Monday, July 30, 2012
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Compiled by Ashiba AdandePosted: January 13, 2003
Is the human body better suited to a vegetarian diet or one that includes meat?
In answering this question two areas should be considered, - the anatomical structure of the human body, and the physical effects of meat consumption.
HUMAN ANATOMY
Human teeth like those of the herbivorous creatures are designed for grinding and chewing plant food. Humans lack the sharp front teeth for tearing flesh, that are characteristic of carnivores. Meat eating animals generally swallow their food without chewing it and therefore do not require molars or a jaw capable of moving sideways.
Once within the stomach meat requires digestive juices high in hydrochloric acid. The stomachs of humans and herbivores produces acid less than one twentieth the strength of that found un carnivores. Another crucial difference between the meat eater and the vegetarian is found in the intestinal tract, where the food is further digested and nutrients are passed into the blood. A piece of meat is just part of a corpse, and its putrefaction creates poisonous wastes within the body, therefore meat must be quickly eliminated. For this purpose, carnivores posses alimentary canals only three times the length of their bodies. Since man like other non flesh eating animals has an alimentary canal twelve times his body length, rapidly decaying flesh is retained for a much longer time, producing a number of undesirable toxic effects. One body organ adversely affected by these toxins is the kidney. This vital organ, extracts waste from the blood, and is greatly strained by the overload of poisons introduced by the meat consumption, and as one grows older this vital organ will not be able to cope with this stress, and the risk of kidney disease and failure increases.
The inability of the human body to deal with excessive animal fats in the diet is another indication of the unnaturalness of meat eating. Carnivorous animals can metabolize almost unlimited amounts of cholesterol and fats without any adverse effects. On the other hand, herbivorous species have a very limited ability to deal with any level of cholesterol or saturated fats beyond the amount required by the body. When over a period of many years an excess is consumed fatty deposits(plaque) accumulate on the walls of the arteries, hardening of the arteries,(arteriosclerosis).
Because these deposits constrict the flow of blood to the heart, the potential for heart attacks, strokes, and blood is great.
Further evidence of the unsuitability of the human intestinal tract for digestion of flesh is the relationship, established by numerous studies, between colon cancer and meat eating. Because of the high fat, low fiber content of the meat-centered diet, the result is a slow transit time through the colon, allowing toxic waste to do damage. More over meat while being digested is known to generate steroids metabolites possessing carcinogenic (cancer producing) properties.
NUTRITION IN A MEATLESS DIET
The ideas that meat has a monopoly on protein and that large amounts of proteins are required for energy and strength are both myths. When food is digested, most proteins break down into its constituent amino acids, which are reconverted and used by the body for growth and tissue replacement.
Of these twenty-two amino acids, the body itself can synthesize all but eight, and these eight essential amino acids exist in abundance in plant foods.
Grains, peas and beans, nuts are all but concentrated sources of protein. However, the primary energy source for the body is carbohydrates. Only as a last resort is the body's protein utilized for energy production. Too much protein intake actually reduces the body's energy capacity.
In a series of comparative endurance exercises conducted by Yale University's Dr Irving Fisher, vegetarians performed twice as well as meat eaters.
Furthermore studies carried out by Brussels' University's Dr J Iotekyo and Dr V. Kipani, showed that vegetarians were able to perform physical tests two to three times longer than meat eaters before exhaustion and were fully recovered from fatigue in one fifth the time needed by meat eaters.
Numerous other studies have shown that a proper vegetarian diet provides more nutritional energy than meat.
For most people, protein makes up more than twenty percent of their diet, although inadequate amounts of protein will cause loss of strength, excess protein cannot be utilized by the body; rather it is converted into nitrogenous waste that burdens the kidneys.
Sources: Diet & Coronary Heart Disease
Journal of the American Medical Association
Vol.222 No. 13(Dec 25 1972) p1647
Cancer and other Diseases from Meat Consumption
Dr Leonardo Blanche, 1979, pg12
Metabolic Epidemology of Dietary Factors In Large Bowel Cancer
Michael J Hill M.D Cancer Research, Vol 35 No11, part 2. (Nov 1975)
Reclaiming My Roots
Reclaiming My Roots
By BrendaFreedom.
Recently, I broke away from the chemical plantation, releasing the thirty-year shackles that enslaved my pocketbook and consciousness---the previous thirteen years, my mother fried my hair with Dixie Peach hair grease and a straightening comb.
Many African Americans' perceptions of style and beauty manifest into self-hatred behavior against our natural state by slapping chemicals onto our hair. My natural hair was perceived as too thick, too curly, too bushy, time consuming, maintenance intensive and restricted my hair style choices. Such perceptions disguised true beauty with materialistic values. On the contrary, natural hair personifies natural beauty.
This liberating epiphany has resulted in freedom from all day sojourns to the beauty parlor and most importantly reduced health risks from chemical exposure [e.g. curling irons and burnt scalp to name a few].
During the relaxing process, the stylist puts on GLOVES, spreads protection around the hairline, and then applies the chemical into the hair. Common sense should have told me that if the chemicals were too strong for the stylist's hands, what did I think it would do to my porous scalp!
There are three types of active chemicals used in relaxers: sodium or potassium hydroxide, (AKA LYE, potash), guanidine hydroxide (less damaging than lye, but just as lethal) and thioglycolates (least damaging of the three). When chemicals are applied to the unprotected scalp, the skin absorbs their properties into the blood stream. Ingestion of lye causes severe abdominal pain, as well as serious damage to the mouth, respiratory system, throat and digestive tract.
I wonder what adverse relationship these chemicals (including the highly concentrated mixture of their fumes and other chemicals in the salons) have with various diseases affecting African American women. Ethically, this industry has shown little responsibility to the African American community. Evidence of this behavior is also demonstrated in retail store relaxer kits without child safety tops or age restricted purchases. I am unaware of any scientific studies, which have quantified the effects of the relaxing processes to vital organs of consumers. Such evidence is necessary for consumers to understand the public health risks associated with these products.
Statistics reveal that African American women visit the salons about once every three weeks, while Caucasian women visit once every 7 to 8 weeks. These statistics are not valid for me as I visited the salon religiously every two weeks. The average cost of my salon visits were about $60.00 per month for 360 months (30 years), which equals $21,600. If $60 were deposited monthly into some account at a mere 6% compounded monthly for 30 years; it would have yielded $60,000. Better still, if $60 per month had been invested in Wal-Mart Stocks (IPO occurred about 25 years ago) for the past 30 years, it would be worth millions of dollars today.
My indulgence (along with many other sisters) in chemically processed hair fueled a multi-million dollar industry. Softsheen (L'Oreal), African Pride(Revlon) and Johnson Products (Carson) are the three major manufactures of relaxers enjoying the fruits of my illusion. Gia Clinkscales, senior vice president of marketing for New Rochelle's (in NY) African Pride states that, "We (African Americans) tend to buy more beauty products and we tend to be less price-sensitive than the general market." (http://www.happi.com/special/4991.htm)
I feel so liberated and free.
This change to my natural state celebrates my spirit of love and respect for my ancestors and myself. My commentary is not intended to ridicule my sisters who have chosen an unnatural chemical state for their hair; they must follow their own bliss. Madame C. J. Walker, the first African American millionaire, entrepreneur and philanthropist, made her fortune retexturing natural hair so that it was more manageable. She developed a line of cosmetics; hair-care products and is credited with inventing the straightening comb.
I believe that we must be conscious of the signs and symbols projected by our outer appearances. Our daughters pattern their lives after us. Straightened hair sends powerful messages to their psyche.
The entities that define "beauty" are concerned with profits, not with the effects of the chemicals on our bodies and minds. This corrupt value system does not, will not and have not given African American people anything worthwhile. The more we are tuned to nature, the better and simpler our lives become. Reacquainting myself to my natural hair is like re-discovering an old, lost and dear friend---now that I've found you, I'll never let you go.
ARTICLES | HOMEPAGE
Copyright © 2003 RootsWomen.com
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
HISTORY IS A WEAPON
Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation
by Angela Y. Davis
Despite a long history of exalted appeals to man’s inherent right to resistance, there has seldom been agreement on how to relate in practice to unjust immoral laws and the oppressive social order from which they emanate. The conservative, who does not dispute the validity of revolutions deeply buried in history, invokes visions of impending anarchy in order to legitimize his demand for absolute obedience. Law and order, with the major emphasis on order, is his watchword. The liberal articulates his sensitivity to certain of society’s intolerable details, but will almost never prescribe methods of resistance that exceed the limits of legality — redress through electoral channels is the liberal’s panacea.
