NYAME NATION

I think it would benefit people to read Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary’s book, entitled “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome” to get a sense of the history behind our collective inferiority complex.  In discussing the effects of psychological racism, especially in the self-inflicted context, it is imperative to trace it to the root of the problem.  I stress this point because the goal of Nyame Nation is to eradicate the effects of internal racism that continues to tell our children that they are inferior, less capable, less worthy than others to achieve.

Let’s take a very brief walk through the process and try to touch on some of the major psychological issues that are still affecting us to this day.

In slavery, there was the making of the slave, the instillation of fear, the destruction of language, culture, history, and family structure via the Willie Lynch method and the use of selected Christianity to first instill the concept that Black people are naturally inferior and evil (the Curse of Ham myth), and that their enslavement was justified as a result of that innate evil, but if they accept their lot and serve their masters faithfully, they would be rewarded with Heaven after they die.  The Black woman was turned into a sexual object and a breeding tool, a fate she could not escape or expect to be rescued from by the Black man.  The Black man was dehumanized, tortured and broken until he was mentally enslaved and prepared to stay that way to save his life.  With the family destroyed, hope and self-esteem destroyed, and no knowledge of self other than having been slaves and children of slaves - and deservedly so, according to the Pastor - the beginning of the psychological self-hatred was firmly planted.

Fast forward to post-slavery.   The psychological bonds remain, though the people were physically free.  Some were so broken that they feared to leave their places, being assured that they had no place to go and no knowledge how to survive on their own.  But some began to coalesce, build settlements, support each other, build businesses and thrive by working together and educating themselves.  With this first flush of Black independent prosperity came the formation of the KKK.  Lynching began to become a common terrorism tool in order to keep Blacks ‘in their place’ which was, out of necessity for white supremacy, below whites.  Fear dominated Black society, and those who thrived or were successful were often targets, but even simple ‘transgressions’ such as making eye contact with a white person, or looking at a white person’s undergarments on a clothesline could be an impetus for violence and death.  In this environment, mothers - especially those still in the splintered family situation had to raise their sons and daughters to be subservient, not to look above their ’station’ in life if she did not want to lose them, possibly like she lost their father, which was not uncommon.  Education was valued for her children, but entrepreneurship could make them targets. The best situation for Blacks in this time would be to get educated enough to be able to find a good job, and keep their heads below the radar otherwise.  Thus did we have to compound our slavery psychoses with more fear-generated survival tactics.

Fast forward to the Civil Rights Movement.  Enough people have educated themselves, enough people have come together, enough people have decided that basic human dignity is something worth fighting for, and under the guidance of strong leadership, Black people together with whites and others began a movement to change the way this country works.  The threat of the KKK and terrorism still present, Black people fought through it anyway to prove that no one should be subject to inhumane treatment because of the color of their skin, and that the values that this country claimed to be founded on were being violated by its very citizens by these actions.  We fought for and won many social and legal battles, including the end of the Plessy vs. Ferguson ‘Separate but Equal’ doctrine.

But here, an interesting thing happened.  Until that point, we were dependent on our own schools, patronized our own businesses, spent money amongst ourselves, and had a strong sense of community.  But even the strength of the Civil Rights movement did not erase the inferiority complexes from our minds - especially when anyone with eyes could see that the ruling class was, is, and ever had been white, and the Movement depended on our being able to convince or coerce them into accepting us (at least legally) as equal human beings.  The effort was successful, so now here’s the situation.  A Black person has the legal right to choose between a superior (white) restaurant or the inferior (black) restaurant.  Why fight all this time to gain the honor and the prestige of being served along white people in a white establishment only to continue going to the same places we always have? Why continue to send our children to inferior Black schools when we now have the right to send them to be schooled in superior education alongside superior white children? The exodus of Black support for Black establishments had begun, and integration was all the rage.  We had fought our way into the Promised Land of white society, but we neglected to deprogram ourselves from the idea that ‘white is better, richer, smarter, greater’ first.  Why wouldn’t we think so?  They rule the country, they make the laws, they show us their perfectly happy lives on television while we struggle every day to stay afloat, so clearly they are doing something superior to what we’re doing, right? Any child exposed to the differences between Black society and white would come to that conclusion in no time, and if the adults have not yet deconstructed the reasons for it, how can they?

I’m going to stop here for now as this is pretty long, but I will continue this week on the effects of this history on our culture as it stands now, and the reasons the Nyame Nation project is so very important in the reconstruction of our collective consciousness so that we can move forward with children who believe only the best about themselves.

