AFROCENTRISM AT A COMPETITIVE GLOBAL STAGE

AFROCENTRISM AT A COMPETITIVE GLOBAL STAGE

This is 150 years that slavery has been abolished in the world. 50 years since the racial segregation laws of Jim crow has been abolished in America, 30 years since the apartheid oppressive regime ended in south Africa, and over 60 years the first independent African country got free from colonialism, and yet black people all over the world are yet take their heads above the water and enjoy real freedom. We protest over very simple things like justice for brutality.

The USA has established a space force for extraterrestrial adventures, we are yet to even have a fully functioning police force that works. While china and the USA are fighting on who will control 5G technology, here we are arguing about the spiritual significance it has with the end of the world whilst providing no solutions what so ever to the current problems. Whilst the western world is leaving mechanized agriculture into robotic agriculture, we are yet to achieve an average food security for our growing population. Just last month, Elon musk with his private company launched men into space, whilst our government owned science institutions is still projecting about how we can start producing pencils.

Observing all these, you might think that there is no way we can even get close, not to talk of catching up. Because the truth is that until we achieve a level of economic and intellectual equality, we will keep fighting racism and control for eternity.

The problem is that you think growth is linear and chronological. It is not. Its geometrical and you make extraordinary quantum leaps once you have achieved escape velocity. Asides that, civilizations have been rising and falling for centuries. And I have a suspicion that western civilization as it is today is already in free-fall. This is not a good way to measure success anyway. But just to buttress the fact that the act of catching up and moving ahead is multidimensional.

Listen, there is a precursor intellectual revolution already going on currently in Africa, which is what always precedes the emergence of a new civilization. Awareness of this fact is one of the reasons why two out of every five western investor is coming to Africa to invest asides from the fact that their economy has hit a steady state boundary leaving very little chance for bigger expansion.

My name is Onu Chinedu Anthony, and i know I don't look like it much, but i am actually a very smart guy, scientifically and analytically speaking. I see numbers and concepts in my mind so much that ignoring them is a torment. But then that's not why am telling you. I am telling you because i am a joke to the very smarter people around me, working with me, meeting me and has not meet me. This is one of the reasons why I started KULENGA Africa. There has to be a soil where these kinds of people can flourish.
Don’t let anyone deceive you, a lot of great things is being seeded, just waiting for the rain to blossom into fruition and greatness.

KULENGA Research Lab is at the forefront of this intellectual revolution of putting Afrocentrism on a competitive global stage.
Two years ago, we started a research in fundamental economics. Looking for a new mathematical model to modify the perfect market theory (working with YSI of the institute of new economic thinking). In this process, we mistakenly discovered a new mathematical model we termed the PESO Ratio and the KULENGA Scale; a simple mathematical framework for predictive and decision analysis intelligence. Its core utility is in the advanced effectiveness of analytics, and intelligence of systems using the KULENGA scale that iterates different kinds of data into a numerated measurement scaling for calculating degrees of certainty and relative performance rates in either the positive or negative direction.

Initially we applied this to the Testing, inspection & certification industry and then the market research industry and it performed wonders. But recently discovered that the overarching application that will cover all these industries is in the cloud ERP industry. Its ability to exponentially raise the level of the interoperability intelligence of the data intelligence software's in their decision and predictive analysis using a structured framework is unprecedented. 
This mathematical framework has been recognized by standards organization of Nigeria, National agency for science & Engineering Infrastructure and National office for technology Acquisition and promotion and also been published in the dailies. But remember this was a supposed mistake. There is more! 

Our group of physicists is on the verge of finalizing a unified field theory (unified physics that explains quantum gravity, flow of time, dark energy and time, and resolves the quantum enigmas), we are working on a framework to undulate the equilibrium determinism orthodoxy of the free market economy for a more reformed global capitalism framework. And we have not even started our high energy experiments yet.
Afrocentrism is the global intellectual currency of the future and KULENGA Research Lab is at the forefront of it.
Remember that Afrocentrism is not about going back to the past, it is about creating something useful and effective for future!

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AFRICANISING WESTERNISM

            AFRICANISING WESTERNISM

Every form of structure or system that you see was built on a foundational intelligence that is unique to a people. So even though all living things use oxygen, the foundational framework of how the oxygen benefits the organism is contingent on how the animal was designed to function.

