ReUniting the African Diaspora
[Music]
know from whence you came
if you know whence you came there are
absolutely no limitations to where you
could go
james baldwin
i’m not a i’m african
you are a these words were spoken
to me by an african cab
driver who refused to drive my friends
and i to the south side
that’s one side of the story the other
you just left africa did you ride any
elephants
my name is vic mensa i’m a hip-hop
artist from the south side of chicago
i’ve never ridden an elephant and i am
in a most literal sense
an african-american my father is from a
small slum
called the ossicore zongo in a town
called capuardo in the eastern region of
ghana
my mother is white american from a town
called ithaca in upstate new york
africa existed in the imagination of my
childhood friends primarily
within a framework of caricatures
most famous of which was by far african
booty scratcher
with spirit chukka coming in a close
second
although these caricatures are very
one-dimensional
they are however not so much of a
departure from what black americans are
shown of africa
take for example the unicef commercials
emaciated african children and
mud huts that you could save for a
dollar
although well-intentioned the narrative
is one of scarcity
not of africa as the most resource-rich
continent
on the planet i’ve often heard
africans view african americans in just
as stereotypical ways
as lazy criminal and violent
the disjointing of the african diaspora
has been the most
effective tool of white supremacy
in the continued disenfranchisement of
peoples of african descent
by the year 2050 a quarter of the
world’s population
will be african african americans
having come from a collective wealth of
absolute
zero during chattel slavery having a
period of under 200 years
amass the spending power of over a
trillion dollars
reuniting the broken bond
of the african and the black american
can combine strength in numbers
with strength in dollars and a level of
cultural
influence unprecedented in world history
with which we can begin
to address the devastating wounds of
colonization
but it will require strategy today
i’ll be discussing three first of which
identification of a common enemy and a
naming
of our shared oppressions secondly
transcending neocolonialism and third
fostering cultural understanding through
the use of
art technology and education
in 1962 when addressing a delegation of
african freedom fighters kwame nkrumah
said
in our paraphrase this meeting gives us
the opportunity
to assess our strengths as well as
those of our enemy who is the enemy
the enemy is imperialism with its
weapons colonialism
and neocolonialism
let’s define imperialism imperialism is
the practice
of a nation imposing its rule or
authority
over another nation most often through
the use of brute military force
it is no secret that we as black people
from ghana
to south africa to nigeria to haiti to
jamaica
from louisiana to bus when i have been
the victims of a ruthless imperialism
at the hands of the british the french
the spanish the dutch the portuguese
pretty much all white people and
in a more distant past the arab world as
well
it is the same british empire that
colonized the land of my father
that is responsible for the
proliferation
of african slaves across the americas in
the caribbean
same enemy it’s the same
counterintelligence arm of america
that’s responsible for destabilizing the
black community
with crack cocaine that’s responsible
for destabilizing governments across
africa by meddling in their politics
same
enemy let’s backtrack for a second
in 1957 kwame nkrumah led
ghana to independence becoming the first
nation in sub-saharan africa to achieve
this feat
he subsequently became the nation’s
first president
kwame nkrumah was an unabashed enemy of
imperialism
he was a pan-africanist with ties to
other leaders such as
agave and lumumba and amassed
a fortune in his time
in power with which ghana was able
to fund liberation movements for african
nations across the continent
this was a significant threat to america
and in 1966 the cia was involved in a
coup
that deposed kwame nkrumah setting ghana
and the continent at large back
considerably
let’s fast forward a little bit in 1979
in another military power graph this
time in south america
the cia collaborated with a nicaraguan
rebel group called the contras
to overthrow the government how did they
fund it
they brought nicaraguan cocaine into the
united states
at the dawn of the crack epidemic
effectively opening the doors for the
sliding of the prison cells
that would begin the age of mass
incarceration
and today there are more african people
in bondage in a prison cell than we’re
ever on a plantation
same enemy
now private prisons in america are big
business
one of the largest companies it’s called
geo group
that same geo group owns carson
facilities
in south africa where the dutch have
bastardized the african people
now if we go to west africa dutch-owned
shell gas company
is one of the primary drillers of
nigerian oil
same enemy when you begin to peel back
the layers
a clear imperialist shadow is cast from
the cells of sing-sing to johannesburg
to the oil fields in nigeria if we can
identify
our common enemy at that point
we can begin to collectivize our power
but without strategy power is useless
any effective strategy has to include
transcending
neo-colonialism neo-colonialism is the
use
of economic political
and other forces to influence nations
especially former dependencies
97 of africa was colonized
by the year 1913 roughly 60 years after
the end of slavery in america
here we are in the year 2021
