BLACK IS TRULY BEAUTIFUL.

Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").



John Brown 1800–1859 was a non-African person. Brown’s goal of liberation for the slaves was sincere and that his actions were based on just principles. John Brown truly embodied the spirit of freedom loving African people around the world.



BLACK IS TRULY BEAUTIFUL.

BLACK is the beginning of human civilization Ethiopia, Somalia, Egypt and our motherland. BLACK is the dark of night. BLACK is the big hole in space. BLACK is the night and sleep that rejuvenates your tired body. BLACK is the color of good rich coffee, coffee with body and taste. BLACK is the color of good rich soil on God’s great earth. BLACK is the color of the sweetest berries in the world. BLACK is the color of sweet ripe bananas. BLACK is the color of money when you are well endowed, your in the BLACK. BLACK is on the tires of cars, bus, planes and trains. BLACK use to be the color of music around the world. BLACK is the color of the sky that will give forth needed rain. BLACK is the color of gold underneath this earth –OIL. BLACK is the color of print on most pages. BLACK is the base of all other colors. BLACK is the color of team intimation. BLACK is the beginning and will be the end. BLACK IS THE COLOR OF BEAUTIFUL WOMAN AND MEN AROUND THIS WORLD. BLACK IS YOU. BLACK IS ME. IS BLACK THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE?



A LETTER TO BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION.

Dear BET, I have waited patiently for your station to serve the needs of our people. I have come to the conclusion that you are not watching the HOUSE. We historically have always had outsiders come in and take precious resources out of our community. I have seen a proliferation of outsiders on your airways under the guise of religion sneaking into the hearts, souls and pockets of the elderly.

I am appalled to see preachers being allowed to basically play on the heartstrings of people who are in need. These people are in need of help because of the detestable, deplorable things done to them by these outsiders. If we had been treated as humans by them, we would have no need for the temporary solutions they offer us. To set a building ablaze and then profit from helping people out of the building is not acceptable.

BET, I as a fellow BLACK person am APPEALING to your sense of moral decency in regards to your programming. A reply to me not to watch is moot because I don’t watch. I observe as a watchman on my post. I am in the tradition of my ancestors in watching the house. We have to care more about who we let in our house and what they take out. To allow this type of immoral robbery of our people by TV preachers may be profitable but should come with a heavy price tag from the black community.

We are tired of the bump and grind videos the lack of real news and the overall lack of concern about people you call your own. Why does the negative programming so out weigh the positive? We are expecting more of you. To serve up your own as bait for the outsiders is something you should lose sleep at night over. Drugs and other vices are profitable also but are a negative influence on us and would never be sold to us by a responsible concerned human being. You’re in the vanguard position and we need to know if you can be trusted to guard the house. Don’t do us any favors by turning away from this contemptible behavior. We are starting to isolate and punish economically the people that don’t have our best interest at heart. For this reason I don’t eat at your establishments whose money help contribute to the moral decline of our culture. Please respond, not with empty WORDS but with some sincere approach to showing real concern. We are in a sad state when we have to beg our own to be responsible. Yes BET, on behalf of all the black folks across this land I beg you to think about affected lives more than your profit margin. To have so much violence and sex thrown at our youth can not be excused away by having preachers try to pray it away for money.

PIMPIN AIN’T EASY: THE NEW FACE OF THE BLACK CHURCH:

“We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation. We’re not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re doing is baptizing babies. Ideal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation. You’ve got to put me on a different scale than the little Black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.” Bishop Eddie Long, New Birth Missionary Church, August 2005.

The sad thing is, he’s right.
Today’s New Black Church is the offspring of the civil rights era but can easily be identified by its debatable and sometimes laughable theology, superficiality, greed, materialism, heavy involvement in politics, tricked-out arena sized church, ten thousand or more member congregation and of course, its superstar pastor. Plainly put, today’s Black church is not your grandma’s church. No longer content with selling baked goods and holding parking lot sales that bring in few dollars, today’s New Black Church hosts revivals that cater to thousands and produce blockbuster movies that bring in millions. From old school nurses boards to new school communications director’s, the New Black Church now employs hundreds of full time professionals each year and looks more like a Fortune 500 company, than the little Black church that’s only “baptizing babies.” Refusing to be courted by politicians during the election season only, the New Black Church has cut out the middleman and has become a force to be reckoned with by dealing directly with the White House.

