Amos N. Wilson | The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness

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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.

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Transcript

Full transcript of “Amos N. Wilson | The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.

0:00 on to Big Brother Wilson on [Applause] brother thank you very much it's a pleasure again to have been invited to share some time with you this evening and to be able to speak with you a little bit and interact with you a bit particularly on this black solidary today and to talk about Consciousness culture and Power in some sense sort of U continuing our prior discussion in terms of Consciousness which off the backat too many people may seem

0:47 somewhat abstract but um it is not an abstract situation Consciousness is not an abstraction it is a very concrete presence in the human mind mind and uh in our lives as people one of the things that this culture tries to do very much to the African people is to make us resist abstractions or things that sound abstract yet it is in terms of the abstract that people act that people actually control their behavior

1:32 and uh the means by which people organize their behavior take the word Nation I really what is it in reality you cannot just find it in any concrete place or circumstance and yet you could organize whole armies and people around the concept of nation Nation as a a symbol you can generate all types of emotional feelings you can move people to sacrifice their lives to give their all in terms of what is essentially an abstraction nation and from the abstraction Nation

2:22 we get the further abstraction nationalism and yet nationalism has been the symbolic Foundation by which means people have organized themselves and overthrown their oppressors by which means colonialism has been rolled back and people have come to achieve an identity that has permitted them to operate as one and to mutually benefit one and the other those who rule us you see with like for us not to be comfortable with things that are not immediately concrete with things that we cannot see in a tangible form or

3:09 feel with our hands or feel in a material way they seek to make then the black Consciousness a concrete Consciousness to make it just a handson Consciousness you say because that is kind of that is the consciousness of servants the consciousness of Masters is a Consciousness that wrestles with symbols and ideas that reps us with mathematics and logic and uses those symbols to control the world and to change the world and to transform the world organized it and direct it therefore the masters of this world would like to make us

3:56 think that abstract thinking is there Pres preserve and not The Preserve of those who serve and many of us as African people have fallen for that kind of Distinction many of us have tried to Define our blockes in terms of our concreteness only and not in terms of our ability to manipulate symbols and use symbols and manipulate abstractions as means of moving our Behavior Europe being is sought to make us a concrete people and a people who are only connected to the immediate by disconnecting us from our history and by taking over the

4:42 responsibility for our past and therefore making us not responsible for our past or responsible for our future you see in order to move into the past one has to extract himself or herself from the the present to move from the immediate and yet to be moved by that which is not immediate that which is not tangible but yet in many ways it's very important when you deny in a people a past and a long past in a sense in effect you begin to impair their abstract capacities and their abstract abilities and you begin to to impair

5:31 their abilities to understand the present and redirect their behavior in the present in terms of the past in terms of something that is not there in the immediate present when you rob a people of responsibility for their future again Rob them of having to move from the present into the future to to use their imagination to use Concepts that are placed into the distant future and yet look at that future deal with that future as a means of changing behavior in the present so that that future can

6:18 be realized or avoided so consequently when African people particular African-American people were cut off from our past and when we were made not responsible for our future when the future was placed in the hands of another people our ability to act in terms of abstraction in terms of The Not So immediate but in terms of the future and based on the past were impaired and consequently many of us are caught up in the immediate presence in the immediately concrete we have a short attention span and a

7:03 short uh mental span this is the kind of span for people who have been prepared to be servants whose role in life is to carry out orders and orders only if we then are to successfully defeat those people who rule us today we must change the nation of our mentality to include our capacity to enter into factions and guide our behavior in terms of abstractions to manipulate our Consciousness and to manipulate the world in terms of the manipulation of symbols we must lose our

7:50 fear of dealing with ideas and Concepts that appeared first to be intangible andc Consciousness is one of those Concepts which by the way though while on the surface it appears to be intangible and Abstract is the most concrete thing that we can deal with i define consciousness as refering to a level of psychological and physiological arousal so we know right away that Consciousness is psychophysiological that is it is a combination of Psychology and Physiology

8:37 so it is not something that just floats in the psychological atmosphere Consciousness is actually a body state it is a brain state that is why if you would take a drug a psychoactive drug which is a set of chemicals which are physical those physical those physical chemicals when they enter into the brain bring about psychological changes that means then brain States actual physical States changes in the physical nature of the brain itself brings about psychological experiences and changes and

9:24 orientation one of the major reasons we take drugs is to change our Consciousness we use drugs as a means of manipulating our Consciousness when we want a party we drink a little bit we get a little high and we feel like we ready to party we can laugh more easily talk more easily uh feel happier have a lot of fun and all these kinds of things so we try to manipulate our Consciousness through the manipulation of the chemical nature of our brains I'm illustra I'm using this illustration to indicate then that Consciousness is not a mere abstract psychological state but it is a

10:11 psychophysiological state that the physiological state of the brain is correlated with the psychological state of the mind and the psychological state of the mind also transforms the physiological state of the brain as well there is a reciprocal interaction between Consciousness and brain State I spoke here a few weeks ago at the slave theater about the what we call the multiple personality we talked about multiple personalities as States Of Consciousness each personality representing a

10:56 different state of consciousness and we talked about how then one personality if it if it had say a particular name say t when it possessed the body of the client that personality if orange juice was drank at the time that it was in possession of the body that personality would function normally however if another personality enters the body the drinking of orange juice would lead to a breaking out of rashes and

