Africa World Now Project

The ghosts of Hegel, Hume, Locke, and other so-called enlightenment thinkers, are not ghosts at all. The limiting racialized reasoning; the logics of racial capitalism they espoused are in fact material and nonmaterial at the same time. We are living in the 21st century, with 14th century logics and reasoning. The complexities of the language formulated during this period have ensured that this will forever be the case. That is until projects (mass in character) that intentionally and comprehensively disrupt the very power relations that are attendant to the languages that are a product of the racial capitalist logistics that guide everyday racialized reasoning are met with in full force by an African Future.

At the heart of Africana world liberation, is a desire to practice humanity. A desire that is rooted in collective sensibilities that are guided by a constant search for an understanding of the relationship between nature and the universe.

Paul Zeleza has argued that “African identities, like African languages, are inventions, mutually constitutive existential and epistemic constructions.”

This postulation was rooted in questions around the “challenges of defining “Africa.” Arguing along with other scholars that whoever defines and constructs “Africa,” in considerable measure, guides how we identify and analyze African identities and languages.

In The Invention of Africa : Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge, V. Y. Mudimbe interrogates the construction of Africa through Eurocentric categories and conceptual systems, which produced enduring dichotomies between Europe and Africa, investing the latter's societies, cultures, and bodies with the representational marginalities or even pathologies of alterity (Mudimbe, 1988; Zeleza, 2006).

Elsewhere, Mudimbe, argued that one of the most important aspects of Africa’s representation lies not in its invention per se, a phenomenon that is by no means confined to the continent (think of “Asia” and the “Americas” and “Europe” itself and indeed the origins of the names of numerous nations and ethnic groups), but in the fact that Africa is always imagined, represented and performed as a reality or a fiction in relation to master references—Europe, Whiteness, Christianity, Literacy, Development, Technology, even Islam, as codified through Arabic invasions—mirrors that reflect, indeed refract Africa in peculiar ways, reducing the continent to particular images, to a state of lack until their arrival (Mudimbe, 1988; Zeleza, 2006). Without.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o must not be understood as a singular path on a multipath map. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o work must be situated in what Dr. Greg Carr argues that all Africana phenomenon/a must be situated, in a long-view process of memory, translation and recovery. To do so, we can then begin to see how Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s work begins to intersect, inform and be informed by those other Africana thinkers that are committed to identifying, mapping and conceptualizing frame works for understanding human experience, as we move across time/space. Ayi Kwei Armah, Soyinka, Ama Ata Aidoo, Achebe, Tess Onwueme, Ifeoma Okoye, Aminata Sow Fall, Mariama Bâ, Alice Walker, May Ayim, Audre Lorde, to name a few. As listed, the principle of gender is not categorized, as this very abbreviated list does not distinguish Africana female writers from male projecting counterparts…these writers are writers organizing their rhythms of knowledge production through a lens…either way they lead to a common point, as they are writing for freedom.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Image: Nairobi, March 2019

Writing in Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, CLR James argues that: “the cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased.

The range and scope of CLR James’ work cannot possibly be captured in our limited time with you this evening. However, it is the intent for us to spend our time effectively with you in a way that encourages you to explore the work of CLR James as we hear reflections by those who had the opportunity to work closely with him.

The epigraph just cited, is one that brings into sharp focus, two of Western Europe’s deadly gifts of modernity, its attempted to redefine the praxis of being human (as the great thinker Sylvia Wynter has provide a map for us to understand); and the justification(s) for the creation of private property. This thousand-year process, according to Cedric Robinson, culminating into a racial capitalist system that feeds off the ideas that has structured our current world as a result of slavery, colonialism/neocolonialism, the salience of race as a cultural ideological class construct, the demonization of gender, and iterations of imperialism has left a deep wound on our collective human consciousness, etc…

Next, you will hear, in order of speaker, reflections on the Legacy of CLR James from those who worked closely with him:

James Early, Former Director of Cultural Studies and Communication at the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution;

Kojo Nnamdi, Host of the Kojo Nnamdi show on NPR/WAMU FM

Sylvia Hill, Former Professor of Administration of Justice, Department of Urban Affairs, Social Sciences and Social Work at University of the District of Colombia; and

Aldon Nielsen, who is currently The George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature at Penn State University and author of C.L.R. James: A Critical Introduction.