Having descended from being the visionary voice and leader for millions of Black Christians, the New Black Church has reached out and made new and bold alliances, most notably the newfound love between today’s Black pastors and President Bush. After being cajoled by controversial conservative Lou Sheldon, dozens of superstar Black pastors declared their support for President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative at a special summit of Black religious leaders in Los Angeles last February. At that meeting, they chose Lou Sheldon, a white religious conservative leader to speak on their behalf, even though they were Black pastors who had assembled at a Black church in Los Angeles to talk about messaging to Black people. Understanding the weakness of today’s superstar pastors, that being greed, President Bush’s Faith Based Initiative has successfully solicited and co-opted Black pastors. He has single handedly paved the way for the wooing of Blacks over to the GOP camp under the guise of protecting marriage, allowing prayer in schools and eliminating abortions for women, creating a moral panic within Black America.


Today’s New Black Church has become a pimp for Bush’s agenda for Blacks.
“…But I do think that the vote is up for grabs in a way that it has not been traditionally. And so, we have often suffered from the Democratic Party, who assumed that they had our vote, and the Republican Party, who assumed that they couldn’t get our vote,” Bishop T.D. Jakes on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, February 2005.

With an obvious zeal for the Republican Party, Bishop T.D. Jakes’ comments perfectly illustrate the severity of the crisis in the New Black Church. Obviously fearful of losing the support of the New Black Church, Black Democratic officials and civil rights leaders continue to be silent on this issue and have offered no opposition to the New Black Church.

Meanwhile, Bush continues to refuse to meet with Black civil rights leaders, but has met with the superstar pastors on more than one occasion. Having conquered the media, entertainment arena and now the White House, superstar pastors are poising themselves for their greatest challenge yet, running for political office. With the right support, timing and enough money to back a successful campaign, it’s not that far fetched of an idea to see a superstar pastor catapult themselves into public office, on the GOP ticket.

THE CONCEPT OF LATINO OR HISPANIC IS RACIST:

Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").




Celia Cruz 1924-2003
WE ARE NOT HISPANIC, LATINO OR (Black Latino, Afro-Latino, Afro-Mexican, Black-Puerto Rican, Afro-Argentine, Afro-Peruvian, Black Mexican, Black Hispanics)

We are African descent people: In this Hispanic/Latino identity fraud, the African descent people who speak Spanish (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Panama) are treated to an even worse situation than those of us who are in North America. Notice how they too are forced to pretend Spanish heritage. Celia Cruz (African descent) wearied her blond straight wigs and white pancake make up. She looked like a clown and proclaims her Hispanic heritage.


Jose Contreras, Alfonso Soriano, Vladimir Guerrero, and Sammy Sosa all of these Baseball players are Spanish Speaking African descent people. Speaking the language does not make you part of the culture of that language or part of the people of that language; ask the Jamaicans or African descent people in the United States or anywhere else that non-European people speak the English language. The more enlightened African descent people will explain to you that they use the English language only because of colonialism. It is not their heritage or their identity.

Having a Spanish surname supposedly is the other criteria for being labeled Hispanic. But most of us carry Spanish surnames because they were forced on us; we were branded with British names (Jackson, Washington, Jones, etc.). African descent people have some European blood that was raped into them, but they are not called Europeans, Afro-Euros, or Britannic to glorify that blood.


