The Concept of Mentacide and Dr. Bobby Wright

2) A predilection for senseless destruction of nature and people

These key points described by Dr. Wright concerning the continued oppressive psychological condition of African people in the world indicates to me that our biggest challenge as a people is that of Getting Our Minds Straight and Stopping Mentacide!

Getting Our Minds Straight requires that African people begin to relearn the African principle that renowned historian Dr. Anderson Thompson has been discussing for the last twenty plus years. According to Dr. Thompson, the “African Principle represents those standards, rules, laws, and customs which guide our behavior and which serve as the foundation for all of our action.” Dr. Thompson continues by explaining that the African Principle “is the quality underlying the source of the African value system. The gift from our Creator passes on to us through our ancestors.”

At this juncture in history, we as African people have the capacity to Straighten Our Own Minds Out without the help of anyone outside the African Community.

One of the ways we can collectively begin this process of implementing the African Principle is to continue the organizing spirit generated by the Million Man March called by Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam on October 16, 1995 in Washington, D.C. The entire African World Community embraced this self-determining event and provided the vital spark we needed as a people to begin collectively implementing the African Principle wherever we are.

Through the spirit generated by this momentous occasion thirteen years ago, we must continue to institutionalize major networks throughout the African world, designed to focus in on our major problems as a people. These networks are rooted in our efforts to break the cycle of Mentacide that, once again, Dr. Wright says is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a person’s or group’s mind.”

It must be understood that Africa and African people have been under siege for more than 2,000 years by Europeans, Asians, and Arabs. The invasions, intrusions, thefts, murders, pillaging, and the decimation and destruction of African lands, bodies, minds, and spirits over these 2,000 years is the basis for our on-going struggle for African Liberation worldwide.

In our efforts to Straighten Out Our Minds, the following revelation by Dr. Wright should be understood, and internalized, by all African people. Dr. Wright reveals that, “It is very clear that the Europeans have developed a method whose basic purpose is to replace all indigenous cultures with their own… Therefore, the Europeans, without any historical precedent went forth into the civilized world and began to impose their cultures on others, mainly through religion, literacy modalities and military force.”

All roads lead to our unity. We must work together in organizing and mobilizing African people in America. All of our organizing strategies must lead to Getting Our Minds Straight and Stopping Mentacide. Without this occurring, we will continue in our present state of mental stagnation and servitude to other people.