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::Get Your Mind and Money Right::
Have you ever received money
from a Chinese person for anything other than them making change
for you? No, is the answer I have been receiving when asking
this question as part of an informal survey to Black People.
The follow up question is, "Have you ever given money to a
Chinese person?" The answer invariably is yes. This imbalance of
give and take is reflective of the consciousness of Black people
and consequently our relationship with ourselves and others.
There is a reason why every Black ghetto has a Chinese food
restaurant, but there are no soul food restaurants in Chinatown.
In fact, the most popular soul food restaurant in Harlem, New
York on 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard is owned and
operated by a Chinese family. Again, there are no Soul Food
restaurants in Chinatown and there certainly is no Chinese Food
restaurant in Chinatown owned and operated by a Black family. If
a Black person tried, the business would be shut down, before it
started. Why? Economic Violence.
Every group of people understands practices and strategically
utilizes the concept of economic violence, except Black people.
In fact the economic violence that we, as Black people practice
is economic violence against ourselves. Economic violence is the
art and science of using the exchange of money for goods and/or
services as an aspect of ethnic warfare, survival and
prosperity. The Chinese will not support a Black business over
their own, because they are not interested in ethnic suicide.
The Chinese are logical, as self preservation is the most basic
of human instincts. So not only will a Chinese person not
support a Black business over a Chinese business, they take it
one step further and plant their business in a Black community
and implement plans to take Black people's money. This
ideological posture is pure and scientific economic violence.
Replace Chinese with any other ethnic group besides Black, and
the picture becomes clearer.
The above is not a condemnation of Chinese, Korean, Arab or
white businesses at all. It is a condemnation of Black people
who have forgotten The Honorable Marcus Garvey's mantra of "Race
First." Every ethnic group has mastered this concept except
Black people. It is in my interest to come from a powerful
people. Therefore, my interest is committing economic violence
on behalf of Black people. That means purchasing a Black
person's service or product "first" before I purchase any other
ethnic group or race's service or product. Have you committed
economic violence on your behalf or against yourself today?
If you are a Black person reading this, I am sure that you are
familiar with the notion of, "I just want the best product or
service for my money and a lot of times, Black folks just ain't
up to par." My response is, 1) If that's your attitudinal
posture, then do not get mad if people don't patronize your
Black business (product or service) for fear of deficiencies. 2)
Since when has the uncleanliness of a Chinese food restaurant
stopped you from buying a to-go order of shrimp fried rice, or
the messiness of an Arab or Indian corner-store, gas station or
bodega stopped you from purchasing those pork rinds you love and
a soft drink? Have you committed economic violence on your
behalf or against yourself today?
Black people, due to our lack of economic militarism, we are
losing the fight for economic independence. That's why everyone,
and I mean everyone, "bangs" on Black people. All ethnic groups
gain their financial strength in America by economically banging
on Black people. This is how white people became wealthy in this
world. The European transatlantic slave trade of kidnapping
millions of Africans as prisoners of war was the biggest gang
bang of all time. Chattel and plantation slavery was a
continuation of this policy of economic violence. Since then, we
have been left open to economic attack by every ethnic group
that makes it to America. Nothing has really changed, because
the relationship between slave and slave-master is still the
same.
Tastes, Interests and Values: Stop Eating Pizza,
You're not Italian
The first step in perpetuating economic violence against a
people is to change their tastes, interests and values to the
tastes, interests and values of the invading culture. Tastes,
interests and values are the sole determinative factors in the
decision to purchase a service or product. This is extremely
important as all products and services spring from a cultural
landscape.
Here are some extremely basic examples to illustrate my point:
(1) An overwhelming number of people in America, purchase turkey
on the third week of November, every single year. The turkey is
an imperative for a Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving is a white
cultural holiday designed to celebrate white conquest and
genocide of the native American population, but it is masked as a
day of family togetherness and thanks. The people who own turkey
farms are white poultry farmers. They are the direct economic
beneficiaries of the values of this particular cultural holiday. If native American and Black people were the owners of turkey
farms, you can bet your last dollar that turkey would not be a
requirement of that holiday. White people understand economic
violence and under no circumstances would they allow anyone other
than whites to benefit from a white holiday.