THE CONCEPT OF LATINO OR HISPANIC IS RACIST:
Remember that there is no such thing as a "Latin" nation, race, or ethnic group---there is only the racist colonial term of "Latin America" ("Latino" just means Latin in Spanish) which refers to the colonialists and the colonial possessions of the Europeans of southern Europe (Spaniards, Portuguese, and French) in the "Western Hemisphere". The only thing "Latin" about South, Central and North America is the 500 years of racist colonialism that has killed 95% of the population, and the theft of the land and its wealth. "Latino" deny us our true identity and heritage. It keeps us slaves to European interests and Spaniard culture. Collectively, we have no Latin genealogy, Latin blood group, Latin history, or a common Latin culture of food or mythology.
The "Latino" labelingof our people isa colonialist-racist act of Genocide---an attempt to "kill off" our people`s true identity, history, independence, and our rights.

THE LATIN LIE:
Latin refers to the language and the culture of the Romans. This language is the root of the southern European Latin languages: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Rumanian, and several other numerically smaller dialects derivative of Latin. From the word Latin comes the Spanish word “Latino”, which refers to the people, the languages, the culture, and all things related to the southern Europeans whose culture is rooted in the Latin language and the Roman culture.

HISPANIC LABELS:
Hispania comes from the Latin language of the Romans, referring to the country of Spain [Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1993) by Thunder Bay Press]. From the word Hispania comes the word “Hispanic” which refers to the people, the language, the culture, and all things related to Spain. Spain is a country in southern Europe.

THE CONCEPT OF HISPANIC is even more racist than "Latino" because it completely denies us our true heritage by not even referring to our colonized condition of being in "Latin America". We now become direct possessions of Spaniards. This is an attempt (successful so far) to actively reactivate the Spanish colonial empire through their colonials on the land. The media is their main tool in this parasitic renewed colonialist machine of the European Spaniards.


Catholic religion: Black people who are in South and Central America are predominantly Catholic in their religion. Most of our people attempt to be “sincere Christians” in the way they live their lives. Our people believe the same things that other Catholics believe. They believe without proof that Jesus is “God”. They believe without proof in the articles of faith that there is a heavenand hell,the forgiveness of sins, that Holy Communion is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and that there will be a resurrection of the body at the end of times. All of this belief system is dependent on our people having a “faith” in all of this.

Yet if they knew that the church was responsible for setting off the Genocide of our people, the burning of our books, the executions of our leaders and teachers, and for keeping our people cultural slaves of the Europeans; perhaps our people’s faith in a European religion of a “white” man as “God” might be questioned.


People of the Ice:
Let`s go back to the beginning about 200,000 years before Christ. Prehistoric men and women had been living on the plains of Africa for more than three million years, developing tools, forming communities, building small huts, hunting, gathering food and creating the roots of human culture.
About two hundred thousand years ago some of these early people began to move north into Europe and west into Asia, probably following herds of animals during the warm spells between Ice Ages. As the Ice Ages returned again and again, these people were trapped in a frozen Eurasia very different from the warm, fertile plains of Africa.
No longer could they walk outside without covering their naked bodies from head to toe to keep from freezing to death. No longer could they sleep out under stars on a warm summer night, pick abundant fruit hanging from the trees or hunt herds of African animals so huge that they took days to stampede past. These early humans were forced into frozen caves, huddled around fires for warmth, trudging through snow and ice to find food and fighting their neighbors over scraps of meat that it no longer made sense to share. These Africans living in Eurasia began to lose their societies based on sharing and "we first", these were twisted into Eurasian cultures based onindividualism and "me first". Over thousands of years, the melanin that had protected their dark skins from the burning African sun began to fade from their complexions; their skin became a light yellowish pink.The tightly curled black hair which had protected the brain so well from sunstroke grew limp and stringy, sometimes turning strange colors; red, brown or even yellow. Healthy nostrils designed to exchange large amounts of cooling air in the lungs during hot, tropical days became pinched and narrow nostrils designed to preserve body heat in a frozen wasteland. Their lips shrank to almost nothing.