I was having an interesting discussion with someone on reddit.com about racism in America today, and I was making the point that the biggest concern is not the overt acts of racism (though that is still an ongoing concern), but the psychological impact of the constant messages of white superiority and Black inferiority that are fed to us constantly through news and media, even our own families and communications.

I think that this is a very important discussion, because it gets to the root of why we think that Nyame Nation is so important.  We can never become what we can be until we break that psychological hold that says white means better, richer, inventors and creators, while black is synonymous with bad, poor, uneducated consumers.  People don’t always recognize that the most innocuous things can color a person’s entire self-worth.  Children are especially susceptible to this because they are like sponges, they absorb every single thing they see, hear, and experience, and file it away into thoughts that tell them how to look at the world.  Things we don’t even realize that children are absorbing tell them what they should think, feel, do and be.

Take television, for example.  If a Black child turns on the television, and sees white people being happy, rich, kind, successful - not to mention princesses and superheroes, then they see Black people being vulgar, violent, criminal, and struggling, it begins to tell them something about the way the world is organized.  There is nothing wrong with television being filled with positive portrayal of whites - if you are white and want your children to benefit from that.  But if you are Black, and you have no positive images but those that are white to show your children, they are going to begin to understand that the way the world works is this: White equals good.  Black equals bad.

This is such a small tip of the iceberg of Black psychosis, and it runs so deep and so far that I will probably spend several days on the subject.   But at the moment, I would like to link to a couple of short YouTube videos.  Some of you may have heard about the Black doll/White doll experiment done by Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s, which was redone by a young woman named Kiri Davis in 2006.  Here is a news report on Kiri’s experiment and another one done by MSNBC.

And to  illustrate that the issues of racism and white supremacy are absorbed by all children at an early age - not just Black children, here is a short experiment done by 20/20.

A huge part of what Nyame Nation is trying to do is to create an atmosphere and community for our children where they are surrounded by nothing but positive self image and encouragement that they are wonderful, intelligent, and powerful.  That they have the ability to create, to become rich, to be happy… even to be superheroes and princesses.  It’s important that they are infused with self love and not made to idolize others at the expense of their own self concept.   If there is going to be anything like successful racial interaction, it will have to be from people who have learned to love and respect themselves first and foremost, so thatwe as different people can approach each other as equals, without the psychological chains that tell us that one is superior and the other inferior.

It’s been a while, dear friends, since I’ve had a chance to write an update on what we’ve been up to around here. My apologies, it seems every time we turn around, there is a new project to be taken care of. We’ve been involved in the Millions More Movement Arts & Culture Ministry as well as the Agricultural Ministry, in community basketball tournaments, poetry slams, campaign volunteering, there are some new children’s books in the works, I for one am trying to become self-sustainable so that I may be able to leave an unpleasant job, and through it all, we continue to research the best methods to bring this project to fruition.

I would also like to direct your attention to the new link at the right entitled ‘Ghana Nkwanta Project.” This particular project is, as we are, pursuing the land gift in the Volta region of Ghana and developing it into a community and refuge for those of us in the diaspora. I highly recommend looking into it, especially if you are located in New York City, as you may have a good chance of being able to become involved. We are making great strides in creating networks and connections amongst conscious people in out areas, and will continue to develop these relationships into co-supportive networks for all of our various enterprises.

With increasing awareness of the importance of beginning at home and the urgency of being able to provide some means for our people to learn how to sustain themselves in a struggling economy, we have been doing some in-depth discussions on the viability of creating our little school/community here in the U.S. before we branch out abroad. We feel it is important to bring the concept of this community to our people here in the United States for concept development and initial exposure, as a precursor to taking it to Ghana and other places. In order to really make progress, it is always a good idea to begin at home. It is my personal belief that people would be much more willing to lend their support for a project, if they can first see the fruits of our efforts right here.

We would like to urge any people with skill in grassroots organizing who are interested in getting involved to contact us. Even if you know nothing about organizing but are interested in keeping updated with what’s going on, feel free to email me at erika@nyamenation.org and ask to be added to the mailing list.

It’s been an exciting few weeks; I’ve gotten in touch with an organization doing some pretty exciting agricultural things in California, and am making plans to visit and learn from them. I also took a short seminar class with one of the founders of hydroponic/aquaponic technology, and learned some really interesting things.

Why am I looking into agriculture? Because quite simply, a community cannot accomplish anything if it cannot feed itself. I don’t know if anyone here has been paying attention to the U.S. economy, the value of the dollar in the world market, and the prices of everyday groceries, but this country is in serious economic trouble.

When things get really serious, those who suffer the brunt are those that are unable to take care of themselves; having never learned basic survival skills, and who only know how to get along by depending on others. It’s time to re-introduce the values of producing as opposed to consuming and conservation as opposed to waste. That’s been the major theme of this entire project, in one way or another, but when you get right down to it, the bare bones of producing means being able to provide for your own basic needs so that you may be free to see to higher things for self and community.

