I was assisted in writing the post by a bottle of Bernardus Marinus Red Blend 2014: Carmel Valley. Monterey County California. Solid. Complex structure. Bold. Dry. More tannic than smooth. Moderately high acidity. Opening with tobacco, black cherries, and vanilla. A sustain of oak, plums, blackberries, and smoke. An ending of pepper, figs, and ripe cherries. Long – soft licorice finish.
“Have you ever looked in a face of age – Or lend your ears to what an old man had to say? Cause every generation of our life – Reflects a movie scene often more than twice. Child is born to live within the master plan – Boy grows up to be a man. Vintage years of wine for the wife – Every generation of life of our lives.
Rise and plant your seeds in the early spring – Summer’s gone away, winter’s back again. Time will make us change, nothing stays the same – A fool gets stung, hides his heart and plays the game. Cause every generation of our lives – Reflects a movie scene often more than twice…”
Lyrics By Ronnie Laws (“Every Generation”)
Ever since the advent of “ADOS” (“American Descendants of Slavery”), other identifiers covering us (some old, some new) have been popping up left and right. Now, as fine Americans, all of us have the right to label our individual persons with whatever label one chooses. I personally will respect your decision. But since these labels are out there, and some folks insist that I use them – I’m gonna do my two cents on the main seven that come at me, but only those that exist within the House of Freedmen. Yep Those. Like, comment and share.
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THE FREEDMAN STATUS
When it comes to a legal Reparational interface with the Federal Government – “Freedmen” is the platinum standard in certainty. Wikipedia: “A Freedman or Freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom from their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self-purchase. A fugitive slave is a person who escaped enslavement by leaving.”
Okay.
In this post we will have no concern for other “Freedmen” iterations: Such as the “Native American Freedmen” of various ilks for example. We will only concern ourselves with the United States’ despoiled convergence of free, enslaved, and indigenous Blacks that were permanently released by – then barred from any re-enslavement by the 1865 ratified Thirteenth Amendment. This Amendment is probably the most important Amendment outside the Bill of Rights. Arguably.
In daily legal, legislative, and Supreme Court discourse, the term “Freedmen” may be quite ancient; but it is very much alive and very much in use now. Right Now.
The legislative and legal potency of what this term is and means in an American sense and establishment has not been repurposed, nor has been diminished over time. To reveal more of the software behind the word – this term applies not only to those that were directly emancipated, but it also applies to their line descendants in perpetuity. The designation was made official Federally on March 3, 1865.
The most prominent case that I can think of where the term was recently used was in the landmark 2023 Supreme Court case: “Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.” The term was used by Justice Thomas in his quite comprehensive concurrence. The term was (re)brought to common public awareness and recognition before that by the Reparations online research and study group “Be The Power.” Even though myself and the leader of this group have had some past contentions – I must be correct and fair. They did a masterful job of (re)presenting and explaining this powerful term to the public. Sparking strong and serious and reparationally necessary discussions continuing to this day.
Discussions bring out points and counterpoints. A range of good and bad ideas arise from the hot intellectual energies generated from substantive and passionate discourse. Especially those discussions based in the possiblity of a deep and due justice being done. Those American Freedmen that speak against their own folks receiving Reparations are not only weird, but are also astonishingly imbecilic.
And those non-Black – non-white people that oppose Reparations? They are in opposition for two excellent reasons: Reason One: To improve their relations with the white power structure. Reason Two: Legitimate fears of American Freedmen improving their political operations and economic infrastructures which will impact their incomes and political positionality not only here, but internationally as well. Many whites that oppose feel that we should have never been released from slavery anyway. Right? “Why should Reparations be given to those that properly should have remained in a perpetual state of involuntary servitude?”
Right? That doesn’t make sense.
And Finally: All Black Immigrants that are in opposition to – or incredibly want to join with The NAARC/N’COBRA Axis to directly or indirectly “Pan Africanize” our Justice? Our Reparations? They are The Enemy. No kinfolks of ours. Bet That.