11:42 welts on the body of the individual and if tomor would come back into the body if the consciousness of Tom would come back into the body while the rashes and weals were still present they would begin to disappear immediately mhm implying again then that these personalities were Not Mere States Of Consciousness but they were psychophysiological States in that the actual physical nature of the body was correlated with each of the states of Consciousness such that depending on which personality was in possession of the body the body would

12:27 have different reactions to the same circumstances or the same chemicals many times these multiple personalities may be of different ages as well as characters so that if you would give say uh a tranquilizer of a certain amount to an adult personality that personality might become become agitated such as when an adult may take speed or something amphetamine and yet in that so-called same body when the childish personality would enter into the

13:13 body the behavior would calm down Behavior would be tranquilized as such you can get differences in blood pressure differences in all other kinds of physiological and psychological orientations depending upon which Consciousness or personality is in possession of the body in effect then you had a different body when you had a different Consciousness and I use that then to illustrate the concrete and Abstract nature of Consciousness and how the Consciousness that we see as typical of

13:59 us as African-Americans today the kind of diseases the kind of things to which we are vulnerable as a people is very much a Consciousness that has been implanted in Us by those who have power over us that we as African people have yet to gain true possession of our bodies and of our minds that the bodies we call our own today and the Consciousness which possess the bodies that we call our own today are truly not our own but are the bodies and minds and mentalities created by those who rule over us and create the

14:46 Consciousness that inhabits our bodies as a people that and we have to recognize then what is going on we have to recognize then that Consciousness is not a game and Consciousness is not an abstract concept Consciousness is a real state by which people's bodies and minds are manipulated and therefore if we are not the creators of our own Consciousness as African people and if Consciousness is the means by which behavior is controll and directed and if Consciousness is in

15:33 essence the determin of the nature of our bodies then someone else was creating our Consciousness is also creating our bodies and creating our minds and our behavior and I can argue at this point that we are not yet a self-creating people this is what you mean when you talk about self-determination so we refer to Consciousness then as a level of psychological and physiological AR arousal which facilitates the individual's awareness of his internal and external environment in other words to

16:21 be conscious is to be conscious of and Consciousness means that we are conscious of our internal States we are conscious of the fact that we are conscious and we are conscious as well of our external environment and the consciousness of our internal State and external environment enables us if we're in control of ourselves to ini to intentionally initiate and regulate our cognitive that is our thinking behavior and our behavioral activities toward the achievement of design goal that is true Consciousness when it reaches a certain level of psychological and physiological

17:07 arisal permits us to intentionally or deliberately initiate and regulate our thinking patterns and our behavioral patterns toward achieving certain goals each level of Consciousness makes possible and impossible certain types and forms of behavior in the achievement of some goals and not other goals in other words then Consciousness is a limiting case it can extend our capacities to do things at the same time it limits our capacitor and we talked about the last time how sleep as a state of consciousness can permit us to restore our bodies can permit us to dream to

17:54 consolidate the experiences we have undergone during the day wakefulness can permit us to do uh very active things to coordinate our physical being to achieve certain goals that we cannot achieve when we are asleep even within sleep there are several stages of Consciousness we talk about dream Consciousness re we talk about Rim sleep nonre sleep stage one stage two stage three stage four sleep we talk about various levels of consciousness in in uh in terms of brain wave activities Theta wave activity beta wave Alpha wave

18:40 activities uh and other wave activities and how those States Of Consciousness is represented by brain wave activities by levels of sleep are correlated with the capacity of the individual to achieve certain ends the same thing is true then in terms of waiting Consciousness there are many different levels of consciousness there each one of those levels can permit us to achieve certain things but limit our capacity to achieve other things so again Consciousness is the central instrument for solving our problems and confronting the world we have to keep that in mind when

19:28 we talk about this concept the nature of Consciousness its emotional intellectual and social character is influenced to a marked degree by the social relations and experiences to which it has been exposed during its most impressionable developmental period what are we saying here then Consciousness to a great extent is socially manufactured now keep this in mind if we saying Consciousness determines the state of our mind determines the state of our body if Consciousness facilitates our behavior and at the same time inhibits our Behavior depending upon the State of Consciousness we're in if it is used to guide our

20:15 Behavior then it becomes very important as to where that Consciousness come from and how it is originated and we must keep in mind then that Consciousness is not something that Justice is unique to us as an individual person but it actually is generated by the kind of social experiences that we have had in other words those people who have had control and influence in our lives in such a way that they have have uh influenced the kinds of social interaction we had the kind of Socials under which we've lived the kind of educational experiences and social experiences we've undergone those people

21:00 who have that kind of influence to a great extent have been those who checked our Consciousness that is why again we talk about African Senate education because we recognize that the type of education and the type of socialization which people undergo will to a great degree determine the type of Consciousness they come to exhibit and if we have the Consciousness which will advance the interest of African people we must undergo an African cented experience we must undergo African cented social interactions we must organize our environment in such a way that it

21:47 produces an AFC consented way of thinking one of the other things I want to mention here then is not only individual Consciousness but we have what you might call group Consciousness if the sets of information and information is a major part of Consciousness modes of information processing we talked about the last that the last time we were here that is it is not enough just to have information but we must possess the means of processing that information subjecting the information we have to thought to logic to to reasoning to analysis to abstraction to

22:35 conceptualization to Mobility that is we must move the information that we have about and coordinate that information in certain direction it is not then the mere information that we have available to us that is important but it is the means by which we process that information that is of of equal important and we talked in our last lecture about how white speak to falsify black Consciousness by falsifying the information that's contained in our Consciousness a number one by filling our Consciousness with irrelevant information about it by

