From The Ramparts

Decolonize Your Mind

Decolonize Your Mind

“The social reality and consciousness of the oppressed as forged by their oppressors, motivate them to functionally perpetuate their own oppression. The labeling of certain aspects of reality by oppressors represents the imposition of the oppressors choice and worldview upon the oppressed. If this choice and worldview are internalized by te oppressed, then their consciousness may be transformed into one that confirms their oppressors consciousness.” Amos Wilson The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness page 118

African freedom fighter Steven Biko said,” The most potent weapon in the arsenal of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” He understood in order to maintain their hegemony over a people who outnumber their adversary, the oppressor and his institutions must eventually attempt to manipulate the thinking of the target group so the oppressed accepts their oppression as their natural lot in life and view their oppressors not as their oppressor but their benefactors or at the very least as invincible . This is an unnatural cognitive condition or state of mind. Dr. Bobby E. Wright called it menticide. The Dictionary of Psychology defines the word menticide as: mind murder, brainwashing,, the systematic attempt to break down ones beliefs, attitudes and allegiances in favor of the ultimate adoption of those of another. Meditate on the definition for a moment and reflect on our global condition. You will be forced (if you are fairly conscious ) to conclude we have been and continue to be targets and victims of menticide. The Caucasians (Arabs and Europeans) have made it their business to invade, conquer and subjugate Africans physically as well as psychologically to the point we embrace and internalize their culture, their religion, their languages and unfortunately their worldview and lifestyles to the exclusion of our indigenous culture and self-image. This process was/is not voluntary. It is the result of a ruthless and brutal modus operandi based upon terrorism, intimidation, torture, psychological debasement and adverse mental programming.
This is the condition we find ourselves all over the planet. In the Western Hemisphere the breaking or seasoning process was especially brutal. We got a watered down sanitized version of how it was done in the television mini series Roots when the overseer broke Kunta Kente the African by beating him until he accepted his new slave name Toby. That was light weight compared to what really happened! After slavery, the Euro-AmeriKKKans did everything in their power to reconfigure the socio-political landscape to restore their hegemony over Africans in AmeriKKKa. One way was to demean and demonize us in their media and their “popular culture”. The Coon Show, Vaudeville and the egregiously propagandistic motion picture Birth of A Nation are just a few of the archetypal mediums used to degrade us and bolster their fear and loathing of African people to coincide with and reinforce their onerous racial socio-economic and political cast system. We are not animals or beasts of burden. We are human beings, descendants of the original humans. Life itself affords us the opportunity to think, visualize, meditate and form our own opinions about ourselves and the world around us. That is why our enemies have found it so difficult to totally squash us. That is why their program of menticide takes so many forms and is so pervasive. We are a powerful people, the Mandinka, Mua Mau, Maroon and Quilambo in us is impossible to conquer. The spirit of Boukman flickers within our souls, ancient drum rhythms resonate deep within our psyches and call us to actualize our innate genius and power. The only way we can fully be who we really are and begin the arduous process of regaining our sanity and humanity is by decolonizing our minds.
The process begins as we listen to the internal drum, the ancient beat calls us to be who and what we are, Africans. We are not Arabs or Europeans; we are Africans in a state of unholy war. We are catching hell everywhere we find ourselves because everywhere on this planet Caucasians go they wreck ecological and sociological havoc. It is their nature to do so. For the salvation of planet Earth it is our duty to restore ourselves to sanity and restore Ma’at as the overarching value system on the planet. Energy follows thought! Our thinking is the key. We must reprogram our minds substituting the pathologically diseased Eurocentic worldview and value system we see in operation in the world today with a healthy African system of life affirming values. Our challenge is to fully understand these two value systems are diametrically opposed to each other and cannot peacefully co-exist. We are in a state of war not of our making nevertheless we must fight to save ourselves! If we remain passive and non-committed to our redemption, we will die. Look at the carnage all around us. It is a result of the ongoing 500 plus years of war the Europeans have waged against us. The first step to sanity as painful and awesome as it may be, is to recognize Europeans are powerful enemies but they are not unbeatable. Since the masses of whites resist our calls for reparations, economic justice and peaceful co-existence we must conclude they want to be perceived as our enemies. We must gird ourselves mentally to counter their most potent weapon against us, menticide and psychological warfare. We must neutralize what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad called their “tricknology”. Once we do that, we will no longer fear them or believe they are invincible gods. To do this requires we decolonize our minds. We must accept the fact the white man (and woman) speaks with forked tongue. They are liars. Bush lied to invade Iraq for example, he lies about Social Security. They lie about themselves, they lie to themselves about us and they lie about us to us. The notion of white supremacy is a lie based upon their deep-seated feelings of inferiority about their melanin deficiency, their feelings of sexual inadequacy concerning their ability to reproduce themselves and their moral backwardness and delusional self-image. We must reject their worldview and stop buying into white supremacist stereotypes about ourselves. We have the power to define and redefine ourselves and the world we live in. Let us reprogram or minds on a moment to moment, day by day basis so our internal and external dialogue, our attitudes, perceptions and our worldview manifests in our conscious and unconscious actions towards one another our situation and eventually our enemies. Engage in mental decolonization. Free your mind, the rest will follow!

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:16 AM