Science is an introspection into the truth and laws of nature. Technology is taking advantage these truths in order to make live better on earth. Its little utility to bog a man with the astronomical truths of the constellations and galaxies except that truth has aided the development of the Gps and lasers that will make his life better.

The whole of modern civilization as we know it was built on an intellectual revolution that happened in the 17th century in Europe. That revolution led to the technologies that birthed the industrial revolution. Amongst other things, it made life better for average people and increased our life span. But it also brought an industrial society framework to Africa without the accompanying intellectual framework.

You see, when they were having their intellectual debates and reconstruction, they were not thinking about you. Which is why;

1. In their educational foundational framework, everything started form the Greeks (the Greeks did some amazing things but it didn't start with them). The intellectual legacy of Africa was left behind. They named every lands and rivers in Africa after themselves. Just imagine!

2. Their textile industrial designs did know how hot your whether can be or the aesthetic coloration of your clothing and culture. It's so bad that another man's wedding traditional attire is being used by us in our weddings.

3. Their industrial automobile production designed a lot of the automobiles towards their habits and lifestyle. Nobody understood the African reality of the need to carry a lot of big cargoes together with people. Our industrial assembly framework has not even been able to rethink this.

4. Their interior and exterior decor aesthetics does not understand the bright, bold and geometric designs of African designs. And many more.

At KULENGA Research Lab, we are on a mission to Africanize westernism; incorporate our African identity and intelligence into the conventional goods, systems and services. The law of efficiency states that the effectiveness of a system is measured relative to its performance in reversible conditions.

So while our educational curriculum was okay to produce civil servants that can maintain the systems that the white colonialists brought, it failed when they were gone and the need to produce people that can solve the problems in their environment arose.

While the conventional designs of so many products being imported into the continent was okay when we had nothing but a subsistence life of agriculture, most of them are losing relevance and effectiveness as the need for us to participate in their production, scaling and deeper impact is arising.

While the systems and institutions we had was inspired and brought in by western influence and currently, the effects of globalization is forcing us to maintain these ideas the way they are, we will always be at the tail of global domination because you can never win a man at his own turf. Things can only change and give us and our brands a competing chance when you bring in your own uniqueness and identity. Think about it, most of our big brands are plugged into headquarters in new york, tokyo, london etc.

The need to Africanize westernism in our products, systems and services is not an African traditional feeling of the need to go back to our roots. But a pragmatic modern need to become more globally competitive and more locally efficient.

In this pathway our first product is to create an Afrocentric educational framework for African scholars. The first prototype we have produced is the mathematics textbook for secondary schools. Its Afrocentric, effective and better than the best texts in the market in delivering mathematical knowledge.

It's a pity that African scholars does not get to know about Africans contribution to the development of the history of mathematics because no one included it in our books;

The oldest mathematical artifacts that built the intellectual framework in which the number theory is built was found in Africa, like the Lebombo bone. The oldest table of prime numbers; the Ishango bone is found in Africa and may more. A lot of the mathematicians that changed the world of mathematics with exciting math discoveries that you have never heard about are black people. And oh wait! It is not a history book. It was innovated against the best mathematics texts, with real life mathematical illustrations and applications, easy to understand splintered exercises poised to demystify mathematics and curiosity math checks to inspire new mathematical thinking and discoveries. It's not about just producing students that can pass exams and pass WAEC. But students that can apply mathematics to solve real life problems in their environments. We want to see new mathematical laws and equations with African names.

Remember Afrocentric innovation intelligence is not about going back to the past. But creating something new and effective for the future.

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REINVENTING AFRICANISM

REINVENTING AFRICANISM

The human social framework is quantized. It evolved in small packets of family and tribes. These units like everything else in life started primitively and chronologically evolving with time the way a human being grows from babyhood to adulthood.

The African social framework was not allowed to evolve normally. Her growth was upsetted by westernism and a lot of things that we were not ready for was imposed on us. This created a lot of problems; the loss of identity and a social divide. The first is the extremely westernized and lost African who scoffs at Africanism but a slave to western values. while the second is the tenacious heritage rich African who is bound to the limitations of the primitiveness of the African traditional systems. We will deal with the westernized African later. Let's talk about the traditional African.

