31 Dec 2016
Ah Ha!!!! Ex I. Such a book project is an ingenious idea! The world needs a book on the interaction of Black Consciousness with BKism. For me personally, it has never been an issue of white washing or black washing and race problems in the BK community never bothered me. I have dated more god Sisters (white women) than Sisters (black women). Witnessing West Indian cricket playing a role in defeating apartheid in the 1980s and Cuban troops fighting in Africa as a teen, white supremacy was never supreme in my family or community. John Wayne was never my hero, especially after watching the following films: Enter the Dragon, Khartum, Geronimo, Zulu Dawn, and Hannibal.
While the USA was being defeated in the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam, a mythic/reality hero took the world by a storm: Bruce Lee. Zulu Dawn was a reenactment of the Battle of Isandlwana. Zulus armed with battle clubs and spears decimated more than a thousand Red Coats who were armed with state of the art weaponry far superior to the primitive arms of the Zulus.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time had to ask, who are the Zulus? To this day, military time has the name Zulu attached to it. The defeat of the British at Isandlwana was the greatest defeat of the British military in Victorian times. At Yale University, the stolen skull of Geronimo is stored and has not been returned to the Red People. If Hannibal had siege machines, he would have destroyed Rome. The architects of the fight against terrorism are fearful of the rise of a new Mahdi. Even J. Edgar Hover was fearful of the emerging of a black Messiah.
Black consciousness clashing with BKism in the 1970s and onwards was personalized or personified. White supremacy, all the TV ads, movie films, sport events cannot erase from the DNA and psyche of a person who as a youth had black and Asian super stars, and historical figures as role models.