- Aug 28, 2015
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My dear conscious Black brothers and sisters, know that I love you. This love is usually a source of great joy for me. But love does not always come with understanding. We have to work toward that. So I write this message not in hopes of stirring bees into striking, but with the goal of producing something sweeter. An accord. Or, if you will, hotep.
Let’s talk about hotep for a moment. In a very simplified definition, hotep is an Egyptian word that means “to be at peace.” But on Twitter, Hotep means something completely different. It’s an insult toward a demographic of Black people, usually men, who deem themselves “conscious.” It becomes an affectation.
However, my dear brothers and sisters, I’d like to point out a distinction. There is hotep, ideally a peace invoked by the principles of Maat (truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice), and then there is fauxtep, which is elitist ideology disguised as rebelution. I also call it NOtep. Because there are some principles of your “conscious” Blackness that slide toward intraracial oppression rather than freedom.
First, a confession. I eat bacon and other pork items. I know: this vice automatically disqualifies me from being conscious. I try to eat pork sparingly because I understand its detriments, but I offer you no apologies for my friendliness toward swine. I have seen your lip curl up in revulsion when you talk about how your less enlightened family eats the hog. And then you seek the bottom of a bottle of Crown Royal, or inhale the dank smoke of a Black and Mild. My wrong doesn’t make you right. We all have our peccadilloes.
But I am not so sure you believe this, that one man’s sin is another man’s simple pleasure.
Read more
http://trulytafakari.com/be-hotep-not-fauxtep-a-letter-to-my-conscious-black/