What Capitalism Looks Like

And every time I realize that I'm living in a society that consciously chooses to live this way, and fights wars to ensure others follow suit, I feel this deep twinge of sorrow.

I shouldn't be here

I don't believe in any of these things.

I feel as though I have the best of intentions - and I try not to promote harmful attitudes or behavior.

but here I am typing on a mac and tweeting

I try to spread the message - and I'm certainly not materialistic

but I just feel so guilty.

For now: I'm collecting the information and sharpening the skills necessary to attempt to fix this. But before I can do anything, there has to be a major shift in mentality.

Can we do that?

Can you help me?

Too Soon?

If you are looking...

"I have some bad news and some good news.
The bad news is - there is no key to the Universe.
The good news is - it was never locked."

- Swami Beyondananda

our true nature is our silent and unchanging consciousness

"Everything in the universe is constantly changing and everything is dynamically interrelated. According to what physicists have discovered, there is no such thing as nothing because even in a void there is the potential for things to come into being spontaneously, and they can vanish again, into the void: these events happen continuously. From this void all forms can come into being and it is the source of all life."

"Buddha and many Zen Masters never answered questions regarding the nature of things, or the meaning of life, because they knew there was nothing to be explained. Yet, the meaning of life is to firstly understand it, then to put meaning into it."





I found this quite interesting
Read more here

selah

There has never been another large historical event that has it’s decedents be told to ‘get over’ than the ancestors’ of the enslavement of millions of Africans transported across the Atlantic.

There has never been such any formal set of reparations for the 300+ centuries of enslavement of Africans, and needless to say, there obviously never will be one. (As more time passes, its getting easier to ‘explain’ why reparations simply ‘cannot be made’).

I ponder this question often. How exactly can that be done? How can you get over what is your identity in the US? Your heritage? Get over your lineage? Get over your ancestry? Get over your great grandparents legacy? Get over the fact that you cannot trace your family tree than a few generations?

Hey, any tips guys? You have yet to give out any.

I know many of you like to imagine that the transatlantic slave trade took place thousands of years ago. On some B.C. or some shit. I know its comforting if you compare it to the slaves of the Romans, Greeks or the Hebrews in Egypt [okay, I’m just entertaining the idea that the Biblical story of Exodus is real for a moment] because its ancient history. Too bad it isn’t. There were still former slaves around in the 1940s. (That’s during the time of World War II, by the way. I’m certain no one forgets that).

It seems as though anything that involves Black suffering should either be swept under the rug, or that we must ‘move on’ from it. We should never acknowledge it. Anniversaries should never be mentioned. Just move on and pretend it never happened.

Any time one attempts to bring up slavery in any kind of discussion we are immediately silenced or disregarded; our tragedies don’t matter, they are dismissed whether it be because it was too long ago [slavery was abolished 150 years ago, but the violence and discrimination along with Jim Crow did not end until the 1970s] or trivialized (deflecting direct responsibility by pointing out that the Africans were selling the slaves to the Europeans, as if that holds any relevance. If not that, but ‘Arabs had African slaves too!’ or ‘Blacks were not the only slaves. White people were slaves too!’ And if not, then of course than ‘well none of you guys are slaves!’)

There is no end to the excuses made. Every time I feel like I’ve heard it all, I learn a new one. There is absolutely no acceptance of wrongdoings. Its not my fault, leave me alone. Stop trying to make me feel “guilty”.

I’ve even read about some disapproving openings of slave museum because it might spark ‘anger’. Why is the history of African enslavement the only event that has ever been censored? I mean its not like this country wasn’t built upon slavery, the free labor of African Americans or anything. But the abundance of Holocaust (an event that did not even occur in the states) museums are okay.

America is such an immature young country. Nobody whines as much as the United States when it comes to facing their own past crimes. In Germany the Nazi flag and salute are banned. You will get arrested. The Confederate flag? Still flying in some places (by the way guys, in case you forgot, you lost).

The fact that the first public apology for slavery did not occur until the late 1990s says it all. This alone makes statements like ‘I’m tired of apologizing for slavery!’ and ‘I’m tired of being punished!’ from White Americans laughable bullshit. You’ve never had to apologize for anything. Not slavery, not Jim Crow, not Tulsa, not Rosewood (an event that was kept secret and not revealed to the public until the 1980s) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

For all the centuries worth of colonizing, raping, murdering, genocide, self hatred and torture they have done/brought upon other people of the earth, what is this constant ‘punishment’ you keep bringing up? Being made fun of as being bland in comedy stand ups?

