Junious Ricardo Stanton
Why History Is Important
“... We have to look at our situation politically and socially. So when history is projected as irrelevant, as unprofitable, as a system of dates and events, as a system of rarified causes and effects, it is projected that way, I think because it helps to maintain the political and social status quo and because it serves a politicoeconomic function. People who are ahistorical who have little knowledge of history are people who are more gullible, more easily manipulated and people who can be more easily adapted to the capitalist machine than people who are historically knowledgeable. History can become a basis for self-criticism, a basis for self-understanding and more importantly the basis for understanding the motives and the psychology of others.”
Dr Amos N. Wilson The Falsification of the Afrikan Consciousness Eurocentric History, Psychiatry and the Politics of White Supremacy page 18
Here it is another February and African people, the people with the longest and greatest legacy of accomplishment and success on the planet once again find ourselves scrambling to cram a smidgen of our history and achievements into the shortest month in the calendar year. Hasn’t it ever dawned on us to incorporate our history into our lives on a daily basis? To make matters worse, too many of us are disinterested in history altogether; even more tragic; too many of our people have no desire to learn about African genius and greatness. Too many are too comfortable perceiving themselves as coons, jiggaboos, niggas, thugs and hoochie mommas.
In the West, history like most things European is taught as something remote, in the far past detached from present reality or worse it has been reduced to a compendium of fabrications, myths, disinformation and outright lies. We have been conditioned by society to denigrate the study of the past and eschew discerning how it explains and relates to the present and sets the tone for the future.
Malcolm X a.k.a El Hj Malik El Shabazz a.a.k.a. Omawali said, “ History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.” By that reckoning Africans in America have lost our minds, literally and figuratively. We are in bad shape. We are worse off than animals because we have lost our memory. When one loses one’s memory he or she has in fact lost much of their mind, their psychological orientation, their sense of self and who they are. This is the untenable situation most Africans find ourselves in today early in 2010. We suffer from amnesia. When one has amnesia he or she has lost their past, their sense of identity, they don’t know who they are but also they don’t know who the people around them are. This is why it is so easy for so many of us to call each other outside our names, to degrade and disrespect one another. Amnesia not only causes us not to know who we are now, it destroys our link to the past, to our relatives, experiences and accomplishments.
The Dictionary of Psychology defines amnesia as: loss of memory, either partial or total due to any reason, the inability to recall, functional amnesia because of severe conflicts of psychological trauma, the individual seeks escape through forgetting. (Emphasis mine.) The latter definition when you stop to reflect on the trauma we have experienced during our sojourn under Arab and European attacks, war and subjugation, is one way we attempt to minimize the pain, suffering and shock effect by trying to forget what has been done to us. In case studies of abused children and spouses, often the victims attempt to block out memories of their abuse from their conscious minds. When they go into therapy they are encouraged by their therapists under controlled circumstances to recall the events of their past, to process them, sort through them with an eye towards healing their pain.
People talk about Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder as if the trauma of oppression ended following the US Civil War (an oxymoron if ever there was one, what wars do you know that were fought civilly?). Our high illness rates, our addictions, our poverty (just like the poverty of our Haitian brethren) and much of our social pathology are the direct and indirect results of ongoing, deliberate and systemic US policies and practices. One clear example of this is the recent steering of thousands of qualified Blacks into Sub-prime mortgage loans when they had the credit history (there’s that word history again) the income and collateral to qualify for prime rate loans! Imagine the distress and angst these people are experiencing now as they lose their homes and their lives are turned upside down. Another example is the ongoing disparity between the per capital spending for white and black public school students. These are real and they are happening today.
Unfortunately many of the great civilizations created by Africans lie buried beneath the sands of time or suppressed in history books awaiting their discovery. You can still see some of it in Kemet (Egypt). I encourage you to visit Africa at least once during your life time. But healing ourselves is our responsibility. It would be foolish for us to think our adversary really wants us healed, self-actualized and empowered. They already view us as a major threat to their global hegemony and physical survival; in our current benighted state. If we were to become truly enlightened and empowered they would have major conniptions. But this is not about our enemies and their mental state. This is about us! By seeking and embracing our history we discover ourselves and facilitate our own healing.
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Replies
Contact: Elisabeth Leonard, 215-382-1531 or Ken Heard, 267-259-7196 It's their future:
The Cost of War on
Women and Children
JOBS!!! NOT WAR!!!!
Teach-in and Strategy Session A New Economy is Possible
Organized by: United for Peace & Justice Delaware Valley Network Education Committee.
Endorsed by: Philadelphia National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, AFL-CIO,
Philadelphia Area Black Radical Congress, Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network, Brandywine Peace Community, Philadelphia Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, Pittsburgh Area Black Radical Congress
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, Sunday, August 21 st, 2011 at the
Philadelphia Free Library, 19th and Vine Streets, Philadelphia, PA19103
After an overview of the U S warfare situation, we will conduct panels. Questions at the root of removing United States armed forces will be discussed. Primary U S armed forces removal locations: Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other locations beginning by the end of 2011, if not sooner.
What is the cost in human beings of the wars on U S citizens and on Philadelphian women and children? Specifically, what is the human cost of United States JROTC and ROTC programs on women and children in loss of education, social services and medical care? How are wars using JROTC and ROTC personnel and affecting women and children in in the U S military? How do depleted nuclear energy weapons, drones, and other military hardware fit into the increased human costs on women and children trapped in the wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Is the U S government in human, health, sustainable, alternative energy relationships with oil-rich areas of the world? What can we do as U S citizens to get better information from U S media about JROTC and ROTC programs?
http://www.ufpj-dvn.org/ or call: 267-259-7196 or 215-382-1531 for further information.
JRS