“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is… A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.” -C.S. Lewis
“Children who are treated as if they are uneducable almost invariably become uneducable. This is educational atrophy. It is generally known that if an arm or a leg is bound so that it cannot be used, eventually it becomes unusable. The same is true of intelligence.
Children themselves are not fooled by the various euphemisms educators use to disguise educational snobbery. From the earliest grades a child knows when he has been assigned to a level that is considered less than adequate. Whether letters, numbers, or dog or animal names are used to describe these groups, within days after these procedures are imposed the children know exactly what they mean. Those children who are relegated to the inferior groups suffer a sense of self-doubt and deep feelings of inferiority which stamp their entire attitude toward school and the learning process. Many children are now systematically categorized, classified in groups labeled slow learners, trainables, untrainables, Track A, Track B, the ‘Pussycats,’ the ‘Bunnies,’ etc. But it all adds up to the fact that they are not being taught; and not being taught, they fail. They have a sense of personal humiliation and unworthiness. They react negatively and hostility and aggressively to the educational process. They hate teachers, they hate schools, they hate anything that seems to impose upon them this denigration, because they are not being respected as human beings, because they are sacrificed in a machinery of efficiency and expendability, because their dignity and potential as human beings are being obscured and ignored in terms of educationally irrelevant factors- their manners, their speech, their dress, of their apparent disinterest.
The contempt of these children for school is clearly related to the high dropout statistics, the hostility, aggression, and the seeming unmanageability of children in such schools. They are in a sense revolting against a deep and pervasive attack upon their dignity and integrity as human beings…
‘The clash of cultures in the classroom’ is essentially a class war, a socio-economic and racial warfare being waged on the battleground of our schools, with middle-class and middle-class aspiring teachers provided with a powerful arsenal of half-truths, prejudices, and rationalizations, arrayed against hopelessly outclassed working-class youngsters. This is an uneven balance, particularly since, like most battles, it comes under the guise of righteousness.” -“Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power” By: Kenneth B. Clark
Engineer, Archibald Alexander, designed several locations including: the Tidal Basin Bridge in Washington, D.C., Whitehurst Freeway in Washington, D.C., and an airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama.
“Power must be understood to be used properly, if it is to avoid dilution into the appearance of power. Power, misunderstood or miscalculated, increases the dangers of its explosive dissipation or stagnation.” -Kenneth B. Clark
“Warfare takes on many forms and there are numerous ways to neutralize an adversary. They can be subdued by: low intensity warfare, psychological warfare, germ warfare, chemical warfare, infanticide, genocide, and mentacide (induced madness). Not all wars are fought in order to destroy an opponent, sometimes the objective is to simply terrorize them, or to contain and exploit them.
One of the most damaging forms of attack is spiritual warfare because it is strategically designed to destroy the soul of its victims and render them more easily susceptible to other forms of non-lethal assaults.” -From, “Survival Strategies For Africans In America” By: Anthony Browder
“We would know that the early Greek and Roman Christians portrayed Jesus as a person of African ancestry. Justinian I, the Eastern Roman emperor who ruled from 527 to 565 A.C.E., commissioned coins to be minted with the face of an African Jesus on one side and his own distinctively European face on the other. Many Europeans of this era revered Africans and openly worshiped the “Black Madonna and Child” in shrines throughout Europe. As Europeans became more nationalistic, they developed a psychological need to create God in their own image, and the complexion of their religious icons changed from black to white. When Europeans became to colonize the world and enslave people of color, they imposed this new image of God on those the conquered.
Michelangelo’s painting of Adam and Eve in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, Italy is still accepted by people throughout the world as the legitimate likeness of the first couple. No one suspected that Michelangelo’s aunt and uncle were the models for the painting in 1508. Most of us have seen the image of Jesus the Christ and his disciples as portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci in his painting “The Last Supper.” We have been captivated by the beauty of this fifteenth century masterpiece, but few of us know that da Vinci hired a model to pose as Jesus, and 12 convicts to pose as his disciples. In reality, the image that we have held in such high esteem is unworthy of the admiration it has been given. It is a technically flawless painting but a terrible deceptive religious icon.” -From, “Survival Strategies For Africans In America” By: Anthony Browder
Harlem-born Patricia Bath co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness. She also injvented the Laserphaco Probe which provides treatment of cataracts.
PLEASE PASS THIS ON! (EACH ONE TEACH ONE OR TWO!) THIS IS PHASE ONE ON HOW WE CAN HELP TO STRENGTHEN & EMPOWER OUR COMMUNITY:
The 2008 not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell case evoked outrage, emotion, and debate. It is not an anomaly that the police officers involved in the Sean Bell slaying were acquitted of all charges on all counts in State Supreme Court. I could run out of ink printing the names of people who have been victimized by the inaptly named justice system.
The American justice system has been especially terroristic towards the African American community. Many community members can cite historic and personal accounts to prove this. Therefore, it would be foolhardy (at the least) to turn to a system that has methodically oppressed us, and request that they free us. We can only free ourselves through extreme discipline and intelligent planning.
As a community we have been too compliant with leaders who organize ineffective, delayed reactions. The only strategy that can save us in this last hour is one that calls for a collective code of conduct that will be conducive to improving the conditions of our community, and shifting the paradigm of how we are treated by outside entities. The first step of this code of conduct should be based on economics.
The old adage of “money talks,” still reigns true in the new millennium. Any political scientist worth his or her library card will tell you that: “Economic powerlessness equals political powerlessness,” and conversely “economic power equals political power.” This means that if we continue to allow our wealth to be extracted from our community, we will remain impotent.
The power of the collective “Black Dollar” is often discussed. However, that power has been left unchanneled. Today is the day to change that. A one-time boycott is not going to bring long-term change and respect to our community. Our community has launched boycotts before. Our success and ascension will be based on what we consistently do. For this reason, we should initiate “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS.”
BUY BLACK FRIDAYS is a small step towards our community acquiring power via controlling our economics. Every Friday, people who acknowledge the injustice and oppression that the African American community has been consistently subjected to should do one of the following:
Option #1: Spend $0 on Friday
Option #2: Spend no more than $10 on Friday
Option #3: Only Shop at Black Businesses on Friday
[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ABOVE OPTIONS CAN & SHOULD BE EXERCISED ON A DAILY BASIS. However, we can all at the very least focus on Fridays. This way we can take a collective stand and build our collective discipline. Please remember that this is only Phase 1!].
To the people who are tempted to label “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS” as racist, I say this: In the big scheme of things, this is about right & wrong, justice & injustice. The African American community is a strong, proud community that has endured the brunt of America’s iron fist. We must stop the pounding. I feel that any fair-minded individual will concur, and join in.
ANY business that is privileged to enjoy the support of the African American community MUST return that support.
I thank you in advance for your effort and dedication.
-Elsie Law AKA Starface
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth. ” -William Faulkner
