21st Century Black America: MisEducated and Sleeping?

If we free our minds our actions will follow.

In the classic and extremely relevant book by Dr. Carter G. Woodson titled, The Mis-Education of the Negro, the ‘educational’ and media process of brainwashing is clearly delineated. Dr. Woodson’s poignant observations from 1933, when the book was originally published, are indeed more relevant today, in the 21st century, than ever before.

The revolutionary political consciousness of Black America has been, in large part, deliberately sabotaged and set back, in the very name of ‘progress,’ by this political system’s de facto gate-keepers in support of the Obama brand. The (Barack) Obama brand is not merely an insidious corporate brand, it is a debilitating brand of mental enslavement. Critical thinking, common sense, and intellectual honesty have, to a very large extent, been replaced by absurd rationalizations and a pathetic mockery of our common sense. Suddenly, it is now perfectly alright to engage in indefinite detention in this nation without open and due process of law, commit extrajudicial murder based upon a secret ‘Kill List,’ and unconstitutionally wage wars, torture, and bomb people in Africa, Asia, and any other part of the world – as long as it is under the auspices of the Obama brand.

Critical thinking, common sense, and intellectual honesty have been rendered null and void in large portions of Black America by those, who have for the moment, placed all of us, irrespective of color, back on the plantations of the ethically, morally, and mentally dead.

This “miseducation” process has borne vile fruit. It has revised, distorted, and disfigured the heretofore honorable, necessary, and noble liberation struggles of Black America.

While Black and other systemic gate-keepers cynically and opportunistically complain, for example, about very real racism, economic injustice, and police brutality etc., they themselves hypocritically support the misleaders of a political system that engages in (or directly enhances) mass murder, perpetual wars, extraordinary rendition [i.e. international kidnapping & torture] abroad, and increasing economic austerity and a very real unconstituional police-state at home. In the words of the late revolutionary, Jonathan Jackson, “The mantle of ignorance doesn’t cover their behavior.” These misleaders and their systemic gate-keepers know precisely what they are doing, and we must get off their mental plantations of enslavement and relegate them and their plantations to oblivion! In order to do this, Black America must first massively reawaken from its deliberately induced political slumber, in conjunction with our politically conscious sisters and brothers of all colors, in this nation and throughout Mother Earth.

Critical thinking, common sense, and intellectual honesty have been replaced by absurd rationalizations and a pathetic mockery of our common sense
None of us, Black or otherwise, need remain “miseducated” and manipulated. If we free our minds our actions will follow. This requires conscious, deliberate, and protracted political struggle on our part. The eternal words of Harriet Tubman are fully applicable today: “I freed a thousand slaves – I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves,”. We must awaken ourselves and each other and act accordingly. This will not be easy as we are up against the system’s misleaders, the systemic gate-keepers, and an entrenched corporate-stream media of disinformation – all of whom – are engaged in the process of miseducating. On the other hand, in the words of Howard Zinn, “On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own.” It is up to us to recognize and spread this truth through organizing, educating, and agitating. Truth can be like the spark that starts the cleansing prairie fire!