Brief Summary
This video discusses the importance of black solidarity, consciousness, culture, and power. It emphasizes the need for African people to move beyond concrete thinking and embrace abstract thought to manipulate symbols and ideas for progress. The speaker defines consciousness as a psychophysiological state that can be manipulated and highlights the concept of group consciousness and culture as tools for social control and adaptation. The video also explores how dominant groups can control others through manipulating their beliefs and values, using the example of economic ideologies like free markets. It critiques the reliance on consumerism and the need for African people to prioritize ownership and production.
- Consciousness is a concrete presence, not an abstraction, and is key to manipulating the world.
- Group consciousness and culture are essential tools for social control and achieving common goals.
- Dominant groups can control others by manipulating their beliefs and values.
- African people need to prioritize ownership, production, and economic solidarity to advance their interests.
Intro
The speaker introduces the topic of black solidarity, focusing on consciousness, culture, and power. He emphasizes that consciousness, though seemingly abstract, is a concrete presence in the human mind and life. He argues that the culture often discourages African people from engaging with abstractions, even though abstract thinking is crucial for organizing behavior and achieving control.
The Power of Abstraction
The speaker explains that abstract concepts like "nation" can mobilize people and armies, illustrating the power of abstractions. He notes that nationalism, derived from the abstract idea of a nation, has been a foundation for people to organize, overthrow oppressors, and achieve a collective identity. Those in power discourage black people from engaging with abstract ideas, preferring a "hands-on" consciousness suitable for servants, while masters use abstract thought to control and transform the world.
Concrete vs. Abstract Consciousness
The speaker asserts that masters want to make black people think that abstract thinking is their preserve, not the preserve of those who serve. He argues that many African people have fallen for this distinction, defining their blackness only in terms of concreteness and not in terms of their ability to manipulate symbols and abstractions. He claims that Europe seeks to make black people a concrete people disconnected from their history, impairing their abstract capacities and abilities to understand and redirect their behavior in the present.
Consequences of Disconnection
The speaker explains that when a people are robbed of responsibility for their future, they are robbed of the ability to use their imagination and deal with the future as a means of changing behavior in the present. He argues that African-Americans, cut off from their past and made not responsible for their future, have had their ability to act in terms of abstraction impaired, leading to a short attention span and a mentality suited for servants. To defeat those who rule, it's necessary to change this mentality to include the capacity to enter into abstractions and manipulate consciousness through symbols.
Defining Consciousness
The speaker defines consciousness as a level of psychological and physiological arousal, emphasizing that it is a psychophysiological state, not merely an abstract psychological one. He uses the example of psychoactive drugs to illustrate how physical chemicals can bring about psychological changes by altering brain states. He explains that people use drugs to manipulate their consciousness, indicating that consciousness is closely tied to the physical state of the brain.
Consciousness and Physical States
The speaker references a previous discussion on multiple personalities to illustrate the concrete nature of consciousness. He describes how different personalities can have different physical reactions, such as allergies or responses to medication, within the same body. This implies that these personalities are psychophysiological states, where the physical nature of the body is correlated with each state of consciousness.
Implanted Consciousness
The speaker argues that the consciousness typical of African-Americans today, including their vulnerabilities, has been implanted by those in power. He suggests that African people have yet to gain true possession of their bodies and minds, and that the bodies and consciousness they call their own are often created by those who rule over them. He emphasizes the need to recognize that consciousness is not a game but a real state by which people's bodies and minds are manipulated.
Self-Determination and Consciousness
The speaker defines consciousness as a level of psychological and physiological arousal that facilitates an individual's awareness of their internal and external environment. He explains that true consciousness allows individuals to intentionally initiate and regulate their cognitive and behavioral activities toward achieving designed goals. Different levels of consciousness make possible and impossible certain types and forms of behavior, acting as a limiting case that can both extend and limit capacities.
Social Manufacturing of Consciousness
The speaker emphasizes that consciousness is socially manufactured and influenced by social relations and experiences during developmental periods. He argues that those who control social interactions, education, and socialization largely shape an individual's consciousness. This is why African-centered education is important, as it aims to create a consciousness that advances the interests of African people through African-centered experiences and environments.
Group Consciousness and Culture
The speaker introduces the concept of group consciousness, which involves shared sets of information, modes of information processing, values, and skills. He notes that white people seek to falsify black behavior by falsifying information, impairing information processing, and manipulating values. When individuals share or have compatible sets of information and processing methods, they generate a shared group consciousness.
Cultural Consciousness and Shared History
The speaker explains that people come to share a group or cultural consciousness by sharing a common social history, ancestry, ethnicity, and socialization practices. He notes that African people share a common history and ancestry, but have been socialized by Eurocentric institutions. He emphasizes that transforming this consciousness is the goal of African-centered education and socialization, which aims to create a group consciousness that allows people to act in the interest of African people.
Adaptational Tool
The speaker describes group consciousness as an adaptational tool that enables self-interested individuals to cooperatively coordinate and organize their activities toward mutually desirable goals. He argues that group consciousness allows individuals to achieve ends that benefit the group, recognizing that the group is an extension of the individual. He notes that most achievements are the result of coordinated human behavior, and that Europeans seek to disempower African people by promoting extreme individuality.