This program was moderated, in part by, E. Ethelbert Miller. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist and board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He is also a board member of The Writer’s Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine. He was previously the Director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University and former chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. He is currently a Resident Fellow at UDC.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Music referenced: KAMAUU: Bamboo & LăVĭNDŭR (LaVeNDeR) [Moving Still]; Kojey Radical: Water; Robert Glasper Experiment: Find You (KAYTRANADA Mix) ft. Iman Omari

This past August, several former commanders of Colombia’s largely demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released a video in which they announced a “new phase of armed struggle.” What this video signaled more than anything, was a clear reminder the peace accord is directly related to the conditions on the ground—the conditions of violence and poverty as they are proliferated and exacerbated by Colombia’s elite and attendant corruption at various levels of government (https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/08/how-to-keep-the-colombian-peace-deal-alive-farc-duque-uribe-colombia/).

In the words of one of the local residents—Luis, a seventy-three-year-old—living in one of the areas targeted for development, FARC, operating there since 1981, has long been viewed as “a useful group . . . they have been the presence of law in the face of state absence” (https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/colombia-farc-hidroituango-demining-coca-campesinos). In areas, such as this, that have never seen police or government officials, the FARC organized communal work groups to fix local paths, imposed a minimum wage, resolved domestic disputes, and punished criminals. However, the dynamics of FARC presence in the area changed in the late 1990s to 2003, when right-wing paramilitary groups entered the region in force (https://jacobinmag.com/location/colombia).

Today, AWNP’s, Mwiza Munthali recently spoke with our friend and colleague, Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli.

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli is currently a Senior Associate for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), where she is the leading Colombia human rights advocate.

We then turn our attention to Brazil, exploring the current sociopolitical and ecological crises and the implications of Afro Brazilians with Juliana Borges.

In recent months, fires in the Amazon Rainforest have put a spotlight on the planetary harmful deforestation occurring there. Just before the September 23 United Nations Climate Action Summit, Human Rights Watch released the report Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon. According to the report, “Every day, people in Brazil put themselves at risk to defend the Amazon rain-forest from illegal logging. … For Brazil to meet its Paris Agreement commitment, it will need to rein in the criminal groups that are driving much of the deforestation…”.

Next, we will hear a talk delivered by Juliana Borges (https://uniondocs.org/people/juliana-borges/).

Ms. Juliana Borges is an Afro-Brazilian researcher, writer, anthropologist, and activist working on issues related to racism, gender, drug policy, incarceration, and violence. She is part of the National Council of Brazilian Platform for Drug Policy Reform, a consultant at the Brazilian Bar Association/Sao Paulo Section on confrontation, monitoring, and memory of torture and violence. In addition, she recently published a book on Racism and the War of Drugs in Brazil, titled, “Encarceramento em Massa (Feminismos Plurais),” a book from the “Plural Feminisms” collection. She is a consultant for the Perseu Abramo Foundation in the area of violence studies, and a consultant for the project “They exist—women in prison,” which works in Rio de Janeiro women’s prisons (https://sur.conectas.org/en/black-women-under-fire/).

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

In a November 1797 Letter to the French Directory, Toussaint L’Ouverture writes a warning to the French and its allies in Haiti of any attempts to (re)institute slavery in Saint Domingue:

“Do [the forces of reaction] think that men who have been able to enjoy the blessing of liberty will calmly see it snatched away? ... If they had a thousand lives, they would sacrifice them all rather than be forced into slavery again. But no, the same hand which has broken our chains will not enslave us…”

Though most reports point to this current iteration of Haitian resistance are being sparked by the Haitian government’s announcement that it was going to cease subsidizing gas and diesel, it must not be lost that the current uprising in Haiti is a reverberation of what was started in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but intentionally interrupted over the next few centuries.

