We Must Train Our Youth To Be Educated
Amidst the sounds of sweet jazz, twerk-inducing hip hop drums, and crowds of people on Burbon Street; what I saw most was the humanity of our struggle as Afrikans surviving inside of the settler-kkkolonial project known as the United States. I was reminded, again, that inside of the belly of the beast that is the amerikkkan empire, the conditions our people face is tantamount to genocide and war. It only takes one to revisit Jamil Al-Amin who asked whether we were educated or trained, and called for us to recognize the difference.
A trained person operates on the basis of no cross references…an educated person can apply cross references. Now with this in mind we begin to look at the type of system that amerikkka allows through her education and her training. As a fact, you find that the whole mobility for cross references has been limited and almost eliminated.
Jamil Al Amin
Most people are operating based on the training they have received from the amerikkkan educational system. Their system is carefully curated to under-developed its students in order to illicit unchecked compliance through carceral controlling methods. This type of training is what creates a complicity within the oppressed populations. It is for that reason we must understand the value of educating our people.
When people travel to New Orleans it is usually with the intent to party. Rightfully so, between the music and the food I can see why people visit to have a good time. But what I couldn’t help but notice was the babies working the streets as performers. Afrikan youth, multiple under 10, drumming for dollars well past what would be deemed “an appropriate hour for elementary school children” to be out. These youth are forced to work, at best to help their families survive kkkapitalism, and it served as just another reminder of the inhumanity of kkkapitalism.
We watched tourist take pictures of Jackson square, where a huge statue to former genocider in command Andrew Jackson is located with the words “the union must and shall not perish” etched in stone. The same Jackson square known as the site for the lynching of Afrikans. Tourist gazed for amusement and entertainment and what I saw was the sobering reality to majority of those people in the crowd, these Afrikans subjected to perform in hopes of payment weren’t seen as people. Merely looking to survive relegated them to “other” status, less than, and the ability to acknowledge them as full human beings was no longer necessary.
I witnessed a grown western-european artist performing on the street and saw the bucket full of $5s, $10s & $20s while the young brothas on the streets, the unhoused elder, the sista hustling jello-shots all struggle to even be acknowledged. This willingness to value Afrikans as disposable is nothing new and we should not find it shocking, but what we should do is examine how this phenomenon facing our people in New Orleans looks eerily similar to the phenomenon plaguing our people on sacramento, in oakland, in la, and any other geographical region where Afrikan people are! While the history, culture and conditions shift in each region we must be aware enough to have a clear view of how the united states empire operates the ongoing gencodial war against the land base of Afrika, all of her people, and the global south and oppressed people the world over.
Just as the serious and committed Afrikans are building unity among themselves on The Continent, it is up to us to begin to build with the international community, specifically within the Afrikan diaspora in order to combat the fascist amerikkkan empire. It is critical we begin to learn these histories, we form relationships with other serious and committed Afrikan and Indigenous Peoples working to rid themselves and the world of the yoke of kkkapitalist-kkkolonial oppression.
We are a pivotal moment where the west has lost its power grip. I believe we are closer than we have ever been, historically, for a legitimate shot to end the western european kkkolonial rule that has plagued the earth for the past 500 or so years. As kkkolonized peoples globally. are raising up and forcing out occupying forces, isn’t it time we do the same within the empire? At the very least in our ways of raising our children?
It is reported that over 80% of the soldiers in the Al Qassam Brigades were orphaned due to isn’treal air strikes that martyred their parents. Unfortunately, those children grew up with a deep understanding of war and the type of violence kkkolonial occupation creates. This was due to proximity; and due to the segregation of Palestians and settlers the majority of Palestian youth come to understand the connectedness of their conditions. This is not the case for Afrikans inside of the empire.
Our assimilation has historical context as a method of survival under kkkolonial rule. This assimilation practice has given the western-european kkkolonial occupying force the ability to train our youth for generations. This has allowed the occupying force to mask the true conditions of our people, disconnecting us, and stifling our ability to wage a legitimate resistance. This is why it is hyper-critical for us to be teaching our youth who they are, who their people are, who their enemy is, their position within the world and that they must be willing to fight for liberation. By any means necessary.