Culture as Social Control
The speaker defines culture as a tool by which a group gains control over itself and its members, controlling behavior and consciousness to achieve particular ends. He asserts that consciousness, whether individual or group, is the premier instrument of social control. Culture is the outward expansion of a group's inner consciousness, and by examining a culture, one can understand the organization of group and individual consciousness.
Consciousness as Ideology
The speaker discusses consciousness as ideology, emphasizing that the content of consciousness includes beliefs and myths. He argues that people act on their beliefs, whether based in fact or not, and that consciousness is shaped and motivated by shared beliefs, customs, expectations, myths, and values. He stresses the importance of focusing on culture and consciousness as ideology, as they direct behavior and influence the world.
Culture, Consciousness, and Power
The speaker asserts that consciousness is a power because it enables individuals to influence the world and determine how the world influences them. He emphasizes that this power is based on beliefs, ideas, and myths, and questions the sources of these beliefs, asking whether they come from African history or racist ideology. He argues that those who control consciousness and culture use this power to advance their own ends, describing eurocentric culture as a vampiric culture that sucks the power of African consciousness.
Vampiric Culture
The speaker claims that the artificially created set of beliefs, consciousness, and culture called Black Consciousness and black culture provides the power for European domination. He argues that Europeans cannot be what they are unless black people are what they are, emphasizing that black people continue to create and sustain them by letting them create their culture and consciousness. He references books that lay out how to control and manipulate others, urging listeners to subvert these intentions with an African-centered perspective.
Ideological Control and Misunderstandings
The speaker argues that people can be ruled in terms of their ideas, and that dominant groups secure their position by developing misunderstandings among the dominated concerning reality. He asserts that one group can dominate another simply by getting its members to conceive of themselves or the world in a particular way. He suggests that if African people are subjugated, they have cooperated with their subjugation by not examining the ideas upon which they operate.
Values and Power
The speaker emphasizes that values can be tools used by one social group to gain power over another, even when the latter seems to be in a position to dominate. He argues that the values African people use can be the means by which another group has gained control over them. He claims that African people are being dominated mainly through the ideas they've permitted to inhabit their country, not by external forces, and that one group can use the minds of another as the chains of their own servitude.
Economic Ideology and Free Markets
The speaker argues that the situation where black vendors are on the streets of their communities is a result of an economic ideology, specifically the ideology of the free market. He suggests that African people should think of themselves as a nation within a nation and that the belief in free markets is creating problems. He claims that African people are the only nation that sincerely believes in free and open markets, while other nations use it to manipulate behavior.
Historical Protectionism
The speaker explains that the United States maintained a closed economic market from its inception until World War I, protecting its industries against outside competition. He notes that England itself did not have a free market, destroying competitors to maintain control. He argues that capitalists do not want to maintain competition but to destroy it, seeking an organized and predictable market.
Booker T. Washington and Economic Power
The speaker suggests that Booker T. Washington recognized that power rested in the economic control of production, ownership of property, and control of capital, not in voting. He notes that the industrialists of the time were the ones running the United States, determining its future, and bribing legislators. He argues that those who own property control the lives of the property-less, no matter how much they vote.
Capitalism and Tax Cuts
The speaker claims that politicians are bought by capitalists and that their governance is dictated by the structure of finance, capital, and the corporate system. He notes that everyone is running to lower taxes, even though it means cutting essential services. He argues that global capitalists and transnational companies dictate terms to governments, demanding tax breaks and creating a "business climate" that avoids paying taxes.
Free Markets and National Interests
The speaker argues that the belief in free markets allows other groups to take advantage of African people's wealth without contributing to their communities. He claims that nations do not operate this way, as they do not see alien groups as having as much right to take advantage of their wealth. He notes that the United States pushed free markets because it had a wealth advantage and could exploit other nations' markets.
Consumerism vs. Production
The speaker asserts that no nation of consumers can ever be a free and powerful nation, only those that are productive and control the means of production. He argues that Europeans disempower African people by making them think they can exist as individuals, leading to a lack of group achievement. He claims that African people are in their current condition because their consciousness is reactionary, focused on defending injured egos rather than advancing interests, and absorbed by consumption rather than production.
False Values and Beliefs
The speaker argues that African people value being accepted by whites more than self-acceptance, and working for whites more than creating employment. He claims that this is due to the ideology of free market, individualism, consumerism, and the desire to be accepted by their masters. He asserts that African communities are free markets when no other community permits such a market within themselves, leading to a double bind where they are blocked from accessing alien markets and their own internal markets.
Perils of False Values
The speaker warns that African people have been inculcated with values they think are righteous but fail to ask "good for whom?" and "good for what?" He argues that they have been told it is good not to consider race when spending money, but this allows others to grow wealthy and dominate them. He claims that African people are enchained by their own minds and the ideas they call their own, and that their consciousness has been reversed.