In the heat of our pursuit of fundamental human rights, black people have been continually cautioned to be patient. We are advised that as long as we remain faithful to the existing democratic order, the glorious moment will eventually arrive when we will come into our own as full-fledged human beings.
But having been taught by bitter experience, we know that there is a glaring incongruity between democracy and the capitalist economy which is the source of our ills. Regardless of all rhetoric to the contrary, the people are not the ultimate matrix of the laws and the system which govern them — certainly not black people and other nationally oppressed people, but not even the mass of whites. The people do not exercise decisive control over the determining factors of their lives.
Officials assertions that meaningful dissent is always welcome, provided it falls within the boundaries of legality, are frequently a smokescreen obscuring the invitation to acquiesce in oppression. Slavery may have been unrighteous, the constitutional precision for the enslavement of blacks may have been unjust, but conditions were not to be considered so bearable (especially since they were profitable to a small circle) as to justify escape and other acts proscribed by law. This was the import of the fugitive slave laws.
Needless to say, the history of the Unites States has been marred from its inception by an enormous quantity of unjust laws, far too many expressly bolstering the oppression of black people. Particularized reflections of existing social inequities, these law have repeatedly born witness to the exploitative and racist core of the society itself. For blacks, Chicanos, for all nationally oppressed people, the problem of opposing unjust laws and the social conditions which nourish their growth, has always had immediate practical implications. Our very survival has frequently been a direct function of our skill in forging effective channels of resistance. In resisting we have societies been compelled to openly violate those laws which directly or indirectly buttress our oppression. But even containing our resistance within the orbit of legality, we have been labels criminals and have been methodically persecuted by a racist legal apparatus.
Under the ruthless conditions of slavery, the underground railroad provided the framework for extra-legal anti-slavery activity pursued by vast numbers of people, both black and white. Its functioning was in flagrant violations of the fugitive slave law; those who were apprehended were subjected to sever penalties. Of the innumerable recorded attempts to rescue fugitive slaves from the clutches of slave catchers, one of the most striking in the case of Anthony Burns, a slave from Virginia, captured in Boston in 1853. A team of his supporters, in attempting to rescue him by force during the course of his trial, engaged the police in a fierce courtroom battle. During the gun fight, a prominent Abolitionist, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was wounded. Although the rescuers were unsuccessful in their efforts, the impact of this incident "…did more to crystallize Northern sentiment against slavery than any other except the exploit of John Brown, ‘ and this was the last time a fugitive slave was taken from Boston. It took 22 companies of state militia, four platoons of marines, a battalion of United States artillerymen, and the city’s police force … to ensure the performance of this shameful act, the cost of which, the Federal government alone, came to forty thousand dollars.’"
Throughout the era of slavery, blacks, as well as progressive whites, repeatedly discovered that their commitment to the anti-slavery cause frequently entailed the overt violation of the laws of the land. Even as slavery faded away into a more subtle yet equally pernicious apparatus to dominate black people, "illegal" resistance was still on the agenda. After the Civil War, Black Codes, successors to the old Slave Codes, legalized convict labor, prohibited social intercourse between blacks and whites, gave white employers an excessive degree of control over the private lives of black workers, and generally codified racism and terror. Naturally, numerous individual as well as collective acts of resistance prevailed. On many occasions, blacks formed armed teams to protect themselves form while terrorists who were, in turn, protected by law enforcement agencies, if not actually identified with them.
By the second decade of the twentieth century, the mass movement, headed by Marcus Garvey, proclaimed in its Declaration of Rights that black people should not hesitate to disobey all discriminatory laws. Moreover, the Declaration announced, they should utilize all means available to them, legal or illegal, to defend themselves from legalized terror as well as Ku Klux Klan violence. During the era of intense activity around civil rights issues, systematic disobedience of oppressive laws was a primary tactic. The sit-ins were organized transgressions of racist legislation.
All these historical instances involving the overt violation of the laws of the land converge around an unmistakable common denominator. At stake has been the collective welfare and survival of a people. There is a distinct and qualitative difference between one breaking a law for one’s own individual self-interest and violating it in the interests of a class of people whose oppression is expressed either directly or indirectly through that particular law. The former might be called criminal (though in many instances he is a victim), but the latter, as a reformist or revolutionary, is interested in universal social change. Captured, he or she is a political prisoner.
The political prisoner’s words or deed have in one from or another embodied political protests against the established order and have consequently brought him into acute conflict with the state. In light of the political content of his act, the "crime" (which may or may not have been committed) assumes a minor importance. In this country, however, where the special category of political prisoners is not officially acknowledged, the political prisoner inevitably stands trial for a specific criminal offense, not for a political act. Often the so-called crime does not even have a nominal existence. As in the 1914 murder frame-up of the IWW organizer, Joe Hill, it is a blatant fabrication, a mere excuse for silencing a militant crusader against oppression. In all instances, however, the political prisoner has violated the unwritten law which prohibits disturbances and upheavals in the status quo of exploitation and racism.. This unwritten law has been contested by actually and explicitly breaking a law or by utilizing constitutionally protected channels to educate, agitate, and organize masses to resist.
A deep-seated ambivalence has always characterized the official response to the political prisoner. Charged and tried for the criminal act, his guilt is always political in nature. This ambivalence is perhaps best captured by Judge Webster Thayer’s comment upon sentencing Bartolomero Vanzetti to fifteen years for an attempted payroll robbery: "This man, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable, because he is an enemy of our existing institutions." (The very same judge incidentally, sentences Sacco and Vanzetti to death for a robbery and murder of which they were manifestly innocent). It is not surprising that Nazi Germany’s foremost constitutional lawyers, Carl Schmitt, advanced the theory which generalized thus a priori culpability. A thief, for example, was not necessarily one who had committed an overt act of theft, but rather one whose character renders him a thief (wer nach seinem wesen win Dieb ist). [President Richard] Nixon’s and [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover’s pronouncements lead on to believe that they would readily accept Schmitt’s fascist legal theory. Anyone who seeks to overthrow oppressive institutions, whether or not he has engaged in an overt act, is a priori a criminal who must be buried away in one of America’s dungeons.
Even in all of Martin Luther King’s numerous arrests, he was not so much charged with the nominal crimes of trespassing, and disturbance of the peace, as with being enemy of he southern society, an inveterate foe of racism. When Robert Williams was accused of kidnapping, this charge never managed to conceal his real offense — the advocacy of black people’s incontestable right to bear arms in their own defense.
The offense of the political prisoner is political boldness, the persistent challenging — legally or extra-legally — of fundamental social wrongs fostered and reinforced by the state. The political prisoner has opposed unjust laws and exploitative, racist social conditions in general, with the ultimate aim of transforming these laws and this society into an order harmonious with the material and spiritual needs and interests of the vast majority of its members.
Nat Turner and John Brown were political prisoners in their time. The acts for which they were charged and subsequently hanged, were the practical extensions of their profound commitment to the abolition of slavery. They fearlessly bore the responsibility for their actions. The significance of their executions and the accompanying widespread repression did not lie so much in the fact that they were being punished for specific crimes, nor even in the effort to use their punishment as an implicit threat to deter others from similar armed acts of resistance. These executions, and the surrounding repression of slaves, were intended to terrorize the anti-slavery movement in general; to discourage and diminish both legal and illegal forms of abolitionist activity. As usual, the effect of repression was miscalculated and in both instances, anti-slavery activity was accelerated and intensified as a result.
Nat Turner and John Brown can be viewed as examples of the political prisoner who has actually committed an act which is defined by the state as "criminal". They killed and were consequently tried for murder. But did they commit murder? This raises the question of whether American revolutionaries had murdered the British in their struggle for liberation. Nat Turner and his followers killed some sixty-five white people, yet shortly before the revolt had begun, Nat is reputed to have said to the other rebelling slaves: "Remember that ours is not war for robbery nor to satisfy our passions, it is a struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds and not words",
The very institutions which condemned Nat Turner and reduced his struggle for freedom to a simpler criminal case of murder, owed their existence to the decision, made a half-century earlier, to take up arms against the British oppressor.