Now, that small digression into Reparations had a pointed purpose. That purpose is multifold. At this point, I’d like you to start thinking of “Freedmen” in terms of legality, establishment, and utility. Keeping those thoughts tight and dispassionate. OK? The exact way a no-agenda Supreme Court justice would think. Legally.
We shouldn’t think of “Freedmen” in terms of “ethnicity.” That would destroy the utility of the word. Remember: We cannot use “race” or “ethnicity” as a basis for accomplishing legal or legislative relief. Through this “Freedmen” term, a case for lineage, injury, and unconstitutional deprivation can be established through solid constitutional means. (!) And that constitutionally-based case to be made just “happenstantially” happens to be regarding the lineage ethnically identified as “Foundational Black Americans.” Or ADOS, or Negro, or Black, or African American, or Your Choice. That Family, is legally and legislatively how it goes.
Understand How This Works Family:
Every time you purposefully approach the Government, the Government gives you an interface. All Government gifted interfaces have a lot of software behind them. That interface software has parameters that you are bound to work within. Plaintiff, litigant, beneficiary, defendant; those are just a few examples of useful Government interfaces. “Freedmen” is no different in that regard. My sincere suggestion to our [Foundational Black] folks to keep this term viable is to: Keep It Clean. “Freedmen” has no racial or ethnicity encumberances. That’s what makes it extremely powerful as a legal and legislative tool. A tool that is still operative. A tool as it is that avoids the problematics – the restrictions of any judicial “strict scrutiny”* being applied.
“Strict Scrutiny” opens the door to a reparational nothingness for us. Unnecessary questions being raised, destructive complexities being added, endless “what ifs” being inserted. For us – “Keeping It Clean” will serve us well. Understand – the deep reason that tool is still operative for us in these latter-day times of racial reckoning, is because its ultimate Reparational purpose has not yet been fulfilled.
Let us make sure that an important aspect of our reparational fulfillment processes will happen correctly through the intelligent handling of words and meanings.
Edward Blum nor any other force can stop us – Once We Decide On Fulfillment.
“Freedmen” endows us “Federal Supercitizens”* with an unimpeachable status. That status is inextricably karmic (you’ll see) and profoundly soaked into this soil. The more that Foundational Black Americans weep? The more this country will suffer. I guarantee that. Once the Freedmen are treated as Americans – only then will this country be protected. I guarantee that as well. Pay the Freedmen NOW.
Attempting to turn “Freedmen” into an ethnicity or race identifier is a mistake.
I. FOUNDATIONAL BLACK AMERICAN
“Foundational Black American?” As an ethnic identifier and lineage establisher – out of all the labels I have previously accepted, none have been descriptively more precise. I’ve adopted this label, and I will stay with it. Appropriate and powerful. Diamonds occasionally appear to us in the form of great concepts and ideas.
Some years ago, I don’t know the exact year, Dr. Claud Anderson came up with the designation: “Native Black Americans.” Beautiful term – beautiful intent. And in a lot of ways, quite accurate. But! When you are using this designation in America, it can easily be construed by some folks to mean that you are speaking about “Native Americans.” Even though the word “Black” is in the middle of the term. And there were/are Black Native Americans. Lots of material out there regarding this group.
Can be confusing.
Solidity and clarity came when historian, filmmaker, and marketer Tariq Nasheed did a significant modification to the designation. Replacing the lead-in word “Native” with “Foundational.” Much better. More than just a simple word replacement happened here Family. There is quite a bit of software behind this improvement. So, what does that software look like? Well there are three parts:
1. Foundational = To reiterate a line that should be obviously true to any American whether they have historical astuteness or not: “Blacks built the country.” Oh Yes We Did. Cleared the forests. Built the Capitol. Won the Civil War. Black labor and genius uniquely infused this country with exponentialized riches and culture.
The Black Foundationals invented many of the devices, processes, and systems which definitively led this country into the modern age. Historic and Irrefutable.
