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“Either we see ourselves as members of a family, that is an ethnic family, or we do not. Families nurture, socialize, and protect their members. Either the family is structured and stable for power or it is not. Either the family has a functioning network or it does not. Either the family has a vision of the future or it does not. Either the family has standards of value or it does not. Either the family remembers its heritage or it does not. Either we understand our geopolitical position or we do not.”
— Asa G. Hilliard
Before one has economic, spiritual, or cultural power one must have an ethnic global national identity. These systems are not just independent systems that materialize in and of themselves. They are systems of social relationships between people. Money, self-identity, education, and culture grow from the relationship between people. Let’s think of Money and education, they do not occur first, it is the relationship between people that creates the economy, that creates the money. It’s the relationship of people striving to overcome difficulties that creates education. We have been taught education is a series of memorization of dates and events without any cultural-historical context of what it actually means to us. This is why we think we can educate by having black teachers or going to an all-black school, having a PhD. We are the most educated we have ever been under this system and we are the most culturally, economically, and sexually confused people ever. Therefore to create an economic/educational/ cultural power we must establish a set of political and social relationships. Yet we are still arguing over the name Africa, I’m the real Hebrew, black is beautiful, or am I a Nigerian. Carter Woodson did say in the 1930s that the educated would be the new enslaves of our people for a reason.
