When one permits another to define who and what you are, which includes the historical circumstances that made you who and what you are, then you have lost control of your own narrative, as a thinking, reasoning, human being. You have given up your very humanity, as a tool to be manipulated, abused, and ultimately discarded.

The politicos of the Democrat[ic] and Republican parties [i.e. the Republicrats] have successfully played Black Americans, other people of color, and indeed all poor and disenfranchised people irrespective of color; like so many mindless, manipulated ping-pong balls who are repeatedly battered back and forth in a worsening reality, which reality we neither define nor control.

The reason that the above mentioned two political parties - which really constitute nothing more than differing wings of the same political party - are so effective in keeping the everyday masses of people powerless is because we allow them to give voice to a political and historical narrative which is not our narrative. It is not our reality. Thus, it is not our voice. But it is being presented as if it is.

Likewise, the reason that the right wingers of the current so-called �tea party� movement in this nation appear to be gaining a certain momentum is because we allow them [virtually unchallenged] to use fear, innuendo [i.e. racist code words], and half-truths to give voice to a political narrative which also is actually not that of the everyday people, but which, on first blush and at best, cynically mimics that reality. In other words, the very real pain, powerlessness, and frustration caused by none other than the Democrat and Republican parties themselves are being effectively harnessed, along with a huge dose of subtle racism and fear, to yet again play people for fools or what I refer to as political ping-pongs. The only difference between the Republicrats [i.e. the Democrats and Republicans] and the tea baggers is one of methodology, for they, too, are really about stealing the political narrative from the people.

Politically conscious people are cognizant of the fact that the United States is in fact a capitalist corporate plutocracy, not a people�s democracy. Nevertheless, the question is: What can we do about this in any effective manner? Do we seek scapegoats as do the Republicrats and the tea baggers?

We must take back our own political narrative. We must take back, for example, what it really means to be Black, making it crystal clear that beyond mere biology, color or pigmentation, blackness is a collective state of political consciousness in service to the political, social, cultural, and economic well being of Black people and humanity as a whole. To be Black is an ongoing, active and conscious political act, not some kind of distorted and whimsical term that the miseducational institutions of this nation, along with the corporate media, seek to relegate into a state of pathetic and meaningless nothingness which supports injustice at home and perpetual wars abroad. We must take back this political narrative if we are to seriously and effectively continue this struggle on behalf of ourselves and the rest of humanity. We must quickly regain our sanity as to what it really means to be Black in �America.� Blackness knows no compromise with injustice, irrespective to from where it might emanate. To be Black is an ongoing, active, and conscious political act.

Understand this: If we are consciously Black, then we will allow no one, including Barack Obama or anyone else, to cynically use and opportunistically claim, our political and cultural narrative, for which we have struggled so hard and for so very, very long. We must and will take back our narrative and avoid marching with and alongside the shameless bourgeois mental mulatto biologically black elite into the ovens of historical infamy. We owe this to ourselves, to Black America collectively, and to humanity as a whole.

Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow peoples must stubbornly and steadfastly challenge the unending barrage of government and corporate media disinformation and constant mindless distractions. In this regard too, the people�s political narrative must be taken back! Every despicable lie must be challenged and exposed. An end to double talk and subterfuge must be demanded throughout this nation! No more code words, no more rhetorical sorcery! No more lies! We are dying in this nation and abroad while the bloated rich and their cronies voice a political narrative which is neither of, by, or for us.

Countless men, women, and children are the victims of these Wall Street, bloodsucking, avaricious, economic vampires. There is absolutely no such thing as a �jobless recovery� except when it comes to the ill gotten profit [euphemistically termed �recovery�] in the coffers of the corporate elite and concomitant filthy rich. People continue losing their homes at an ever increasing and alarming rate, and no real help is forthcoming from the Obama / Biden / Rahm Emanuel administration or the other Democratic Party foxes or the Republican wolves. As Obama lies, more and more people die in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere. This keeps the corporate / military elite of momentarily satisfied, but it spits more and more lives into the cannon fodder of the military machinery - statistics of the economic poverty draft in this nation. Thus, the threat of so-called �terrorism� is fed by this ongoing carnage and terrorism of nation-states, led by the United States. It is everyday people who are the constant victims of this human insanity. Just plain everyday folk. Us!

It is time to reclaim, to take back the people�s narrative! Let�s tell our story repeatedly, and tell it loud and tell it clear!

This means constantly challenging and exposing the subterfuge of this corporate plutocracy, de facto police state, over which Barack Obama presides and seeks to continue.

This means exposing and rejecting the constant crock of nonsense, distraction, and disinformation that the corporate media is disseminating. It means redefining what media is for the people. It means that the people must tell the story as it truly is. It means taking back the people�s political narrative!

There�s much work to be done. Onward sisters and brothers. Onward!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.