Our Foundationalism goes deeper and further than that. As of this writing since 1619 – (really since 1526 – but for now for right now – let’s just do 1619) we have sunk 406 years of Blood and Bones into this Soil. 157 years of that was before this country became a country. 246 years of that was before we were so-called “emancipated.” Our lineage paid a very, very expensive price for the right to claim and be “American.” As of 2025 we still have not received everything we have purchased. Still have not received recompense for our deprivations and injuries.
Our “Foundationalness” is the basis for claiming what we are owed.
2. Black = This is the heavy one. What I want to say regarding this word is covered in Section V of this article.
3. American = This assertion is not up for debate: “The American Freedman is the Quintessential American.” Period. We are the core and the circumference of the United States. We are the deep character of, and the ultimate sustainer of these United States. Foundational Black Americans – the only group that when called upon has saved America’s ass from the American Revolution; to the Civil War; to World Wars I and II; through every other domestic and foreign conflict; without excuse or hesitancy. NO! We do what real Americans are supposed to do.
Let us go further: The only thing that makes the United States “exceptional” is the existence of exceptional Foundational Black Americans not only on its soil – but in our immovable existence as the very and most necessary understructure of this country. Without which, an “America” could not exist. This land is infused with Our open character, Our Americanized Negritude, Our Black innovativeness, Our nondiscriminatory embraciveness. We corrected the laws and caused a civility of rights and equalness. We forced the country to look at – to stand on – to abide by its own Constitution. We established in here a powerful and effective Black American protest standard. We are the “Soulaan”* – the only True Americans.
II. AMERICAN DESCENDANT OF SLAVERY
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his great book “Where Do We Go From Here?”: “Who are we? We are the descendants of slaves… I for one am not ashamed of this past.” Well Family, I’m not either. Some would be surprised that all of my enslaved paternal antecedents were locked down in Central Illinois (a supposed free State?). My father’s side of my family has no lineal connection to “The South.” The first of my fathers’s family landed and labored in New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1657 – purchased from a slave-trading kingdom in what is now called Sierra Leone. My paternal enslaved lineage was eventually resold then transported to the Illinois Territory in 1816.
That Happened. And we’re still anchored here in Illinois, mostly in Alton Illinois, and some right across the Mississippi River in St. Louis Missouri. So there it is.
I first heard the term “American Descendants of Slavery” [ADOS] watching Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore on YouTube speaking on the necessity of Reparations. From there, eventually joining the ADOS Movement. From there, becoming aware of the well-presented Reparations scholarship of Dr. William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen. From there, becoming vice president of the first organized ADOS advocacy entity in America (ADOS Chicago). And from there transforming into an enduring and excited devotee for the cause of Reparations for Black Americans.
Despite our present-day differences, I must still credit Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore for reviving awareness regarding Reparations. And injecting the important concept of descendant of American slavery lineage into the minds of the public.
Focused study on my part eventually revealed that this “ADOS” is actually a re-rendering of the acronym “DOAS” (“Descendants of American Slavery”) which was originally created by Norris Shelton. A Black American scholar and author of twenty five books, and the founder of “American Slaves Inc.” Whose mission: “… is to educate, empower, and enlighten America on the plight and promise of the descendants of American slaves while creating strategies that identify true emancipation from government dependency.” Hey. That’s what the Man said.
Sounds like a good mission to me. Impressive.
I can say that when “ADOS” was launched into the atmosphere it produced the latest serious inklings of group consciousness and ethnic delineation. That was an excellent thing. Those awarenesses and conversations have only gotten stronger and more widespread over time. Many of us had/have taken this on as an ethnic identifier and that’s fine. I once used it as an ethnic identifier. No longer though. Why? At a certain point Ms. Carnell attempted to convert an ethnic identifier into a “club” with membership requirements and restrictions. Many folks stepped away from “ADOS” because of the new development. That “step away” included me.
That also opened the door to new designations being considered (like “FBA”).
