One of my favorite artists of all time is back and I LOVE this song...Below is the lead single off of Sade's forthcoming album, Soldier of Love, dropping February 8, 2010!!
I'm still waiting for love to come and turn it all around too girl!! Beautiful song, brought tears to my eyes when I heard it the first time...she couldn't have said it better.
I read this book about two years ago...and I think it is a must read for all black people and any who are interested in learning the truth about African history from a non-euro-centric point of view. The book is by Chancellor Williams, a scholar, anthropologist, historian and professor at Howard University. Chancellor explains how there were many great African empires and civilizations that existed long before Christ and even the ancient Egyptians. These ancient empires were where people from all over the world came to learn...Below is a video interview with him from the late seventies, talking about some of the major themes from the book. These topics touch mainly on the little known African history that seems to be left out of the Euro-American HIStory. So my assignment to you is to read this book over the holidays! I'm going to re-read it myself. The only way to learn and grow as a people is to first learn the history and the truth of ones self. Knowledge of oneself will then empower you....SANKOFA! (Go back and claim it!)
Also, I think Nas summarizes it best in the third verse of his song "I Can":
Be, be, 'fore we came to this country
We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys
There was empires in Africa called Kush
Timbuktu, where every race came to get books
To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans
Asian Arabs and gave them gold when
Gold was converted to money it all changed
Money then became empowerment for Europeans
The Persian military invaded
They heard about the gold, the teachings, and everything sacred
Africa was almost robbed naked
Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships
Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went
He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces
I went to see Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” yesterday with my two cousins and their young children. The movie is historically significant because it features the first black princess of the Disney movies. The movie was really cute and my little cousins really seemed to enjoy it! The basic theme of the movie was to dream BIG and work hard to make your dreams a reality. Although I enjoyed the movie I couldn’t help but think that sometimes Disney movies inspire false hopes in children. I grew up watching Disney movies, my brother and I; we had them all, my favorite of all time was The Little Mermaid (my very first Disney movie) and The Lion King of course. So I was truly excited to see this movie myself because I had grown up on Disney movies and was interested to see the story of the first black Disney princess. After leaving the movie though I began to wonder why we take our children to see these fairy tales. I mean I know we want them to be amazed but at the same time are we giving them false ideas of reality? I think that by watching a lot of the movies I did as a child, it made me believe in ideas that weren’t necessarily true; such as, my prince in shining armor would come rescue me and I would become a princess and live happily ever after. But does happily ever after really exist?
Also, dreaming BIG and working hard in a capitalistic society does not promise everyone a path to success and riches. It’s just not possible in a capitalistic society because in this type of social system there has to be a class order, and that means poor people, individuals in the middle, and those on top. I am just saying, we are taught all these things as children but then as we get older, we realize that obtaining our “dreams” may not be as simple as we have been led to believe and most of us just settle for the status quo. And then we wonder why we are so messed up as adults, because we have been fed a bunch of BS and lies our whole lives. We live a life of freedom as children and then we are thrown into the slavery of the system in having to work to survive and take care of a family.
Of course there are those who do make their dreams a reality, but this is just not possible for everyone, especially if those dreams include being rich. Another under-lying theme in the movie was the idea that money is power and if you don’t have the green, your dreams are impossible to make a reality. So the movie contradicts itself by saying in the beginning that if you dream big and work hard your dreams will come true, but then it says, wait, but not without MONEY! Everyone cannot be rich in a capitalistic society because then there would be no such thing; money would lose its value if everybody had it. This system is designed for people to fail and the people that make it all the way to the top usually lied, cheated and stole to make it there.
You may be thinking, how I could get all of this out of a Disney movie but most of the time the truths are presented to us in the form of a story or cartoon so that we will be so amazed by the tricks and illusions we look past the truth that is there. If you don’t believe me, go watch the Lion King and listen to the STORY that is being told, look past the illusion that we see in the animation….Now I’m not saying not to take your children to see animated movies but what I am saying is to listen to the real story and message that is being told to your children. Present them with both sides of the spectrum, especially as they get older. You have to give your children some realities, so that it won’t hit them so hard when they are faced with the true realities of the world we live in.