Economic Ideology in Action
The speaker uses the example of the Opium Wars to illustrate how taste and desire can be manipulated to control behavior. He explains that the British addicted the Chinese to opium to balance trade, leading to social problems and war. He argues that African people cannot permit their wealth to flow out of their community and expect stability, and that the high crime and violence rates are due to African people not acting in their national interest.
The Patmark Project
The speaker critiques the Patmark project, arguing that it is not an advancement for the black community but a means for others to suck wealth out of it. He claims that it destroys the lives of thousands of vendors and justifies this in terms of convenience. He notes that the project is a partnership with a non-profit corporation, local community groups, and churches, but that the investors are Prudential, GE Capital, and Bank of America, who are investing to make money.
Nonprofit Deception
The speaker warns that non-profit foundations are often front men for profit-making entities, preparing the territory for their profit-making brothers to come in and take the wealth of a community. He argues that while LISC claims to build low-income housing, the architects, construction companies, and retailers profit from it. He emphasizes the need for African people to have their own foundations and charities so that those who profit from these activities are their own.
Political Interference and Jobs Mentality
The speaker claims that LISC is using local community groups and churches to run political interference and get permission for the Patmark project. He notes that African people have a jobs mentality, conditioned into them since they arrived in America, and are easily deceived by the promise of jobs. He argues that it is better to own the jobs and the business, rather than having someone give back a few pennies for every dollar they take out.
LISC's Invasion Plan
The speaker reveals that LISC is planning to invade 14 inner cities across the country, funding only 30% of the project and relying on regular loans for the rest. He quotes Paul Broen, president of LISC, who stated that this effort is not philanthropy but a hard-headed investment tool for breaking into the lucrative inner city market. He emphasizes that African people must see themselves as rich, not poor, and that other groups are racing to rob them of their wealth.
Inner City Beckons Savvy Retailers
The speaker quotes an article titled "Inner City Beckons Savvy Retailers," which states that pioneering supermarkets would encounter little competition in these areas. He notes that the article highlights the high population density and buying power of inner cities, and that Patmark supermarkets routinely outperform many other stores. He argues that this is a major struggle for the control of wealth and property, and that many politicians and preachers are silent on this issue.
A Mall Comes to a Black Township
The speaker references an article titled "A Mall Comes to a Black Township," which discusses a similar situation in South Africa. He notes that white executives from a South African development company saw a black metropolis as a land of untapped opportunity. He argues that the same game is being played all over the world, and that these people have saturated their markets and are now looking at overlooked places.
Multiculturalism and Economic Domination
The speaker claims that when these people talk about multiculturalism, they are not talking about love but about using cultures as a basis for dominating them economically, socially, and politically. He quotes a black businessman in South Africa who complained that black entrepreneurs were being bulldozed by the economic power of white outsiders. He argues that the black community should not even be debating this question, but that it should be part of black South African policy.
Forgiveness and Justice
The speaker criticizes Nelson Mandela for telling the South African people to forget the past and for not redistributing the wealth. He argues that forgiveness without demanding justice rewards injustice and allows the inequalities to continue. He claims that Mandela's forgiveness is punishing the African people for being victimized and that it is a false religious ideology.
Consequences of Forgiveness
The speaker argues that the problems associated with inequality, poverty, and unemployment will continue in South Africa because the white South Africans were permitted to keep their wealth. He claims that this will lead to increased crime and violence and that the greatest problem will be the lack of peace. He asserts that the essence of justice is reparation and redistribution, and that white people must reparate the injuries they've done to African people.
Dangerous Young Lions
The speaker references an article titled "Dangerous Young Lions," which discusses the increasing crime rate in South Africa. He argues that because these people were forgiven and permitted to keep their wealth, the problems associated with inequality will continue. He claims that forgiving the past did not resolve the problem but created new ones.
Suburbs of South Africa
The speaker urges listeners to give up the fantasy that other people are going to forget who they are ethnically and to deal with the real politics of the world. He claims that the suburbs of South Africa are staying cold to black people and that African people are being told to forgive and forget. He argues that if one is going to be multicultural, they must demand that other people live there, be members of their church, go to the same schools, and contribute to their institutions.
Culture and Consciousness
The speaker concludes by saying that if the coming genocide of African people is the result of their ideological orientation, then they need to change their mind, consciousness, and culture. He claims that black American culture is not appropriate because it is filled with too many reactionary elements and ego-defensive behavior. He argues that culture must be measured empirically and that if it does not bear fruit, it should be thrown away.
Religion and Service
The speaker asserts that religion is made for man, not man for religion, and that other people use religion to serve them while black people serve the religion. He claims that this is why white people can use the Christian religion to capture and enslave black people, and that the more they sing and shout, the deeper they sink into degradation. He argues that God created religion as a service to man, not the other way around.
African Economic Development
The speaker highlights the success of African immigrants who come to America and use their culture and group consciousness to develop a financial system and advance their economic development. He recommends a plan for black economic development that involves capturing internal markets, moving into wholesale and manufacturing, buying equity in corporations, and engaging in export trade. He warns that the world is being divided into three regions, and that African people must become part of a panafrican economic and political system to survive.