23:20 filling our Consciousness with ignorance Europeans May even fill our Consciousness with relevant information and they talk a lot of it out there a lot of it a lot of information out here see there are a lot of us who say we don't want to read anything about European about European that's a mistake that's a serious mistake as I used to tell in my class as I open up General psychology classes and other classes every means and as I got them to look at their textbook I said every means by which we are manipulated and

24:06 control is contained right in this book this white man has written it out for you right here yeah all the time I'm amazed at the amount of information these people lay out but as I said they have no fear of laying out the information because see they have come to understand the old added if you want to hide something from a negro what do you do put it in W put it it right yes because he gets sleepy when he reads he gets headaches he hates to use the

24:52 dictionary he hasn't developed his vocabulary you know bored quickly by reading yes or he's interested in nothing that is written or he's interested only in very narrowly focused knowledge knowledge that prepares him to be a servant only or prepares him to close his mind to reality and therefore the white man enjoys freedom of PR he he can write blatantly and boldly in terms of the means by which he controls negro he can project how he will control

25:37 them he discusses day in and day out the means by which negro will be manipulated without having any fear that he will be read by negro oh yeah and then some of us you see we've been do so much we have such a an emotional problem until we still will not see what's in front of our eyes but often said in order for us to be in condition we in we have not to be able to see the obvious that's a very very important thing we must be unable to see but it's immediately in front of our

26:25 faces yeah in order for us to be in the condition we are in we must be unable to use our common sense in fact I miss it's interesting as I said before that whites will even call and other likes would call a person like myself or others radical And yet when you listen to us carefully we are very conservative yeah very common sensical there's little if anything radical about what we say what is radical about telling people

27:10 that they should feed themselves what is radical about telling grown adult people that they should should do for S what is radical about telling people that they should should run their own Nation own their own land control their own internal markets what is so radical about that yes this is what we're trying to say other people take that for granted other people see that it's just what common sense yes but you see what the Whitey had done and non-thinking Negroes have done is that they have ra radicalized

27:56 common sense they have told and made Negroes think that what is common sense is radical and therefore we reject common sense in rejecting the radical that is why we do not pursue things that anybody with common sense would do by Pursuit because some of us told us that that's a revolutionary how about that and radical and that is why we defeat ourselves and destroy ourselves people rule over us the people who rule over us

28:44 read develop vocabulary manipulate the word and yet there are those Among Us who believe that we must reject this it must be obvious that the capacity to manipulate the word is a power is a source of power those of you who belong to the Christian religion know about that first there was the word and the Word was God the word was with God and that God creat the world through what words and symbols and first comes the symbol first comes the concept as simple then follows

29:31 concrete reality and this is the way man operates this building was first conceived as a symbol as an idea it was first uh conceived in terms of a lot of words moving back and forth a lot of words being written a lot of symbols being drawn on paper a lot of numbers being added and subtracted and multiplied and all of these kinds of things a lot of abstract things being moved back and forth like money green bag the symbols of wealth yes Architects drawing and so forth all what symol simple symol

30:17 words Concepts ideas then it came into being as a result of the transformation of these symbols into concrete activities ultimately leading then to a Concrete Construction we therefore ignore the development of our capacity to manipulate symbols and words and to read we suffer as a result of our a of the development of those capacities we have too many youngsters here today who think and particularly

31:02 males who think to read to know [Music] words to have knowledge is to be a feminine it's to be nonblock it's to be nerdy and yet it's the Nerds of the world that are running it right yeah yeah it's those nerds right outside out here on this block that are intimidating us on these streets yeah those people that stayed there long enough at least to pass those

31:48 exams and gained the physical Force to intimidate us on these thought so group Consciousness we'll talk about it as it as the sets of information it's the sets of information modes of information processing and we said it again that white seek to falsify black Behavior not only in terms of falsifying the information of which we operate that's contained in our Consciousness they seek to to impair the mode of information processing the means by which we process the

32:34 information that we have available to us and we indicated too then that they sought to manipulate the values and we're going to come back that give cont direction if the sets of information modes of information processing values and skills which defined and direct an individual's Consciousness are shared by or compatible with those of other individuals who mutually consider themselves to be the members of a distinct group then it may be inferred that he that individual and the members of the group have generated and shared a group Consciousness in other words the degree

33:21 to which the set of information and the way we process information and the values and the skills we have available to us are shared by others who belong to the same group we do then or to the degree that their skills and modes of processing information and information that they have available to them is compatible with our individual Consciousness been the group to which we belong shares in what we call a group Consciousness to the degree that such a group has been formed as the results of the

34:10 fact that it members share a shared or common history a shared or common ancestry or ethnicity has been socialized according to the same or similar social practices as the described by the same or similar institutions and has been trained and motivated to act and interact in ways which maintain and advances the interest of the group it can be inferred that they participate in sharing a culture or a culture Consciousness what are we saying here then people come to share a group Consciousness or a cultural Consciousness now we're moving beyond the individual Consciousness into a

34:56 brute consciousness ious and how then do individuals come to share a group Consciousness or a cultural Consciousness by sharing a common social history we are here this evening as Black Folk as African folk because we share a common history as African folk and like folk this is a part of our Consciousness as a people we share a common en our African ancestry we have been socialized unfortunately not by African institutions of people but the say we have been socialized According to some social

