21st Century Black America: MisEducated and Sleeping?

Published in Issue 487 of The Black Commentator on September 27, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“History shows that it does not matter who is in power…those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights in the end than they did in the beginning.”
-Dr. Carter G. Woodson

“Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward all research.”
-Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

Has 21st century Black America been miseducated, and to a large extent, dumbed-down into a state of political sleep in this year of 2012? The answer, in a word, is essentially yes.

Indeed, this is unfortunately, an accurate description of the present comatose and manipulated mental state, of an inordinate amount of persons of all colors in the United States today, not only of Black America.

In the classic and extremely relevant book by Dr. Carter G. Woodson titled, The Mis-Education of the Negro, the ‘educational’ and media process of brainwashing is clearly delineated. Dr. Woodson’s poignant observations from 1933, when the book was originally published, are indeed more relevant today, in the 21st century, than ever before.

The revolutionary political consciousness of Black America has been, in large part, deliberately sabotaged and set back, in the very name of ‘progress,’ by this political system’s de facto gate-keepers in support of the Obama brand. The (Barack) Obama brand is not merely an insidious corporate brand, it is a debilitating brand of mental enslavement. Critical thinking, common sense, and intellectual honesty have, to a very large extent, been replaced by absurd rationalizations and a pathetic mockery of our common sense. Suddenly, it is now perfectly alright to engage in indefinite detention in this nation without open and due process of law, commit extrajudicial murder based upon a secret ‘Kill List,’ and unconstitutionally wage wars, torture, and bomb people in Africa, Asia, and any other part of the world – as long as it is under the auspices of the Obama brand.

Critical thinking, common sense, and intellectual honesty have been rendered null and void in large portions of Black America by those, who have for the moment, placed all of us, irrespective of color, back on the plantations of the ethically, morally, and mentally dead.

This “miseducation” process has borne vile fruit. It has revised, distorted, and disfigured the heretofore honorable, necessary, and noble liberation struggles of Black America.

While Black and other systemic gate-keepers cynically and opportunistically complain, for example, about very real racism, economic injustice, and police brutality etc., they themselves hypocritically support the misleaders of a political system that engages in (or directly enhances) mass murder, perpetual wars, extraordinary rendition [i.e. international kidnapping & torture] abroad, and increasing economic austerity and a very real unconstituional police-state at home. In the words of the late revolutionary, Jonathan Jackson, “The mantle of ignorance doesn’t cover their behavior.” These misleaders and their systemic gate-keepers know precisely what they are doing, and we must get off their mental plantations of enslavement and relegate them and their plantations to oblivion! In order to do this, Black America must first massively reawaken from its deliberately induced political slumber, in conjunction with our politically conscious sisters and brothers of all colors, in this nation and throughout Mother Earth.

None of us, Black or otherwise, need remain “miseducated” and manipulated. If we free our minds our actions will follow. This requires conscious, deliberate, and protracted political struggle on our part. The eternal words of Harriet Tubman are fully applicable today: “I freed a thousand slaves – I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves,”. We must awaken ourselves and each other and act accordingly. This will not be easy as we are up against the system’s misleaders, the systemic gate-keepers, and an entrenched corporate-stream media of disinformation – all of whom – are engaged in the process of miseducating. On the other hand, in the words of Howard Zinn, “On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own.” It is up to us to recognize and spread this truth through organizing, educating, and agitating. Truth can be like the spark that starts the cleansing prairie fire!

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!

Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, San Francisco BayView newspaper, Black Commentator, Intrepid Report, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), 107Cowgate (Ireland and Scotland), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). He is in the archives of Dr. Huey P. Newton (Stanford University, CA), cofounder of the Black Panther Party. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.)