(2) This is the same reason why U.S. federal, state and
municipal government cars must be American cars. They understand
economic violence. Have you committed economic violence on your
behalf or against yourself today?
(3) Selling beef to Hindus won't work. The Hindu religion
absolutely forbids the killing of cows as the cow is sacred to
them. Therefore selling beef products to this crowd is not
economically feasible. However, if you are able to convert the
Hindus away from their religion into say, Christianity, you
would have not just brought a new group of people to the priest
or the pastor on Sunday, but a new group of people to McDonalds
and Burger King, because their tastes, interests and values
concerning cows would have changed.
A further examination of tastes, interests and values reveal
that once you adopt or are coerced into perpetuating the tastes,
interests and values of another group of people you will not
only be committing economic violence against yourself but you
will be committing violence against your health.
Example 1: In Hawaii, over 50 percent of native adults 40 years
old or more were diagnosed with diabetes. The Hawaiians are a
Polynesian people who have for centuries flourished on a local
diet of vegetables and fruits from their land. After the U.S.
invasion and displacement of the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani,
the tastes, values and interests of native Hawaiians were
changed to the tastes of white people. Hawaiians began eating
hamburgers, pizza, etc. and became zombies of American fast
food and forgot about their traditional foods.
Something
interesting happened: disease in the form of diabetes. Diabetes
was never a problem for Hawaiians until their tastes were
changed. In effect, Hawaiians were funding their diabetes. A
Hawaiian doctor trained in western medicine and traditional
healing sciences went on a crusade to save her people from
diabetes. She did not prescribe insulin-controlled by white
pharmaceutical companies, which is a band-aid to the real
problem, but she prescribed a traditional Hawaiian diet and
forbade her patients to eat European made food. As her patients
ate green leaves, fruits and root food vegetables from the place
where they evolved, their diabetes was wiped out completely.
Additionally, in this manner, Hawaiian farmers benefit from the
purchase of food grown on their own land, thereby restoring
economic and physical health-simultaneously.
Example 2: I was at a supermarket in Miami, Florida buying a
yam. Not a sweet potato, but a real yam, brown and hard. The
cashier was Black and said, "What's that, a turnip?" I was
startled and had a serious epiphany. Black people have been so
oppressed in America, that we do not even recognize our own
ancestral foods. The implications again are self inflicted
economic and physical violence (dis-ease).
A major disease that affects Black Americans is sickle cell
anemia. However, this disease does not affect Black people in
Africa nearly as much. The reason: the shifting of tastes,
interests, and values much like the Hawaiian example. The sickle
cell trait is a trait that helps Africans fight off malaria. The
sickling of the red blood cell helps prevent the malaria
parasite from binding to the cell due to the peculiar shape of a
sickled cell and its hemoglobin. Since Black Americans are
literally from West Africa, they have this trait just like any
other West African. The difference is the West African diet
contains root foods from the Africans soil like cassava and yam.
Studies by Nigerian researcher, Dr. Ogi Agbaihave, shown that
thiocynate in cassava and yam and their leaves alleviate the
symptoms of sickle cell anemia.
Black Americans do not eat cassava or true yams, so sickle cell
anemia is rampant. Instead, Black Americans have been forced to
develop a taste for everything other than African root food,
therefore the dis-ease is present. Disease is defined as
imbalance. When a person or a people have tastes, interests and
values outside of who they really are, all types of imbalances
occur such as economic and physical health imbalances.
Recalibrating a Black American diet from chitlins' and fried
chicken back to a West African diet of plantains, cassava, yams,
etc., will create a necessary economic balance by supporting
African commodities markets and enriching personal, group
economic and physical health simultaneously. Have you committed
economic violence today?
*The Opium Wars: "There is Nothing You Have That We Want." China
In studying economic violence, tastes interests and values, a
cursory discussion on the Opium Wars is extremely important.
Please note that major wars occur due to the addictions of
Europeans. Today, there is a war in Iraq, due to the European
addiction to oil. In the 19th century, the Opium wars between
Britain and China were due to the British addiction to tea.