As a result, this announcement can be better understood as an accelerator that added to the conditions of poverty, which was proliferated by massive corruption involving members of the previous and current government, including the president, Moïse.

To date, “journalists, human rights groups, and a state auditing body have all issued hundreds of pages of reports documenting how up to $2 billion from the Venezuelan fuel assistance program PetroCaribe has been diverted into politicians’ pockets.

According the article, Why Haitians are Protesting En Masse via Jacobin Magazine, as well as other sources, “every day on the air, elected officials sling accusations of kickbacks and graft at one another.

In addition to this, last January at the Organization of American States, Haiti voted with the United States against its longtime former benefactor, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. According to Haitian human rights advocate Marie Yolène Gilles, this vote was a quid pro quo.

Yet, not surprisingly, the US-dominated OAS has yet to meet officially about the Haitian crisis —although there was a secretive and unofficial US-led trip—even though conditions on the ground are pretty close to the circumstances decried in the January resolution on Venezuela.

Environmental [neo]Colonialism

The conditions in Haiti are a direct product of the continued conditions of colonialism, neoliberal economic policies and an unjust approach to tackling climate change.

The environmental degradation, which is exacerbated with each drought and hurricane season, can be traced back to French colonial rule over Haiti when land and forests were abused, rendering large swathes of the country barren and infertile (https://portside.org/2019-10-01/what-really-behind-crisis-haiti).

The US approach to the Haitian economy has been predominantly extractive. The country has an estimated $20bn of mineral deposits consistently exploited by US and Canadian corporations.

Today, we take another look at the conditions on the ground in Haiti, through a recent conversation between AWNP’s Mwiza Munthali and Nicole Phillips .

Nicole Philips is an attorney, specializing in human rights and rule of law and professor at the University of the Aristide Foundation law school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as well as a professor at UC Hastings College of Law at the University of San Francisco.

Our show was produced in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, the Avalon Village in Detroit; Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Cooperation Jackson in Jackson Mississippi; Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

To understand the music of John Coltrane you must understand the long genealogy of the genre of African Diasporic cultural expression—called Black (or American) Classical Music or jazz as it is often labeled particularly, as it moves back and forth on the time/space continuum. From the Now moment. To the Future moment as yet seen. To the complexities of the past. Back to Now. Never in a linear path.

You must listen to Sun Ra. Diz. Bird. Sonny. Brother Ah. Abdullah Ibrahim, Celia Cruz, Tito. Hugh Masekela. Abby. Max. Ella. Nina. Holiday. De La. Tribe. Guru. Heavy. The birds. The Wind. The rain.

You must be able to map the material and non-material experiences…often improvised in response to the conditions within which Africana peoples found themselves.

You must understand the deep ancestral, historical, and spiritual memory of a people to simultaneously be aware of these conditions while also seeing a world beyond those conditions.

John Coltrane—the person, the musician—is a vital link in the long chain of humanity—a representation of an African vibration of humanity.

Amiri Baraka in his article John Coltrane: Why His Legacy Continues? writes: “Why does his legacy continue to influence our lives, our music, and the arts?...Trane emerges as the process of historical clarification itself, of a particular social/aesthetic development…When we see him standing next to Bird and Diz, an excited young inlooker inside the torrent of the rising Bop statement, right next to the chief creators of that fervent expression of new black life, we are seeing actual point and line, note and phrase of the continuum. As if we could also see Louis and Bechet hovering over them, with Pres hovering just to the side waiting his entrance, and then beyond in a deeper yet to be revealed hover, Pharoah and Albert and David and Wynton or Olu in the mist, there about to be, when called by the notes of what has struck yet before all mentioned. Trane carried the deepness in us thru Bird and Diz, and them, back to us. He reclaimed Bop fire, the Africa, Polyrhythmic, Improvisational, Blue, Spirituality of us…the Free Jazz! Was parallel to Free Angela! Free Huey! The Ballot or the Bullet! Free Black People!” (192: Digging: The Afro American Soul of American Classical Music)