The battle for the liquidation of slavery had no legitimate existence in the eyes of the government and therefore the special quality of deeds carried out in the interests of freedom was deliberately ignored. There were no political prisoners, there were only criminals; just as the movement out of which these deeds flowed was largely considered criminal.
Likewise, the significance of activities which are pursued in the interests of liberation today is minimized not so much because officials are unable to see the collective surge against oppression, but because they have consciously set out to subvert such movements. In the Spring of 1970, Los Angeles Panthers took up arms to defend themselves from an assault initiated by the local police force on their office and on their persons. They were charged with criminal assault. If one believed the official propaganda, they were bandits and rogues who pathologically found pleasure in attacking policemen. It was not mentioned that their community activities — educational work, services such as free breakfast and free medical programs — which had legitimized them in the black community, were the immediate reason for which the wrath of the police had fallen upon them. In defending themselves from the attack waged by some 600 policemen (there were only eleven Panthers in the office) they were defending not only their lives, but even more important their accomplishments in the black community surrounding them, and in the boarded thrust for black liberation. Whenever blacks in struggle have recourse to self-defense, particular armed self-defense, it is twisted and distorted on official levels and ultimately rendered synonymous with criminal aggression. On the other hand, when policemen are clearly indulging in acts of criminal aggression, officially they are defending themselves through "justifiable assault" or "justifiable homicide".
The ideological acrobatics characteristics of official attempts to explain away the existence of the political prisoner do not end with the equation of the individual political act with the individual criminal act. The political act is defined as criminal in order to discredit radical and revolutionary movements. A political event is reduced to a criminal event in order to affirm the absolute invulnerability of the existing order. In a revealing contradiction, the court resisted the description of the New York Panther 21 trial as "political", yet the prosecutor entered as evidence of criminal intent, literature which represented, so he purported, the political ideology of the Black Panther Party.
The legal apparatus designates the black liberation fighter a criminal, prompting Nixon, (Vice President Spiro) Agnew, (California Governor Ronald) Reagan et al. to process to mystify with their demagogy millions of Americans whose senses have been dulled and whose critical powers have been eroded by the continual onslaught of racist ideology.
As the black liberation movement and other progressive struggles increase in magnitude and intensity, the judicial system and its extension, the penal system, consequently become key weapons in the state’s fight to preserve the existing conditions of class domination, therefore racism, poverty and war.
In 1951, W.E.B. Du Bois, as Chairman of the Peace Information Center, was indicted by the federal government for "failure to register as an agent of a foreign principal". In assessing this ordeal, which occurred in the ninth decade of his life, he turned his attention to the inhabitants of the nation’s jails and prisons:
The prison is a key component of state’s coercive apparatus, the overriding function of which is to ensure social control. They etymology of the term "penitentiary" furnishes a clue to the controlling idea behind the "prison system" at its inception. The penitentiary was projected as the locale for doing penitence for an offense against society, the physical and spiritual purging of proclivities to challenge rules and regulations which command total obedience. While cloaking itself with the bourgeois aura of universality — imprisonment was supposed to cut across all class lines, as crimes were to be defined by the act, not the perpetrator — the prison has actually operated as an instrument of class domination, a means of prohibiting the have-nots from encroaching upon the haves.
The occurrence of crime is inevitable in a society in which wealth is unequally distributed, as one of the constant reminders that society’s productive forces are being channeled in the wrong direction. The majority of criminal offenses bear a direct relationship to property. Contained in the very concept of property, crimes are profound but suppressed social needs which express themselves in anti-social modes of action. Spontaneously produced by a capitalist organization of society, this type of crime is at once a protest against society and a desire to partake of its exploitative content. It challenges the symptoms of capitalism, but not its essence.
Some Marxists in recent years have tended to banish "criminals" and the lumpenproletariat as a whole from the arena of revolutionary struggle. Apart from the absence of any link binding the criminal to the means of production, underlying this exclusion has been the assumption that individuals who have recourse to anti-social acts are incapable of developing the discipline and collective orientation required by revolutionary struggle.
With the declassed character of lumpenproletarians in mind, Marx had stated that they are as capable of "the most heroic deeds and the most exalted sacrifices, as of the basest banditry and the dirties corruption". He emphasized the fact that the provisional government’s mobile guards under the Paris Commune — some 24,000 troops — were largely formed out of young lumpenproletarians from fifteen to twenty years of age. Too many Marxists have been inclined to overvalue the second part of Marx’s observation — that the lumpenproletariat is capable of the basest banditry and the dirtiest corruption — while minimizing or indeed totally disregarding his first remark, applauding the lumpen for their heroic deeds and exalted sacrifices.
Especially today when so many black, Chicano, and Puerto Rican men and women are jobless as a consequence of the internal dynamic of the capitalist system, the role of the unemployed, which includes the lumpenproletariat in revolutionary struggle, must be given serious thought. Increased unemployment, particularly for the nationally oppressed, will continue to be an inevitable by-product of technological development. At least 30 percent of black youth are presently without jobs. (In 1997, over 30 percent of black men were in prison, on probation or on parole.) In the context of class exploitation and national oppression it should be clear that numerous individuals are compelled to resort to criminal acts, not as a result of conscious choice — implying other alternatives — but because society has objectively reduced their possibilities of subsistence and survival to this level. This recognition should signal the urgent need to organize the unemployed and lumpenproletariat, as indeed the Black Panther Party as well as activists in prison have already begun to do.
In evaluating the susceptibility of the black and brown unemployed to organizing efforts, the peculiar historical features of the US, specifically racism and national oppression, must be taken into account. There already exists in the black and brown communities, the lumpenproletariat included, a long tradition of collective resistance to national oppression.
Moreover, in assessing the revolutionary potential of prisoners in America as a group, it should be borne in mind that not all prisoners have actually committed crimes. The built-in racism of the judicial system expresses itself, as Du Bois has suggested, in the railroading of countless innocent blacks and other national minorities into the country’s coercive institutions.
One must also appreciate the effects of disproportionately long prison terms on black and brown inmates. The typical criminal mentality sees imprisonment as a calculated risk for a particular criminal act. One’s prison term is more or less rationally predictable. The function of racism in the judicial-penal complex is to shatter that predictability. The black burglar, anticipating a two-to four-year term, may end up doing ten to fifteen years, while the white burglar leaves after two years.
Within the contained, coercive universe of the prison, the captive is confronted with the realities of racism, not simply as individual acts dictated by attitudinal bias; rather he is compelled to come to grips with racism as an institutional phenomenon collectively experienced by the victims. The disproportionate representation of the black and brown communities, the manifest racism of parole boards, the intense brutality inherent in the relationship between prison guards and black and brown inmates — all this and more causes the prisoner to be confronted daily, hourly, with the concentrated systematic existence of racism.
For the innocent prisoner, the process of radicalization should come easy; for the "guilty" victim, the insight into the nature of racism as it manifests itself in the judicial-penal complex can lead to a questioning of his own past criminal activity and a re-evaluation of the methods he has used to survive in a racist and exploitative society. Needless to say, this process is not automatic, it does not occur spontaneously. The persistent educational work carried out by the prison’s political activists plays a key role in developing the political potential of captive men and women.
Prisoners — especially blacks, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans — are increasingly advancing the proposition that they are political prisoners. They contend that they are political prisoners in the sense that they are largely the victims of an oppressive politico-economic order, swiftly becoming conscious of the causes underlying their victimization. The Folsom Prisoners’ Manifesto of Demands and Anti-Oppression Platform attests to a lucid understanding of the structures of oppression within the prison — structures which contradict even the avowed function of the penal institution: "The program we are submitted to, under the ridiculous title of rehabilitation, is relative to the ancient stupidity of pouring water on the drowning man, in as much as we are treated for our hostilities by our program administrators with their hostility for medication." The Manifesto also reflects an awareness that the severe social crisis taking place in this country, predicated in part on the ever-increasing mass consciousness of deepening social contradictions, is forcing the political function of the prisons to surface in all its brutality. Their contention that prisons are being transformed into the "fascist concentration camps of modern America," should not be taken lightly, although it would be erroneous as well as defeatist in a practical sense, to maintain that fascism has irremediably established itself.