I still use the “ADOS” designation contextually and sometimes interchageably with “FBA” (only in an asymmetrical sense – because the term is almost defeatist after I thought about it) depending on what I’m talking about and whom I am talking to. Many folks refused to use it because they did not like the word “slavery” in the designation. I never tripped about it. But I do understand. Its impact has been diminished but it is still operable in society. I still meet people that use it. Me? I use “FBA” as an ethnic identifier. It’s good. More appropriate. Sounds better.
III. NEGRO
Conflicted. Born in 1956. “Negro” is on my birth certificate. The origin of this word comes from the Latin root word niger, which means black. The word was first used operationally in 1555, grown out of the Spanish and Portuguese Latin rendering of negro, which directly means “black.” “Colored” was widely used interchangeably with “Negro” especially during the first half of the racially hot Twentieth Century.
The designation “Negro” slowly started falling out of favor in the mid-1960’s during and after the Black Power movement. The Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, Stokely Carmicheal, H. Rap Brown, Angela Davis, Black Is Beautiful. I grew up in the middle of this. “Negro” slowly went out. “Black” quickly came in. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s language transformed within a year from “Negro” to “Black.” It was healing. It was progress. It was racially wonderful.
But! Not so fast. As of maybe the past maybe five years, this ethnic designation has experienced a kind of revival. In the 1970’s (my high school and nomadic years) it was considered offensive and retrograde because of its very real associations with slavery, overt and covert racism, redlined circumscription, and lethal oppression.
See?
On the other side. I totally understand the contemporary attraction of some for the “Negro” designation, even though I personally no longer claim it. Yes I do. And this is why: While we were Negroes we got a lot of stuff done. This is Chicago talking here – Chicago Negroes got a lot of stuff done. And so did Negroes living in other parts of the country. So why shouldn’t a Foundational be proud of being called a “Negro?” Understand Family: Even though I prefer at this time to be ethnically and street designated as a “Foundational Black American” (especially and strategically for our Reparations purposes) – we must admit that our greatest strides forward after slavery was done under “Negro.” We should be proud.
The “Negro” gunned down the Confederacy. Then invented the Lottery. (Oops!)
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, Black Wall Street, The March on Washington, The Harlem Renaissance, Motown, Ebony Magazine, Jazz, The Tuskegee Institute, The American Culture, the Traffic Light, Madame C.J. Walker, The Tuskegee Airmen, Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington, James Brown, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells, and the precisely calculated pathway to ultimately land on the actual moon. The Moon.
The now millions of inventions that are being used right now?
The Negroes Did This………. What Can I Say?
Family? Remember at the beginning of this section I said: “Conflicted.” I had to go (because I was a kid) to my grandmother’s church. I heard superb – excellent and musically competent “Negro Spirituals.” What I heard at church was so far ahead of anything that could have ever be put into the atmosphere by dudes like Sergei Rachmaninoff, Johann Sebastian Bach, or Gustav Mahler? NO MOTHERFUCKERS. “Negroes” on just a casual level – without even trying – created greater music.
I didn’t mention Ludwig van Beethoven only because he is a suspected “Negro.”
But when I went to my great-grandmother’s Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 2 (because I was a kid), I heard and absorbed the fundamental and foundational language of “Blackness.” I’m a kid. Not understanding that “Black” and “Negro” linguistically are interchangeable. But “Black” and “Negro” are not societally nor politically interchangeable. At least not during the 1960’s. That was the problem.
Listen:
When we were Negroes? I do remember how we in a more obvious state than now were living under the darkest shadow of death. We were Negroes when all of our self-constructed communities were totally destroyed. I do remember the overt societal containment and the hardened lines between us and other communities. The forced Negro deference to whites that I saw in the South. The unseen but clear lines that were understood not to be crossed in the North. The constant friendly and unfriendly hearing of the derivative tag “Nigger.” Caucasive dismissiveness and microaggressionisms. The way across the country that whites would just kill Negroes with no legal repurcussions every week (oh – they’re still doing that).