35:43 practices according and by means of some institutions these eurocentric schools and these other institutions and we have been trained and motivated to act and interact in ways unfortunately not to maintain our African self but to maintain the well-being of Europeans yet we still share a group Consciousness and a cultural Consciousness and it is that Consciousness that we going to have to transform as people

36:29 a part of the transformation of this Consciousness is the goal of an African Center education an African Cate socialization where people come to know their history come to identified with ancestry where African based institutions becomes the means by which we socialize not Ecentric institutions an African based and centered family amilies become the means by which we are socialized so that as a result of being socialized through African based institution socialized by African centered family socialized around African centered values and history we

37:14 will achieve a group Consciousness which is African cented and once achieving that Consciousness we can act in the interest of African people group Consciousness is an adaptational tool its operational presence facilitates the ability of otherwise exclusively self-interested individuals to cooperatively coordinate and organize their activities toward the achievement of the goals they find mutually desirable what are we saying here then Consciousness is a tool it is a means by which we adapt to our environment and adapt our environment to ourselves but more than that group

38:02 Consciousness group Consciousness allows us to get people who would ordinarily be merely interested in themselves as individuals to cooperate one with the other to coordinate their behavior and to organize that behavior in corporate ways to achieve an end that moves Beyond them as individuals to achieve achieve ends that are good for the group achieve an end that they as members of the group find mutually to their benefit because we must recognize ultimately that the group is an extension of the individual that the individual uses the group and is used by the group because

38:48 the group can attain things that the individual by himself or herself cannot attain or achieve 99% of the things that we probably are involved with today have been as a result of group activities whether it's the clothes we wear the cars we drive the food we eat the transportation we use you name it one thing after the other these things are the result of coordinated human behavior of groups deciding and individuals in groups deciding to to coordinate their behavior to synchronize their behavior so that those things could be produced for the

39:33 enjoyment of the group as a whole and for the enjoyment of individuals as a whole think of how much trouble we would have if we try to produce everything as in individual that we enjoy and that we use as a matter of fact many of the things we enjoy use would be impossible for us to achieve as an individual that is why ultimately then we share a group Consciousness because many of the individual things we desire can only be achieved through group activity so in a sense the individual is born for the group and the group for the individual one of the ways that the European seeks to disempower African

40:21 people is to make each one of us think that we can exist as an unto ourselves that we are individuals each doing his own thing this is the reason why many of the achievements that other people have made through coalescing into a group have been made unavailable to us because we've been too busy being individuals the only place where you have pure individuality and even it's not imp pure but where individuality is taken to extreme where each person in there is busy doing his own thing is in an insane [Music]

41:07 soci we so much into be each one doing his own thing until they have to be controlled by Outsiders which is pretty much our situation today because as I told you many times before in order for us to be in the condition we are in African people we have to be what out of our mind we literally have to be crazy yes into a deceptive State of Consciousness which does not permit us to operate as a group and to coordinate our Behavior as a group and it puts us at Art one with the other and therefore making group achieved ends

41:55 impossible this is what group Consciousness is about this is what culture is about culture too is a tool and you don't find any group that has undergone a shared history shared experiences and that shares a particular environment over time that that does not develop a culture because culture is the means by which a group gains control over itself and over its members and controls the beh behavior and consciousness of its members as a means of achieving a particular end as a means of confronting the problems that are common to the group as a means of manipulating nature and using nature to advance its own

42:42 ends Consciousness therefore whether individual Consciousness or group Consciousness is therefore the premier instrument of social control in other words Consciousness is the means that by which we control ourselves our Behavior as individuals and group Consciousness and cultural Consciousness is the means by which we control ourselves as members of group to a good extent cultures the outward invisible and productive expansion every group's inner Consciousness in other words we pretty much can look at the culture of the people and get a pretty good idea of the organization of their group Consciousness and of their individual consciousness of the content

43:29 of their consciousness of the informational of uh process of abilities of their Consciousness and the values which direct their Consciousness and we have to keep this kind of thing in mind because culture itself is our most practical tool as a group for dealing with the world one of the things I want to speak to for a bit tonight because Consciousness and culture is so many sided and multiac is to speak to Consciousness as ideology Consciousness as a set of belief when we talk about the contents of Consciousness we're not only talking

44:14 about what we view as the fact the knowledge that we have as such in our Consciousness in our minds in our brains that are available to us for youth we also must recognize that the content of Consciousness includes our belief the myth that we have in our minds our beliefs about ourselves and about the world it's it's a very very important part of Consciousness because we act on our beliefs whether those beliefs are based in fact or not we act on mythology whether that mythology is based on fact or

45:02 not thus though Consciousness is a product of actual experience as we said earlier and of social experience it is essentially ideological since it is shaped and motivated and directed on the basis of shared beliefs Customs expectations myths and Valu in other words consciousness only operates in terms of our concrete knowledge in terms of information that we have available to us in terms of processing the knowledge and information but in terms of what we believe in terms of customs in terms of what we expect of ourselves and expect the future to bring in terms of myths

45:49 and values it's very important that we focus on this concept of of culture as ideology and Consciousness as ideology as belief remember again we said what we use Consciousness and culture to direct our Behavior to deal with the world remember as well that Consciousness because it direct our behavior and through our Behavior we have an effect on the world Consciousness then is a power because it enables us to influence the world to influence USS it enables us to determine