The point is this, and this is the truth which is apparent in the Manifesto: the ruling circles of America are expanding and intensifying repressive measures designed to nip revolutionary movements in the bud as well as to curtail radical-democratic tendencies, such as the movement to end the war in Indochina. The government is not hesitating to utilize an entire network of fascist tactics, including the monitoring of congressman’s telephone calls, a system of "preventive fascism", as Marcuse has termed it, in which the role of the judicial-penal systems looms large. The sharp edge of political repression, cutting through the heightened militancy of the masses, and bringing growing numbers of activists behind prison walls, must necessarily pour over into the contained world of the prison where it understandably acquires far more ruthless forms.
It is a relatively easy matter to persecute the captive whose life is already dominated by a network of authoritarian mechanisms. This is especially facilitated by the indeterminate sentence policies of many states, for politically conscious prisoners will incur inordinately long sentences on the original conviction. According to Louis S. Nelson, warden of the San Quentin Prison, "if the prisons of California become known as schools for violent revolution, the Adult Authority would be remiss in their duty not to keep the inmates longer" (San Francisco Chronicle, May 2, 1971). Where this is deemed inadequate, authorities have recourse to the whole spectrum of brutal corporal punishment, including out and out murder. At San Quentin, Fred Billingslea was teargassed to death in February 1970. W. L. Nolen, Alvin Miller, and Cleveland Edwards were assassinated by a prison guard in January 1970, at Soledad Prison. Unusual and inexplicable "suicides" have occurred with incredible regularity in jails and prisons throughout the country.
It should be self-evident that the frame-up becomes a powerful weapon within the spectrum of prison repression, particularly because of the availability of informers, the broken prisoners who will do anything for a price. The Soledad Brothers and the Soledad Three are leading examples of frame-up victims. Both cases involve militant activists who have been charged with killing Soledad prison guards. In both cases, widespread support has been kindled within the California prison system. They have served as occasions to link the immediate needs of the black community with a forceful fight to break the fascist stronghold in the prisons and therefore to abolish the prison system in its present form.
Racist oppression invades the lives of black people on an infinite variety of levels. Blacks are imprisoned in a world where our labor and toil hardly allow us to eke out a decent existence, if we are able to find jobs at all. When the economy begins to falter, we are forever the first victims, always the most deeply wounded. When the economy is on its feet, we continue to live in a depressed state. Unemployment is generally twice as high in the ghettos as it is in the country as a whole and even higher among black women and youth. The unemployment rate among black youth has presently skyrocketed to 30 percent. If one-third of America’s white youths were without a means of livelihood, we would either be in the thick of revolution or else under the iron rule of fascism. Substandard schools, medical care hardly fit for animals, over-priced, dilapidated housing, a welfare system based on a policy of skimpy concessions, designed to degrade and divide (and even this may soon be canceled) — this is only the beginning of the list of props in the overall scenery of oppression which, for the mass of blacks, is the universe.
In black communities, wherever they are located, there exists an ever-present reminder that our universe must remain stable in its drabness, its poverty, its brutality. From Birmingham to Harlem to Watts, black ghettos are occupied, patrolled and often attacked by massive deployments of police. The police, domestic caretakers of violence, are the oppressor’s emissaries, charged with the task of containing us within the boundaries of our oppression.
The announced function of the police, "to protect and serve the people," becomes the grotesque caricature of protecting and preserving the interests of our oppressors and serving us nothing but injustice. They are there to intimidate blacks, to persuade us with their violence that we are powerless to alter the conditions of our lives. Arrests are frequently based on whims. Bullets from their guns murder human beings with little or no pretext, aside from the universal intimidation they are charged with carrying out. Protection for drug-pushers, and Mafia-style exploiters, support for the most reactionary ideological elements of the black community (especially those who cry out for more police), are among the many functions of forces of law and order. They encircle the community with a shield of violence, too often forcing the natural aggression of the black community inwards. Fanon’s analysis of the role of colonial police is an appropriate description of the function of the police in America’s ghettos.
It goes without saying that the police would be unable to set into motion their racist machinery were they not sanctioned and supported by the judicial system. The courts not only consistently abstain from prosecuting criminal behavior on the part of the police, but they convict, on the basis of biased police testimony, countless black men and women. Court-appointed attorneys, acting in the twisted interests of overcrowded courts, convince 85 percent of the defendants to plead guilty. Even the manifestly innocent are advised to cop a plea so that the lengthy and expensive process of jury trials is avoided. This is the structure of the apparatus which summarily railroads black people into jails and prisons. (During my imprisonment in the New York Women’s House of Detention, I encountered numerous cases involving innocent black women who had been advised to plead guilty. One sister had entered her white landlord’s apartment for the purpose of paying rent. He attempted to rape her and in the course of the ensuing struggle, a lit candle toppled over, burning a tablecloth. The landlord ordered her arrested for arson. Following the advice of her court-appointed attorney, she entered a guilty plea, having been deceived by the attorney’s insistence that the court would be more lenient. The sister was sentenced to three years.)
The vicious circle linking poverty, police courts, and prison is an integral element of ghetto existence. Unlike the mass of whites, the path which leads to jails and prisons is deeply rooted in the imposed patterns of black existence. For this very reason, an almost instinctive affinity binds the mass of black people to the political prisoners. The vast majority of blacks harbor a deep hatred of the police and are not deluded by official proclamations of justice through the courts.
For the black individual, contact with the law-enforcement-judicial-penal network, directly or through relatives and friends, is inevitable because he or she is black. For the activist become political prisoner, the contact has occurred because he has lodged a protest, in one form or another, against the conditions which nail blacks to this orbit of oppression.
Historically, black people as a group have exhibited a greater potential for resistance than any other part of the population. The iron-clad rule over our communities, the institutional practice of genocide, the ideology of racism have performed a strictly political as well as an economic function. The capitalists have not only extracted super profits from the underpaid labor of over 15 percent of the American population with the aid of a superstructure of terror. This terror and more subtle forms of racism have further served to thwart the flowering of a resistance — even a revolution that would spread to the working class as a whole.
In the interests of the capitalist class, the consent to racism and terror has been demagogically elicited from the white population, workers included, in order to more efficiently stave off resistance. Today, Nixon, [Attorney General John] Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover are desperately attempting to persuade the population that dissidents, particularly blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, must be punished fro being members of revolutionary organizations; for advocating the overthrow of the government; for agitating and educating in the streets and behind prison walls. The political function of racist domination is surfacing with accelerated intensity. Whites who have professed their solidarity with the black liberation movement and have moved in a distinctly revolutionary direction find themselves targets of the same repression. Even the anti-war movement, rapidly exhibiting an anti-imperialist consciousness, is falling victim to government repression.
Black people are rushing full speed ahead towards an understanding of the circumstances that give rise to exaggerated forms of political repression and thus an overabundance of political prisoners. This understanding is being forged out of the raw material of their own immediate experiences with racism. Hence, the black masses are growing conscious of their responsibility to defend those who are being persecuted for attempting to bring about the alleviation of the most injurious immediate problems facing black communities and ultimately to bring about total liberation through armed revolution, if it must come to this.
The black liberation movement is presently at a critical juncture. Fascist methods of repression threaten to physically decapitate and obliterate the movement. More subtle, yet no less dangerous ideological tendencies from within threaten to isolate the black movement and diminish its revolutionary impact. Both menaces must be counteracted in order to ensure our survival. Revolutionary blacks must spearhead and provide leadership for a broad anti-fascist movement.
Fascism is a process, its growth and development are cancerous in nature. While today, the threat of fascism may be primarily restricted to the use of the law-enforcement-judicial-penal apparatus to arrest the overt and latent revolutionary trends among nationally oppressed people, tomorrow it may attack the working class en masse and eventually even moderate democrats. Even in this period, however, the cancer has already commenced to spread. In addition to the prison army of thousands and thousands of nameless Third World victims of political revenge, there are increasing numbers of white political prisoners — draft resisters, anti-war activists such as the Harrisburg Eight, men and women who have involved themselves on all levels of revolutionary activity.