The Chinese have an ancient tradition of drinking tea as part of
their daily ritual. The British developed this custom due to the
travels of many European "explorers" who successfully made it
over to Asia. By the 19th century, tea became a staple of the
British, particularly the middle class and ruling class. The
British imported all of their tea from China. In a short amount
of time, there was a huge trade imbalance between Britain and
China in favor of China. The British paid China for their tea
with gold. Soon, the British became nervous as their gold
reserves were being depleted. However, the British population's
taste for tea was insatiable and there would have been riots if
the British population was deprived of their tea.
In response to the economic violence that Britain was suffering
at the hands of China, British leaders arranged a meeting with
Chinese leaders. The British wanted to stop trading tea for
gold. They told the Chinese that they would trade anything else
that Britain produced for the Chinese tea. The Chinese response
was laughter as the Chinese retorted, "There is nothing that you
have that we want." The British were stunned as they took this
as an offense to their way of life and their plans to keep their
gold.
The British went back to Britain and decided to pump opium into
China. The opium was to be traded for gold in China, and thereby
getting the gold back into British hands. In addition, the
British took land from the Indian subcontinent for two
purposes: 1) for growing the poppy plant for opium to facilitate
their drug trade and 2) for growing various other plants for tea
so that trading tea with China would be obsolete. In fact, today
one of the most famous tea names is Ceylon tea. Ceylon is the
former British colonial name for the country in the Indian
sub-continent now named Sri Lanka.
One day, in 1839, the Chinese seized a ship off of its shores
containing tons of opium. The Chinese rightfully seized the ship
as opium was illegal in China and anyone caught with opium was
given the death penalty. The British declared the Chinese
seizure of their ship as an act of war, and hence the initiation
of the Opium wars which were from 1839-1842 and 1856-1860
between Britain and China.
The Chinese have never forgotten the economic war with Europeans
and the implications are felt today. Consequently, the Chinese
have nuclear weapons, the largest standing army in the world and
Europe and America as debtors in trade. Their major strength has
been maintaining their own tastes, interests and values and the
ability to look Europeans in the face and say, "There is
nothing that you have that we want." Black people, can we say
the same?
The reason why we have been in trouble as a race for so long is
our unrelenting taste for "things European." Remember, African
prisoners of war (slaves) were traded for white commodities like
European processed rum, spare parts and European textiles. Have
you committed economic violence today?
Slavery and the Value of Labor: Adam Smith
Adam Smith was an economic philosopher from England and
considered the patron saint of European capitalist thought. He
was also an opponent of the enslavement of Africans in America
and Europe. However, he was not opposed to our enslavement for
moral or noble reasons. He was opposed to slavery because he
thought it was inefficient in the capitalist world. He believed
Africans should be paid for our labor so that we could buy
European goods. That was his sole argument. He didn't like the
idea that such a large population could not be consumers because
slaves were not allowed the ability to earn money. What does
this mean? It means that the only reason why it was acceptable
for you and I to not be enslaved is so that we could feed the
economic system of white supremacy better and more efficiently.
And what are Black people now? The biggest one dimensional pure
consumers the world has ever seen.
The slavery relationship is still the same. If you work a job
that pays you ten dollars per hour and you pay $150.00 to Tommy
Hilfiger for his jeans, you have effectively given 15 hours of
your labor to Tommy Hilfiger. You worked 15 hours for him. When
are you going to work for yourself and your people, by
purchasing Black goods and services with your labor hours? Tommy
Hilfiger and company don't even have to whip us anymore to turn
over our labor to him. He is still economically violent, and we
are still bleeding.
Lesson: In your economic life, if you are not buying from your
own people first, then you are committing suicide on many levels
and enlisting for slavery and zombification. Buy Black with no
apology and if you have to buy from others, try to make sure
it's a bootleg. Never pay full price for anything from
others, especially those who have historically and continue to
benefit from your underdevelopment. For in fact, our
relationship is dialectical to our oppressors. Their development
is dependent on our underdevelopment.
Have you committed economic violence /self-hate today?
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