I was just tired of the taste and feel of that word. Negro. Family that didn’t exist and grow up in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s wouldn’t understand the cold and direct dynamics of what I’m saying here. Negro. History. Heavy. A transformational time that was beautiful and profane in the same moment. History. Heavy. Negro…
Still Conflicted. In 1962 – Robert F. Williams published “Negroes With Guns.”
We are in the middle of a new reclamation of our Negro/Black identity and culture. Part of that is the reclamation of our history. All of it. And that includes “Negro.”
“Negro?” I personally won’t use the designation. But I will never push against it.
IV. AFRICAN AMERICAN
“African American?” Sometimes “Afro-American?” Historic research states that the term “African American” first appeared in print in an 18th Century sermon titled “A Sermon on the Capture of Lord Cornwallis” which was published in 1782. The author identified himself as an “African American” on the title page. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest documented use of the term to 1835; it was officially installed into that same dictionary in 2001 (this was revised in 2012). OK.
In the years after the American Revolution, various terms emphasizing Black people’s claim to being “American” were created. A label (“African American”) which was applied to people of African descent living in the colonies by the end of the 17th Century came into circulation (unbelievable). The variant “Afro-American” has been documented as early as 1831, with “Black American” (1818) and Yeah, “Africo-American” (1788) going back even further. Quite a journey. A hard journey I never really had any previous energy for.
Its current and previous usage is more “corporate” than on the street “common.”
Don’t call me “African American.” The Pan Africans messed that up. I don’t want ANY ethnic association with Africa. The only objective association with Africa I acknowledge – only because I must, is strictly and fully genetic and historical.
The common story is that the Reverend Jesse Jackson convinced Black Americans to adopt the designation “African American” in 1988. Ahh… Now Family don’t forget that I grew up in the middle of this. That rich story is nonsense history. Even though there are several (well OK many) recorded instances here and there of Reverend Jackson boosting this term, the reality is that it was the white news media that was pushing this. Why? I’m not exactly sure. Maybe the media wanted to make things more convenient in terms of a precise concision – a descriptional specificity like the media had done with say “Italian-American.” And had done with say “Mexican-American.” “Hey producer! Can we get a smoother read on television?” That’s what all that nonsense was about. Television. Under “African American” no diasporic unity ever happened. And never will happen.
I really don’t think it goes any further than that. The term itself is simultaneously full of emptiness and at the same time a clarified mess. “African American” has no nationalistic grounding. No bedrock. Just a undifferentiated continental mash-up being done with our true American-ness reduced to an appended afterthought.
I really can’t use this designation anymore. I’m American – Not African.
V. BLACK
BLACK: The opposite side of the chessboard. Adjective: Of the very darkest color owing to the complete absorption of light; the opposite of white. Remember the italics. Ebony, Sable, Dusky, Dark. There, the richest and most elegant of all colors.
Wikipedia: “Since the [white] Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates… For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations, being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of Anubis, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead… Black symbolized both power and secrecy.”
Ethnically and Politically: “Black” – that term coming out of the mouths and minds and meanings of supposed “Negroes” was quite problematic to the ears and fears of the white power structure and white people in general. “Black” established itself as the societal and political opposite side of the color chessboard in this country.
Of course the DNA of Foundational Black Americans presents as it does – because of the fraught rape culture of white men towards Black women is for practical purposes, all over this American place. That along with further DNA connections and reconnections with us just dealing with each other over the centuries. You see our broad color phenotypes going from “white-passing” to “purple-Black” even within the same family. So, in our particular American case, “Black” is not about a darker skin tone nor ethnogenicized phenotype per se. “Black” is about culture, lineage, community, politics, economics, and history. “Black” is also the connecting word in the middle of the enlightened designation “Foundational Black American” for the same reasons. It’s just that “Foundational Black American” is more specific and precise. But I sometimes speak “Black” at this quite late date. Cuz’ I’m old.