roughly 60 years after most african
nations achieved independence
but in most cases it’s little more than
a facade for an imperialist puppeteer
behind the scenes
pulling the strings ghana is rich in
gold
why is ghana not rich from gold nigeria
is rich in oil why they know nigerians
not rich from oil
the congo is rich in diamonds why is
congo not rich
from diamonds black queer feminist
theorist audrey lord has a quote in
which she says
we cannot dismantle the master’s house
using the master’s tools on the
plantations of tennessee
masters tools consisted of colorism
separating light from dark house from
field negro
the banning of drums or the speaking of
native tongues
in west africa tribal divisions were
exacerbated
through the lure of trade with europeans
effectively leading brother to cell
brother sister the sales sister and
father the sales son
when we adopt the same uber capitalist
dollar over everything ethos as our
oppressors
we have effectively become them we’re
doing their job for them
the five richest men in nigeria have a
collective wealth
of over 30 billion dollars enough to end
extreme poverty and yet five million
face hunger
we have adopted the master’s tools one
of the master’s most
destructive tools has been the use of
religion to divide
african spiritual systems of traditions
such as voldun
across the middle passage to become
voodoo or euro but across the middle
passage to become
santeria have been demonized and
outlawed
and christianity has often been used to
enslave
justify and commit genocide i don’t say
this to offend and salt anyone’s
spiritual system just to bring light to
the fact that when you have
made a man hate and fear
the gods of his grandfathers well you’ve
made him hating for himself
when i was in ghana recently i came
across my father’s birth certificate
i was stricken by the fact that in bold
print at the top of the document it read
christian name first my father’s name is
edward quaker mensah his mother would
call him kwaku
the name quaker wasn’t even on his birth
certificate actually was replaced with
kingsley
i was taken aback by the fact that to
take part in society
my people had to discard their names
they had to discard their gods
and they had to turn their back on their
ancestry
if we’re going to be able to dismantle
the master’s house we need to be able to
look into our toolbox
identify which of our tools belong to
said master
and discard those tools so we can make a
plan
of deconstruction using our own devices
devices such as education art
technology there’s a song by one of my
favorite hip-hop groups
dead press the song is called day
schools
it goes kind of like this
day schools ain’t teach us my
people need freedom
we trying to get all we could get all my
high school teachers could suck my dick
telling me white man lies straight
african history for the black american
in public schools begins with slavery
and ends with the civil rights movement
there is no discussion of the history of
the
universities of timbuktu of mansa musa
as
history’s richest man of the mali empire
of the ghana empire
santiwar driving away the british
of the medieval castles of zimbabwe
or even of the construction of the first
pyramids as being the work of a black
pharaoh named kufu
they would have you believe however that
elizabeth taylor is a spitting image of
cleopatra and matthew mcconaughey looks
like timbuktu
these are the same people that cast tom
cruise as the last samurai so i can’t be
that surprised
um but what we need is a complete
overhaul a shift
from a eurocentric curriculum to one
that properly represents
us and our contributions to society
to civilization two of the fastest
growing global markets are black music
and technology what’s referred to as the
urban aspirational market
it’s basically everything we influence
with hip-hop
is in america worth over a trillion
dollars
and hip-hop is global afrobeats is
global
collaboration between black american and
african artists
fashion designers engineers
affords us the opportunity to redefine
our narrative
in contrast from the master’s tool of
division to one of a unified front
the tech industry is globally valued at
over three trillion dollars
what’s known as the fourth industrial
revolution cloud computing artificial
intelligence
advanced wireless and mobile technology
has disrupted things
everywhere in 2018 africa was
responsible for
half of the global mobile money accounts
really are more connected than we’ve
ever been
tech gives us the opportunity for the
underprivileged to have access to job
opportunities
to have access to information and
quality of life
that we haven’t before and the
possibility for collaboration is greater
than ever
it can be easy as black people to feel
as if we’ve been under the hill since
the dawn of time but there was
a time before colonization
and we truly are the cradle of
civilization
and above all we’re hopelessly connected
if the diaspora are the limbs
or the continent is the skeleton we are
one body every system in the body
can work with itself but without the
skeletal system
everything collapses our growth and our
mobility has been
purposefully stunted for the creation of
a permanent underclass by the world’s
imperialist masters
if we are to overcome this status
of second class global citizen
we’re going to need to be able to look
together
and identify our common oppressors
to reject the structures of those
oppressors
and to replace them with structures of
our own of
understanding art education
at that point that’s when we can begin
to mend the fractures and our damage for
strong bones
thank you