Why has much of Black America come to love those who, in reality, hate them and hate those who actually love them and/or who are, or at least should be, economic and political allies? Has the collective conscience and consciousness of Black America been politically lobotomized in the 21st century, and what can be done about it?

Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow peoples in this nation, and throughout the world, are living in a watershed historical moment today. Right has been made to appear as wrong, and wrong is being put forth as being right. Black America, along with other poor and oppressed persons in this nation, has been the object of rhetorical pimping and callous experimentation in order to see just how far Wall Street�s corporate / military apparatus (including the corporate media) can go in the physical and mental emaciation of everyday people.

Torture, wars abroad, increasing poverty at home, a de fact police state, corporate-capitalist greed, and the proliferation of home-grown nuclear power & environmental degradation have been put forth as being necessary and just, all in the very name of supposedly doing precisely the opposite. Our young people are decried for their greed, misdirection, and violence when simultaneously the corporate media barrages and instills these very things into them - for corporate profit. After all, corporate executives live in exclusive and/or gated communities and are blissfully aloof from the carnage that they perpetuate and cause for everyday people.

And what of we ourselves? Are we instilling and teaching the history in this nation of ongoing political struggle to others? Are we sharing the people�s history with others (including our youth), versus the disfigured and distorted corporate version of history? In this vein of ongoing struggle, what are we sharing with others (including our youth) about Denmark Vesey, Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Joe Hill, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and so very many others whom this nation�s corporate media and so-called �educational� institutions cynically distort, gloss over, or outright ignore?!

It is time to turn off the corporate media! Turn off the mindless and dangerous television shows, etc. of distraction and subtle disempowerment. Turn the damn things off! Time to turn off the media of disinformation, and tune in to ourselves and each other. Time is of the essence! It�s time to read, reread, and share for example, the writings of J.A. Rogers, Chancellor Williams, Frantz Fanon, Ivan Van Sertima, and Howard Zinn, to name but a few!! It�s time to return to our roots. Turn off that mega-corporate media!!! It�s time to actualize the people�s history. In other words, it�s time to take control of our local communities, nation wide. It�s time to think of being, and seriously plan, to be self sufficient in terms of our food, generating power, our housing, etc. It is time to collectively create, develop, and actualize a real people�s vision! Stop expecting this corporate government, its cronies and its political misleaders to do for you / us. We must think and act in terms of banding together and doing for selves. And that means Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow peoples - whether you / we like it or not!

To reiterate: We are living during a watershed period of history, and it is time to seize this historical moment by seriously and creatively building and working for a people�s vision for both the present and the future. At stake is everything!!! Future columns will address this more specifically. Meanwhile, address these things for yourselves for the creativity is within all of you!

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.