KEBUKA! Baruti's latest book: excerpt

[Baba Ahmed]

Exerpt from Kebaku! by Mwalimu Baruti, pgs 50-51. Released 2005.

"Today, because you are observing this travesty through the eyes of our ancestors, you know why the men, women (and girls) and boys have been separated. Because you have been allowed to see clearly through our ancestors' eyes you have intimately come to know the european's divide, demoralize and exploit tactics. What our ancestors could not have known is that they have gleaned these practices from their own experience. With hindsight, you are fully aware that they practiced this crude form of slavery on each other before coming after our ancestors to perfect it.

From their experiments with controlling each other, they learned that the best way to control the men is through controlling their women and children. And you know from what you see them doing to our ancestors that they have well learned that free sexual access to the women and children is only possible when they have been physically isolated from their men and are corralled within easy reach of violation.

Even though Afrikan men and women cannot see each other, we know that neither group is being respected as humans. Whether you are the man or the woman, you know the other is in unbearable pain, pain which you cannot help ease or release them from. If you are a man, you know that the insufferable conditions on these vessels are compounded by the systematic rape and abus of our females. If you are a woman, you know that the coffin-like space is compounding the men's torture in just being alive here. The sodomization of your males is beyond comprehension. It is a dehumanizing violation foreign to your mind in either war or peace.

However, whether Afrikan woman or man, you are not a victim of lopsided, divisive eurocentric sexist thinking. You know that the difference in your oppression by these beasts as defined by your sex is negligible, distracting and meaningless. Being there, you know no one in their right Afrikan mind would think to judge which transgression was worse. Neither's treatment is worse than the other. Moreover, in the context of our communal nature, we know that such a debate would be meaningless. For, we are one people. When our women suffer, we suffer. When our men suffer, [i]we]/i] suffer. When our children suffer, we suffer. We suffer as one.

If we are to heal as warrior scholars, as a people of our ancestors, we must go back to get a better, clearer picture of what was done to us, to all of us. If we are ever to be conscious, powerful, self-respecting Afrikan adults, we must delve deeply into the origins of our mantacide. The enemy within is being passed down to our children because of our inability and/or refusal to see the whole of the many pieces missing or misarticulated in ourstory.

We must reverse this cycle of fearful ignorance. We must see what was done beforfe so that our mentacide can no longer hold us in its deadly suicidal grip. The magnitude and pervasiveness of others' assaults against us, as well as our responses, will become crystal clear because, in truth and reality, what is happening to us today is already beyond any Afrikan imagination. And what we see today speaks to what cometh tomorrow."
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For complete list of Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti's books, pure shea butter, black soap and order form, goto: http://oneblackearth.tripod.com

[AzaniaSpeaks]

Greetings! ImHotep!

I have been familiar w/Bro. Baruti's work for many years thru the connection of a mutual friend. While in Atlanta last May [2004] I was only fortunate enough to speak w/his wife via telephone -- not meeting them was a grave disappointment!

I give thanks for your posting of this excerpt! The vision, intelligence and passion of the Barutis is Blacknificent and indeed, Divine!

Power & Protection Is With You!

[Baba Ahmed]

Hotep my sistah!

And medase pa. His latest fresh off the presses: MENTACIDE and other essays begins with essay on Mentacide and ends with "Independently Afrikan" totalling 19. Here's a bit from backcover blurb:

"Mentacide occurs when you willingly think and act from someone else's interpretation of reality, to their benefit and against your survival. It is a state of subtle insanity which, over the last few hundred years, has come to characterize more and more Afrikans globally. This collection of essays addresses various aspects of this self-negating confusion. For we, as an Afrikan people, cannot possible attain an independent, self-sustaining empowerment without a clear understanding of who we are not. We cannot be someone else and ourselves at the same time, especially when that someone else is hell-bent on destroying us. For this reason, a number of these essays look into this confusion by critiquing our refusal to accept responsibility for consciously rearing our children, the political treason of some of the intellectuals who still pretend to speak for us, the flight of our emotions from european faiths to Afrikan spiritual systems desgned to cater to our unchanged european ways and the systematic incareceration of our men, women, boys and girls....

Nearly half of the esssays, though, bring solutions to the table by paying homage to the thought and behavior of revolutionary ancestors and elders, discussing the responsibilities that our daughters and sons must be taught and must internalize in preparation for their adult duties and examing the mental and physical conditions that essential to our independent empowerment as a people. As we know, solutions must be based on the problems they are designed to solve. Without knowing something is wrong or, if aware, why what is wrong is wrong, we cannot implement ideas or programs that will help us solve our problems. To this end, this book is an Afrikan centered investigation into both some of our problems and potential solutions to these problems."