46:37 how the world is going to influence us and to determine the effect that others will have on us therefore Consciousness is a power it is a means and an instrument by which we manipulate the world we manipulate at the outer world and others in that world as well as we manipulate our inner world and ourselves it's important is that we keep in mind and yet that Consciousness that's doing all these things is based on to a good extent our beliefs our ideas our myths very important that we keep that

47:23 in mind because we have to ask question what are the sources of our belief of the myths that we use to create our Consciousness what of the sources of our expectations and our values are they the sources from African history are they beliefs developed based on reality are a belief based on racist ideology racist Pro propaganda having been exposed to racist institutions racist living conditions and other conditions since culture is to a great

48:09 extent ideological and Consciousness is ideological and since culture and Consciousness are powers this implies then that those who control our Consciousness and those who control our our culture use the power of our our Consciousness and culture to advance their own ends this is why we call eurocentric culture a vampiris culture a culture of vampires one that sucks the

48:57 blood that uses the power of potential African Consciousness and potential African culture as a means for furthering its own end in other words ladies and gentlemen it is this artificially created set of beliefs which involves this artificially created Consciousness and culture that we call Black Consciousness and black culture which provides the power for European domination as I've said time and time again the European cannot be what he is unless what we are what we

49:42 are while we emphasize the degree to which we are the Frankenstein people of Europeans we must also recognize that we created these people as well and we continue to create them and sustain them to the degree that we let them create our culture and create our Consciousness as a people if culture then is ideological in its fundamental SE it means as is argued by wartberg in his book the forms of follow which advise people to read never mind that the man is mat the forms of power wenber Thomas

50:30 wattenberg because as I told you earlier these people lay out in their Tex exactly how they control and manipulate they lay out the prescription by means of which we can be controlled of B there's a book that I recommend a book written again I guess by a Jewish person done by the name of Shapiro uh called the neotic personality I believe maybe called name and I recommended when students come to me for mentoring one of the first books I recommend because it talked about uh neurotic Styles that's what it's called neurotic style not neur B

51:17 shuro classic book because it it defines the cognitive the thinking St St of different neurotic orientations you know and it's it's a classic in that s just how to uh a sex of compulsive people think and see the world how do paranoid people think and deal with the world what's that style of thought there's a style that's called the hysterical personality and this is not a personal necessarily it's a hilarious personal but it's a personality that is highly impressionable highly influenceable if

52:02 we could say that word it's a personality often that converts its psychological problems into physical problems and into physical handicaps and into psychosomatic disorders it is generally a highly emotional personality defined more by its emotionality than by its intellectuality it's defined more in terms of its fuzziness of its willingness to be approximate rather than exact remind you of somebody of its responsibility to

52:48 superficial Impressions rather than looking Beyond The Sur it is a a personality that has a Messianic complex that gu that's some kind of Moses some kind of Jesus or some kind of Knight in white armor whatever you call it is going to come and rescue it from his situation it's one of those personalities that believe that there's a rocket ship up there somewhere that's going to come down and save Black Folk oh yeah father ships andle ships and all other kind of

53:35 [ __ ] is that personality that even said Jesus is black maybe that gives me a problem Jesus is black we catch the hell we'll catch got wonder what kind of black man he is act more like a white man than [Music] me that's another story but there's that hysterical personality and he he goes on and he describes this personality in great detail but the thing that he says at the center of that personality is that this is a

54:20 personality that is based on no sense of history of long history and of enduring history you see what I'm saying that a Hallmark this hysterical personality this emotionally laile personality this personality that reacts to superficialis this personality that is focused on the immediate and in in the immediate presence this personality that lives in wishful thinking is that it is characterized by the fact that it is not based on a long and enduring history and syi of history and that it is not Guided by a

55:07 long and abiding sense of the future and where it wants to go that means then that this kind of personality finds little reason to resist immediate distractions because in a sense if it is not Guided by deep and abiding uh expectations and purposes it has no reason not to enjoy the immediate it has no reason not to be distracted by the immediate it is a personality where impulses are immediately active upon without thinking but you can see if you have no

55:55 long-term goals if you have no deeply held values that you want to realize in the distant future there is no reason to resent immediate emotion or immediate impulses there's no reason to hold back and suppress those impulses in the interest of achieving future goals if you don't have future goals I hold back but if you have deep future goals then you bring judgment to apply and you say should I indulge this impulse should I indulge this desire because if indulging it would mean that I will be diverted from a very valuable

56:41 goal I'll being unable to reach an a deeply held goal that rest in the future then I must resist this emotion I must transform this energy in a such a way that it can lead to my achieving the goal that I have in mind the college student who is attempted or the high school student or any student who's tempted by the party who's tempted to hide out or to hang out must look at that Temptation and look at it and measure it against long-term goals longterm uh wishes and purposes and see in what way it either contributes or destroys his effort to achieve those goals and once making that judgment

57:29 applies his capacity to repress the impulse and to sit at the desk to sit at the book and to continue to read and to study and to continue to develop those skills and other means necessary to achieve learn long-term goals now when Shapiro talking about that you can read this as a characteristic of the hysterical person of this neotic style or you can read it as a prescription for creating hysterical people you see in other words you can say if you are a master and you wish to create a people who are concerned only with the

58:14 immediate who are easily distractable who have problems Concentra who have poor memory who respond to the colorful who do not see beyond the surface who have problems of controlling their impulses who are subject to all kinds of addictions and so forth I tell you what you do number one you rob them of any sense of enduring what history and a sense of continuity and a sense of connectedness with a pth you do that first and then you rob the of a set of values to which they're highly