What were the repercussions…not being able to freely do those racist things anymore? Not being able to ridicule, harass and/or humiliate black people as openly anymore?

I’d say you guys got off pretty fucking easy.

[source]

The Black Diaspora

Watch the full episode. See more Black in Latin America.

Nothing Can Be Done Against the Truth

Wise Words from Brother Malcolm

Jury Nullfication - Rogue Juries for Justice

We discussed Paul Butler in class today - I agree with him 100%.
If a minority is accused of a victimless and/or non-violent crime, and I am on the jury for which there is plenty of evidence presented against him, I will find him not guilty... period.

I believe this is my duty.
I am not in law school to send my people to prison. I am so with you, brother.

Liberal vs. Radical

Where I begin to disagree...

1) I don't we are made up of "groups" but I also don't believe in individualism.

• I believe that we are all one.
• When we divide ourselves and create these hierarchies we hurt ourselves and go against our nature of oneness.
• I understand that in functional society there is a great divide of the have and have nots, but I strongly believe focusing on that divide is counterproductive.
• Anyone advocating revolution should hope that we are creating unity.

2) Education IS necessary.

• How do we take the systems apart brick by brick without knowing how to?
• How do we take the systems apart if we don't even realize they are there?
• I get what she is saying but, there must be a revolution of the mind before there is a manifestation of it.
• I don't believe everyone has to be on board, nor that we must systematically wait (generations) for people to understand - but I think it's silly to think education isn't a factor.

I do agree that we consent to our oppression.
But, the awful thing is - most people don't even realize they are oppressed.
They think everything is fine.
They are totally oblivious to the fact that a lot of these things are going on.
Which goes back to why I strongly believe that education is such an important factor.

Which are you?

Sister Souljah

Let's save ourselves
Let's save the minds of our black people

To live would be an awfully big adventure

...why are you crying?

Puer aeternus

or eternal boy is used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.

"The one thing dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatsoever." - Marie-Louise von Franz

"Common symptoms of puer psychology are dreams of imprisonment and similar imagery: chains, bars, cages, entrapment, bondage. Life itself...is experienced as a prison." - Daryl Sharp

This is associated with/related to/similar in ways to Peter Pan Syndrome.

& well - I still believe in fairies.

Consciousness Drives The Universe

Expand your consciousness.
Change your mind - Change your reality.
Observe the world around you.
Notice the patterns.
Embrace the energy.
We're all one.

Perspective

I wish I could birth what I see so

you could understand why everything is beautiful

and maybe if my eyes could manifest everything I've found in you

you wouldn't feel so empty

and one day I'll show you all the reasons I love you

so you won't hate yourself

PHASE 1: INITIATED

It is quite easy to lose oneself in the system of "things".

http://www.whatis-theplan.org
Become a member and join us as we initiate a movement for real change.

RAGE Day

"July 4 is a holiday celebrated by all Americans. No matter what race, color, or creed most citizens wait for sun down to see the fireworks illuminate the night sky. From the annual “Taste” festival in Chicago, IL, to the laser shows in Stone Mountain, GA, loved ones unite to gaze upon their own version of the war torn sky, littered with bombs and polluted with gun smoke described by Francis Scott Key.

This night in 1776, Britain gave birth to its bastard daughter, America, giving us our annual holiday Independence Day…."

Download Kodeine’s new mixtape: RAGE

Stole this post from a friend
Because I love his music, and I find it relevant.

RAGE

Mentality of the Oppressed

We're taking it now.

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.”

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.”
- John Lennon

Imagine how our world would look to an alien observer. The notes taken by an evolved and sensitive species might look something like this:

Humans appear to be creatures of routine — the majority wake up before they have rested sufficiently, needing a loud beeping alarm to prematurely stir them from their slumber, and a liquid stimulant to force them into unnatural alertness. They then get into small metal vehicles, which emit toxic gasses and were assembled by mostly miserable factory workers.