The price is $16.95 + $3.00 S&H. Can be purchased via my site:

http://oneblackearth.tripod.com and his: www.AkobenHouse.com

One thing I dig about this brutha and his wife? They walk the talk spoken. So we've had one of our granddaughters in their school: Akoben Institute. Both gave up teaching college level, at Morehouse College here in Atlanta to teach their own daughter, and now other Afrikans' children.

Do they know your online name? If so, I'll pass on your compliments to'em. Better yet, I'll forward your post to'im. He likes to know 'bout folk who read his works.

I agree and leave u in Peace gained through Power!
Kwame

[Baba Ahmed]

Originally Posted by AzaniaSpeaks

Greetings! ImHotep!

I have been familiar w/Bro. Baruti's work for many years thru the connection of a mutual friend. While in Atlanta last May [2004] I was only fortunate enough to speak w/his wife via telephone -- not meeting them was a grave disappointment!

I give thanks for your posting of this excerpt! The vision, intelligence and passion of the Barutis is Blacknificent and indeed, Divine!

Power & Protection Is With You!

Medase Baba. Please extend my appreciation to the Sister. And, of course, you don't stop doin' what your doin'...

Peace, Baruti

[AzaniaSpeaks]

Originally Posted by Baba Ahmed

Hotep my sistah!

One thing I dig about this brutha and his wife? They walk the talk spoken. So we've had one of our granddaughters in their school: Akoben Institute. Both gave up teaching college level, at Morehouse College here in Atlanta to teach their own daughter, and now other Afrikans' children.

Do they know your online name? If so, I'll pass on your compliments to'em. Better yet, I'll forward your post to'im. He likes to know 'bout folk who read his works.

I agree and leave u in Peace gained through Power!
Kwame

Greetings! ImHotep!

Asante sana for sharing my posting w/Bro. Baruti! I am familiar with their history at Morehouse. . . . The Atlanta area is the richer for their travails. . .

No, they do not know my online name! LOL The sister that was living in College Park [w/the Andohs] no longer is in the ATL area. She and I have been extended family since 1994. . . . I was there last year visiting her and them. . . . At one point she was distributing Bro. Baruti's books/works in Cali. . . . . I look forward to visiting ATL in the forthcoming year -- to meet and study with all of you!

Power & Protection Is With You. . . along w/my Love!

[AzaniaSpeaks]

Greetings! ImHotep!

While on the slave last week, during an email exchange with a decent brother [co-worker], he mentioned that he might have to look outside of "us" to find a successful relationship because "others" showed a brother more respect!

I sent him an excerpt from Baruti's daily revolutionary thought, entitled "Excuses" and told him that if we, especially the brothers, paid more attention to empowering ourselves, families, communities and race we wouldn't have time to escape into the fantasy of "others" showing us respect. In fact, being with "others" shows our utter lack of self respect, etc. etc. etc.

The brother responded that he had seen Baruti's book but had not purchased/studied it because it held no interest for him. . . .

I'm grateful that his statement didn't hurt me but I'm saddened that a potential warrior is obviously sleep walking -- the brother boldly wears his Ankh and talks about his "spirituality!"

Thanks and appreciation to warrior scholars such as the Baruti's and others for putting forth such divinely inspired works and beacons of truth! May the sleepwalkers AND deniers be troubled by what they fear in the covers of those works and return to truth soon in this our hour of need!

Power & Protection Is With You. . . along w/my Love!

[Baba Ahmed]

KEBUKA!: Remembering The Middle Passage Through The Eyes of Our Ancestors*

"In the midst of our replaying the european assault against our very being, we must always remember that Afrikans did not leave their wars for freedom back in our homeland. Justice is not a place. It is a mentality. Our ancestors never gave up. We carried this battle everywhere we went. We still do.... Because we know this, we know that there was no peace on the slavers either.(56) Europeans lived in a constant state of extemem anxiety and trepidation. That's why we were constantly shackled one to another, head to wall, feet to aisle, in locked holds.

That is why we are still kept mentally and physically shackled.

