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(written 2013)

Very prevalent  in our existence in the west is the negative, self-defacing, destructive imagery that is continually thrust into our lives.  For instance, I was scanning through TV channels recently and came upon a scene on BET showing Roots where a Black man was hanging by his hands about to be whipped by a pale enslaver.  I abruptly turned the channel.  Now I know again why I didn't watch Roots when it first came out and why I will never watch it, or similar trash. BET seems to make a living showing repeated episodes of this junk.  

Roots, though ostensibly based on Alex Haley's personal research into his Afrikan origins, in reality is used as a cultural/political tool of the euro to perpetuate negative Black imagery.  As such, it serves their purpose much more than ours.  We are not afraid of history; we know such atrocities happened.  But, we also know that the so-called history that is constantly shown to us tends to reflect Afrikans as inferior, docile, and more, but most importantly, this history is totally unbalanced.  

Never do we see the imagery of a Nat Turner leading his revolutionary army striking the blow for liberation.  That is history also. Never do we see depictions of Black soldiers killing white southerners as they fought for their own liberation in the Union Army. That also is history.  Never do we see accounts of  the Black revolution on board the enslavement ship Creole sailing from Norfolk in the 1800s, in which our ancestors overtook the ship and forced it to sail to liberation in Nassau. But, for negative imagery, there is no shortage of trash out there.  

More recently, we see where Spike Lee has boycotted the enslavement movie Django Unchained starring Jaime Fox & Samuel Jackson, because he said that it is an insult to his ancestors. The movie is fictionalized junk about Afrikan captives under the harsh control of pale enslavers, and includes a scene (according to the plot) in which one Afrikan captive is literally torn apart by wild dogs set upon him.  It was said that Fox asked Spike not to criticize the movie, but Lee did so anyway.

Enough! Enough of our people betraying our heritage for a few pieces of silver!  We can control these instances of cultural treason by boycotting their movie ourselves.  What is the impact on our very impressionable children from viewing a constant barrage of Black people being brutalized, beaten, raped, and ALWAYS shown in negative situations and ALWAYS doing INFERIOR things?  Just visualize the personal esteem uplift if our creative people would produce a steady stream of movies spotlighting just our Black inventors, for instance. From the cell phone  to traffic stop lights and more, Blacks have led the way. What about a movie about Dr. George W. Carver, a certified multi-genius  who invented  everything from the peanut except maybe peanut butter!  

We understand that Danny Glover and maybe others have failed to make more positive movies for one reason or the other.  Danny Glover says that he can make a movie about Toussaint L'Ouvertue and the Haitian revolution that kicked Spain, Britain and France's ass, but that he can't get such a movie distributed in the movie house because  the jews control those venues. 

Why not produce a mini-version of the movie and distribute it via the Internet?  Everyone reading this and millions more are potential customers for such positive movies.

Why don't our Black movie makers and other creative talent use what we have to get what we need?  There's no real excuse and we know it.  

Euros want us to continue to see ourselves as inferior and as a minor  imitation of themselves; never to be viewed as a thinking, literate, and achieving people with a rich history of achievement that spans back to the very first humans on this planet. We have the capacity to project that positive imagery for our selves. 

We need to clearly understand some basic facts.  Even though our far Afrikan ancestors such as the TWA people of southern Afrika traveled to pre-America over 40,000 years ago, our major presence here came as a result of being captured from Afrika as enslaved people. As such, our history here for the past 700 years or so has a constant underlying theme of racial hatred in it, and the euros are well aware of this and continually use it in movies  and other aspects of our existence here to continue to project us as inferior, racial beings.  As a result, a simple movie such as  "Ray", or "Cadillac Records" has racial hatred scenes within them showing Black actors being beaten or otherwise hassled by police.  That underlying theme of racial hatred is always there in any depiction that involves Black people!  

So even though we can produce more positive visual efforts, they somehow fall short because in the west we are seen as less than whole because of our history of enslavement.

To fully rectify this condition, our creative types need to focus on our Afrikan history.  It's like this, if you pick up a book, any book, and only read the last chapter, more likely than not you will never get a true understanding of that book.   Similarly, though we have been in the west in large numbers for about 700 years, the overwhelming, vast majority of our history extending back for hundreds of thousand of years is in Afrika.  We must accentuate Afrika in our efforts to portray us as WHOLE, HEALED PEOPLE!  It is in Afrika that we ruled countries, ruled foreign nations, were respected, were imitated by the world.  It is in Afrika that we developed world-leading science, art, architecture, medicine, astronomy, chemistry and the other hard sciences. It was to Afrika that the world came for education, food, spiritual enlightenment and more.  

In Afrika, we were complete people, and it is Afrika that we must assist in its rebuilding to recapture its fame and to serve as a safe haven for its widely scattered children.  

Now, I'm well aware that some of our people are so westernized that they don't want to hear nothing about Afrika. That's their problem. That should not block us from uplifting the masses of our people's self esteem!

We can make movies about the greatness of traditional Afrika showcasing ancient exploration throughout the world by Afrikans such as the TWA people who explored the Americas over 40,000 years ago, according to the skeletal record and other sources.  We can make movies about the legendary people of KMT and their great achievements in science, math, astronomy, medicine, civilization itself, art, architecture and more. Think of the uplift to our children from such imagery!  

Every euro produced movie of our enslavement tends to convey an illusion that our ancestors were illiterate-defined as unable to read or write.  It is likely true that some of our Afrikan ancestors did not know how to read  or write English.    But, it is categorically un-true that our enslaved Ancestors  did not know how to read or write, and I'm not referring to the vaunted claims that some of them read and wrote Arabic—a non-indigenous Afrikan language. 

Truth is, according to Dr. Rosalind Jeffries, our enslaved ancestors were very literate in their own Afrikan languages.  She points out that among the ancient Afrikan languages our enslaved ancestors read and wrote were:  

N'Sibidi from Nigeria
Mende from Sierra leone
Moum from Cameroons
Vai from Lineria and
Bete from Cote D'Ivoire  

So far from being illiterate, it was the euro who was illiterate being unable to read or write indigenous Afrikan languages.  What an impression this fact would make on our people if it were carefully depicted in a movie about our people.  

Black artistic people must join the fight for liberation.  Why more of them don't do so is explained in an interview that I have in which Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn interviews my teacher, Dr. Asa Hilliard.

Dr. Kwaku is based in LA and said that in his talks with Black actors, many of them say that they have all of the money they will ever need so they don't see a reason to be in the struggle.  This mentality seems to prevail among our Black 'stars', a sort of distancing themselves from every day racial realities that tend to hit most of  us squarely in the face everyday. That is until, these actors are hauled into court for one reason or the other and then have to deal with the harsh realities of being Black when a pale cop roughs them up, dragging them out of their limousines in the process of being arrested, falsely or not.  

Dr. Hilliard, in response said that Black actors should know much better than other people about the power of imagery, and thus have a responsibility to our people in the roles that they play.  He pointed out that it was the role of pale movies such a The Ten Commandments,  Ben Hur, The Robe and those other Charlton Heston among others that sold the world on the imagery of a downtrodden jewish people and their alleged right to be given a homeland in Israel even if it meant taking the land of the Palestinians and others.  He said the imagery in such movies paved the way for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.  

But, its a lesson our Black actors never seem to learn.  but, for our aspiring Black film makers out there, you don't need to repeat the same mistakes. Get busy with positive Black imagery products and we will support your efforts.  

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