An Open Letter To Dr. Clarence Bayne
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 23, Number 20 October 3, 2013
Year: 2013
Spare Us The Lashes Of The “Selfish Gene” Theory
Flagellation as a tool of education and social sophistication
SPARE US THE LASHES OF THE “SELFISH GENE” THEORY
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 23, Number 19 September 19, 2013
When the Black historical experience has been marked by chattel slavery, torturous suffering, unmitigated brutality and violence, unbridled exploitation, the fracturing of voice, soul and self, obliterating identity, culture and religion, destruction of the bond of family, institutionalize racism and discrimination, dysfunction in every imaginable way; our education, must in part — and out of necessity be centered on making us whole, and languaging ourselves — finding voice, being formidable, and uncompromising in upholding one’s humanity, and bringing respect to the race…
To that end, those of us at the bottom of the education, employment, wealth, and health indexes expect our brightest, our leaders and exemplars to throw us lifelines; provide us with visionary blueprints, winning strategies and techniques to empower — stop our recycling of losing formulas that keeps us at each other’s throat, and at the bottom of the economic barrel.
Pimping, Misrepresenting Resistance
Pimping, Misrepresenting Resistance
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 23, Number 18 September 7, 2013
The Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism holy book, opens with two armies just about to battle, and Arjuna, expressing trepidation to Lord Krishna – he doesn’t want to fight – his uncles, his cousins, his brothers; his relatives are in the opposing army.
Lord Krishna then asks Arjuna to which class does he belongs. Arjuna replies, “The warrior class.” Lord Krishna then tells Arjuna to do his Duty – Fight!…
Emancipation 2013: Field Negroes Needed
50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
Emancipation 2013: Field Negroes Needed
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 23, Number 17 August 22, 2013
Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom
Cause all I’ve ever had redemption songs
All I’ve ever had redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Songs of freedom
— Redemption Song
— Bob Marley
August 28, 1963, was a momentous day in the history of America, and Black people everywhere. On that day, hundreds of thousands of people; men women, children, Blacks, whites, Jews, gays and lesbians, marched on Washington in the most significant protest of the civil rights era.
It was on that day, there in Washington; on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech, inarguable one of the greatest 20 Century speeches.
King’s speech prompted William Sullivan, the FBI’s assistant director of domestic intelligence, to recommend: “We must mark him [King] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous negro of the future of this nation.”…
Emancipation 2013: Who Will Pay Reparations For My Soul?
EMANCIPATION 2013: WHO WILL PAY REPARATIONS FOR MY SOUL?
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 23, Number 16 August 8, 2013
…The Hon. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania (Republican) initiated the move for reparation. On March 19, 1867, in a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives, Stevens declared that no Southern state should be readmitted into the union until the ex-slaves were treated equally both in law and in practice.
Stevens introduced the Reparation Bill: Taking land away from plantation owners and giving the former slaves; each adult male or head of family forty acres of land, with $100 to build a dwelling. Thus, the “40 acres and a mule” that African Americans speak about, believe is their rightful due…
…Colonialism and African enslavement set in motion crimes against humanity, and its repercussions are still in play today…
Justice is yet to be served. To quote Bob Marley: “Mi no know how me an dem a work it out.” But reparations have to be worked out. Someone has to pay reparations for my soul.
Emancipation 2013: Beyond Rumshop Politics
EMANCIPATION 2013: BEYOND RUMSHOP POLITICS
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 23, Number 15 July 25, 2013
Emancipation Day: August 1, 2013