He has grown hostile to the virus of westernism (and he should), so he scoffs at everything modern. He is trapped at the development level that his culture was before the white nation attacked.
So for the systems that has not been completed hijacked by westernism, he tenaciously holds on to them. For example,

1. Before western infiltration, his culture had not yet evolved a cutlery for their traditional meals so he considers eating with hands Africanism. Before modern Europe invented spoons and forks, primitive Europe considered eating with cutlery an abomination. (Google it).

2. He is a traditional religionists who fights christianity as a white man's religion. It's not hard to understand his resentment for a religion that came with the baggage of the white man's culture. But this is so far from the truth. Apart from the fact that Africans has the longest Christian ancient tradition, Africans has always been evolving their religious ecosystem even before they came. We were used to the spiritual atmosphere which was why it was easy to even evangelise us in the first place.

The igbo man for example does not hold on to one Chi (god) just for no reason. His chi has to be solving his problems, Else he will exchange it for another that will. Which is why we had so many gods for different things. We probably would have evolved into the modern religion without the crusaders invasion. Because naturally growth demands simplicity and efficiency.

But then holding on to a form of religiousity just for the sake of holding on to it and bashing everyone else for not taking your position is not Africanism. If traditional Africa gave room for a high level of religious tolerance, then you should. What we should strive to do is remove the white cultural symbols that came with the religion.

3. He attributes too much value to rawness, crudenes and subsistence natural methods. Now these things are really wonderful and healthy and still one of the beauty of Africa, but then there are a lot of things it can't do.

a. It can't prevent all the health problems our women get from cooking with open fires because no one has come up with an efficient solution. The knowledge for these is abundant, but then maybe we are waiting for western interest.

b. It cannot make processing our local foods easier and more scalable because the white man does not eat them.

c. It cannot communicate our traditional symbols into international media brands and many more.

At KULENGA Research Lab, we are on a mission to reinvent and increase the efficiency of our Africanism and transform our traditional systems, products and processes without sacrificing our African identity. There is too many knowledge available right now for those things to still be done crudely.

The first product in this line is the Lenga 1 cookstove.
This is an innovation that uses gasification to smokelessly burn almost any type of biomass.
It’s a multifunctional cleantech tool with endless possibilities to provide clean and portable cooking solutions, with fast cooking time, efficient use of fuel, high cooking heat and electric energy delivery.The energy is gotten from wood, charcoal, animal dung, crop residue and the conventional kerosene too.
The design converts the heat into enough usable electricity to conveniently power all basic house hold devices; lights and electronics. It efficiently burns the biomass under an environmentally friendly enclosed system.
It reduces toxic smoke by 95%, and black carbon emissions by 91%. The amount of C02 saved per is equivalent to the amount saved by buying a hybrid car.

Our culture provides us with the tools for a successful society. Liberation is not about restoring the past, but creating something fundamentally new and better for the future (Edited)... President Paul Kagame.

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AFROCENTRIC INNOVATION INTELLIGENCE

AFROCENTRIC INNOVATION INTELLIGENCE

Africans started to fight and resist the trans-Atlantic slave trade as soon as it started. They ran away, established maroon communities, used sabotage, conspired and rose against those who held them in captivity, freed people, petitioned the authorities, led campaigns and warred actively to abolish slave trade and slavery.
All these resistance activities culminated in the legal abolition of slavery. Slavery was over! But has freedom come? Well maybe the first stage.

Nearly 100 years after the emancipation of slaves, there was still slavery and intense racial discrimination towards the African-Americans. Jim crow laws ensured that blacks living in the southern states still inhabited a startling unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression including race-inspired violence.
The fight and quest for freedom started almost immediately. Martin Luther king jnr led the people through non-violent protests, marching and civil disobedience to bring about change. These resulted to the US supreme court striking down the “separate but equal doctrine”, the voting rights act of 1965 and the civil rights act of 1968.

At the time the blacks in America was wrapping up their struggle for freedom, blacks in south Africa was about to start the bondage and sufferings of apartheid. our instinct for freedom rose again!!
Nelson Mandela’s long walk from apartheid prisoner to south-African president remade a country and inspired the world.
It was defining moment of the 20th century. “Apartheid was over”
At this level, we have fought and achieved equal political and social rights.
But has freedom finally come? Well I don’t think so. The second level was just over.
Where are we now?

