the information now available.

At a certain point, you may begin to recognize a pattern. One that shows history repeating itself when the past is ignored. One that shows each great achievement in human history is done on top of the work of people who came before. An understanding of the past is a great starting point for any real progress; notice that any good book starts by acknowledging the history of it’s subject AS FAR BACK AS CAN POSSIBLY BE TRACED. In the case of Black people, our pursuits would be best focused on regaining a knowledge of self that was lost sometime ago, beneath the waves of the Middle Passage.

Study up on African history… learn what the different peoples of West Africa look like and try to draw scientific conclusions about where we come from. This is a huge undertaking and we’ll come back to expand on it in the next section.

We must also make up for the centuries that we were not allowed to learn. We were reduced to newborn babies in our understanding of the world, while our oppressors built up an infrastructure for capitalism through the previously unheard of, inhumane practice of white supremacy. They kept us ignorant so that we would not be able to combat their system until it was built up to their satisfaction, or it was in their eyes ‘unchallengeable’. The descendants of these people, who have undertaken the task of continuing those plans, know that the work is not finished and therefore they must keep up an illusion of invincibility while at the same time striking out in fear whenever people like myself come along and challenge them.

What I’m saying is that we must also fully master capitalism, in order to beat it.

Organization Is Key

I’ve heard a few notable contemporaries say that economic empowerment is not necessary nor is it helpful toward the goal of challenging white supremacy and ultimately replacing it with a more fair system – I think that’s a foolish perspective. We must create a new political party in order to progress and if we do not have the means to fund the organization, it will ultimately fall flat on its face before it gains traction.

Money itself is just a tool, a means to an end. The trap that many people fall into is in their original goal being the changing of an iniquitous system. And indeed, those people lose sight of their original direction and become the people they originally fought so hard against. But I’m suggesting that our original goal should be to combat the system with an equally powerful system – and let the people themselves choose which to side with.

Essentially, we should use economic power to establish and fund a political organization which attracts the interest of African Americans.

All it would take is a small group of dedicated people with various complimentary skills and traits, who understand this goal. If we can organize people by their specialties in order to build the necessary institutions for sustaining our self-governed communities (e.g. militias, laboratories, schools, banks, hospitals, farms, etc.), eventually those who did not initially cooperate will join en masse, of their own volition. This will work because of one small flaw that many ‘unconscious’ Black people have, which we can use to our advantage – Black people root for the winning team.

I’m not just talking about sports here – I’m saying that in general, African Americans tend to side with the winning team, especially when it comes to something we don’t have a collective understanding of. Most African-Americans who fear socialism don’t actually know what socialism is. So even though it is a system which caters to our natural tendencies, we side with white capitalist society which tells us to stay away from socialism/communism (for those of us who have some understanding of governing bodies, this is ironic right?)

While we continue using money as a tool, learning how to build and maintain self-sustained communities from other communities that have come before us (i.e. Asians, Jews, Arabs, and now Latin Americans), other African-Americans will eventually side with us. They will see the fruits of our labor and want a piece of the pie, especially because we will create a self-aware atmosphere that welcomes the African lifestyle and helps us all realize our true potential.

This may be the hardest step because it will take thorough preparation and long, steady, consistent work. However it will also be the most rewarding step and probably the most likely to be contended and put under scrutiny.

Respect Is Earned

Last but not least, we must use the economic power of our newly formed political organization to gain the respect of nations outside of North America.

A few examples of how this could be done:

Establish embassies in African/Diasporic African nations. Use our independently funded schools to teach people different languages and cultural habits. Establish trade networks. Use our infrastructure to create international trade routes and distribution networks, in order to support the development of other African/Diasporic African communities with shared resources.

I’m sure there are plenty of others that I’m not thinking of at the moment but you should get the point here.

I think this is the most important step out of the three. This will essentially cut off the dependency of African communities to European communities and shift the current balance of power.

In Conclusion

The points I’ve brought up are just a loose personal guideline. Each section deserves more detail than I could possibly provide in this article.

Maybe I’m completely off base here but these principles are sound and practical enough to work on an individual level, for me. If it makes sense to you, if you know of a way to help clarify or work on these steps, if you disagree with and would like to present your own solution… please do so in the comments below.