The Dawn of Civilization.
Five thousand years ago the Eurasians (Europe and Asia are one continent, in case nobody has noticed) were still living in caves, but progress still flourished on the African continent.Africans had developed the world`s first great civilization in the land of Kemet, known today as Egypt. For the first time mankind organized itself on a massive scale, building temples, cities and pyramids that could not be rebuilt today despite amazing modern technology.Without machines, without engines, without concrete and without computers, African people built pyramids so huge they can be seen from earth orbit with the naked eye. The Great Wall of China, built thousands of years later, is the only other man made structure of this magnitude. Thousands of years before the birth of Christ, Africans in Kemet made amazing developments in science, agriculture, commerce, religion, philosophy, education and government. A coin-operated holy water machine thousands of years old has been excavated in Egypt, only one of many amazing artifacts of the world`s first great civilization.


Age of the Barbarians:
Through trade and conquest, knowledge andthe ideas of civilization spread out of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent to the whites living closest to Africa. First the Greeks, and then the Romans formed societies whose architecture, philosophy and cultures imitated concepts taken from Egypt. Learned African scholars and tutors were brought in to endarken barbaric Eurasians, with mixed results (the name Aesop means "Egyptian"). Greeks and Romans organized their societies enough to conquer and colonize large areas of Eurasia and Africa, including Egypt itself. White backlash by primitive tribes of Eurasians against African cultural influences in Greco-Roman society caused savages from the north to overrun Rome, resulting in the Light Ages; a thousand years of European ignorance compounded by savagery.
Only one group in Europe made significant strides in mathematics, navigation, philosophy, invention and learning during this time period; the Africans who had taken over southern Spain.

Age of the Barbarians II: The Sequel
Five hundred years ago Eurasian barbarians swarmed out of the north once more, this time spreading over the whole earth. They were successful because they were quick to adapt to technology, raw materials and concepts stolen from other cultures (gunpowder, the printing press, spices and pasta from China; metallurgy, mathematics, Christianity and navigation from Africa).
Europeans took control of the earth, spreading their greed-based culture using gunpowder and religion. They murdered millions of people and enslaved millions more, wiping out whole cultures that stood in the way of their conquest. Sexual interaction with the conquered people, especially African people, quickly showed that the penis would not be as effective a weapon as the gun or the bible had proven to be. The children of interracial sexual contacts tended to have African features: good tightly curled hair, dark skin, strong noses and lips, instead of non-black features like stringy hair, pale compale complexions or thin lips.

HOMAGE TO ANCESTORS OF COLOR

Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").



HOMAGE TO ANCESTORS OF COLOR.



We the People!

These are the first three words in the Constitution of the United States but does it really apply to us? First they put us in the bottom of the ship, then the back of the bus. We were taken from our land and the ones who loved us best and put in shackles and chains and taught to clean up other peoples mess but WE THE PEOPLE, did survive.

Some of us were taken from our families and with the grace of God we did get through and we did what we had to do. We took care of the masta kids and cooked and served his meal but not one person even would ask us how we feel about working for sun up to sun down and on our face we could not show a frown but, WE THE PEOPLE did survive.

But all of these thing did make us all strong and in this old world we did may not belong, for there are those who want to send us back but this was not our choice to come here, that was their act. They burn our churches and kill our men and they look in your face and call you friend. But, we will not show our anger, we are much better than that because here we belong and here is where we are at. We will lift our head high and walk with the greatest of pride because "WE THE PEOPLE DID SURVIVE."




Christopher Columbus day

I am Christopher Columbus just call me Chris. I am the one who did miss the land India; I thought I’d discover that which was never. How clever of me to see the land beyond. I came to tame and claim in the name of Spain. I am Chris; call this my his-story. I inspired Hawkins, Livingston, Mussolini, Botha, and Bush. I exterminated perpetuated haltered against red men and yellow men with black men I made no friend.

I attack Arawak Indians cut off their head wrote instead that the Carib Indians ate them like bread. I never told you this before but my chief navigator was a MOOR, you know the moors they discovered Spain those blacks who came from the African terrain. The idea that the world was round I got from these same blacks in some little Spanish town. Now you may ask what were blacks doing there. But they ruled us for over 700 years they made a great mistake then instead of enslaving us they made us their friend some survived stayed alive fought the invasion European division English aggression the fight between Europe and European expansion. I wrote your history for you did not tell you the true not all black men came as slaves listen you will know the truth in the waves that brought the ships lips lie to keep intact oppression of black skin a sin a myth.