Among the further symptoms of the fascist threat are official efforts to curtail the power of organized labor, such as the attack on the manifestly conservative construction workers and the trends towards reduced welfare aid. Moreover, court decisions and repressive legislation augmenting police powers — such as the Washington no-knock law, permitting police to enter private dwellings without warning, and Nixon’s "Crime Bill" in general — can eventually be used against any citizen. Indeed congressmen are already protesting the use of police-state wire-tapping to survey their activities. The fascist content of the ruthless aggression in Indo-China should be self-evident.
One of the fundamental historical lessons to be learned from past failures to prevent the rise of fascism is the decisive and indispensable character of the fight against fascism in its incipient phases. Once allowed to conquer ground, its growth is facilitated in geometric proportion. Although the most unbridled expressions of the fascist menace are still tied to the racist domination of blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Indians, it lurks under the surface wherever there is potential resistance to the power of monopoly capital, the parasitic interests which control this society. Potentially it can profoundly worsen the conditions of existence for the average American citizen. Consequently, the masses of people in this country have a real, direct, and material stake in the struggle to free political prisoners, the struggle to abolish the prison system in its present form, the struggle against all dimensions of racism.
No one should fail to take heed of Georgi Dimitrov’s warning: "Whoever does not fight the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory" (Report to the VIIth Congress of the Communist International, 1935). The only effective guarantee against the victory of fascism is an indivisible mass movement which refuses to conduct business as usual as long as repression rages on. It is only natural that blacks and other Third World peoples must lead this movement, for we are the first and most deeply injured victims of fascism. But it must embrace all potential victims and most important, all working-class people, for the key to the triumph of fascism is its ideological victory over the entire working class. Given the eruption of a severe economic crisis, the door to such an ideological victory can be opened by the active approval or passive toleration of racism. It is essential that white workers become conscious that historically through their acquiescence in the capitalist-inspired oppression of blacks they have only rendered themselves more vulnerable to attack.
The pivotal struggle which must be waged in the ranks of the working class is consequently the open, unreserved battle against entrenched racism. The whit worker must become conscious of the threads which bind him to a James Johnson, a black auto worker, member of UAW, and a political prisoner presently facing charges for the killings of two foremen and a job setter. The merciless proliferation of the power of monopoly capital may ultimately push him inexorably down the very same path of desperation. No potential victim [of the fascist terror] should be without the knowledge that the greatest menace to racism and fascism is unity!
MARIN COUNTY JAIL
May, 1971
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Blessed Morning All
My business is slowly coming together. I can't wait to start posting my items for you guys but until then please keep visiting my blog for a lot of informative video or information.
Peace
Peace
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Straight talk: Ethnic hair remains sensitive issue in corporate America
Straight talk: Ethnic hair remains sensitive issue in corporate America
Despite warnings from her family that an ethnic hairdo might hurt her career, Melissa Theodore, an accountant at Ernst & Young, wears...
Newsday
BRUCE GILBERT / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
"My hair has never been a problem as far as my career goes," said accountant Melissa Theodore.
MELVILLE, N.Y. —
Despite warnings from her family that an ethnic hairdo might hurt her career, Melissa Theodore, an accountant at Ernst & Young, wears her hair in long, thin braids with burgundy highlights that cascade past her shoulders.
But Theodore, who has worked at the company for two years, doesn't believe that. "My hair has never been a problem as far as my career goes," said Theodore. "It's neat and very professional."
Black hair has historically been a controversial issue — especially when worn in its natural state in styles like afros, braids, cornrows and dreadlocks. Glamour magazine is still trying to put to bed an ugly matter that erupted five months ago when a former staffer made racially insensitive comments about the appropriateness of black women's hairstyles in the workplace.
The magazine recently hosted "Women, Race & Beauty," a panel that explored the culture of beauty, with an emphasis on ethnic hairstyles in corporate America.
"It was important to open up a dialogue on personal issues related to women, race and beauty," said Samantha Rosenberg, a Glamour spokeswoman.
"We wanted to do something about [the incident]."
The incident that Rosenberg is talking about involves Ashley Baker, a white former associate editor at Glamour, who touched off a firestorm of controversy last summer when she told a roomful of female attorneys at law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton that afro-style hairdos and dreadlocks are Glamour "don'ts."
" 'No offense,' she sniffed, but those 'political hairstyles really have to go,' " reported American Lawyer magazine, which first broke the story.
Glamour received hundreds of letters from angry readers, Rosenberg said. Editor Cindy Lieve posted an apology on the magazine's Web site. Baker "resigned" shortly after.
Baker, who has been lambasted as a racist, declined to comment for this article, but she did send Newsday an e-mail, which said:
"The so-called facts in this story have been misrepresented and sensationalized since the onset, and the media has already vilified me for opinions I do not have and statements I did not make."
Stripped of its appalling delivery, was Baker's observation wrong?
"Black hair is sensitive," said Anna Holmes, the managing editor of Jezebel, a celebrity, sex and fashion blog for women, which followed the Baker story closely. "What Baker said was inappropriate, but was she inaccurate? No. She hit a nerve ... society is uncomfortable with ethnic hair and it is uncomfortable about race. And it's tough talking about all of it because emotion gets in the way."
Still, an undertone that natural hair is unacceptable, unprofessional and even ugly continues to pervade society.
Over the years, lawsuits have been filed against companies for discriminating against black employees for their ethnic hairstyles. Corporate-image experts, both black and white, subtly advise black women to remove their braids, dreadlocks and other ethnic hairdo before interviewing at corporate jobs, experts confide. A scan of major black magazines, among them Ebony, Essence and Black Enterprise, shows that despite burgeoning pride in ethnic hairstyles, many black women — especially those in high-ranking positions — continue to chemically straighten their hair.
As long as "hair is neat and put together, there is no natural hair texture that is inappropriate for corporate America," said Jill Herzig, executive editor at Glamour. In fact, "it is increasingly important to show your personal style no matter where you work."
Natural hairstyles are becoming more mainstream, said Donna Wallace, a 52-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative from Westbury, N.Y. "But there is still the misconception that straight hair is beautiful." Two years ago, Wallace got tired of straightening her hair and decided to get a braided style.
Her hairdresser, Beverly Jones, owner of House of Hair in Uniondale, N.Y., gave Wallace a braided honeycomb bun, which was elegant but understated.
"Corporate America is still conservative," said Patricia Mitchell, director of the Center for Career Development at Adelphi University, noting that the corporate world largely reflects the tastes of reserved white males.
"I would never tell anyone with dreadlocks or braids to cut their hair," said Mitchell, who is white. But, she said, corporate image can be tricky.
Mitchell recalled how one young woman was passed over for a second interview at a job fair because "she was wearing a beige suit" and how a young man got low marks from a recruiter because his top shirt button was visible above his tie.
Concerns about ethnic hairstyles hardly are isolated to white-owned firms. Carl Dameron, who is African American and owns a public-relations and advertising firm in San Bernardino, Calif., said that he has told his black female employees that outside of short-cropped afros, most ethnic hairstyles are a "no-no" in his office.
Hairstyles that distract are not considered professional, said Dameron. "White guys can't wear mohawks; women can't wear dreadlocks like Whoopi Goldberg."
Despite warnings from her family that an ethnic hairdo might hurt her career, Melissa Theodore, an accountant at Ernst & Young, wears her hair in long, thin braids with burgundy highlights that cascade past her shoulders.
But Theodore, who has worked at the company for two years, doesn't believe that. "My hair has never been a problem as far as my career goes," said Theodore. "It's neat and very professional."
Black hair has historically been a controversial issue — especially when worn in its natural state in styles like afros, braids, cornrows and dreadlocks. Glamour magazine is still trying to put to bed an ugly matter that erupted five months ago when a former staffer made racially insensitive comments about the appropriateness of black women's hairstyles in the workplace.
The magazine recently hosted "Women, Race & Beauty," a panel that explored the culture of beauty, with an emphasis on ethnic hairstyles in corporate America.
"It was important to open up a dialogue on personal issues related to women, race and beauty," said Samantha Rosenberg, a Glamour spokeswoman.
"We wanted to do something about [the incident]."
The incident that Rosenberg is talking about involves Ashley Baker, a white former associate editor at Glamour, who touched off a firestorm of controversy last summer when she told a roomful of female attorneys at law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton that afro-style hairdos and dreadlocks are Glamour "don'ts."
" 'No offense,' she sniffed, but those 'political hairstyles really have to go,' " reported American Lawyer magazine, which first broke the story.
