letter from Shaka Barak-gctid36366

[kweku, afro olmec]

My Dear Brothers and Sisters

The Article I wrote about Punk Black Males is over a year old and while I still feel the way I did about the shortage of real men in our race, I have not had a running discussion about it since I first wrote it. Upon a request, I forwarded it, not realizing that someone would want to challenge me on this, a year later. Be that as it may, I shall entertain these challenges for the good of the Kmtyw race. I write so that you may know the truth and that the truth shall make you free.
    If the Creator of the Universe were to waste its time looking at the status of the races and nations on planet earth, and finally got down to Kmtyws and people of Kmtyw descent, today our black males would be found at the bottom of the totem pole of all races. While the Creator hates excuses coming from those Divine spirits created in the Creators image, patience would allow us to submit the reasons why 70% of the Kmtyw households are headed by Kmtyw women.   The Creator would let us explain why we are so weak as a race that it places us in a position that in less than a year our entire race of almost one billion could not only be reduced to slavery but be reduced to smoldering ashes or drowned in the bottom of the oceans, by any one of the stronger races on this planet.  
    I criticized all the different groups in our race in the article. No matter how intelligent; how Kmtyw Centered; how spiritual; nor how wealthy, I called us all out because when the powerful races feel that in order for them to survive that they would need to make more room in these civilizations by getting rid of or exterminating us, none of the groups would be spared. And since the black males of our race have refused to do something as fundamental as heading the family, what kind of resistance or revolution could we wage if called to arms?
    My beloved brothers and sisters, I have not written these or any words to the masses of our race to hurt anyone's feelings. I love my race just as I love myself, but I can not flatter you. Instead, I have sought through my writings to warn you. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who you know loved you, left these words for me to share with you. "We are undergoing a period of silent murder and elimination all over the world, and the longer we take to get together, the quicker will the intention be carried out to its final realization." The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey continues, "Let us therefore rouse ourselves to see ourselves as others see us-our plight, our dilemma, our misery and poverty, and work hard to protect ourselves, and ensure a better way of life."  
    Our teacher the Honorable Marcus Garvey once prayed, "God give us men, the urgency of our Cause demands it. If we are to be saved, and we must; if this great programme for Kmt is to be carried out, and by God's help it will be, if our people are to be lifted up out of poverty, ignorance and frustration, then we must have men and women capable and efficient to lead and map out the course this race must take toward our goal." When your brother Shaka Barak said things about Black men, he hoped you would understand the seriousness of the age in which we live that my words illuminated. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey said, "What we want really are men of prime courage, determined in heart and soul to carry the great Cause to victory." What cause you might ask? "The Cause of Kmt redeemed, the Cause of the emancipated black man the world over; because today he is a slave; if not a chattel slave, then a mental slave-slave to the white mans prejudices, hate and passion-denied a living wage, denied full employment, denied the education that would fit him for useful, scientific work. Hence the great need for service to emancipate him fully, and greater still is the need to emancipate his country and make him a man among men."  
    My brothers and sisters, it was less than 24hrs after I forwarded this old article I had written about "A Call To Arms Part I, Punk Black Males,"some people came at me the wrong way and with the wrong understanding. Anyone can be born a male. Thats no accomplishment. I want our young and old males to be strong men and strong women so that we wont continue to be defeated by the men and women of other races. First, we must be honest and recognize all of our weaknesses as Black males and then do all we can to overcome them, as I strive to do for myself and my family everyday.  
    The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey said, "I wonder if you will think in terms of men and go out and be your own builders and architects. The race waits on you. It will never be greater than you make it and think of it. You haven't laid the foundation of your commercial system, your political system, yet you mimic the white man and say you are unemployed. There is nothing scarcely for him to do. He has already built all his banks, railways, ships; he has already defined the boundaries of his political system. He has no more cities to expand and you just follow him saying you are tired and you haven't laid one brick; you haven't sent one ship a thounited snakesnd times across the  ocean."  
 My brothers and sister, those of us who love you often become your greatest critics rather than always try to make you feel good through flattery.  
    In my conclusion, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey wrote these words, "The Negro is dying out, and he is going to die faster and more rapidly in the next fifty years than he has in the past three hundred years. There is only one thing to save the Negro, and that is an immediate realization of his own responsibilities. Unfortunately we are the most careless and indifferent people in the world! We are shiftless and irresponsible, and that is why we find ourselves the wards of an inherited materialism that has lost its soul and its conscience. It is strange to hear a Negro leader speak in this strain, as the usual  course is flattery, but I would not flatter you to save my own life and that of my own family."  
    Brothers and Sisters in that article I could have taken the opportunity of pointing out several of the groups I mentioned and declared an exception, especially those philosophies that I am aligned with, but I did not. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey continued, "There is no value in flattery. Flattery of the Negro for another quarter of a century will mean hell and damnation to the race. How can any Negro leader flatter us about progress and the rest of it, when the world is preparing more than ever to bury the entire race? Must I flatter you when England, France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain are all concentrating on robbing every square inch of Kmtyw territory—The land of our fathers? Must I flatter you when the cry is being loudly raised for a white America, Canada, Australia and eureurasia, and a yellow and brown eurasia? Must I flatter you when I find all the other peoples preparing themselves for the struggle to survive, and you still smiling, eating, dancing, drinking and sleeping away your time, as if yesterday were the beginning of the age of pleasure? I would rather be dead than a member of your race without thought of the morrow, for it portends evil to him that thinketh not. Because I cannot flatter you I am here to tell, emphatically, that if we do not seriously reorganize ourselves as a people and face the world with a program of Kmtyw nationalism our days in civilization are numbered, and it will be only a question of time when the Negro will be as completely and complacently dead as the North American Indian, or the Australian Bushman."
 Sisters and Brothers your brother Shaka Barak has presented to you the thoughts of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, to support my assertions that we are in trouble all across the board. The Call To Arms was a call to think. If I have offended anyone by touching your precious ideology or philosophy take this warning to the head and not to the heart. Time will not allow me to go back and forth with you on this topic because of an impending schedule that will be very demanding.  In the final analysis, if what I say or type is aligned with the teachings  of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey then as a Garveyite, I am prepared to fight and die for my belief as I remain your humble servant,
 Shaka Barak
 President  
 The Marcus Garvey Institute