58:59 committed a set of purposes to which they intend to fulfill you rob them of the desires to be in control of their future and to create the kind of future they want instead of depending upon someone else to create the future that they must live in you rob them of these two things and you will create this kind of mentality when when you read the psychology texts you can read them then in terms of the symptoms of people who have problems or you can read them in terms of how you create people so that they can what have problems you see each time you read about a neurotic uh

59:46 style or some kind of neurosis they go into what early family experience don't they mother child relationships things of this nature the kind of social environment that seems to have combined to have created this kind of style just don't read this then this way read it then in the way that says there are people who have destabilized families in such a way they have created environment in such a way they have generated then certain ideas things in such a way that they tend to create a large number of people with particular types of Social and mental Styles within a particular crew

1:00:34 brother am I getting to you here absolutely must understand see this is the reason why it's not the material that the Europeans put before you it's the approach to the material that is important they will reveal to you things that they never intended to reveal the idea is to subvert their intentions to your own intentions and you can subvert any eurocentric information I don't care whether they meant the lie or not the lie or they telling facts or Not facts you can subvert any of them if you have an African centered perspective because it is that perspective which transforms any reality into one that works for African people

1:01:20 even if it's your entric L still work to understand this sin so if culture is ideological he says here there's an that means then that people can be ruled in terms of their ideas as as white goes on to say and also another book you can read in this regard Mei the genealogy of morals there is an inherent tendency for the dominant to secure their position of dominance by developing misunderstandings among the dominated concerning reality and what is happening to them one group's domination of another

1:02:06 can come about simply through its ability to get the members of the other group to conceive of themselves or the world in a particular way in other words this Consciousness and culture are ideological then we can get have control grab control of other people's Consciousness and of their culture through manipulating their beliefs and manipulating their ideas in some it is possible for one group to dominate another group simply by the means of ideas by getting that group to think about themselves and the world in a manner that allows them to be

1:02:51 subjugated in other words ladies and gentlemen if we are a subjugated people we in part have cooperated with our subjugation particularly when we have not examined the ideas upon which we operate we have not reassessed and maybe even exercise from our minds and our bodies ideas that we use to guide our Behavior if the ideas that are at center of our Consciousness and of our culture our ideas placed there by

1:03:38 Europeans then it is through these ideas that the Europeans dominate us and it is through these ideas that we mistakenly call our own that we collude in our sub subjugation I want to emphasize that even though it may appear un to some people and it may appear that I'm placing a lot of the blame on us and to a degree I am because if we are to change these circumstances it is going to be through our transformation of the people that they Chang we cannot depend upon the change of other people and we must look then at the degree to which we are a part of our own problem

1:04:24 and how then by changing the part over which we can gain control we can change the nature of the problem and perhaps even resolve it a similar idea can be stated in reference to values valuation is a means by which a social group can use the can use to gain you say here it means that a social group can use to gain power over another group even when that other group seems to be in position to dominate the farmer in other words the value that we use can be the tools of another group by means of which that other group has gained control over us even when we are in a position to overthrow that other

1:05:12 group this situation that we have right out here on this street is a situation that we can come to to dominate we do not have to be dominated out here economically the way we are being dominated as I will demonstrate later on we are being dominated mainly through the ideas that we've permitted to enhabit our country as the people not by those cops on the block per not by those alien vendors in the shops but by the very values we have inculcated in ourselves as people are we we permitted other people to inculcate in us one group of human beings can use the

1:06:00 minds of a group of other human beings as the chains of their own servitude but did I tell you that in order for us to be in the condition we were in as African people we would have to be in a state of deception we would have to be in that state that's similar to the one I talk about that says if the m controls the Giants then the Giants must be the [ __ ] as a giant and himself as a what as a [ __ ] black people are in the condition we're in today because our Consciousness has been reversed and because the values we pursue reverse our Consciousness and our

1:06:49 culture we are then enchained by the ideas that we call our own and we are in chained by our own mind more than we are in chained by European because people's beliefs have a constitutive effect on what they do and allow to be done domination can be constituted within the realm of belief alone because in a sense what we are and we are what we are to to a significant extent because of what we believe that's what we mean when we say

1:07:36 constituted we then can be dominated by our belief alone if we do things based on our belief and we allow things to be done based on our Bel the domination which determines what we do and what we allow to be done can be achieved over US based on belief alone belief and value now let's get more to the concrete aspect of what I'm talking about here to a good extent the situation where we find black

1:08:23 vender on the streets of the main commercial areas of their Community is a result of an ideology of an econ economic ideology that we have I said before that we should as afican people think of ourselves in terms of a Nation we should use the nation as the unit of analysis not our individual selves not even our families but ourselves as a nation we should see ourselves in America as a nation within a nation and it's very important that we do that because it will permit us to understand problems in ways that we

1:09:09 could never understand them if we looked at ourselves as individuals or merely as members of fames and of course this is what the other people like to lay on to they love to talk about it in terms of individuals and family background but not in terms of an African nation in America there are good reasons for that you can see many things if you use the nation concept that you cannot see from an individual point of view you can also see solutions to problems that you cannot arrive at if you look at them in individualistic and familialistic terms one of the things that we recognize we see ourselves as an African nation