A large number of humans take these small metal vehicles to small, sterile cubicles, where they stare at a small rectangular screen for eight hours, pressing buttons, with one hour off to eat.


For their time in front of the screen, they receive tokens (some people have their own private cubicle and receive more tokens than the rest,) which they exchange for shelter (which is left empty most of the day, while they go off and earn the tokens which obtained it in the first place).

....


The primary activities expected to be carried out by these adult humans seem to be almost unanimously joyless, but the tokens received appear to be incentive enough.

Individuals who refuse to conform and pay homage to the tokens are almost unanimously ridiculed as lazy, good-for-nothing, mentally unsound, losers, etc. Unless individuals can find some way to earn tokens, they can not afford to buy or rent shelter and as a result become cemented in their roles as social pariahs.

“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.”
-William James

Read more...

May we see the shadows on the walls for what they are
and turn away, leaving the cave
for the sunshine of fresh thought.

Where are our priorities?

In communist countries
everyone has access to education
everyone has access to healthcare
no one is homeless

How important is greed?
At what cost do we fight this fight for the "freedom" to oppress?

Through my mind's eye

I wish I knew properly how to explain my thought process -
the things I see
what they mean to me
the world I experience.

I'm learning.
But... once I figure it out
who will it be relevant to?

Will it save a life or heal a broken heart?
Will it change someone's understanding?

Is it worth being properly understood, if those understood thoughts are still ignored?

It's natural to me

"I have sea-foam in my veins,
I understand the language of waves."

- Le Testament d’Orphée

Do we experience life as our relation to the universe?
Or is everything - people, places, things - an object?

When you jump in the ocean, don't you feel at home?
Within nature, don't you feel safe?
Or is it just another place - something else to do?


I don't know how to describe the way I feel when I'm surrounded by nature.
But it all just points to the idea that I belong elsewhere.
Fully immersed in nature.
Away from everything else.

Where are your priorities?

Capitalism would have you believe
that you need all these marketed things to make you:

• thinner
• more beautiful
• stronger
• faster
• more cool
• more appealing
• more successful
• more happy
• BETTER

Capitalism would have you believe that you are:

• fat
• ugly
• a failure
• inherently INFERIOR

and that you must work to fix these problems you were born with.


So we forget how fortunate we are, and kill ourselves with insecurities.
What do you really need?
What can you do without?

selah

Dr. West says...

The First Black FBI Agent

...was employed to take out the Garvey movement

The influence of Marcus Garvey

Part 2, part 3, part 4, Part 5,

This documentary chronicles one of fathers of pan-africanism, Marcus Garvey. It looks at his influence and how his movement was taken apart by the US government.

Heres a little known fact: the first black FBI agent was employed to take out the Garvey movement. The social conditions of his time created individuals like Garvey as blacks were still routinely Jim crowed in America at that time.

‘The stronger we are as a people the more respect we will command as a people’. One ideal all Pan African leaders shared was that they were firmly against Afro pessimism. They always kept moving, with a intense burning desire to change things by any progressive means necessary. Many of these men knew their history and they were eager to get back there. Knowing real African history makes it impossible to accept many conditions that have been placed on many of us. From to social context of hair, colorism, slavery and racism.

Through all of Garvey’s battles he brought together a race that had no direction and gave them hope and opportunity. Even though, he was forced to leave the United States he accomplished one of the largest black movements in America.

Happy Birthday

One Request

In honor TuPac's 40th birthday,
a request for all "artists" today.

Try.Live.Do

These are the Facts

Your Choice

What Message Do you Choose to Receive?

Selah

Sisters

Words from Brother Malcolm

“If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches,
that’s not progress.
If you pull it all the way out,
that’s not progress.
The progress comes from healing the wound that the blow made.
They haven’t even begun to pull the knife out.
They won’t even admit the knife is there.”

— Malcolm X

Stan The White Man

So what is your ideology?

"White supremacist ideology is based first and foremost on the degradation of black bodies in order to control them. One of the best ways to instill fear in people is to terrorize them. Yet this fear is best sustained by convincing them that their bodies are ugly, their intellect is inherently underdeveloped, their culture is less civilized, and their future warrants less concern than that of other peoples."