As we have already pointed out, when we were allowed on deck, by those few 'good' white captains, it was only to exercise the cargo so that it would not go completely bad. It was only so that our muscles would atrophy too much, thereby making us more difficult to sell. When we were on deck, their guns were always drawn and on the ready. And, as in prison watchtowers, the crow's nests near the top of the main masts served as snipers positions to pick off any potentially revolutionary Afrikans. In fact, it has been noted that they tried to keep this an advantaged firing position by punishing any Afrikans who dared look up with club and lash. This precaution served no purpose other than to increase the level of anxiety and disomfort among would-be revolutionaries.

Nonetheless, all their precautions did not prevent the 150 officially reported, and untold number of unreported revolts on the high seas.(57). We are all familiar with the story of the Amistad, but it is only one of the successful ones. And it became a theatrical event only because of its focus on another 'liberal' European saving savages from the ravages of a few bad european apples. The movie had nothing to do with us.

We are not at its center. We did not tell it through the eyes of our ancestors. Therefore, it is not ourstory. Their interpretation is not our memory.

But regardless of their efforts to coopt and tame our revolutionary spirit, to make us appear as passive, grateful captives aboard these ships, we know that many Europeans died at the hands of enslaved Afrikans. We know that many ships sank in the deep waters of the Kemetic Ocean (24) and many Afrikans commandeered slavers back to their homeland. Even though the large number of fallen crewmembers did not prevent two plus million Afrikans from arriving on just the northern shores of New Europe, their deaths are a sure statement of our indomitable spirit to remain Afrikan and Free

So it is very vital to our survival as a people as independent, self-defining, self-determining, reAfrikanized nationbuilders, that we remember this warrior spirit also. Remebrance is key here. We must see our women on these ships, being closest to the white heat of our active exploitation, measuring the shifts and movements of the Europeans. We must be able to feel their minds cleverly recording which enemy was responsible for the keys when and where, searching for any loose tools that could be used by the men to cut through the chains and locks, even diverting the thoughts of the enslavers, drunk with power, away from their fearful watch. We must imagine our youngest sisters and brothers watching their mothers' eyes for signals of what to seize from under the enslavers' noses, when to cause a distractive ruckus, when to slip the tool they had been hiding into the wating hands of their older brothers and fathers. And we must feel the spirit of these men as they used these tools and information to plan and execute revolt after revolt to overpower the foul smelling, pale devils and teke them all back home.... There was always a division of revolutionary behavior where everyone contributed equally based on their ability and access to means. As the Akan of West Afrika say, "The family is an army.' Everyone in the family played a role in our confrontations with our captors.

We must be fealess enough to imagine how surprised the enslavers were when spiritual warriors came at them, treating them righeously as their enemy, hacking them with handmade weapons and weapons taken from fallen Europeans, breaking tem with bare hands carry the rage of thousands. We intuitively know the horror Europeans experienced as they were being charged by a people whose power they feared and who had nothing t lose but their pain."
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*Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti, copyright 2005; pg 58-60. To order copies: www.AkobenHouse.com & http://oneblackearth.tripod.com

56. And that is no way to say that the oppressor and oppressed are equally yoked or experience a pain where one's pain, but in a different way, is equivalent to the others. That is pure nonsense. Only the truly vanquished among the oppressed are receptive to this illogic.
24. The Kemetic Ocean is what we now call the Atlantic Ocean. We unapologetically make this declaration using our Afrikan reason. European 'old world' maps label the Atlantic Ocean as "Oceanus Aethiopicus" (Ethiopian Ocean). Ethiopian was a Greek label for Kemites (Afrikans) meaning 'burnt skin.' It is the oldest know Greek word for the Kemites (Afrikans). However, since we are not these protoEuropean Greeks or their descendants, we should not use Greek words to characterize and describe the Afrikan reality/worldview. Calling the Kemetic Ocean the Ethiopian Ocean speaks volumes about how the Greeks saw the world. Calling this enormous body of water Afrikan, which means they probably changed it into a Greek name that reflected earlier Afrikans calling it by an Afrikan name, indicates both the respect that Greeks had for the names Afrikans had given to places in the world, as well as the fact that Afrikans had already named this world. Therefore, moving back in time to our original thinking, if anything, we should call the ocean that chaged from being the Ethiopian to the Atlanic (also a europeanized term) nothing other than the Kemetic Ocean. This would be ourstorically consistent.
57. Official estimates on land are even higher. They set the number of enslaved Afrikan revolts in this country at 250 and around 400 in the 'Carribean' Islands.