Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Black Resurgence

I believe Barack Obama has done some concrete work on things like education, health, and more recently, criminal justice reform. The black community stands to benefit for the next generation. The positive impact will be felt. But there is something blacks will have to do on their own. Come together and weld a rich, healthy black identity through use of, exchange of spoken words.

Slavery and segregation were crimes. They are not heritage. They were somebody else's wrongs. Black folks have to go further back into the past all the way back to Africa for positive reinforcements of the black identity. There are languages, and cultures, and festivals and rituals.

Another possible movement is horizontal. Adopt Islam and become one with the Muslims on the Indian subcontinent. Islam is a religion of peace. Islam is a religion of much clarity. Islam has created a large global community. Anybody who says Indians are a minority doesn't know arithmetic.

Dalits in India and blacks in America have to cross that bridge onto another religion for fundamental liberation. For Dalits it might be Buddhism. Or Islam.

Sitting around the proverbial fire and exchanging word on experiences and just coming together to build community is a great thing. It leads to strength.

Swimmer Michael Phelps had to win a whole bunch of gold medals to achieve fame and heights where oxygen is less. And he resorted to smoking pot. It is a thin air thing. A whole bunch of young black men hit that thin air at the sea level itself. Why? Why is the emotional infrastructure so weak? The system has waged relentless attacks on the black family. But the pendulum is about to swing. The black person, the black identity, the black family, the black community can now peacefully assemble and gather strength and wealth and become whole. The continent of Africa itself is also slowly but surely gathering pace. India is the next China and Africa is the next India. The central continent is on its way to occupying a central place in the scheme of things down the decades.

The history of solar power in this country is Barack Obama talked about it a lot on the campaign trail in 2007, and today solar has achieved grid parity, it will meet 100% of the needs by 2030. There is solar power and there is black power. Similarly black folks should engage in conversation. There is power in simply talking. Black folks should talk to each other.



America: A One Party State?

China is a one party communist state. America is a one party capitalist state. China has become so much more capitalist. If Bernie has his way America might make major strides towards socialism.

In China the Chinese Communist Party sits above the state, it sits atop the Chinese court system, for example. What is the Chinese Communist Party? It used to be about communism. That has changed. But what has not changed is its total commitment to Chinese nationalism. A billion people belong to the same ethnicity and speak the same language. The Chinese built a Chinese melting pot Chinese identity over thousands of years like Americans have been building a white melting pot identity over the past few hundred years. It is the exact same concept. And the two, despite the false military tension, unabashedly like each other. Look at the trade volume. White is not a language, white is not a culture, white is not a religion, white is not a country, white is no identity, white is just lack of pigments, which makes it very animal and pro gun rights. If you ask me a billion people belonging to one ethnic identity is unnatural.

It is not any commitment to classlessness but a total commitment to Chinese nationalism that sits atop the Chinese state. There it is official. In America it is unspoken. But there is something similar. There is that melting pot white identity that sits atop the American state. There is this magnetic field. If you can speak the language, that can open some doors, but not quite.

If a people speaking just one language is what is best for everybody, then why not just hope for English as the only language on the planet? Why not clear up the Amazon forest and plant paddy along that entire stretch? English is the leading language of commerce, science and technology on the planet. And that's great. But we are at the cusp of turning the top 10 most spoken languages covering over 90% of the planet all becoming equally good languages of commerce, science and technology, thanks to Artificial Intelligence.

The mirror image of the melting pot white identity is that it reduces the black identity to skin color. A cultural identity can not be about skin color. A healthy cultural identity has to be about positive and rich things like art, language, culture, festivals, rituals, mythology, music, religion. America has to become more accepting of diversity. The Amazon forest is indispensable to our very existence. It is not just something to look at. Cultural diversity is as natural and desirable as biodiversity. Say no to the Donald Trump hate speech.

People come to America with much hope. It is not just about being able to earn a living. It is also about wanting to feel cultural diversity is as natural as fingerprints. That's what makes us interesting. Hostility to diversity is downright stupid. They say the cure for cancer might be in the Amazon. In a robust knowledge economy the onus is on out of the box thinking, on thinking different. Guess what diversity is!