Chief Elder Osiris : RANDOM THOUGHTS ON AFRICAN-AMERICAN

Chief Elder Osiris

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Jan 3, 2002
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RANDOM THOUGHTS ON AFRICAN-AMERICAN



Hoteph Beloved Runoko:

Brother I love your Job, the traveling I am speaking of, because there is no better teacher than to be able to see and observe the wonders of this beautiful planet, and observe the Many and various Ethnic attitude, behavior, and Life style of the people that make up this Diverse World.

Beloved, I practice to be a very precise Thinker and is well self trained to be very observant and in being so, be very objective in that I both look at and see, and now I am about to respond to you, being totally objective, no hidden mental agenda and absent of irrational emotion, even what you have presented here, if one is not self discipline, one can become more subjectively irrational emotional, in responding to your invite for feed back.

Beloved, I see that in your subject matter you indicate that your Thoughts are Random ones and not specific ones, that make a difference, because it indicate that your Mind is open and has not reached a definitive conclusion of the matter at hand, which is Afrikan American and it being the label most but not all Children of the Middle passage subscribe to in the USA, and I am one of them and let me tell you why.

First of all Afrikan American, Afrikan Afrika, Afrikan Ethiopian and so on, such labeling to identify ourselves happen to be misleading and deceptive, because when dealing with who we are, we have an obligation to be specific and to be specific in identifying people, it should in my thoughts, be based upon the phenotype of the Being and not the Geography in which the Being reside, which only indicate a place of resident, habitat or nativity to a particular land mass, which has nothing to do with whom the Being really is.

Beloved, what you have shared with us about what your thoughts are, concerning how you will address yourself and about the life stylish culture of others, there is no doubt, many different Ethnic Groups you have been privileged to observe and the habits we have developed in the way we identify specific groups on this planet, does not render justice in the Truthfulness that should be used in identifying people of specific phenotype.

For instance, what is an Afrikan American, there is no such thing when being specific in identifying whom we are, located in the place referred to as America United State, and we being descendants of Enslaved Black people brought from a place call Afrika, so in all reality, making them to be Black Afrikans, therefore the children of the middle passage can be referred as not Afrikan americans but Blacks in america, because the place of resident is not Afrika but america United state, even tho many of us Black People have evolved to become american in out Belief and Spirit. ( action ).

Now, when dealing with a certain attitudinal Behavior of a specific group of people and the attitude and behavior happen to comply to the ethnocentrism of the dominant group of that society, which in term reflect the environment that is spawned from the behavior of the centrist dominant group, it is then commonly accepted in identifying people by their habits, which can be learned, instead by their phenotype, thus you have in term of Black people, identifying ourselves as being Afrikan Americans, but you also have a Thinking element of the same Enslaved Group that are identifying ourselves by our phenotype, which is Black In america, those who remain to be fighters against the pressure of conformity in an Environment that is created and dominated by the Group that control the society Belief habits about the cause and effect of which occur from Events, be they Natural or Man Made.

So it boil do in term of how we identify ourselves to be Left up to the members of the Group that might find themselves in an Environment in which we played no part in creating, we just end up identifying ourselves to be a part of it.

Beloved, Division, Confinement, and Mental weakness, give cause to us to identify ourselves differently, even when there is a basic commonality of the Group being identified.

There is no Afrikan Ethiopian, Afrikan Nigerian, Afrikan Ugandan and so on and so forth, there is just Black People identifying themselves in relationship to the Geographical area and in regard to Black people in that place call Afrika, you have the prime geographical identification intersecting with secondary geographical location in the same vicinity, doing so by Location of division, which give cause to spawn sub-cultural environments that become identified with those sub divided grouping of Black people, they that wear the same phenotype, making all that occupy that land referred to as Afrika to be Black people in Afrika, so in actuality we Black people are Divine Beings now identifying ourselves in relationship to the geographical area we find ourselves, be it central or divided, which is the way those Black people in Afrika are.

Beloved, I am the first to admit that environment has a helluva telling effect on our psychic, which is reflected in our attitudinal behavior and Life style, but that is not who we are, it is who we have become and we have become what we are not, because we are not a Unified Homogeneous People anymore, so there is no Black People that can intelligently make claim to be of their original selves to be other that what we are, Black Divine Universal Being here on Planet call Earth in a place on Earth referred to as Afrika, so you have Afrikans in Afrika that is not Black Divine People, you have Afrikans in Ethiopia that is not Black Divine People and nor is the Ethiopian identified as Afrikan Nigerians, nor the Afrikan American identified as Afrikan Sudanese, yet all of those False grouping of identification of Black People, is what have the Black Nation in the present accepted condition we now are in today.

I am neither Afrika Afrikan, nor am I of the Subdivided geographical Afrika and nor am I Afrikan american, I an by Birth Right, a Black Universal Divine Being that is inhabiting at the moment a place on this planet call america, being held in captivity having an environmental attitude and behavior and its cultural persuasion enforce upon me.

Nature Grouping of people, become as they are, until they become as forced to be, creating an Environment which is not of that Natural Group Making, divided and self disoreinted to the knowledge of our True identity, which is Black Divine Beings, now located on Planet Earth, in a place on Earth referred to as the USA and we Black people here are now commonly referred to as Afrikan american, a sure sign of us not knowing whom we are, be we in america or Afrika or everywhere we now find our Black confused selves.