Learning to grow and preserve their own food is but one thing that needs to be introduced to our youth. If they must depend on supermarkets for sustenance, they will need to continue striving for enough money to patronize those markets. In this economy, the grossly inflated prices for such staples as bread and dairy ensures a dependence on wage slavery just to put food on the table.

This country teaches its citizens to be consumers, not producers, and those in low-income communities who are constantly fed this addictively flashy consumer culture bond themselves into wage slavery in order to be able to consume more and more, while producing nothing. The only way to break these bonds is in learning to produce, learning to love and believe in self and community, and collective work towards something more substantial for ourselves than the latest fashion or the newest gadget. In this vein, I discovered a really interesting site that sheds some light on how we consume in this country. If you have 15 minutes, check it out. http://www.storyofstuff.com

Now for a slight change in topic. I’ve been following the election as I’m sure many of us have. Today I saw a quote that I found really interesting - and I am not going to get deeply into the political stuff here, but it said “History has thrown America an unlikely lifeline,” referring to Democratic candidate Barack Obama. It went on to ask the question of whether we as a nation will have the sense to grab that lifeline and move forward together, or will we let go and fall back into this dangerous course of fear and self-destruction that we’ve gotten ourselves into?

See full article here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/this-good-friday-let-us-_b_92645.html

Regardless of political leanings, one wonders whether any sane person can continue to vote for those that campaign on the principles of fear and divisiveness rather than the one who suggests that we focus on our common interests instead of our differences and move forward together with hard work and understanding. Obama may or may not be the “lifeline” that he is made out to be - only time will tell on that note. The point, though, is simply this: Which message will we collectively gravitate towards - hope or fear? If it’s hope, at least we know a majority of us are facing in the right direction. I think there may be rough days ahead, but I have the audacity to hope that we will somehow manage to pull ourselves out of the madness. I know that I will continue, through working with Nyame Nation, to do my part in trying to put an end to the insanity.
And that’s all I have to say about that.

Just a quick update to report what we’ve been doing to advance our project. Several lead-in projects are in the works as we try to generate interest. One thing that we’ve noticed is that nearly everyone who hears about Nyame Nation and what we plan to accomplish wants to help out or participate in some way. Therefore, it’s merely a matter of letting people know of our plans and invite them to remain in contact with us as we continue to move forward. The current projects in the works are:

• A performance arts project to outline the benefits of mutual communal cooperation between people of African Heritage and African Nationalities.
• A bicycle ride down the Atlantic Coast to help raise awareness and find more potential contributors to our community.
• A trip to the Saviour’s Day convention in Chicago, where we intend to make more connections and spread the word of Nyame Nation.
• The Trans-Atlantic Family Reunion is currently in its first stages. We have several Black families in the United States who are interested in sponsoring a Ghanaian child with financial assistance, school supplies, etc., but do not wish to do it through the “big” organizations. We are proud to arrange this amongst our own people, and are diligently working on making it happen.
• Last, but certainly not least, Nyame Nation will be featured on Brian Muhammad’s blog radio broadcast, “The Sankofa Experience” in order to discuss our projects and what we’ve done so far. The date is to be announced, and you can find Brother Brian’s site here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/theSankofaExperience

Keep checking for updates! Though progress goes in cycles of slow and fast periods, we nevertheless continue to move forward with each and every day.

It’s important that we of African Heritage and people of African Nationality begin to see each other once again as the same people and the same family.  It is only by recognizing each other as brethren that we can begin to give each other mutual support and guidance.  Black people in Africa should know that they always have aid and allies from their brothers and sisters in the U.S. and the Diaspora, and Black people in the US should be able to count on the same aid and support from the Nations of Africa.  It is in this way that we can build each other up and continue to help each other grow in peace and prosperity.

We strongly believe that a large part of the lacking self-esteem in many of our children today stems from the heavily eurocentric education that they receive in school. This issue has been often remarked upon when discussing “Black History Month” and some of our people take note of the fact that their children are taught about Euro-American history all throughout the year, yet only one month is set aside for discussing, specifically, the accomplishments of people who look like them. And more often than not, those that are discussed in the greatest detail are those involved in the Civil Rights Movement, with emphasis placed on the importance of their wanting to integrate into the white world.

