For The Love of My People

By BaBa Omowale Eng

(Part 1)

BaBa Omowale Eng

What does it mean to be consciously Black in America in 2020? Does it mean that we should know our history? Should we show pride in our culture by the way we look? Does it require that we carry ourselves in a special way – A way that says to the world that we, Black people, are dignified, respectful and that we have a clear ethical foundation and moral compass? Does it mean that all of that royalty and dignity is based on our cultural imperative? That character is a part of the DNA of Black People.

What is consciousness, if not awareness of our identity? Awareness that shows up in ways that reflect our individual and collective responsibility to our culture. Dr. Naim Akbar tells us about the idea of self identity, self acceptance, and self love. Those three realities say who we are:

1. That we are descendants of Afruika. That Afruika, mispronounced and misspelled as Africa by the Europeans, is the birthplace of all humanity. Our consciousness should make it clear that we are aware that melanin is an essential part of what makes us Black and proud and that our tightly curled hair, wider nostrils and fuller lips are all those good characteristics that we appreciate about how we and people who look like us, look in the world.

Consciousness is a matter of self identity that says that I appreciate all that I see in myself when I look in the mirror, or when I look at my brother or my sister, my wife, my child and my family.

Those are the thoughts that should fuel the self love that drives my life and informs my world. In driving my life and informing my world Black consciousness is the thinking in the forefront of my mind, as I navigate my way through this world. In terms of education, in terms of work, in terms of play and in terms of vocation, all of it should be related to who I am as a Black Man or Black Woman.

All of those things should make me want to study more and find out more about where I come from and what were the ways and practices of the people that I descend from. How did those Afruicans in Ancient Afruika live? How did they die? What work did they do? How did they love and associate? How did they talk to each other? How did they build civilization even as they fought and waged war, when and if that ever became necessary?

2. When I think of my place in the world I must know that history shows that I have been targeted for enslavement and oppression that is continuous and in order for me not to fall victim to that ever again, I have to know why it happened and how it was done.

Black consciousness demands that I know that people who look like me, my Brothers and My Sisters, are intentionally kept vulnerable to that enslavement and oppression. In Black consciousness, that thinking becomes the matter of my acceptance of my reality which says I will stay focused and conscious so that it never happens to me or the people who look like me, ever again.

For me, I have discovered that the why of it began as the cultures of Black and White peoples clashed in a way that created avarice and greed, resentment and hatred. I found out that people who develop in extremely different environments develop totally different attitudes and views about the world, about themselves, and about The God who is responsible for it all. Check out Cheik Anta Diop’s book: African Civilization, Myth or Reality, where he explains how that part of it happened.

Again, speaking for myself, when I studied this basic human development it was through Cheik Anta Diop, who did extensive research on human development and conceived a theory around how human beings respond to environmental stimulus and how their genetic abilities allowed them to actually alter their biology in order to adapt to different environments. That opened my eyes to the reality of how people, human beings, could think so differently that one would seek to annihilate the other without feeling any kind of remorse about what they do.

(To be Continued)