I am Chris; the church perch on the opportunity to spread the religion of the dead through misconception the assumption that this world was new the wind blew us to save the earth from beast like men friend I am not blot out the spot that claim they are men like us. I am Christopher Columbus I gave Europe power over all the earth 500 years of your blood sweat and tears now you celebrate recreate your death let the glasses touch with the blood of your fathers and mothers give a toast. HOST my arrival your dying my survival the land is still mine the pope is still the divine, yes drink your own blood call it wine nothing in the pages of my history
will blot out your misery you shall celebrate my victory your children praise me I am their only history.

I am Christopher Columbus, I died but you made me live give me the sea once more let me discover you again the stain my fathers sons rule fool you celebrate my coming I will not go not from your mind restore me for all to see keepers of life shepherds of my people lead them to the altar of lies your ancestors cries will not be heard word after word pages of history written the victims are once more bitten 1492 to you the beginning of western world democracy 1492 to me the beginning of white
supremacy.



The United States Indian Training and Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was the model for this re-education movement, a military-style institution which housed students as young as five years old brought from half a continent away. Many Indians - including even Sitting Bull - sent their children to such schools willingly, believing they would help prepare the next generation to live successfully in the white man’s world. Unfortunately, this was rarely the case.

From 1879 to 1918, approximately 12,000 Native-American children attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, on the grounds of Carlisle Barracks, to become educated in the ways of European-American culture. They came from all corners of the United States - some even from Puerto Rico and the Philippines - and from more than 140 tribes. Some came willingly; others did not. And while many survived, some did not.

“When I went to Concho... we all spoke our dialect and we were told not to talk it, speak English.... Our Matron was a big, husky white lady, her name was Garrett, and [one day] somebody said, Mother Garrett’s coming! Well, we all tried to keep quiet, but she heard me. Mother Garrett jerked me by the collar of my dress and dragged me into the bathroom. That lye soap was about that big and about that high. She broke off a piece and she washed my mouth with lye soap. She said, don’t you ever speak Indian again or I’m going to wash your mouth again. And my tongue got blistered from that lye.”

Mary Armstrong

“What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief. Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?”

Sitting Bull 1831-1890


Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage.

Though they have never appeared in a school text, Hollywood movie or a TV show of the Old West, Black Indians were there as sure as Sitting Bull, Davy Crockett and Geronimo. Their story began at the time of Columbus, ranged from North American forests to South American jungles, and the jewel-like islands of the Caribbean. The first freedom paths taken by runaway slaves led to Native American villages. There black men and women found a red hand of friendship and an accepting adoption system and culture.




Power of the Black Man!


It’s not realized In the eyes of the Black man How his power has shaped this land He is more than pimp, niggard or thug He is exceptional, sent from above Black man when will you see Exactly who and what you’re meant to be Know your history Your right now Then create your forever Shame those that stereotype Who don’t know what type you really are Tell the truth of Kings, warriors, slaves and leaders whose blood run through your veins Don’t fall victim to the self-hate mentality Where you see something black Figuring it’s “too black” for me Know this Black man This is how you were taught to be Its time to un-do What was done for so many years Eradicate all of those “loving black” fears give our children more to be other than baller and pimp fantasies.

Ban the Video Ho.

Ban the Video Ho!

Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").





Check out the J-Shin Video, this is so unreal. Where can we go from here? Cut and paste this link www.southbeat.com/stream_jshin_video.htm
Ban The Video Ho.
What Would Our Ancestors Think?

What do Jay-Z, Mystical, The Cash Money Crew and Ludicrous have in common besides the bling-bling they wear and the millions of albums they've sold? They all feature women in videos, barely dressed and mostly Black, baring their breasts and backsides in front of the roving eye of the hip hop video camera worldwide for all to see.