While blacks in south Africa and America has the white man to blame for their troubles, what of the rest of us in Africa?
 A lot of African countries were colonized quite alright, but we got freedom and independence at a peak period when the natural wealth of Africa was being discovered. We had the social, political and economic power to build a glorious destiny for ourselves. But we did not. How does one explain all these poverty amidst all the wealth?

Today, after a hundred years, black people are still marching for justice and equality for little things like police brutality. We have marched and protested our way out of apartheid, Jim crow and colonialism. But then marching cannot take us into real freedom economically, politically and socially. It is not just a sustainable solution.
The truth is that the color of your skin shouldn’t automatically confer respect upon you. That respect must be earned as a collective. Majority of people do not like the Chinese, but you cannot discriminate against them and you know why. The man of color is still being suffocated everywhere he goes in the world because his/her roots in Africa has refused to shine. Not being born in Africa and living in Africa does not exclude you from the consequences of the suffering Africa.

We have to go for the next level of freedom; freeing ourselves mentally from our small mindedness and legacies of imperialism. Intellectually conquering the world through science and technology is the way forward.
How can we truly be free when all the technological, social and economic fabrics of our lives is painted white? Black children in Africa that has never seen an apple tree are consistently taught with a curriculum that says that A is for apple. Look around you, we smell, see, hear, touch and taste almost all of our systems, goods and services through a white man’s lens.

Who you are and where you live is supposed to reflect in everything that you do. Cultures evolve with the need to solve problems, using our peculiar geophysical, historical and social data realities.
You don't use another man's data to try and solve your problems. You can’t go far with that. Europeans started wearing the jacket(suit) because they live in a cold arid climate. The middle westerners (Arabs) wear the long thawb robe because the weather is very dry and desert-like. The thwab keeps their body humid. In Africa, we live in a hot arid climate. I don't understand why wearing a jacket and tie is a standard for civility and decency? our whole fabrics of life and existence has taken over and highjacked by a white culture and western systems.

Whenever you see our schools touting themselves as British curriculum centered, teaching with curriculum and textbooks that does not talk about the gacaca court from the Rwandan tradition, the zai or tassa farming technique from Niger, the ishango bone for prime numbers and the mathematical legacy of Africa, numerous African civilizations like the great Zimbabwean medieval city, the powerful ancient Kush or Nubian civilization of the Sudan, the legacy of the Benin empire, just know that you are training an educated slave. This genesis of ignorance is the reason why we cannot build a long-lasting legacy. All of our big brands are just plugged on to the global brands that return majority of the profit to headquarters in Paris, Tokyo, New York, London.  Our local producers and manufacturers cannot survive, not just because the economy is not protected, but because the culture of innovation is working against them. The reason why a lot of small and medium businesses are failing is because the taste of our people is western; just look at the beauty industry, the fashion industry and even the manufacturing sector. How do you expect to beat the man that owns the system to his game with your limited resources? It is just not possible.

Imagine if it could be our engineers that are building our bridges and our road projects without the expatriates. With our number in Africa, imagine if all our economic activities recycled our money within ourselves. We wouldn’t be globe throttling the globe as we are doing now. Imagine if we didn’t have to do practice all sorts of white culture in our marriage ceremonies, naming ceremonies and work ethics. Imagine the west coming to us for ideas and not just telling us what to do. Imagine us living our lives without the controlling hegemony of the USD. Imagine we also paved the pace for the research, development and deployment of advanced science and technology, imagine us building a legacy of wealth and prosperity that will last into generations because we have all the systems that will sustain and advance them. You think anyone will have the guts to discriminate against black people?  Imagine if we can do something more tangible about this rather than just talk about it?

Yes, we can; an organization called KULENGA Africa has arisen to pave the way for a scientific Africa. A social platform; KULENGA Science Initiative and an LLC; KULENGA Research Lab Limited. Established to conduct fundamental research and discoveries and also inspire scientific creativity. For four years, we have worked on variety of project researches by introducing Afrocentric innovation intelligence to our systems.

