Afrikan-Trinbagonian males' behaviour - Part 2

There must be a better way

Re: Part 1 --- posted August 03, 2004

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
April 08, 2005

In a similar manner, one only has to take a cursory look at the inscriptions written in bold letters to adorn the windshields of cars and maxi taxis driven by some Afrikan-Trinbagonian males.

These inscriptions such as "Boyz 'N' Hood", "Bling Bling," "Bling Dogg", "Ghetto Youth," "Bus Boys," "Cut them all," "Second Explosion," "Stone Cold," "Total Recall," "Notorious," "The Game," "Annihilation" and "Cash Money" seem to champion and glorify strict adherence to Afrikan- American societal, ghetto mind-set, values, behaviour and modus vivendi.

Now, let us assume that these men want to mimic life in the United States; however, one has to wonder and even ponder as to why they would voluntarily choose to mimic the most decadent, violent, self-destructive,uncivilised, primitive, barbaric, anti-social, degrading and negative aspects of Afrikan-American life.

Why can't they voluntarily choose to mimic the most superlatively positive lifestyles of Afrikan-American men at Howard University, at Harvard University, at Fisk University, at Morehouse College or at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)?

Why can't they voluntarily choose to mimic/emulate the potent, positive, purposeful lifestyles of such Afrikan-American role models and exemplars as Johnnie Cochran, James Baldwin, Dr. Kenneth Clark, Dr. Asa Hilliard, Dr. Leonard Jefferies, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, Dr. Sterling Stuckey, Dr. Na'im Akbar, Dr. Maulana Karenga, Dr. Charles Drew, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Wayne Chandler, Dr. Martin Luther King, Amiri Baraka, Thurgood Marshall, Booker T. Washington, Dr. W.E. B. Du Bois, Dr. Cater G. Woodson, El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), just to name a few?

The answer to these poignant questions lies in history; more specifically, in the Euro-centric interpretation of history or His-Story.

This ahistorical, dysfunctional, ethnocentric, etnocentric, and zenophobic interpretation of Afrikan history posits the contention that Afrikan peoples contributed nothing to world history, culture, and civilization and that nothing came out of Afrika but powerless, defenceless, primitive, barbaric and uncivilised people and slaves. Afrika is therefore the Dark Continent.

The fact of the matter is that a people without a sense of history are ill-equipped to visualize and plan a future because of an unclear and distorted/miseducated /misdirected picture of their past.

A people without the knowledge of "having done" will have grave difficulty acknowledging the motivation of "can do." Or as the slain Pan-Afrikan Nationalist Malcolm X puts it in a speech delivered in Detroit, Michigan on 10 November 1963:

"The Black man has no self-confidence; he has no confidence in his own race because the white man (European) destroyed you and my past; he destroyed our knowledge of our culture and by having destroyed it, now we don't know of any achievement, any accomplishment and as long as you can be convinced that you never did anything, you can never do anything."

Afrikan-Trinbagonian males are not only internalizing the negative Afrikan-American lifestyles but most importantly, they are living and acting them out in TnT 24-7-365.

They are perpetuating their Euro-centric imposed nothingness and putative inferiority; hence, it need occasion no great surprise that a strong, innate propensity for wanton gang violence, drive-by shootings, robbery, murder, vanity and crass materialism is the accepted, albeit glorified, way of life among this group. A fellow human life means absolutely nothing, a la "50 cent philosophy" of life, viz, "get rich or die trying."

Afrikan-Trinbagonian males, there is an adage that asserts: "You are what you eat." A modern, contemporary TnT version reads: "You are what you look like; you are what you portray." You all are TnT's future men-leaders. Look at yourselves in the mirror. Alien negativity is no viable substitute or paradigm for positive masculinity, social responsibility and respectful citizenship.

As deceased Pan-Afrikan Nationalist and Afrikan-Trinbagonian Kwame Ture once remarked: " If you don't know who you are, you would not know what your interests are"; ergo, the only interests of these Afrikan-Trinbagonian males are mayhem and self-destruction, by historical design and not by accident.

This is the sad tragedy and legacy of the Euro-centric interpretation of Afrikan history ---- a tragedy and legacy that is perpetuated, maintained and ossified today via the imposed/inherited 18th century Euro- British colonial education system.

As a result of Euro-centric mis-education or edjumacation, these Afrikan-Trinbagonian males are brain- dead, brain- damaged, anesthesied, and culturally comatose. And the scary part for the society is that these men just do not care, period.

As Dr. Martin Luther King once admonished: "A man cannot ride your back if you stand up."

Truth Be Told: Only an Afri-centric, Afrika-centered interpretation and analysis of history can make Afrikan-Trinbagonian males stand up straight.

Through the process of Afri-centric re-education or Afri-centrification, Afrikan-Trinbagonian males would be imbued with a positive, subconscious sense of self-confidence and self-empowerment and thus be fully equipped to eliminate and permanently eradicate/destroy the deadly disease of mental cum subliminal paralysis, induced collective historical -cultural amnesia, collective lobotomy, psychological genocide and Afrikan- sclerosis that Euro-centric mis-education has purposefully and viciously inflicted upon them.

Afrikan Trinbagonian males must be advised that during a national conference sponsored by the National Action Network (NAN) on 11 April 2005 in New York, there was a unanimous resolution passed. This resolution called for a 90-day national radio and TV ban/moratorium on the playing of Hip Hop tunes and videos that are replete with violent lyrics and damaging, destructive images. The Afrikan-American civil rights icon and former presidential candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton heads NAN.

Truth Be Told: In the words of the Rt. Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey: "Up you mighty (Afrikan-Trinbagonian) race, you can accomplish what you will."

Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").

Dr. Kwame Nantambu ia a part-time lecturer at Cipriani Labour College.


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