Here Is Loving You

Hoteph
Osiris
Chief elder
FWIOAM/SRM










Runoko Rashidi <Runoko@yahoo.com> wrote:
10 June 2007

Greetings Family,

How are you? I am pretty good and pretty well rested
now. I've spent the last couple of days relaxing and
being with family, especially my daughter. My
daughter's name is Assata Garvey. She was named after
Assata Shakur and Marcus Garvey. She is almost twenty
months old now. She is very active, very intelligent,
and very beautiful. Or do all parents say that about
their children? Well, in my case it is true! I
really adore this child and I can really tell you that
being a first time father beginning at the age of
fifty has been a real experience and adjustment! And,
oh, by the way, her mother is fantastic!

So now, what about those observations and issues that
came out of my most recent Africa trip that I said
that "I found myself reflecting on"? Let's take the
first one first.

I do not expect this one to endear myself to you but I
need some feedback. You know, as I wandered around
Africa interacting with a lot of different kinds of
folks I found myself becoming more and more
comfortable with the term African-American.

Don't get me wrong here. I still see myself as an
African living in America and I relish the expression
that "You are not an African because you are born in
Africa; you are an African because African is born in
you." But, for the moment at least, I am no longer
ashamed of or even uncomfortable with, as I once was,
the African-American label. What has brought about
this change?

I've mentioned before that "travel causes you to
confront yourself, even deep seated values that you
rarely question." So let me put this in a context, as
maybe it has been growing and evolving for a while
now. I think that it may have accelerated last year
during an extended trip through Southern Africa.

While in Johannesburg I spent time with a lot of
anti-apartheid activists. I enjoyed and admired them.
And then I went to East Africa and spent some time in
Kenya where I learned more about the Mau Mau
Rebellion. I remember speeches as a youth by Malcolm
X on the Mau Mau and I grew to adulthood during the
struggle to abolish apartheid. These were intense and
heroic struggles.

And then, I thought to myself, have not the struggle
of Africans in America, for example, the civil rights
movement and the Black power movement, also been
intense and heroic. All of these movements, whether
in South Africa or Kenya or the United States,
inspired and influenced Africans around the world. And
growing up in Los Angeles and spending a lot of time
in Washington, D.C. with their large Ethiopian
communities, and visiting Ethiopia itself, reinforced
how proud these sisters and brothers are in their
Ethiopian heritage and identity. Is it a
contradiction to be Kenyan or Ethiopian or South
African, and just plain African? Is one not both, or
does one negate the other?

Part of my recent shame about the word
African-American came from the sense that we are the
descendants of Africans who were captured and sent
into enslavement. But, just as sure, we resisted that
process every step of the way and defeated the efforts
of our enslavers. And so, I thought, perhaps being an
African-American, like being a South African or a
Kenyan or an Ethiopian, Africans all the same, is not
such a terrible thing after all.

And then I began to realize more and more and more,
again through travel, that how in spite of our African
identity, how "American" we frequently act. I see
this, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, a lot of
times in myself in regards to how I react and respond
to things, like food for example, and not being
prepared to embrace some of the things that other
Africans embrace. Here is an example, during my
recent trip to Malawi on at least three occasions I
saw roadside vendors holding up for sale long thin
sticks with roasted mice skewered on them. My
drivers, both of them, explained to me how the mice
were caught and how good they tasted. But I made no
effort to stop the cars that I was traveling in, as I
instinctively made up my mind that this was a meal of
mice that I was not going to have! Was that the
American in me?

And I sometimes find myself getting angry when I don't
get the service that I am accustomed to. Anywhere
else in the world that I do it is not so bad but when
I behave that way in Africa itself I find myself more
than a little embarrassed.

But I really see the "American" side during group
tours. And sometimes I am deeply embarrassed by both
what I see and hear. It really reached a low point in
Ghana last year when I heard a couple of of the
sisters on the tour joke among themselves about the
"bad smell" of the local people. Sisters and
brothers, I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and
jump in it and cover myself up. Another example is
the condescending way that we sometimes talk down to
sisters and brothers on the continent. And we do have
a rather bad reputation for excessive complaining.

But instead of stressing about it perhaps these are
the times to really muster the courage to rise to the
occasion and patiently educate those of us who should
know better. So this may sound crazy, but in a way I
think that I have become more comfortable with the
term African-American because of the dawning reality
that as much as we like to see ourselves as "African"
and say that we are "African" our behavior is
frequently more "American" than the average European!
Please don't get me wrong here, as I am not endorsing
this behavior. It is only the realization as to how
"American" in many ways we have become, and how much
work we have to do to correct it.

So these are just some random thoughts. Now, please
tell me if any of it makes sense. I am not a traitor
for raising these issues, am I? Have I gone crazy?
Have I always been crazy? Have I lost my mind or do I
just need to taken to the wood shed? Am I being
realistic or tribalistic? Am I setting the struggle
back?

Get back to me and help a brother out. I need some
clarity.

In love of Africa,

Runoko Rashidi Okello, confused in France
 

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