Glamour received hundreds of letters from angry readers, Rosenberg said. Editor Cindy Lieve posted an apology on the magazine's Web site. Baker "resigned" shortly after.
Baker, who has been lambasted as a racist, declined to comment for this article, but she did send Newsday an e-mail, which said:
"The so-called facts in this story have been misrepresented and sensationalized since the onset, and the media has already vilified me for opinions I do not have and statements I did not make."
Stripped of its appalling delivery, was Baker's observation wrong?Still, an undertone that natural hair is unacceptable, unprofessional and even ugly continues to pervade society.
Over the years, lawsuits have been filed against companies for discriminating against black employees for their ethnic hairstyles. Corporate-image experts, both black and white, subtly advise black women to remove their braids, dreadlocks and other ethnic hairdo before interviewing at corporate jobs, experts confide. A scan of major black magazines, among them Ebony, Essence and Black Enterprise, shows that despite burgeoning pride in ethnic hairstyles, many black women — especially those in high-ranking positions — continue to chemically straighten their hair.
As long as "hair is neat and put together, there is no natural hair texture that is inappropriate for corporate America," said Jill Herzig, executive editor at Glamour. In fact, "it is increasingly important to show your personal style no matter where you work."
Natural hairstyles are becoming more mainstream, said Donna Wallace, a 52-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative from Westbury, N.Y. "But there is still the misconception that straight hair is beautiful." Two years ago, Wallace got tired of straightening her hair and decided to get a braided style.
Her hairdresser, Beverly Jones, owner of House of Hair in Uniondale, N.Y., gave Wallace a braided honeycomb bun, which was elegant but understated.
"Corporate America is still conservative," said Patricia Mitchell, director of the Center for Career Development at Adelphi University, noting that the corporate world largely reflects the tastes of reserved white males.
"I would never tell anyone with dreadlocks or braids to cut their hair," said Mitchell, who is white. But, she said, corporate image can be tricky.
Mitchell recalled how one young woman was passed over for a second interview at a job fair because "she was wearing a beige suit" and how a young man got low marks from a recruiter because his top shirt button was visible above his tie.
Concerns about ethnic hairstyles hardly are isolated to white-owned firms. Carl Dameron, who is African American and owns a public-relations and advertising firm in San Bernardino, Calif., said that he has told his black female employees that outside of short-cropped afros, most ethnic hairstyles are a "no-no" in his office.
Hairstyles that distract are not considered professional, said Dameron. "White guys can't wear mohawks; women can't wear dreadlocks like Whoopi Goldberg."
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Loc Maintenance
I have had my locs for almost 7 years now. I have done loc maintenance for other people but now I am looking to do it more often to bring in some extra money. I use mostly natural products. So if you know of anyone in the Gaithersburg area who needs loc maintenance please refer them to me. I will post pics of some people I have done. Feel free to email me at NubianQueenMsV@yahoo.com
I do loc maintenance without styles - $40
One Love
I do loc maintenance without styles - $40
One Love
Beer Shampoo - I found this online
I can hear your thoughts now “Beer shampoo...why beer?”
I bet you probably think of beer as Saturday afternoon refreshment after a long day of lawn mowing, but if you’ve never thought about using it in your hair I have a little information to share with you.
Beer is actually a very old hair care secret or treatment that people have used over the years.
Here are just a few of the claims made about what it does.
Beer is made with Brewer’s Yeast which contains a lot of vitamin B, perhaps that’s why it’s been hailed as a hair growth aid (B vitamins are essential for good hair growth).
So, how exactly is beer shampoo made and used?
Beer shampoo is actually very easy to make so don’t go thinking that you have to go out and set up your own brewery. You can use any brand of beer, cheap or expensive and it can either be fresh or stale, it doesn’t really matter.
It’s that simple and you’re ready to use it just as you would any other shampoo. A good time to do that would be right before wet setting since it gives your hair extra body and shine.
If nothing else, it’s something to do with beer you would have otherwise thrown out. If you try it, drop me a line and let me know how your hair turns out!
http://www.black-women-beauty-central.com/beer-shampoo.html
I bet you probably think of beer as Saturday afternoon refreshment after a long day of lawn mowing, but if you’ve never thought about using it in your hair I have a little information to share with you.
Beer is actually a very old hair care secret or treatment that people have used over the years.
Here are just a few of the claims made about what it does.
- Makes hair grow faster.
- Helps hair to be shiny.
- Give hair body.
Beer is made with Brewer’s Yeast which contains a lot of vitamin B, perhaps that’s why it’s been hailed as a hair growth aid (B vitamins are essential for good hair growth).
Beer Shampoo Recipe
So, how exactly is beer shampoo made and used?
Beer shampoo is actually very easy to make so don’t go thinking that you have to go out and set up your own brewery. You can use any brand of beer, cheap or expensive and it can either be fresh or stale, it doesn’t really matter.
Here is what you need:
1 cup Beer
1 cup Shampoo
Small Pot
Bottle
- Put the cup of beer into the small saucepan and boil on low-medium heat until the beer is reduced to a quarter of what you started out with (this gets rid of the alcohol content that can dry your hair out).
- Combine the reduced liquid and your cup of regular shampoo in an empty bottle. Mix thoroughly.
It’s that simple and you’re ready to use it just as you would any other shampoo. A good time to do that would be right before wet setting since it gives your hair extra body and shine.
If nothing else, it’s something to do with beer you would have otherwise thrown out. If you try it, drop me a line and let me know how your hair turns out!
http://www.black-women-beauty-central.com/beer-shampoo.html
Thursday, July 5, 2012
I found this list of Black Owned Hair Care Companies
Blacked owned companies producing hair products are plenty in the cyberspace but not as much in actually stores. These companies are selling wide array of hair products like for washing and conditioning, for natural hair maintenance, hair relaxers and products to enhance hair growth.
Here is a lists of black owned hair companies.
Natural Oasis
Afrikan Republic
African Royale
Essations Multi-textural
Actramoist
California Curl
Dudley Hair care products (Really good, a little pricey)
Takedown Hair products
Isoplus
Hairveda
Afroveda
Karen Body Beautiful
Oyin Handmade
Miss Jessies
Carol Daughter
Ohemet Biologics
Shescentit
Jane Carter Solutions
Dr. Miracles
Adiva Naturals
I would still check the ingredients of the products you use for your hair.
Here is a lists of black owned hair companies.
Natural Oasis
Afrikan Republic
African Royale
Essations Multi-textural
Actramoist
California Curl
Dudley Hair care products (Really good, a little pricey)
Takedown Hair products
Isoplus
Hairveda
Afroveda
Karen Body Beautiful
Oyin Handmade
Miss Jessies
Carol Daughter
Ohemet Biologics
Shescentit
Jane Carter Solutions
Dr. Miracles
Adiva Naturals
I would still check the ingredients of the products you use for your hair.
African/Black Owned Businesses
If you have a African/Black Owned Business please post your website and all contact info.
I love buying items from my own people as much as possible. We need to learn to keep our money in our communities. We also need to learn how to support each other instead of bring each other down.
Peace
One Love
I love buying items from my own people as much as possible. We need to learn to keep our money in our communities. We also need to learn how to support each other instead of bring each other down.
Peace
One Love
Kwanzaa
The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase "matunda ya kwanza" which means "first fruits" in Swahili. Each family celebrates Kwanzaa in its own way, but celebrations often include songs and dances, African drums, storytelling, poetry reading, and a large traditional meal. On each of the seven nights, the family gathers and a child lights one of the candles on the Kinara (candleholder), then one of the seven principles is discussed. The principles, called the Nguzo Saba (seven principles in Swahili) are values of African culture which contribute to building and reinforcing community among African-Americans. Kwanzaa also has seven basic symbols which represent values and concepts reflective of African culture. An African feast, called a Karamu, is held on December 31.
The candle-lighting ceremony each evening provides the opportunity to gather and discuss the meaning of Kwanzaa. The first night, the black candle in the center is lit (and the principle of umoja/unity is discussed). One candle is lit each evening and the appropriate principle is discussed.
