Black Manifesto
We shall overcome…
We shall overcome…
We shall overcome someday…
Oh, deep in my heart…
I do believe
We shall overcome someday.
We’ll walk hand and hand…
We shall all be free…
We are not afraid…
We are not alone…
The whole wide world around…
We shall overcome someday.
Very inspiring song…
Nice and pretty words…
But I got a few questions
What are we overcoming?
For that matter, why must we hold hands while we’re doing it?
What are we supposed to be afraid of?
What are we seeking to be free from?
All questions without apparent answers.
Of all of them, the billion dollar question is, “what are we going to be free from?”
“Racial injustice and institutionalized bigotry... power to the people, MUTHAFU%%a!!!” the voices in the street may cry.
But have we ever defined what life would be like when we’re free?
What are the conditions that must be met in order for us to say, “We have overcome.”
Have we ever truly defined what it would mean for us to be free beyond the grand vision laid out by Dr. King?
Where’s the list of criteria for freedom?
For Equality?
For bigotry to have ended?
What’s the point of searching for something and not knowing what it looks like?
To simply give our lives meaning?
I think not.
The time has come for us to define what it means to be Black and “free” in America.
It’s all about semantics.
That’s how white folks have been getting over on us for centuries.
The Bible itself says that the tongue holds the power of life and death.
Yet we won’t use ours to get ourselves free.
Black Manifesto
Sounds all revolutionary, but its fundamental to any struggle.
“Manifest Destiny” was the white manifesto when it came to decimating and conquering the Native Americans
Where’s ours?
Reparations, Al Sharpton for President, Michael Jordan owning a basketball team…
They’re all well and good, but where will they get us?
All fired up but marching in the same circle for next 50 years we’ve been marching around for the past 50 years
It’s time to play the game the way they play the game.
How about 80 percent of all voting age African Americans voting in every election over the next 10 years? You’ll see politicians a whole lot more often than in church the Sunday before Election Day.
What about a 35 percent reduction in the Black prison population over the next 10 years? You won’t see “Shortage of Black male” articles in Essence magazine anymore.
Maybe a 50 percent reduction in Black teen pregnancies in 5 years and 75 percent of all African American children graduating from an accredited, four-year, baccalaureate granting institution in the next 20? Tell Tom Brokaw to put that in his book.
By the way, did he ever find our "extra tendon"?
If these are too hard, what about popular Black culture not claiming the inner city ghetto as our homeland anymore or declaring that being a drug dealer is our natural inclination?
Why do we have to be “connected for life” and why does everything Black have to “Urban”?
Why 10 years, 20 years? Why not now?
Because to truly overcome your adversaries you must have vision and patience.
You wonder why you always see movies about poor Irish or Italians growing up in the ghetto?
They’ve been there, done that, and don’t have to do it any more. When’s the last time you’ve hear of an Italian ghetto?
Ever wondered why you always see white people frolicking around in investment company commercials young, rich, and carefree and hardly ever anybody else?
The real message is “this could be you too and we’ll teach you how to get there”, but that message isn’t meant for everyone.
Farakhan doesn’t seem to like Jews, but we could learn a lot from the Hebrews.
Dig this…
Our Hebrew brothers held a congress in Europe in the 1890’s declaring the vision of them bringing a Jewish homeland into existence.
Guess what?
The nation of Israel was created 50 years later.
In spite of the Holocaust, they never lost focus and they used their recent plight as leverage to achieve their goal.
Brothers and sisters, we have no recent plight to use as leverage any longer.
All we have is us.
Therefore, the time for dreaming is over.
We’ll never be free until we as a people define our freedom.
Where there is no vision, there will be no progress.
And visions don’t become reality overnight.
When we wake up from our self-induced slumber, start using our own eyes to see our visions, not following some corporate perversion on some television screen, our liberation will be at hand