Call me a hater, but I am disgusted with the images of women in the majority of hip hop videos today. Sex sells the way my foremothers and fathers were sold during slavery. Must we continue to be slaves to an industry that seems only to appreciate and condone the disabling images of women seen in videos today? Lap dancing, clad in the "thong-the-thong-thong-thong" and "shaking it fast", women of today's hip hop videos are shown in flashes of body parts, without a personality or intellect to match.

From the looks of these videos the rap artists seem to have no concern that our impressionable youth are viewing and imitating much of the images and behavior seen in them. The other day, as I was leaving a store in my Brooklyn neighborhood, a boy no older than eight years old, said to me, "Damn Miss, you got a fat a*s!" I was angry and wondered what influenced him to speak to me, an adult, like this?

The over-exaggerated focus on the use of women as objects purely to satisfy the hip hop male artist's insatiable sexual appetite, only helps to perpetuate societal stereotypes that Black women are ho's and prostitutes and Black men are sexually aggressive pseudo-pimps. Our rap videos have now elevated (or rather plummeted) to the level of R-rated. What happened to the days when hip hop was fun and "PG" rated? When L.L. Cool J crooned "I Need Love". When rappers like Kwame and Kid N' Play merged energetic dance moves and unique fashions with story lines about the honey they were trying to get with? And what about Will Smith's "Summertime" video and Chubb Rock's "Just the Two of Us", when folks were shown at outdoor gatherings, bar-b-queuing, dancing and just having a good time?

I miss those days of hip hop when women seemed to be portrayed more equally in videos and were the object of the rap artist's love desires as opposed to misogynistic ones. Back then, rappers talked about falling in love, not loving 'em and leaving 'em. There's no balance in today's hip hop videos. For every image of a female freak and ho shown, there should be other images of feeling, thinking women who are well-rounded.

The rappers in these videos who are telling us they have "ho's in different area codes" and that women "have to know how to work nice hips" in order to be down are missing the point. It shouldn't just be all about making the dollars and proving who has the finest women. It should also be about integrity, love for community and care for the images of the people who have helped to put these rap artists on their international maps of super-stardom. I am as much a supporter of hip hop as anyone else. I just hope that our rap artists will begin to look at the negative impacts of degrading images of women in their videos and realize hip hop can still be powerful and lucrative without all the bare booty stuff.

So there I sat, painfully absorbing another music video, in all its crass-talking, crotch-grabbing, and ‘bling-bling’-ing glory, as it thundered across the TV screen in brilliant Technicolor. Since I’m partial to the less inane, more socially-uplifting genre of hip-hop music, I shrugged off my distaste as mere stylistic differences. I know, call me conservative. Somewhere, our ancestors were weeping.
For there was a time in this country, when immensely talented African-American artists such as Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, and Rex Ingram, were denied the opportunity to step on a stage and perform. These pioneers and way-makers struggled through careers of brutal mistreatment, indignities, and humiliation - to secure our basic human right of self-expression. And yes, there was a time when the hip-hop community, often vilified and dismissed as a passing phenomenon, strived for society at large to acknowledge and respect this significant, cultural movement. A movement created by Black and Latino youth, ironically, as a constructive alternative to street brawls and senseless violence. Then, in the midst of honoring our own, we present such a demeaning, sloppy display. Clearly, there have been better days. If only the cameras had been there to record them. Hip-hop has certainly made its gains. Yet, with privilege comes responsibility.

So, after days of judicious contemplation, I feel confident enough to say:
If this is what’s to come - let us go no further. Let us study, learn, and re-evaluate. Let us pay homage to our ancestors, who struggled so valiantly for our benefit. Let us apologize, and ask their forgiveness. The hip-hop community would like to do its part, by upholding the rich, celebrated legacy it has inherited: Please, ancestors; we ask for another chance.

Thanks for reading Ban the Video Ho. What Would Our Ancestors Think? I Hope you were able to find something here to hang on to. Hotep, Your Brother.