Unity: Umoja (oo–MO–jah)To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Self-determination: Kujichagulia (koo–gee–cha–goo–LEE–yah)To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
Collective Work and Responsibility: Ujima (oo–GEE–mah)To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
Cooperative Economics: Ujamaa (oo–JAH–mah)To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Purpose: Nia (nee–YAH)To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Creativity: Kuumba (koo–OOM–bah)To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Faith: Imani (ee–MAH–nee)
To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Mazao, the crops (fruits, nuts, and vegetables)
Symbolizes work and the basis of the holiday. It represents the historical foundation for Kwanzaa, the gathering of the people that is patterned after African harvest festivals in which joy, sharing, unity, and thanksgiving are the fruits of collective planning and work. Since the family is the basic social and economic center of every civilization, the celebration bonded family members, reaffirming their commitment and responsibility to each other. In Africa the family may have included several generations of two or more nuclear families, as well as distant relatives. Ancient Africans didn't care how large the family was, but there was only one leader - the oldest male of the strongest group. For this reason, an entire village may have been composed of one family. The family was a limb of a tribe that shared common customs, cultural traditions, and political unity and were supposedly descended from common ancestors. The tribe lived by traditions that provided continuity and identity. Tribal laws often determined the value system, laws, and customs encompassing birth, adolescence, marriage, parenthood, maturity, and death. Through personal sacrifice and hard work, the farmers sowed seeds that brought forth new plant life to feed the people and other animals of the earth. To demonstrate their mazao, celebrants of Kwanzaa place nuts, fruit, and vegetables, representing work, on the mkeka.
Mkeka: Place Mat
The mkeka, made from straw or cloth, comes directly from Africa and expresses history, culture, and tradition. It symbolizes the historical and traditional foundation for us to stand on and build our lives because today stands on our yesterdays, just as the other symbols stand on the mkeka. In 1965, James Baldwin wrote: "For history is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the facts that we carry it within us, are consciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations." During Kwanzaa, we study, recall, and reflect on our history and the role we are to play as a legacy to the future. Ancient societies made mats from straw, the dried seams of grains, sowed and reaped collectively. The weavers took the stalks and created household baskets and mats. Today, we buy mkeka that are made from Kente cloth, African mud cloth, and other textiles from various areas of the African continent. The mishumaa saba, the vibunzi, the mazao, the zawadi, the kikombe cha umoja, and the kinara are placed directly on the mkeka.
Vibunzi: Ear of CornThe stalk of corn represents fertility and symbolizes that through the reproduction of children, the future hopes of the family are brought to life. One ear is called vibunzi, and two or more ears are called mihindi. Each ear symbolizes a child in the family, and thus one ear is placed on the mkeka for each child in the family. If there are no children in the home, two ears are still set on the mkeka because each person is responsible for the children of the community. During Kwanzaa, we take the love and nurturance that was heaped on us as children and selflessly return it to all children, especially the helpless, homeless, loveless ones in our community. Thus, the Nigerian proverb "It takes a whole village to raise a child" is realized in this symbol (vibunzi), since raising a child in Africa was a community affair, involving the tribal village, as well as the family. Good habits of respect for self and others, discipline, positive thinking, expectations, compassion, empathy, charity, and self-direction are learned in childhood from parents, from peers, and from experiences. Children are essential to Kwanzaa, for they are the future, the seed bearers that will carry cultural values and practices into the next generation. For this reason, children were cared for communally and individually within a tribal village. The biological family was ultimately responsible for raising its own children, but every person in the village was responsible for the safety and welfare of all the children.
Mishumaa Saba: The Seven CandlesCandles are ceremonial objects with two primary purposes: to re-create symbolically the sun's power and to provide light. The celebration of fire through candle burning is not limited to one particular group or country; it occurs everywhere. Mishumaa saba are the seven candles: three red, three green, and one black. The back candle symbolizes Umoja (unity), the basis of success, and is lit on December 26. The three green candles, representing Nia, Ujima, and Imani, are placed to the right of the Umoja candle, while the three red candles, representing Kujichagulia, Ujamaa, and Kuumba, are placed to the left of it. During Kwanzaa, on candle, representing one principle, is lit each day. Then the other candles are relit to give off more light and vision. The number of candles burning also indicate the principle that is being celebrated. The illuminating fire of the candles is a basic element of the universe, and every celebration and festival includes fire in some form. Fire's mystique, like the sun, is irresistible and can destroy or create with its mesmerizing,
frightening, mystifying power.
Mishumaa saba's symbolic colors are from the red, black, and green flag (bendara) created by Marcus Garvey. The colors also represent African gods. Red is the color of Shango, the Yoruba god of fire, thunder, and lightning, who lives in the clouds and sends down his thunderbolt whenever he is angry or offended. It also represents the struggle for self-determination and freedom by people of color. Black is the people, the earth, the source of life, representing hope, creativity, and faith and denoting messages and the opening and closing of doors. Green represents the earth that sustains our lives and provides hope, divination, employment, and the fruits of the harvest.
Kinara: The Candleholder
The kinara is the center of the Kwanzaa setting and represents the original stalk from which we came: our ancestry. The kinara can be shape - straight lines, semicircles, or spirals - as long as the seven candles are separate and distinct, like a candelabra. Kinaras are made from all kinds of materials, and many celebrants create their own from fallen branches, wood, or other natural materials. The kinara symbolizes the ancestors, who were once earth bound; understand the problems of human life; and are willing to protect their progeny from danger, evil, and mistakes. In African festivals the ancestors are remembered and honored. The mishumaa saba are placed in the kinara.
Kikombe Cha Umoja: The Unity Cup
The kikombe cha umoja is a special cup that is used to perform the libation (tambiko) ritual during the Karamu feast on the sixth day of Kwanzaa. In many African societies libation are poured for the living dead whose souls stay with the earth they tilled. The Ibo of Nigeria believe that to drink the last portion of a libation is to invite the wrath of the spirits and the ancestors; consequently, the last part of the libation belongs to the ancestors. During the Karamu feast, the kikombe cha umoja is passed to family member and guests, who drink from it to promote unity. Then, the eldest person present pours the libation (tambiko), usually water, juice, or wine, in the direction of the four winds - north, south, east, and west - to honor the ancestors. The eldest asks the gods and ancestors to share in the festivities and, in return, to bless all the people who are not at the gathering. After asking for this blessing, the elder pours the libation on the ground and the group says "Amen." Large Kwanzaa gatherings may operate just as communion services in most churches, for which it is common for celebrants to have individual cups and to drink the libation together as a sign of unity. Several families may have a cup that is specifically for the ancestors, and everyone else has his or her own. The last few ounces of the libation are poured into the cup of the host or hostess, who sips it and then hands it to the oldest person in the group, who asks for the blessing.
Zawadi: Gifts
When we celebrate Imani on the seventh day of Kwanzaa, we give meaningful zawadi (gifts) to encourage growth, self-determination, achievement, and success. We exchange the gifts with members of our immediate family, especially the children, to promote or reward accomplishments and commitments kept, as well as with our guests. Handmade gifts are encouraged to promote self-determination, purpose, and creativity and to avoid the chaos of shopping and conspicuous consumption during the December holiday season. A family may spend the year making kinaras or may create cards, dolls, or mkekas to give to their guests. Accepting a gift implies a moral obligation to fulfill the promise of the gift; it obliges the recipient to follow the training of the host. The gift cements social relationships, allowing the receiver to share the duties and the rights of a family member. Accepting a gift makes the receiver part of the family and promotes Umoja.
Excerpted from the book: The Complete Kwanzaa Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest. Copyright 1995 by Dorothy Winbush Riley. Reprinted with permission from HarperPerennial, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
The candle-lighting ceremony each evening provides the opportunity to gather and discuss the meaning of Kwanzaa. The first night, the black candle in the center is lit (and the principle of umoja/unity is discussed). One candle is lit each evening and the appropriate principle is discussed.