- Dr. Cornel West

Really, I'm here to be helpful

"Where I am now
I accept
and I understand
that I don't know anything"

The Black Arrow

blackacrylic:

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Documentary originally broadcast in 1996 by the BBC about the life and work of Gil Scott-Heron. R.I.P brother.

\

A peek into history

Today in 1966,
Stokley Carmichael launched
the “Black Power” movement.

Mumia

JUSTICE ON TRIAL - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal from Big Noise Films on Vimeo.

People are biased

they lie

and they cheat

where is the justice?

Dear We,

Just be.

Education for Africa

Upload Documents for a Good Cause

Shadeism

Shadeism from Shadeism on Vimeo.

How can we be upset that others hate us
when we hate ourselves?

What always comes first: Love yourself

Mind the way you refer to others.
If it reflects anything other than love
make sure you remembered what comes first.

No Re-Runs Brother

Because the Revolution will not be televised

Let's Get the Language Right

"They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see...! .... Look at the word 'white', it's always something pure, high, and clean. Well I want to get the language right"



Have you authored your emancipation?
Are you sure?

selah

The Robbing of Our History

I find this part comical
and part amazing.

I am not Muslim,
but Malcolm X deserves respect and attention.

His intelligence gives me chills.

Dichotomies of the Diaspora

Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.

Do you get it yet?
Do you love yourself?
Are you sure?

selah

The Black Power Mixtape

Wake up.
We miss you.

The Greats

Fidel Castro & Malcolm X

selah

Telling the Truth: A Revolutionary Act

If thought corrupts language,
language can also corrupt thought.

Worldview: What is your perspective?

Black Psychology in the American Context

Do you see why I feel that I do not belong here?
It seems unnatural

selah

Words Shape Thought

Next time you hear a rap song:

• replace " Nigga " with " Strong Black Man "
• replace " Bitch " with " Strong Black Woman "

Try it and take note.
See how wrong it seems to treat each other the way that we do
if we actually saw each other the way we should see each other.


When I refer to you as " King " or " Queen " I am not trying to
"seem more conscious" than you.
I'm showing you that I will give you the respect you deserve as my brother or sister.

selah

The Revolution

People think it's a "fad" or
young radical concept.


Everything I do revolves around preparation.


If it's not my lifetime,
I will learn enough to teach my children
and/or make sure they aren't in America.


But only time will tell.
I hope you're on the right side when the time comes.

You are the only one who's ever really seen me

Childish Gambino; So Fly



I really enjoy this song.
Perhaps you will too.

What is time?

I often say that I am a fairy/was a fairy in my past life.
Long explanation behind that - I may write about it later.

Anyway:
In response to something nonsensical, I said

"Faeries don't believe in time - this is new for me in this body"

Which made my mind race so I decided I had to log my thoughts.
I then said:

"I want to learn the language for which there is no acknowledgment of "time" or "past" or "future".
..How would it be to only think in terms of NOW? If we had no words/tenses to embody the idea of what was & what may be.
..How would it be if we all actually believed we were eternal? If we never at all feared death."

I am a strong believer of the concept that language shapes thought.
If I spoke the language in which there was no mention of time itself,
I wonder what my mentality would be.
If forever didn't exist - just now.

If we never feared the end of anything
because we didn't believe that anything ended.

And well... What is time anyway?
Is it something we've created?
Do I only believe in it, because I speak a language that has a word for it?
When I was a fairy, did I live forever?
Aren't I still one then?

When I was a flower/a Queen/the twinkle of a star
how could I have ever faded or died or become anything else
if there is no past.
I must be all of those things concurrently.
Right now.

Perhaps time is a man-made invention
and God/Ma'at/The Universe sees it all as happening at once.
(there's an extended theory of this, but I'll save it).


Peace =]

Who Taught You To Hate Yourself?

It's Malcolm X's Birthday
It's only appropriate:




Who taught you to chemically alter any of what you were created as?

Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Dios, Ma'at Jah, The Great Spirit, The Universe

created your DNA with proper knowledge and wisdom. With intent. It was not accident.
Who are you to chemically alter these things, and furthermore
why would you want to?

What is Hotep?

Hi.
I'm Hannah.
Love is my King, and I am policed by Peace.

I'm not too sure what I'll blog about.
Perhaps this will just be a compilation of my thoughts.

But for now, I am at Peace
and wish the same to you.
=]