Black folks have historically been objects of coercive control in the U.S. Our utility as a source of labor and a market for consumption is only exceeded by the fear and loathing that many White people have for us. In schools, arbitrary disciplinary policies become a veneer via which this history of repression is acted out. Under the guise of maintaining order, Black children are treated as a social malignancy. They are tolerated while silent, scolded when vocal, and expunged when assertive. Assertiveness is, after all, not within the purview of oppressed people. Thus I believe that this process of social control is designed to condition African youth early on to the notion that being self-determining and advocating for themselves are not rights that they are entitled to. Moreover they are taught that deference to White authorities is not only expected, but mandated, beginning with White teachers and extending to White police officers. Carter G. Woodson was right–schools are bastions of mis-education for our youth.
Author: kamaurashid
The Kemetic View of Time
The Kemetic view of time differs in some ways from the Bantu-Kongo, but corresponds in a number of respects. Three relevant Kemetic conceptions of time are nHH, sp tpy, and wHm mswt. These describe the Kemetic conception of the pre-conditions of the advent of the universe, the emergence of space time, and the invocation of that occasion as a paradigm of cultural renewal.
nHH, or the Kemetic idea of eternity or infinity is characterized by four basic forces: formless and boundless matter, infinite potential, absolute darkness, and the unknown. Jacob H. Carruthers states that “The idea of infinity as the pre-beginning condition is related to the…notion of boundlessness. Here, time emerges from the Eternal never ending, never beginning, never distinct infinity.” (Carruthers, 1984, 60-61).
sp tpy, literally “first occasion” (Carruthers, 1984, p. 58), represents the emergence of the physical universe and the beginning of space-time. That is to say that sp tpy represents the origin of the universe as a spatial-temporal phenomenon. However in addition to this, sp tpy also represents the initiation of a process resulting in the ultimate manifestation of the constituent elements necessary to establish optimal conditions for living. As Carruthers states, “The conditions, properties and processes that are necessary for existence, the good life and eternity came into being for the first time…. Thus, we may say everything came into being sp tpy.” (1984, p. 58).
Similar to musoni and kala on the Dikenga, nHH and sp tpy represents two distinct phases of cosmogenesis (Obenga, 2004). nHH is a state of infinite possibility, one which precedes actuality. It is the state of formlessness, possessing within it the potentiality of all form, giving rise to the universe at sp tpy. Thus these two stages of the Kemetic concept of time represents the state preceding and subsequent to musoni (the big bang) (Fu-Kiau, 1994), in addition to the continued unfolding of the universe as represented by kala.
wHm mswt, literally the “repetition of the births”, was the hr name of the “Twelfth Dynasty” ruler imn m HAt or Amenemhat, who initiated a period of national restoration and renewal (Carruthers, 2007). As niswt (the title of rulers in kmt) Amenemhat’s hr name explicated his descent from Hr or Hrw, and the attendant charge to restore the unity and greatness of the nation. Amenemhat conceptualized this restorative process of reclaiming the great works of antiquity, and building upon those to restore mAat to the land. This charge is clearly expressed in the text that Carruthers calls the “Good Speech of Neferti” (called the Prophesies of Neferti by the Egyptologists) which states “mAat, with respect to injustice, is in her place. Cast out Isft.”
Given its orientation towards restoration and reclamation, wHm mswt, is similar to the point of luvemba on the Dikenga. It acknowledges a process of decline, and thus articulates a process of renewal and restoration as a social mandate to correct this condition. Thus wHm mswt is situated as a social processes directed towards the restoration of order (mAat) in the land. The juxtaposition of mAat to isft is highly instructive of the potential circumstances that occasion the invocation of wHm mswt as a necessary social corrective. It suggests the ascendence of, or rather the descent into isft as a condition of societal decline, wherein mAat is posed, not only as an opposing ideal, but as the natural order of things.
Legitimacy, authenticity, and the African martial arts
I suspect that the debates regarding authenticity & African martial arts stem from the maafa and its assault on African culture in the U.S. The idea that only traditional African combat arts are authentic suggests that African American cultural production is somehow less African. To suggest that Africans in the U.S. lack this form of cultural agency is a specious notion to say the least.
Tradition expresses itself in two forms. First, it is expressed in cultural traditions that are contiguous through time. For now we’ll call these “contiguous traditions”, that is, traditions whose intergenerational transferral have been seamless. However there are also traditions that are reconstituted in a different time and place from their initial formulation. These “reclaimed traditions” are often characterized by broken lines of transmission. Yet while they may appear to die off, “reclaimed traditions” are informed by contexts, collective wills, and various forms of cultural memory that enables their reformulation.
The whm msw in ancient kmt, the founding of the Ashanti Federation, and Palmares could all be argued as examples of “reclaimed traditions”. The whm msw sought to restore kmt to its magnificence from the Old Kingdom. The founding of Ashanti initiated a period of expansion that echoes the glories of the great Ghana Empire. Palmares represents an effort to reconstitute African state formations in the midst of the Maafa. In each of these contexts people looked to their past for some indicator of what their future should be. Having identified an instructive historical paradigm, they sought to institutionalize that model in their present.
Despite the passage of time and the pain of spatial dislocations, traditions can be reclaimed. Africans in the U.S. in the 1950s-1970s created martial systems which were, in effect, attempts to reclaim a martial tradition thought long-suppressed by the Maafa. Once these “reclaimed traditions” were juxtaposed with “contiguous traditions” these claims of inauthenticity gained expression. However I argue that to cede the question of legitimacy only to “contiguous traditions” is to deny the Africanness of Africans in the U.S. It is to deny our own cultural agency, and suggests that U.S. born Africans have been both dispossessed of authentic cultural knowledge, and further, have been dispossessed of the capacity to reconstruct and reclaim that knowledge. Much of the work of many U.S. born Africans, from the 1950s to the present has involved an on-going effort best expressed by the Akan concept SankOfa–that is an attempt to reclaim that which has been lost. This process has produced many emergent traditions, both contiguous and reclaimed that convey what the African-Centered psychologists have called the African personality, and what others have called the African Worldview. This suggests that these two parallel traditional forms are not oppositional, in fact they may be complimentary, for in any society, contiguous and reclaimed traditions can coexist and contribute to the forward flow history.
With regards to African martial arts, I suspect that there is room for both these notable traditions. To respect the “reclaimed traditions” is to affirm the legitimacy and dignity of our struggle for self-determination and those Africans who sought to craft dynamic solutions to this problem. Furthermore, to respect the “contiguous traditions” is to honor our esteemed ancestors and their struggle for self-determination, as they to sought to apply their martial knowledge in the service of African liberation. In both instances an African warrior tradition was invoked as a necessary element in our liberation struggle. The African maroons of Jamaica, the denizens of the dismal swamp, and the cultural nationalists of the Black Power Era were all drawn to a similar call, what the Akoto’s refer to as “an ancestral summons”, to recognize “the reality of war” and to steel their bodies and minds for struggle that lay ahead.
Abibifahodie!