Seven Principles
The seven principles, or Nguzo Saba are a set of ideals created by Dr. Maulana Karenga. Each day of Kwanzaa emphasizes a different principle.Unity: Umoja (oo–MO–jah)To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Self-determination: Kujichagulia (koo–gee–cha–goo–LEE–yah)To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
Collective Work and Responsibility: Ujima (oo–GEE–mah)To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
Cooperative Economics: Ujamaa (oo–JAH–mah)To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Purpose: Nia (nee–YAH)To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Creativity: Kuumba (koo–OOM–bah)To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Faith: Imani (ee–MAH–nee)
To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Seven Symbols
The seven principles, or Nguzo Saba are a set of ideals created by Dr. Maulana Karenga. Each day of Kwanzaa emphasizes a different principle.Mazao, the crops (fruits, nuts, and vegetables)
Symbolizes work and the basis of the holiday. It represents the historical foundation for Kwanzaa, the gathering of the people that is patterned after African harvest festivals in which joy, sharing, unity, and thanksgiving are the fruits of collective planning and work. Since the family is the basic social and economic center of every civilization, the celebration bonded family members, reaffirming their commitment and responsibility to each other. In Africa the family may have included several generations of two or more nuclear families, as well as distant relatives. Ancient Africans didn't care how large the family was, but there was only one leader - the oldest male of the strongest group. For this reason, an entire village may have been composed of one family. The family was a limb of a tribe that shared common customs, cultural traditions, and political unity and were supposedly descended from common ancestors. The tribe lived by traditions that provided continuity and identity. Tribal laws often determined the value system, laws, and customs encompassing birth, adolescence, marriage, parenthood, maturity, and death. Through personal sacrifice and hard work, the farmers sowed seeds that brought forth new plant life to feed the people and other animals of the earth. To demonstrate their mazao, celebrants of Kwanzaa place nuts, fruit, and vegetables, representing work, on the mkeka.
Mkeka: Place Mat
The mkeka, made from straw or cloth, comes directly from Africa and expresses history, culture, and tradition. It symbolizes the historical and traditional foundation for us to stand on and build our lives because today stands on our yesterdays, just as the other symbols stand on the mkeka. In 1965, James Baldwin wrote: "For history is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the facts that we carry it within us, are consciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations." During Kwanzaa, we study, recall, and reflect on our history and the role we are to play as a legacy to the future. Ancient societies made mats from straw, the dried seams of grains, sowed and reaped collectively. The weavers took the stalks and created household baskets and mats. Today, we buy mkeka that are made from Kente cloth, African mud cloth, and other textiles from various areas of the African continent. The mishumaa saba, the vibunzi, the mazao, the zawadi, the kikombe cha umoja, and the kinara are placed directly on the mkeka.
Vibunzi: Ear of CornThe stalk of corn represents fertility and symbolizes that through the reproduction of children, the future hopes of the family are brought to life. One ear is called vibunzi, and two or more ears are called mihindi. Each ear symbolizes a child in the family, and thus one ear is placed on the mkeka for each child in the family. If there are no children in the home, two ears are still set on the mkeka because each person is responsible for the children of the community. During Kwanzaa, we take the love and nurturance that was heaped on us as children and selflessly return it to all children, especially the helpless, homeless, loveless ones in our community. Thus, the Nigerian proverb "It takes a whole village to raise a child" is realized in this symbol (vibunzi), since raising a child in Africa was a community affair, involving the tribal village, as well as the family. Good habits of respect for self and others, discipline, positive thinking, expectations, compassion, empathy, charity, and self-direction are learned in childhood from parents, from peers, and from experiences. Children are essential to Kwanzaa, for they are the future, the seed bearers that will carry cultural values and practices into the next generation. For this reason, children were cared for communally and individually within a tribal village. The biological family was ultimately responsible for raising its own children, but every person in the village was responsible for the safety and welfare of all the children.
Mishumaa Saba: The Seven CandlesCandles are ceremonial objects with two primary purposes: to re-create symbolically the sun's power and to provide light. The celebration of fire through candle burning is not limited to one particular group or country; it occurs everywhere. Mishumaa saba are the seven candles: three red, three green, and one black. The back candle symbolizes Umoja (unity), the basis of success, and is lit on December 26. The three green candles, representing Nia, Ujima, and Imani, are placed to the right of the Umoja candle, while the three red candles, representing Kujichagulia, Ujamaa, and Kuumba, are placed to the left of it. During Kwanzaa, on candle, representing one principle, is lit each day. Then the other candles are relit to give off more light and vision. The number of candles burning also indicate the principle that is being celebrated. The illuminating fire of the candles is a basic element of the universe, and every celebration and festival includes fire in some form. Fire's mystique, like the sun, is irresistible and can destroy or create with its mesmerizing,
frightening, mystifying power.
Mishumaa saba's symbolic colors are from the red, black, and green flag (bendara) created by Marcus Garvey. The colors also represent African gods. Red is the color of Shango, the Yoruba god of fire, thunder, and lightning, who lives in the clouds and sends down his thunderbolt whenever he is angry or offended. It also represents the struggle for self-determination and freedom by people of color. Black is the people, the earth, the source of life, representing hope, creativity, and faith and denoting messages and the opening and closing of doors. Green represents the earth that sustains our lives and provides hope, divination, employment, and the fruits of the harvest.
Kinara: The Candleholder
The kinara is the center of the Kwanzaa setting and represents the original stalk from which we came: our ancestry. The kinara can be shape - straight lines, semicircles, or spirals - as long as the seven candles are separate and distinct, like a candelabra. Kinaras are made from all kinds of materials, and many celebrants create their own from fallen branches, wood, or other natural materials. The kinara symbolizes the ancestors, who were once earth bound; understand the problems of human life; and are willing to protect their progeny from danger, evil, and mistakes. In African festivals the ancestors are remembered and honored. The mishumaa saba are placed in the kinara.
Kikombe Cha Umoja: The Unity Cup
The kikombe cha umoja is a special cup that is used to perform the libation (tambiko) ritual during the Karamu feast on the sixth day of Kwanzaa. In many African societies libation are poured for the living dead whose souls stay with the earth they tilled. The Ibo of Nigeria believe that to drink the last portion of a libation is to invite the wrath of the spirits and the ancestors; consequently, the last part of the libation belongs to the ancestors. During the Karamu feast, the kikombe cha umoja is passed to family member and guests, who drink from it to promote unity. Then, the eldest person present pours the libation (tambiko), usually water, juice, or wine, in the direction of the four winds - north, south, east, and west - to honor the ancestors. The eldest asks the gods and ancestors to share in the festivities and, in return, to bless all the people who are not at the gathering. After asking for this blessing, the elder pours the libation on the ground and the group says "Amen." Large Kwanzaa gatherings may operate just as communion services in most churches, for which it is common for celebrants to have individual cups and to drink the libation together as a sign of unity. Several families may have a cup that is specifically for the ancestors, and everyone else has his or her own. The last few ounces of the libation are poured into the cup of the host or hostess, who sips it and then hands it to the oldest person in the group, who asks for the blessing.
Zawadi: Gifts
When we celebrate Imani on the seventh day of Kwanzaa, we give meaningful zawadi (gifts) to encourage growth, self-determination, achievement, and success. We exchange the gifts with members of our immediate family, especially the children, to promote or reward accomplishments and commitments kept, as well as with our guests. Handmade gifts are encouraged to promote self-determination, purpose, and creativity and to avoid the chaos of shopping and conspicuous consumption during the December holiday season. A family may spend the year making kinaras or may create cards, dolls, or mkekas to give to their guests. Accepting a gift implies a moral obligation to fulfill the promise of the gift; it obliges the recipient to follow the training of the host. The gift cements social relationships, allowing the receiver to share the duties and the rights of a family member. Accepting a gift makes the receiver part of the family and promotes Umoja.
Excerpted from the book: The Complete Kwanzaa Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest. Copyright 1995 by Dorothy Winbush Riley. Reprinted with permission from HarperPerennial, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Rootz
There is a new store in Lakeforest Mall:
Rootz
301-977-2255
701 Russell Ave
Gaithersburg, MD
If you love Bob Marley, reggae and Rasta items this is the store. I love shopping here. They just opened up a few weeks ago.
Just thought I would let everyone know there is a store like this close by. I usually have to shop online to get some of these items and now I do not have to do that. It also helps I live across from the mall.......yay me!!!
Wrap With Jahfya ** Inverted V Wrap Style**
I love her head wraps I have bought from her a few times............
Soon Coming
I will be doing loc maintenance on the side from my home soon. I will also late post some pictures of locs I have done. My business will only be for loc maintenance no styling.
Also I will be making jewelry and once I am started I will post those pictures as well.
These are just some of the things I want to do in my spare time to make extra money. The goal is to work for myself.
Monday, July 2, 2012
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