---Amiri Baraka adds more clarity---I love Music (For John Coltrane)--

For Amiri Baraka, and others, “Trane still sounds inside us as the freedom we seek, the total expression of our lives as the expression of the Human headed soul, teaching that the flaming paradise of his music is in us to create the world we live in” (194: Digging: The Afro American Soul of American Classical Music)

But above all of this…more than any of this…to understand Trane you must understand his wife, Alice Coltrane. You must listen to her organized vibrational melodies that seek in their own space to free people, who did not know they needed to be freed, and as of yet still not know they need to be freed.

Today, we will listen to a radio documentary produce by the Pacifica Archives, titled Trane Lives. We hear Alice on Trane…and Trane, less than a year before he moved beyond.

For complete program: https://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/pz065901-02

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, African and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people.

Image: Alice and John Coltrane: no copyright infringement is intended

Questions and discourses around intervention in African nations are quite frankly opaque and attempt to sell contradictory and conflicting reasoning. For instance, the very notions of foreign—intervention—and its relationship between the logic of racial capitalism and its attendant operational institutions and systems, such as—colonialism/neocolonialism, imperialism, unequal trade, forced and coerced migration, issues of citizenship, imposition of colonial borders, who has the right to have rights, human dignity, scramble and (re)scramble for control of material and nonmaterial resources, and international development…are marginalized, hidden, or often ignored.

To be clear, the notion of intervention itself—its philosophical and epistemic groundings in Western logics is inherently problematic. One need not move far on the world historical map to see the material implications of Western (or outside) intervention and its deleterious impact across the African world.

For many critically thinking folk, the differentiation between intervention and invasion are slim or non-existent. And if we are to understand the roots of contemporary intervention—we must surely deal with the earlier histories and philosophies of raw, unbridled invasions to extract natural resources and to control human physical and intellectual productive forces, and its evolution into post-modern versions of a liberal, gentler imperialism.

Nevertheless, the current reality is that Africa consistently face multiple levels of intervention, all normally rooted in a weak and narrow idea of humanitarianism, or a racial capitalist-driven development, not to mention, the justification of intervention under false notions of governance rooted in a Western historiography, of which these same governments do not practice in totality themselves.

Today, we deal with the current reality of Foreign Intervention in Africa, specifically After the Cold War and its relationship between Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror with Dr. Elizabeth Schmidt.

Dr. Elizabeth Schmidt is currently a professor emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and has written extensively about US involvement in apartheid South Africa; women under colonialism in Zimbabwe; the nationalist movement in Guinea; as well as foreign intervention in Africa before and from the Cold War to the war on terror.

Some of her works include:

•Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror;

•Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939-1958;

•Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939;

•Foreign Intervention in Africa From the Cold War to the War on Terror; and

•Decoding Corporate Camouflage: U.S. Business Support for Apartheid to name a few.

Today’s program, as always, is produced in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, the Avalon Village in Detroit; Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Cooperation Jackson in Jackson Mississippi; Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Robin D.G. Kelley argues that Cedric Robinson’s book is “a critique of Western Marxism and its failure to understand the conditions and movements of Black people in Africa and the Diaspora.”

Kelley goes on to suggest that Robinson not only exposes the limits of historical materialism as a way of understanding Black experience but also reveals that the roots of Western racism took hold in European civilization well before the dawn of capitalism.”

In fact, it was Robinson who proposed the idea that the racialization of the proletariat and the invention of whiteness began within Europe itself, long before Europe's modern encounter with African and New World labor. Accordingly, such insights give the "Dark Ages" new meaning.

I have argued, elsewhere, rooting my perspectives in a critical reading of Robinson, Marimba Ani, Oliver Cox, Audrey Smedley, Sylvia Wynter, C.L.R. James and W.E. B. Du Bois, that race must be understood at a deeper level. To better understand the salience of a fictitious, yet deadly concept, it must be examined as a cultural-ideological class construct, further building on the argument of Du Bois, that “the world was thinking wrong about race, because it did not know. The ultimate evil was stupidity.

