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This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=-RVBiFB3lwk&fbclid=IwAR3vBnk36M-kS5AYzx935Mj_gb9tGeebWSe8c76eQyFzZsK6WQprrpEirVw&ab_channel=BLISB.) was done completely and totally without her permission and she is quite upset about it. It is being resolved (as well as something can be resolved when once something hits the internet it is copied and copied and copied and takes on a life of its own in personal phones, laptops and pcs). Nonetheless, please make the time to go to this page and express the need to take it down asap (yes, I know that this may increase the number of those drawn to that page but if she’s willing to take that risk we should be as well). Much appreciated. Abibifahodie.
MY CLOSING STATEMENT ON THIS MATTER: We live in a reality where lying, stealing, rape, murder and a whole host of other vices are only considered wrong if one is caught and can be held accountable for it. Otherwise, one has won. It is a reality we have become so submerged in that many of us do not even recognize doing any vice or evil as wrong. This is one of the drawbacks for frontliners who have spent their lives, and lifetimes of energy, attempting to deliver the word but who live to see it stolen by those whose integrity and “Afrikanized” sense of theft, in whatever form, is limited or guided by yurugu’s mantra, “As long as I am able to get away with it, I have done nothing wrong.” Even worse, many no longer seem to have enough understanding to even recognize, in the first place, that wrong is wrong. We cannot condone or turn a blind/mentacidal eye, in our community, away from the same mentality which allowed yurugu to come in, take what was not theirs, use it to their people’s benefit against us and turn those who rebelled against their violation into the violators. Sadly, some of us see them as the human model. But we are not them. We are Ma’at. For us, character is supremely critical. And it is this knowing which gives this statement a wide application on our frontline because we are supposed to be better than that. I can remember when so many of the cassette, CD and DVD recordings of our Warrior Scholars were being bootlegged by people who claimed good intentions. They claimed they were doing this “work” for the community and even that, since this knowledge could potentially be acquired by anyone, they were only doing the service of delivering the word which belonged to everyone, all the while pocketing the proceeds from the sales and passing on none of the money to the individual[s] who had done the work of compiling and analyzing this information for the Warriors. Whether these people did not see this as wrong because stealing another’s intellectual property is so commonplace, and/or even if those individuals did this because of their love for Afrikan people, I do not see ignorance of it being wrong as an excuse for theft. If it does not belong to you, then it does not belong to you, and you have no right to use it as you see fit. It is not yours. This is especially the case when no permission was sought and a significant portion or the entire work was stolen in whatever form and distributed in whatever way at whatever cost or profit. Most importantly, for those claiming to be on the spiritual, mental or physical frontline, this behavior is totally unbecoming. So, I need it understood here (and I am a firm believer in the Afrikan tradition of knowing why in terms of making any “judgment”) that I am not concerned with intent at this moment. Having studied Marimba Ani’s Let the Circle Be Unbroken, I fully understand its spiritual value and the importance of Warriors receiving the message. Whether recording and releasing the entirety of this manuscript on the internet (and, therefore, the electronic world) was not done mean-spiritedly or out of some vindictive agenda, the point is that no one reached out to Mama Marimba before doing so. Whoever is responsible did not have her permission. We, as intelligent, sympathetic, respectful, loving adults who feel it is extremely important not to violate any Afrikan, should know not to do that, whether we know Ma’at or not. And, if they contacted Mama Marimba, my experience with her tells me that she would have declined permission because of how people who look like us have used her work to their benefit, and often against her, and the heartbreaking fact that this was something that she dearly wanted to do herself. My concern is the damage being done to someone who has completely and uncompromisingly given and lived her life for us. And, in that respect, it becomes personal.
