Accepting The Challenge of Being African In Today'

Junious Ricardo Stanton
JRSWriter@aol.com
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POSITIVELY BLACK: Commentaries -
Accepting The Challenge of Being African In Today's World

"I love the challenge of being Afrikan in today's world; it's wonderful!
I love digging in my heels against the impossible odds of being black in
America! What greater challenge could we have in life today than to be
Afrikan? What greater testament to our heroism than to overcome the
problems that face us today? What greater opportunity can we have to
transform ourselves and transform the world in the process? Why would
we wish to escape this kind of challenge? It's too wonderful, too magnificent.
We should eat this kind of challenge for breakfast." Dr. Amos Wilson

Too many of us have an erroneous outlook on life and being African.
We have internalized the lies, distortions and villainous depictions about
ourselves and African people in general Europeans told us in order to
maintain their hegemony over us. We think we have been cursed by God.
Deep down inside many of us actually believe that a giant white man sitting
off in space doomed us to be perpetual hewers of wood and haulers of water
for our enemies. In our erroneous view of reality we look at the conditions in
our community and of our people globally and conclude this must be divinely
ordained or we must in fact be inferior, how else could these circumstances
exist? We forget that the key to our enslavement and debasement is wanton
violence supported by planned psychological deception and manipulation in
order to execute global imperialism and subjugation and subsequently attempt
to justify and rationalize the indefensible and the immoral.

Human beings have the ability to define and create our own personal
space and environment. The only possible way a minority of the world's
population could conquer the majority of humans, exploit their creativity,
talents and expropriate the earth's natural resources is through brute force
and chicanery. That is the history backed by millennia of psycho-pathology
of our enemies. Before they did it to us, they had centuries of tradition doing
to themselves! Our biggest problem is we have bought into the lie of white
supremacy and the myth of their invincibility. However, independent thought
and serious study of our history and their's clearly reveals they are neither
innately superior nor invincible. Our ancestors vigorously resisted menticide
and unfathomable brutality to enable us to be here today. Things are not what
they seem. If we were truly beaten and defeated or inherently inferior; why
do our enemies still go to such great lengths to destroy our families through
"welfare" programs, disorient us through the importation of alcohol and
lethal drugs into our communities, undermine our liberation efforts through
state sanctioned programs like COINTPRO or compromise our will to resist
through institutionalized programs of menticide? Do sane or moral people do
this to folks who are obviously their inferiors? Don't go for the okey-doke,
think for yourself.

The challenge before us is to awaken ourselves, overcome our lethergy by
discovering our divinity, genetic potential and possibilities, thereby
transforming ourselves our communities and ultimately the world. This is the
awesome task the CREATOR has set before each of us. It is more than a
notion. It is a divine calling and a sacred mission/destiny. Only through us can
Maat be restored. Heroic epochs are opportunities of circumstance, first for
the heros and sheroes to accept the challenge of self-actualization, discover
their true self and the inner courage that will enable and ennoble them to
triumph over staggering odds and overwhelming obstacles to accomplish what
once seemed impossible. That is the challenge facing you/me/us today. The
first step is to overcome our fears, doubts and the idea I/you/we can't
possibly be the ones to tip the scales from Isfet (falsehood, disorder,
injustice, wickedness and alienation) to Maat (Divine Order, Balance,
Harmony, Truth, Justice, Righteousness, Reciprocity) What greater challenge
could we mount in our personal lives, in our community life or in our
interactions with the world, than to stand up for Justice, Righteousness,
Truth and Divine Order? In a society based on, propagated by and maintained
by falsehood and illusion consciously deciding to live in truth and integrity
to oneself is a declaration of independence of the highest order, an act of
defiance against the status quo. It requires great courage, tenacity and
fortitude. Once you commit yourself to Maat the forces of Isfet will array
themselves against you in vitriolic and subtle fury. Real heros and sheroes
don't punk when things get really rough. We may have doubts and fears but
they instinctively realize, if it is to be, it is up to me! Accept the
challenge.

Junious Ricardo Stanton
JRSWriter@aol.com