According to Audrey Smedley in, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, race is a “cosmological ordering system structured out of the political, economic, and social experiences of peoples who emerged as expansionist, conquering, and dominating nations on a worldwide quest for wealth and power.”

Being so, we can see that race is expressed in material and non-material ways. It is, in fact, a culturally ingrained, ideologically-driven mechanism that has permeated sociopolitical structures and economic imperatives which guide institutional practices for the expressed purpose to serve deeply rooted insecurities that are wrapped in the myths of white superiority.

Today, we bring you, a public critical reading of Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition with Acklyn Lynch, Haile Gerima and AWNP collective’s member, Josh Myers. This critical reading is part of a series that is curated at Sankofa Video and Books in Washington, DC.

Dr. Acklyn Lynch is a revered scholar/activist of African and African Diaspora history, culture and politics. He has taught at University of Maryland Baltimore County, Howard University, and University of Massachusetts Amhurst. He is author of Nightmare Overhanging Darkly: Essays on Black Culture and Resistance.

Haile Gerima is an independent filmmaker and professor of film at Howard University.

After the award-winning Ashes & Embers (1982) and the documentaries Wilmington 10—U.S.A 10,000 (1978) and After Winter: Sterling Brown (1985), Gerima filmed his epic, Sankofa in (1993). His films have won numerous awards and are internationally acclaimed for the range and scope of their storytelling, cinematography, and innovations.

Gerima continues to produce and distribute his films, including his most recent award-winning film, Teza (2008). He also lectures and conducts workshops in alternative screenwriting and directing both within the U.S. and internationally.

Josh Myers currently teaches Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He has published a number of scholarly journal articles exploring Africana history, politics and culture. He is author of the forthcoming, We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989. He serves on the editorial board of The Compass and is editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal.

Over the past few weeks there has been a low-humming buzz on dominant media platforms around the release of New York Times Magazine 1619 Project. The lead author, investigative journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes that:

“The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”

History is a very nonlinear, messing process. Therefore, to pinpoint moments as being the beginning can often lead to more questions. In fact, for most of us, history as a concept is narrowly understood. While there is historical specificity to various events and experiences, we must be careful to not miss the convergence, often, of a series of simultaneous events that contribute to what one may identify as the moment, the origin.

If we agree, then Dr. John Henrik Clarke’s definition of history becomes very important to highlight:

“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be.”

It becomes very instructive for a critical reader, particularly when reading projects that are developed for public consumption—to always move directly to the sources. The references. The works cited pages. The footnotes. The end notes. Or, if lucky, to the list of supplementary or more information reading lists.

To not understand that all writing is political. And that all efforts to tell stories are rooted in epistemic and philosophical frameworks that guide the way we go about doing the work we do, particularly in attempts to quote—tell the whole story—unquote is to miss exactly who is talking and who they are actually talking to, despite who the author or authors of a discourse are.

As critical, intentional thinkers who attempt to engage, map, and push forward knowledge of and about the Africana world and its contributions to and relationships with the world; we do not involve ourselves into putting much energy into petty non-substantive critiques of the work or works of others.

But we do pay attention. We are cognizant of the various discourses that are promoted. We are interested in ontological and epistemic decolonization processes...

Amiri Baraka once wrote:

“The actual beginnings of our expression are post Western (just as they certainly are pre-western). It is only necessary that we arm ourselves with complete self-knowledge the whole technology (which is after all just expression of whoever) will change to reflect the essence of a freed people.”

Today, AWNP’s Josh Myers explores 1619 in context. Moving the conversation and offering those who’s curiosities have been primed to see the what this 1619 thing is all about.

Josh Myers teaches Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He serves on the editorial board of The Compass and is editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Enjoy the program!

