“Afrikan Culture had functioned as a total ideology, a total way of life. An ideology is prescriptive. It tells you what to do. It tells you who you are. It gives you a sense of meaning, why you are here, why you have been born. Ideology tells you what role you have to play in the lives of your group. Importantly, it tells you who your group is; and what team you are on. Afrikan culture did all of these things for us and more. It gave us instructions for living. Our culture gave us a belief-system, a value-system. It gave us a spiritual system which guided our personal, family, social and economic relationships. They were all one, based in Spirit. And, perhaps most important, our culture gave us identity. It gave us the confidence that comes with ancientness and deep-roots. It gave us strategies for solving problems. It was a life-process. All of this information was coded in the language that our culture gave us. Our culture was our immune system. It was very strong, when it was intact.”

-Mama Marimba Ani