The message supposedly being conveyed - that “we should all now work together - equally -  for a better world,” and “race/color no longer makes a difference in our society” would be a good one, but it ultimately comes across as false and hollow. Not because it’s a faulty goal, but because it’s simply not true where we stand now. Simple unspoken facts illustrate this to children more clearly than people realize. When school history books are constantly full of people who look nothing like our children, except for during a month set aside to acknowledge them, the message comes across. When “Black History” begins with slavery and ends with the Civil Rights Movement, it comes across. When you say “classical music” with the understanding that you mean European music, the message is loud and clear. The children are being told in every scenario that they are different and inferior, and that their highest achievements came only when their own people managed to integrate themselves into white society. Is it any wonder that they have an inferiority complex, consciously or otherwise?

The point of completely reworking the lessons that our children are taught is not to foster separatism; rather it is to make living together with other people an actual possibility. If two or more groups of people come together with any hope for a sustainable relationship for the future, it must be on even ground, not with the concepts of superiority and inferiority forever interfering. Our children must have a healthy love and respect for themselves and for each other first; before we can hope to have a healthy compatibility with others.

We are not trying to create pipe dreams here, we are working to change the future so that we have a future. We must be the ones to teach our children, and we must teach them to love and respect themselves from an early age, with the values we need to instill in them.  If we continue to let others do the job and don’t take an active role in teaching our children who they are and how they fit in the world, we as a people will continue to kill ourselves and allow others to kill and exploit us at their whim. The principles of Nyame Nation are those of love, trust, and respect - and we intend to pass these principles onto our children.  They will learn to demonstrate these principles first amongst themselves so that they can then offer the same to the world.

Our intention is to create a new community for our children. A community wherein each of them will be taught that there is nothing that they cannot do, and that people who are like themselves are capable of great things. We intend to show them this as we teach them. Words are meaningless to a child if that child’s entire life experience teaches him or her otherwise.

Children will believe what you tell them, but they hear with observation and experience, not just their ears. If a child is told that he can do anything or be anything, yet his life experience teaches him otherwise, not only is he going to begin believing what he experiences rather than what he is told, but he will begin to resent whomever is telling him otherwise. It’s like someone continuously insisting on the existence of Santa Claus to a child that’s more than old enough to know better.

Too many of our children are constantly bombarded with the experience of seeing people like themselves that don’t believe that their people are worth much, or people who gain arbitrary status symbols like wealth and “reputation” by perpetuating negative stereotypes. We have got to get them out of the quagmire of a society that says that Black is inferior in every way that really matters, and that the only things that matter to us are material possessions and having a good time.

Nyame Nation’s major goal is to create a new picture for our children, one small community at a time. The students will be taught that they are powerful, intelligent, and capable of great things, and they will be shown the truth of that in their everyday experiences. They will be exposed to builders, creators, thinkers; people who look like they do and have the potential to change the world for the better. We intend to surround them with love for themselves and for each other, and teach them to respect themselves and know that they are second to no one in this universe. When we tell them that they have the potential to do great things, they will see the truth of it in everything they hear, see, and do. It is in this way that we intend to change the Black experience for our children and create a positive place for them in the world.

One of the most serious concerns that we have is the fact that our children have been wallowing through their lives without real guidance. This is often placed at the feet of the parents, but you can hardly blame the parents for not giving their children what they’ve never had. We can look around the neighborhood and see children born to parents that were barely freshmen in high school when they were conceived. These parents are still learning how to grow up themselves, and cannot really be expected to teach anyone else yet. Can you blame the parents of the teenage mother who are often themselves attached to skewed value systems because they’ve known nothing else?

The problem lies not in finding who to blame but in working toward a solution. Those who are lucky enough to be able to see beyond the here and now - past the flawed societal expectations and the valueless values of a people raised to believe that they are less than they are - have got to step up and work towards a better state of mind, or there can be no change for us.

How easy is it for us to continue to believe that a majority of Black people live in poverty and chaos because “that’s just the way it is,” or that being second, third, or last class citizens anywhere we live is just “part of the Black experience?” That the other peoples of the world around us have all been doers and creators of great things, but we are the poor, the worthless, the deprived… constantly in need of assistance from others? It certainly might seem that way, when you look at the condition of our people in the U.S., in Africa, and around the world, but it is not true. This is a lie that has been told to us from centuries back; the problem is that we have internalized the message so much that we now embrace it as truth and perpetuate these beliefs without much prompting from anyone else.

A community where the police can walk in at any time and harass, assault, or kill an innocent young person and it is merely treated as status quo is a community that does not see the value in the lives of its own members. A community that values dollars over education and reputation over decency is one that has collectively swallowed too much of the propaganda that they are not worthy of something better. It’s about time that we chose to give our children guidance in the right direction - the one that will lead them towards being masters of their own fate, and creators of the future, rather than becoming no more than tools; forged and wielded by others for the betterment of others but never themselves.