Remember in my own case – I was born into The Nation of Islam. Between birth and thirteen, “Black” was literally all I knew (really glad I was born into the NOI). The NOI wasn’t “Africa light.” There was no “cake soap” being used there. Believe Me. “Black” is still the highest value within “The Nation.” During the 1960’s and 1970’s the main organizations transforming our language from “Negro” to “Black” were The Black Panthers, The Nation of Islam, The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, The Black Liberation Army, The Republic of New Afrika, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. “Black” was all the way on political fire.
Stokely Carmichael shouted with a whole chest: “Black Power!!!”
Because of our unique ethnogenesis on this land – we have become the absolute apex of the African Diaspora. Even though we are not “African” anymore. America is the international capital of “Blackness.” Not Africa. Black Americans are the most creative and resourceful humans on the planet. Our artistic, scientific, engineering, athletic, business, political, and activist output has heavily influenced every other culture on earth. In the positive. In the usefulness. Modern society is operational because of Black technological prowess. That 1969 moon landing could not have happened without us. Yet! Everyone on earth despises us – including the Africans.
Traffic Lights Are Everywhere. Even in the Mongolian sticks.
Black Americans are living in a time of inner reassessment, gatekeeping, a time of truly understanding that we have no friends. Ultimately realizing that we have no one but each other. Survival is about us figuring out how we can work together.
VI. PAN AFRICAN
To Open: Pan Africanism is a universal failure we cannot afford to entertain.
Who? W.E.B. DuBois. Queen Mother Moore. Amos N. Wilson. Malcolm X. George Padmore. Kwame Nkrumah. Cheikh Anta Diop. Patrice Emery Lumumba. Edward Wilmot Blyden. Nnamdi Benjamin Azikiwe. John Henrik Clarke. Julius K. Nyerere. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara. Red. Black. Green.
………… The Maafa! Oh, sorry: “Maafa” is a Kiswahili word that literally means “great disaster” or “horrific tragedy.” It’s presently used to describe the history of “The Transatlantic Slave Trade” and its ongoing impact on Black people that are lineaged from those Africans that were enslaved in the Western Hemisphere.
Anthropologist Marimba Ani first used the term in an article in 1989. The term became widely used in the 1990’s. Another term used for Maafa is “The African Holocaust.” That period is academically rendered as the “Middle Passage.” Don’t ever forget that the “Middle Passage” was able to happen because African royalty and professional (Black) African slave traders SOLD our antecedents into slavery and death. SOLD them to Arabs and Europeans. Don’t ever buy that “kidnapping” obfuscation. That “kidnapping” stuff is a dirty Pan African marketing attempt to “clean up” the actual African history of what really went down. And I ain’t going.
Now – I’m gonna pretty much repeat what I said about Pan Africanism that I spelled out in other blogposts. But first, focusing on the names that I laid out in the first paragraph of this section. Those names emerged out of a time of beautiful Pan African sincerity. Generally, American Freedmen from then, till now have always been at the very least (depending on the individual) soft Pan Africanists. “Black is Black no matter from whence you came.” From there and ahead, ranging to the most well-educated and the most vocal Pan African hardliners. History Books.
This good enlightenment arose, during a time when strong white supremacy and common “Manifest Destiny” type attitudes and actions were so heavily onerous and regularly lethal that some kind of operational Diasporan unity made sense. In actuality, in an originized form and right attitude, Pan Africanism still makes sense.
“Sense?” Just like Pan Europeanism makes sense for the global European collective. Just like Pan Jewism makes sense for the global Jewish collective. OK? Too bad the Diaspora couldn’t get that shit together. Maybe we coulda’ got somethin’ poppin.’
Asians get a hate bill signed (because of China). Blacks (despite an Africa) cannot.
Pan Africanism never truly existed in Africa. It lived for awhile in the minds of a handful of African activists, politicians, and scholars. But this unificational concept was primarily a Black American idea and propagation. It is mostly one-sided, with ninety-nine percent of the weight being on the American side. In the daily lives of Africans – they do not consider themselves to be “Africans.” (?) They innately know themseves as whatever tribe they belong to. This trumping even their nationalities.