1:09:54 it's like any other Nation we have a general economic ideology a set of beliefs about economics that creates that's a part of our problem what is that ideology it is the ideology of the free market you know we people talk about that all the time right free markets open markets we are the only nation in America and I'm I'm referring to other nations the white Nation the Korean Nation the Irish Nation the Hispanic Nation we're the only nation on this

1:10:40 continent and really in the world that actually believes sincerely in free markets and open market oh yeah you've heard whst talk about open markets and free market they talk about it but they don't believe it they use that to manipulate the behavior of other people the United States of America maintained a closed economic Market from its Inception until 195 until the very first world war it protested that market against the free ENT of all other nations including mother Britain it did not even submit the English who to a great extent along with

1:11:27 other Europeans financed its development that is why it used the merchants of Amsterdam and the merchants of France the merchants of Europe and England to finance economic growth it did not permit them a free ride and free trade within the American Market it protected those Market it heavily taxed any outside nation that sought to trade with it as a means of protecting its own developing Industries so that its own Industries could develop without the competition of mature Industries based in other nations to plac it didn't England itself did not even have a free

1:12:14 market it destroyed the Amada of Spain of Portugal and of France to keep them from competing with the sell and yet you claim free market that some American idea or european idea you're going to find ladies and gentlemen that one of the things Catholics like Le is competition they talk about it but they try like hell to do what to St that's right the whole idea of the maage capitalist is not to maintain competition but to what destroy it and remove it and yet they're talking about free competition free and open competition

1:13:00 and everyone talking about it are creating Monopoly cartel con to destroy competition the major thing a capitalist want is an organized market and a predictable market and we don't have time to go into this this a fascinating history when you read say the robber bar right or you read the early history of JP Morgan of carate read those histories these are people by the way that book of Washington was very familiar with Carnegie he do first thing Carnegie even financed some of his stuff of John D Rockefeller I think in par you see when we read the history of our people we should also read the

1:13:46 context of the general American history in which they existed I believe to a degree it was due to the fact that Booker Washington was in direct contact with people like Andrew con with the with the mar with uh uh being made to ATT that he recognized that power rested in the economic control of production in what the ownership of property in the control of capital not in voting as W was so de yes because he recognized he observed the AG of caras and Rockefellers and

1:14:32 Morgans and Ghouls and the other ones that were out there that they were the one actually running the United States and determining its future not the voters not the congressman they were bribing the congressman they were they were bribing the legislator they were determining the outcome of elections they they were determining the nature of the US government and its relationship they had the United States government give them something like 100 50 million Acres literally free of charge and they use the taxes of the people to finance their own development and for their own private benefit and so it didn't matter how the people voted it didn't matter that they voted in the Congress that they voted in

1:15:18 the Senate that they voted in the president in the end these people essentially were the water boyss of those who own the means of production and own property in the world and ultimately is those who own property who will control the lives of the property no matter how much they vote and I think book of life's been interacting with these men to a greater degree than than uh than uh W was able to understand that the foundation of power in America was the ownership of prop the ownership of me and production and the ownership of real skills you see and the ownership of human capital and

1:16:03 resources and the excluding of certain other groups from the ownership of that property and the ownership of certain skills and REO this is the basis of power because power is never equally shared in any society power is unequally shared and those who have the most of it are those who are in control of the major resources of the society not those who merely have a v in their hands than you s thank you and yet we have that kind of game going on out here today these Jokers you're voting for have already been bought by the [Music] C and I'll tell you later even when you

1:16:51 vote them in to of their legislation their governance would be dictated by the structure of Finance capital and the corporate system yes you see how afraid they are to raise taxes you see how everybody is running to lower taxes even though they're Ching what hospitals schools destroy people's jobs and and the country is regretting to get ter of infrastructure and so forth and yet people almost everyone who's running across say what tax we going to cut taxes then by what means do you finance your part of social institution if the people do not

1:17:38 Finance them through their tax dollars and so forth well it appears that a decision has been made hasn't it that those institutions particularly those that serve African people will be what destroyed and cut back why because black people are going out there to vote tomorrow no because the global capitalist the transnational companies in this country have told these governments that they will not locate jobs they will not locate factories they will not locate other institutions in their state and in their region if they maintain their tax that particular

1:18:25 level in fact they call it creating a business climate you hear that all the time do you ever wonder what that meant to create the prop the appropriate business climate that means a business that does not want to pay taxes that means a business that wants a tax break and we're going to talk about so you New York City is broke to a good degree because it has a lot lot of major capital resources in here that are not paying taxes at all many hotels and many other other uh uh Capital institutions here have received tax holidays some for 10 some for 15 some for 20 years right these capitalists now make these states

1:19:12 and cities and locales compete against one another to get their Factory and they compete against one another by by reducing to its loow degree the amount of taxes that that Corporation have to pay and often they they set it up in such a way that the corporation had to pay no taxes I talked to you about the Mercedes Benz plant in Alabama where the state gave it a tax credit of $300 million where the city in which it was located contributed $30 million to purchasing the land upon which that factory would be set and the state ticked in another $5 million to grave

1:19:59 the land and with this $300 million tax break you see the mercedesbenz built a $300 million Factory which meant what that recedes V didn't have to pay a Cent and it mened in that the people of Alabama bought 15,000 jobs very expensive it literally that de that mered spense was paid use the public money to further its own private end it means that the services the social services and the other services that must be supplied by the state will continue to be paid by the

