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To Rectify Damage, Reverse Paralysis Conclusion Part 1

TO RECTIFY DAMAGE, REVERSE PARALYSIS Conclusion Part 1

By N Oji Mzilikazi

Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 24, Number 13 June 26, 2014

A rule of success is to “Beat the iron while it is hot.” More so in this internet age of information overflow, information access, and social media hydra-headedness that overwhelming has focus on the trite, superfluous, just what is current. And news is fast, immediate, and quickly forgotten.

The partial collapse of the historic Negro Community Centre (NCC) in Little Burgundy on April 13 that prompted this series …

 

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The NCC Saga: “Rallye and Petition”

The NCC Saga: “Rallye and Petition”

By N Oji Mzilikazi

April 28, 2014

A “Rallye and Petition” email from an ad-hoc group of concerned citizens interested in preserving the Negro Community Centre (NCC) building in Little Burgundy, and soliciting input and support for a monster rally on Saturday May 24, 2014, is currently in circulation.

As much as I would like to see the NCC preserved, I find the desire and intent to make the NCC a cause célèbre to mobilise the community around to be ill-conceived, a knee-jerk reaction, and misdirected.

Are we never going to accept ownership for our self-oppression through organizational infighting, incompetence, sins of omission and commission, and our penchant to recruit, empower, and recycle egotistical, selfish, poorly-educated, visionless, and untrained soldier-leaders to lead troops on the front line of a war in which Blacks are attacked on all fronts, and we are perennially victims?

No wonder we  die from self-inflicted wounds.

There were no calls for a rally or petition when Centraide withdrew its funding from the NCC over issues of accountability and transparency. There were no calls for a rally or petition when the door of the NCC was locked in 1989. But now that bricks are on the street…