Africa loves tribalism. Caribbeans are beefing. How can you work with that?
You Can’t. And with the possibility of Reparations becoming an actual possibility – teeth that we’ve never seen before from the Diaspora are now being shown with no reserve. The Democratic Party and the Small Hat Community has fully seized the useful philosophy and intent of Pan Africanism and flipped it into another weapon (among others) against Foundational Black Americans. (!) Understand – the most effective tool utilized from that nasty seizure is The NAARC/N’COBRA Axis.
“The Axis” is filled with “people” that are “Reparations Experts.”
They’ve introduced off-tracking poisons to the issue like “local reparations,” and “tiers,” and putting Reparations resources into shady “trust authorities” for those “experts” to “manage.” You Know – Sucker Stuff. Anytime you see members of The Axis meeting with officials of a Democratic Party or quietly conferring with certain slick members of the Small Hat Community? That is a guarantee that something to trick the American Freedmen community is being cooked up. Eyes Open. If you see members of the Small Hat Community involved with the manegerial operations of any Axis organization – Watch Out. (!) That organization does not work for us.
And when I say “Eyes Open” – I mean Pan Africanism has become a hustle rather than something constructive for our community to build on. The only good thing that The Axis has done is to expose the true destructiveness and time-waste of Pan Africanism. We can’t force anything that can’t be forced. Our one-sided aspiration and action in support of Pan Africanism makes us international mules and suckers. Members of the Diaspora are not our “Brothers and Sisters.” (!) At best they are distant cousins. Some are tasked on destroying our prosperity and existence.
I believe all overt and residual Pan Africanism that we may reserve in our minds should be discarded and replaced by a healthy “Pan Black Americanism.” We have so much unificational work (in business, economics, and politics) to do among ourselves within America, that we really on a very practical level, have no time for false – unproductive Pan Africanism. It’s about domestic and international business from now on. OK? If we and the Diaspora ain’t doing business? If we ain’t linking up on some multi-billion dollar Transafrican economics? We ain’t doing nothing.
Keep your tribalism over there. We’ll keep our foundationalism over here.
The Delineation Movement within the Reparations Movement is particularly chafing to many both high and low within the Diaspora. Let’s keep that going. That’s a very good thing. Anytime that we in unity do anything constructive for ourselves? That will always upset others outside of the Family. That generated anger means that we are doing the right thing. I wish I could see the day when American Freedmen actually start loving each other – start working with each other – stopped killing each other – and becoming commercially and politically competitive against other groups? With Excellence? There could be millions of people around the world angry at us. That kind of anger would be a good thing. And before we leave this enlightened section – The motherfucking Pan African NAARC/N’COBRA Axis supports illegal – border-jumping immigration. (?)
Pan Africanism as it is at present, is nonsense. Time to move on.
VII. AFRODESCENDANT
“Afrodescendant?” What is this label for? Every honest person in the African Diaspora already knows that depending on the individual, they would have both large and small amounts of African ancestry. Already. So I fail to see the utility of this designation. Every person I’ve met so far that is pushing this designation is loosely or tightly associated with The NAARC/N’COBRA Axis. So – is this another way to say “Pan Africanism?” Is this another way to push a dead idea? I wonder. Oh – I get it. This griftilistic nonsense is nothing but rehashed Pan Africanism.
I study the importance of “identity.” My understanding at this time is (and I’m getting this information from the “afrodescendant.org/information/definition” website) that the term “Afrodescendant” is a way to “classify us as Lost-Found Peoples and establish that name as our collective identity.” Well OK.
The central person pushing this designation is a Silis Muhammad, whom is “the CEO of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam and the Spiritual Son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad…” Mr. Muhammad fought for a kind of extended Black self-determination, spending many years at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 1998 till 2002 working to establish a Black identity. He sought to classify us as “Lost-Found Peoples” and mark that questionable name as our collective identity.
