This article articulates a paradigm shift and could greatly effect the psyche of the reader. Reader discretion is advised. Should one develop acute consciousness, please debrief with the following article.
The image of a oneself and one's culture as portrayed on television, in music, & on the Internet, is a sacred one. It is how, not only one views his or herself, but also how the world views those particular persons and their culture. The control of one's image, is a sacred one. For, the ability to portray an image, is the ability to tell one's story, one's history, and provide a unified central message for one's future, not only to one's self, but to the world at large, friend and foe. This, is the core meaning of art, a reflection of reality, and is as old as the 160,000 year old human being, ourselves.
The subjugation of the African image, by Hollywood and other worldwide, production studios is an important commodity. It allows a foreign culture to dictate the story, the history, and the message for the future of the African people. This message through the European scope, creates a fictitious people, now erroneously called, Black People, and creates a homogenous race of people, imposing upon them one heritage, physical/social/economic characteristics, and one destiny. The subjugation of the African image by a Foreign culture, occurred during the early 1800s, during what is known as, The Minstrel Show, the most popular form of American Entertainment, until the 1930s. However, in reality, there is no such thing as Black people and its label on the people of Africa, is one of the lasting vestiges of the Pseudo-scientific racial classification system (Negroid, Caucasoid, & Mongoloid) brought on during the European colonial & military conquest of the modern world from the 1500s to the present.
To understand that the caricatures of "Mammie," "Uncle Tom," "Jezebel," "Sambo," "The Black Brute," "Tragic Mulatto," "Sapphire," & "Jim Crow" are fictitious is essential to the control of the African image. Yet, to understand that these images have been projected and superimposed on every African man, woman, and child, regardless of their ethnic origin, geographical location, cultural sophistication, and contribution to the historical & contemporary civilization of Mankind, is to discover, what I would like to call, The Black Elixir. This "Elixir," is a sacred mental one, and is to be studied meticulously, oddly admired, and revered as cautionary. For actual reality is the only antidote and consumption can be fatal. All human groups can be reduced to a mental "Elixir." If feed this "Elixir," in a steady diet, one's self and one's people could virtually be transformed mentally and therefore, physically into stereotypical caricatures, which are based on an outside view of one's image. This is not much different from the psyches of the majority of the United States population, which erroneously views people according to Racism lexicon terms of Black, White, Asian, and other. The thinking should be classified along with psychosis as a condition, which continues to degrade the Modern American civilization, a curse for sure. Still, such control of the African image by foreign Conglomerates in television, music, and now, the internet is the most valuable and dangerous commodity of art turned foe, against the African. How unfortunate for the oldest, most original groups of Human Beings, man or woman, on Earth?
The success of television networks like Robert Johnson's Black Entertainment Television (BET), TV One and other African American owned Television stations, African American Films, the establishment of Nollywood, African American Music companies, African American Publishing Houses, and the many other African American created artforms, is telling of the boundless potential and again is the most sacred. To lose ownership and more importantly, creative control is to lose control of one's image. The ability to portray an image, is the ability to tell one's story, one's history, and provide a unified central message for one's future, not only to one's self, but to the world at large, friend and foe. Therefore, we offer a precious gift to the variety of Africans worldwide, speaking hundreds of languages from hundreds of ethnicities, from time to time, quality African and African American created films to feed the soul of the African, remind them of times past, and reimpose a true message of self and the future, weekly. Our first feature, Wattstax (1974)
Now, how is it that many of the issues facing the African American since the late 1960s, are still major and often more exacerbated in the post-modern era? It is no longer a secret worldwide that the very own government of the United States, profits from the continual victimization of the African American. And so, suffers from racial psychosis degrading the very fabric of the American society. In this 1974 documentary, discover the same conversation among African Americans as the present, their inability to find solutions and disillusionment with Christianity & US Politics. Yet, unlike today, discover a unity and bond as over 100,000 African Americans reflect and share a common socio-economic paradigm shift. The economic collaborations from this event is still felt today.
-by Mr. Cowan Amaye-Obu
Sources (Pending...):
"Blacks Own Just 10 Television Stations. Here's Why," Washington Post 2015
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