1:20:47 taxpayer another thing that these businesses demand if you're going to create a an appropriate business CLI is to reduce taxes that go to welfare social services and other areas they deem as nonproductive areas they see these areas is not generative of uh profit and so forth and therefore they demand that their taxes not be used if they paid them to support people who are need of it through the social service system and this is what you see happening in this state this is see what you see happening all over the country the capitalists are saying if you're

1:21:33 going if you're going to have us in then you must do this so even after the people both them in the legislature because it's hrag by the C are unable to protect the people this is the kind of game that goes on there and others will say if you keep raising taxes or if you keep supporting these people in these inner city schools if you keep supporting these people through these Inner City Hospital if you keep supporting these people through through uh welfare payments and other kinds of payments we will move our taxies out and the legislators said because they don't want to be accused of losing jobs so you hear many of these guys so

1:22:19 lost 10,000 jobs we say we're going to do what's necessary to keep the jobs here and therefore if to keep the jobs here we have to shut down schools and hospitals and so forth and so on this is what we will do and this is going to be voted in by your legislators and by your Governors and so forth regardless of the fact of how you vote for them because the capist have a stronger hand over them than do the voters you got to learn what this is about so we didn't believe in free markets what do be free market this situation out here on 125th

1:23:05 street is one where we believe Koreans and Arabs and whites and every other person but like folks are free to move in and earn money any way they feel like money and not only can they earn that money out there they're free to take it out of the neighborhood and out of the community without paying one ounce of tax without making one contribution to its social institution without hiring any significant number if any of its members without supporting any of its cultural and other institutions and establishments they are free to come in and earn the wealth and Tuck that wealth

1:23:51 right out because they are what Americans just like we are and we live in a multicultural faia and they have as much right as we do to be on this street that's why we have but Nations don't operate that way Nations do not see alien groups as having as much right to take advantage of their wealth as they do themselves Nations don't see aliens and alien Nations as having more right to carry the wealth out of the nation then the nation has itself to benefit from its wealth No One Believes no Nations believe that that are truly up themselves the struggle you have now going on between the only way the United States pushed free markets which it

1:24:37 talked about so much is because the United States at that time was the one that had most of the money and most of the wealth and therefore by convincing other people to believe in free market by convincing other people that they should not protect their markets that they should not protect their poverty that they should not protect their land that they should not protect their wealth that they should leave their wealth exposed to United States investment the United States because of the the wealth Advantage it had pre free markets not because it believed in democracy because it believed in individual freedom and so forth we know better but because when it got people to believe in that ideology those people would open their markets through this country and the United States capitalist could into their market and come to and

1:25:24 own every valuable pie of property and wealth that belong to that nation and could suck that wealth out of that nation and leave its people impoverished even though they felt righteous because you know they believe in in in free market you have not seen any Nation on this Earth consume itself into power G power by what spending only you will never see a nation that is a nation of consumers ever be a free nation and a powerful nation in this world you will only see Nations whove made it in this

1:26:11 world economically that are nations that are what productive and have control over the means of production which means property resources both human and nonhuman resources and materials there is no way you're going to exercise real power in this nation and in this world if you believe that your wealth and possibilities can be freely given without any kind of stipulation to any other group of people I don't care how rightous this s it's not going to happen and yet we have that kind of ideology out here and that is the reason we suffer the way we do we have the ideology of individualism each of us doing his own

1:27:00 thing yet the building of these stores the the occupying of these stores by other groups is done by a coordinated system of activities it's done in the on the basis of Institutions and group Behavior not just mere individuals doing their own self-interest but as individuals who coales and combine their resources so that this could happen we are in the condition we're in and the situation is the way it is out there because our Consciousness is a reactionary Consciousness it is more concerned with defending our injured

1:27:45 ego than with advancing our interest it is a consumerist Consciousness that is is absorbed by consumption and buying and eating more than it is with producing it sees the end of life as continuous consumption it sees the very meaning of life as contained in consuming and buying not in owning and controlling we don't care who sells us as as long as we can buy just as long as you get out of the way and let me get to the white man and give him my money we only concerned with how we can consume not how we can produce and

1:28:34 because we have that as our Central concern we are under the control of other people our values are valued such that we value being smiled at by Korean more than owning the businesses that they they have and feeding our children through their process we value their superficial friendship more than we value transferring the wealth that we have in our pockets to our children and creating jobs for ourselves and for our families we value being accepted by

1:29:19 whites which we'll never get more than we value self acceptance we value jobs and working for white F and value being identified and gaining our status based on the white Plantation we work on than the one we on in control ourselves when you have been a people caught up with the ideology of free market individualism consumerism the desire to be accepted and Love by their masters a desire to work for rather than to employ and create employment you have

1:30:07 the kind of situation you got right on 125th Street on all of the 125th streets Across America on all of the 125th streets across the caribbian across the whole African diaspora including mother Africa itself yeah if you go to Kenya you'll see the African venders on the outside on the sidewalk and the East Indians and Arabs on the inside in the shops if you go to Ay Coast you'll see the French people on in the bouti and on the inside and the Africans we on the outside you go to Caribbean you go to any place here you see the same kind of game why because we are imbued with the

1:30:52 same kind of false values and the same kind of false beliefs and the same kind of false orientation toward consumption rather than ownership we believe that our communities should be free markets when no other community permits such a market to occur to occur within themselves as I told you before the reason why we're in the condition we're in is because we look at ourselves as a nation we that we've let the Korean Nations and the other nations invade our internal markets take the money and the wealth out of those internal markets back to

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