I don’t think I want to be identified as “Lost” then “Found.” Who found us? And why would Foundational Black Americans want to be known as “Afrodescendants” – when it was the “Afros” that sold our ancestors from Africa in the first place? Yep. There would be no “Afrodescendants” if Africans hadn’t been so busy cuffing and selling motherfuckers. That common-sense conclusion makes sense to me.
Mr. Muhammad learned from several forums in the United Nations that a certain contingency of mainly Black Latin Americans from the “Slavery Diaspora” were calling themselves “Afrodescendant.” And as early as 2000 in Santiago Chile, the term was first heard at a United Nations forum. So this term was mostly promoted by Latin Americans? Ahh… NO. This term is absolutely useless. Let’s move on.
Delineation for Foundational Black Americans / Freedmen – Is The Power.
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Strict Scrutiny = Focusing on its contemporary usage: Recent case law has been careful to not establish race as an acceptable secondary consequence from a core issue. Lately U.S. courts have been using a judicial evaluative tool called “strict scrutiny” before they allow litigants to move forward substantially with any “race-based” litigation. All adjudications regarding race-based harms recently have been guided and concluded by this. “Injury” would be the prime attended issue – not race. In regards to Reparations? Race itself has been reduced to a “happenstantial” position. Almost non-important. Which strenghthens the case for lineage. In our case for Reparations – it just “happens” that the injured group “happens to be Black people descended from Black people enslaved in the United States.” That’s It.
Federal Supercitizen = I was first educated to this term and concept by Ted Hayes – a California-based Black anti-homelessness activist. American Freedmen are the only American ethnic group that were specifically transformed Federally from dark enslavement to illuminated citizenship, from no rights at all, to full constitutional access. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments do in a certain sense “complete” the Constitution. No one else can claim this reality. This completion was made by our self-emancipation through our participation in the Civil War.
No white military conscsript or volunteer ever went to war to emancipate any Foundational Black American. Please. Place that stupid assertion upon the same beautiful pile of lies that claims our ancestors were kidnapped from Africa. To be solidly clear – we were systematically SOLD away from Africa. By Africans.
Understand: Foundational Black Americans in America are constitutionally “The First Among Equals” (believe that) in this America. We are foundationally beyond the grip of local and state jurisdiction. Our consciousness and actions must absorb and accept that inobvious understanding. We are Federal Supercitizens by way of our “foundational-ness” in terms of our role in forcibly and voluntarily creating the concrete existence of and powerful prosperity of this country. This Mr. Ted Hayes hammered this kind of foundational constitutional ownership into my mind.
And it is about time that the generality of Foundational Black Americans own the ownership of this country. We’ve exponentially paid several ultimate prices. In all respects – our investment here has vested. And we are entitled to or at the very least should share in the fundamental profitship of this country. Therefore – our justified recompense correctly deserves to start from the Federal level. Correctly. Not partialized through unproductive and nonsensical local and state initiatives.
Soulaan = A term that identifies Black Americans who are descendants of those who endured chattel slavery in the United States. It translates to “people of soul” and serves as a cultural identity movement focused on Foundational Black American heritage, political empowerment, and economic self-sufficiency. To be clear – this term is not a blanket term for all Black Americans, but specifically for those with centuries-long ancestral roots in the United States. This emphasizes a history of resilience, value creation, and American cultural establishment in North America. “Soulaan” is an ethnonym and signifier of an internal Black American revival movement. We have the richest, hardest, and most progressive history of any people on the planet. We are a distinct people with the deepest connection to the soil of these United States. We are thoroughly American – with no reserve.
I hope that this blogpost gave some clarity to the Family regarding the difference and usages between necessary ethnic delineations and necessary legislative and legal terminology. I do welcome other opinions, criticism, possible correction, and philosophical reflections on this very important topic. That can be done on the bottom of this post. You should be heard as well. Like and share.
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FREEDMEN ABSOLUTE 