At KULENGA Research Lab, we have developed a simple formula for Afrocentrism;
The past ancient intelligence + other modern intelligence + our modern reality data = Afrocentric innovation intelligence.
With this formula, we afro-innovate our products, services and systems in the following ways;

1. Old traditional products and systems that is yearning for something new; e.g. the Europeans invented the fork cos of their traditional meals, the Asians invented the chopsticks for theirs. Why do I use fork to eat Abacha and fufu when I don't feel like using my hands? Why don't we have a unique cutlery for our traditional meals?

2. Western products, services and systems that are foreign but useful. E.g. Why would anyone use a curriculum that says that A is for apple to teach a child that lives in an environment where apple does not grow?

3. Unsolved global problems. Why are we not part of the conversations around climate change, space travel, AI, and advancement scientific innovations?

KULENGA labs has developed products in all these three areas.

KULENGA Research Lab is charting a new pathway for the intelligence, data and research industry.
Racism is real. But it is not about color. It's about power. The man that is discovering the universe and building global brands will always rule over the man that is not thinking!

"Africa's story has been written by others. We need to own our problems and solutions and write our story "... President of Rwanda, Paul kagame.

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REBUILDING THE FRACTURED AFRICAN IDENTITY - IS JESUS WHITE OR BLACK??

REBUILDING THE FRACTURED AFRICAN IDENTITY 

IS JESUS WHITE OR BLACK??

The human infant is creative genius. Who taught them how to emit stress by crying and shouting in order to attract care? You might think they are making meaningless/annoying sounds while infact they are trying communicate. Just like some many other animals you see and hear making funny noises to each other and trying to communicate through sounds, chemical and mechanical signals. Scientifically, what is actually happening is because of the absence of a well articulated language, the mind is trying to transfer the images it has accumulated to a second party. The brain of a child thinks basically in pictures. This is why we still fall back to images when we want to entertain our minds. And even though we do not consciously try to store the information, we tend to remember it for a long time.

When the child finally grows and learns a new language, he/she can finally use the language as a stitch to give form and life to this images. Think about it, when you are communicating/thinking, its pictures you have in your mind. Just like when we were learning basic mathematics, we first learnt about 2 oranges plus 3 oranges equals to 5 oranges before we learnt 2 + 3 = 5.

You need to understand how fundamentally images matter to our cognitive and realistic appreciation and interaction with the world. These images has distinct attributes and properties. So many ideas that are encoded in images has formed the fabrics that hold our culture together including our ideas of a divine creator.

The concept of God seems too generalistic and vague to have a distinct conceptual image in our minds. But it actually does. Which we think about God, there is an image that comes to mind which is why every culture that has served deities has an imaged description of it they can relate to.

The form and distinct qualities of this image create a lot of cultural extensions that shape the society. Eg;
1. Male dominance and patriarchy; The image of God as a Male has been the cultural roots why this has persisted for centuries.
2 white supremacy; Because the image that ME and YOU have about God and especially Jesus is white, the cultural subjugation of black people has persisted.

Thank God the bible didn't point any particular reference to the raciality and color of Jesus. We only know he was from a Jewish background and because of the time and location in which he walked the earth, there is more stronger scientific evidence that he was black skinned. But none of that matters because he is God. And God who is omnipresent does not have the ability to be prejudiced. But then this godly attributes gives him the ability to come to a people the way they can understand him. (Like one of them).

Unknown to many, Africa has one of the oldest and richest legacy of christianity in the world. The modern day Ethiopian civilization and ancient kush civilization (sudan) all knew Jesus and their graphic description of him was black. (Google it).

It is understandable why our Jesus is a white man with long hairs. We were evangelized by the Europeans. But then so was the Europeans evangelized by others (the Jewish Christians). Christianity didn't start with them. But then they adopted Jesus in their tradition and imaged him like themselves.

Without any need for pretense, you and I know that the image of Jesus that we all have in our head is that of a bearded, fair-skinned man with long, wavy, light brown or blond hair and (often) blue eyes that looks anglo Australian (plus every other divine personalities).