Image & Artist: Emilio O'Farrill

Descriptors such as jungle music, negro music, jazz...African American Classical Music. Black Classical Music. Spirit Music...and African Rhythms...have been attached to the vibrational human expressions, that once organized into various rhythms, notes, and harmonies become what we have come to call—music. The deep structures that organize these vibrations have purpose. They have origin. They have life. They represent life. They aide us through life. They are bridges between and expressions of worlds seen and worlds unseen. They are all around us. Exploring the form and functions of African rhythms and all that they contribute to our world are part and parcel of understanding the interconnections between the material and nonmaterial, and how they inform each other.

This past April 2019, at the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization’s (ASCAC) meeting held at Medgar Evers College in New York, a discussion titled African Rhythms: A Workshop on Cultural Continuity and the Future of Jazz, was developed to explore what was laid out above.

Who you will hear next in order of speaker, the wide-ranging discussion from this meeting:

George Turner is a longtime activist from Brooklyn, NY and currently serves on the Board of ASCAC.

Hank Williams is a jazz writer and radio host and professor at Lehman College.

Dr. Anyabwile Love is an assistant professor of Black Studies at the Community College of Philadelphia and a scholar of John Coltrane.

Dr. Josh Myers (AWNP Collective, is assistant professor of Africans Studies at Howard University.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

How do we see?...before you become perplexed at such a simple question...the answer is more complex than we usually give time to consider…

If you thought and said, with our eyes! Then you are fractionally correct. And I mean fractionally…because the sciences have proven beyond doubt, opinion or belief that, we quote see unquote with our mind(s). The various conflation of influences that coagulate to shape our perspectives and perceptions that over a course of time and space we have, either, been forced to or voluntarily merge into our life trajectories, is in fact what we see. Therefore, what we feel. And, consequently, what we do (or don’t do) is directly guided by this fact.

The universal consciousness of the what physicists have come to discover— a living universe, a collective consciousness to which we are all linked…known to ancient Africans—refined through centuries of civilization of the Nubians and Kemet (Egyptians), known to them as the primordial waters of nun, known and expressed to us daily as, emotion…identified through science as light…is vital to all life—including the life of the mind.

Various Africana systems have attempted to systemize this multiplicity of this knowledge filtered through time and space, material and spiritual explorations. For example, Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau in African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: Principles of Life & Living introduces us to the scared knowledge of what is conceptualized as the Kongo Vee. According to Dr. Fu-key aw Bunseki, the ‘V’ is one of the most important keys to understanding life on the planet earth and the cosmic bodies. The ‘V’ is everything because it is the beginning itself. It is the bridging wire between thinking-matter the human (muntu), and the world of un-thinking matter (the world and source of un-grasped ideas and images. (African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: 130-131).

In his book, Dark Light Consciousness, Dr. Bynum adds to our understanding of the role and importance of African wisdom and its influences. In fact, we can say with assured confidence, fundamental facts-or wisdom-that make-up African knowledge systems are the direct origins of contemporary discoveries in various fields of inquiry such as, but not limited to, quantum physics and the musings of advance ideas captured in string theory.

Dr. Bynum writes that ‘Light itself now appears more and more to us as a vibration of a fifth dimension. Both forces and Beings appear to us in the realm of light and it is our disposition that influences what we see' (Dark Light Consciousness: 3).

In other words, our eyes function to perceive and receive light which allows us to quote see based upon our cultivated (or uncultivated) understanding of the totality of experimental and experiential knowledge invoked by a singular phenomenon or collection of phenomea. More plainly, what we quote see is what our understanding of the mind allows us to quote see.

Today, we expand upon and more deeply explore these ideas with Dr. Edward Bruce Bynum, as they are presented in his book, Dark Light Consciousness: Melanin, Serpent Power, and the Luminous Matrix of Reality.

Dr. Edward Bruce Bynum is former director of the Behavioral Medicine & Anxieties Disorders Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Health Services in Amherst, a clinical psychologist, a practitioner of kundalini yoga, and author of several books of poetry, psychology, and has published numerous clinical articles for scientific journals.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Enjoy the program!

Music:

The Light Remix (Common)-J Dilla

Like it Is-Yusef Lateef

Nafas-Zeb

Picture: Sirius A