While Christ Jesus transcends skin color and any form of racial prejudice, a white Jesus has real cultural consequences. In all likelihood and circumstances, if you close your eyes and picture Jesus, you’ll imagine a white man. Without conscious intention or awareness, many of us have become disciples of a white Jesus. Not only is white Jesus inaccurate, it also can inhibit our ability to honor the image of God in people who aren’t white.
CHRISTENA CLEVELAND

Lupita Nyong'o who won an oscar in 2013 said that lots of the inferiority she suffered as a young woman was because of the images of beauty she saw around her was of light skinned women.
It was only when she saw the fashion world embracing Sudanese model Alek Wek that she realised black could be beautiful too.

If we can recognise the importance of ethnically and physically diverse role models in our media, why can’t we do the same for faith? Why do we continue to allow images of a whitened Jesus to dominate our culture?

Question is; Can you stand a black Jesus; a man with short curly hairs, flat nose and thick lips.

Remember that he has to come in what we consider more valuable and sovereign in our cultural imagery. If he comes as a black man to most of us, we would reject him.

Don't listen to anyone that says that it doesn't matter. The divine utility doesn't matter. But the physical expression of that divine utility actually does matter. Because until we can stand a black God especially Jesus or Yeshua, its going to be really difficult to stand a world dominating black man.

No wonder when the black African man makes money he never saves it in his currency. How can he have faith in himself when we are all disciples of a white God.

If you can stand a black Jesus, I would love to hear from you. How can we change this imagery in our generation.

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REBUILDING THE FRACTURED AFRICAN IDENTITY - IT SEEMS AS THOUGH “WHITE IS LIGHT”

REBUILDING THE FRACTURED AFRICAN IDENTITY

IT SEEMS AS THOUGH “WHITE IS LIGHT”

One of the major scientific discoveries of the 17^th century by Isaac Newton was about the spectral nature of light. It revealed one of the less obvious nature of white light. Before then, white light has been considered the purest and most elemental form of light. But by passing white light through a prism, Newton discovered that white light was neither pure nor elemental. The prism separated the white light into a set of composite colors called the spectrum; which is composed of red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo and violet (the colors of the rainbow).  So scientifically, you can see “white is not necessarily light”.

Throughout black sub-Sahara Africa there is an Elated, exalted and sovereign image of the white man deep down in the heart of the black-man. Till today when we meet an amazing technological innovation or scientific breakthrough, you bear words like “Oyibo bu Agbara” (in South-Eastern part of Nigeria) meaning the white man is a god.  Exclamations like “Ndiocha di egwu or “Oyibo too much” which means the white man is wonderful.  Almost every tribe has an exclamatory cliché that exalts his scientific, technological and economic supremacy.

The presence of a white man in a black institution in Africa still sends forces of superiority that subtly and consistently tugs on us. The absence of a white expatriate in a major construction contract or technological exercise in Africa sends shock waves of substandardness around. As much as we don’t like it, that’s just the cultural thinking.

Ben Carson, the African-American world-class Neurosurgeon, the first doctor to successfully separate brain conjoined twins and head of pediatrics Neurosurgery department in John Hopkins hospital (a purely white majority institution), said in his book “gifted hands” that he got the most problems from black patients. The white patients just assumed that he must be extremely smart to be black and be the head. But the black patients saw him as a mediocre that was made the head in order to give them a false sense of equal social integration.

Well I don’t totally blame us. After centuries of slavery, colonization and oppression, the psychological pains, torment and inferiority complexes is still lingering around in our minds. Slavery was abolished a long time ago and blacks were just advised to forget the past and move on. It’s not an easy thing to do. But the question is, who is says or is saying that “white is light”?

Well the truth is that the white man said it first. He said it first by both positive and negative means. Positively, at a particular point in history, he brought so much value to the world that he took over. Negatively, he enslaved, oppressed and colonized others. But then, even though he said it first, it is the black man that is sustaining that statement. I mean look around you, we live in a white dominated Africa.

1.    Our God is white (not the religion necessarily but the racial description of the divine personalities).

2.    Majority of our cultural marriages has an almost mandated white wedding ceremony attached to it (have you heard white people doing an African marriage ceremony).

3.    Along with our native names, it’s almost like its compulsory to have an English  name attached to it (nothing wrong with that, but why so prevalent? do you see Europeans answering African names?)

4.    It’s now a modern cultural norm to have your children be able to speak only the official English or French language. Parents actually brag on the fact that their kids speak only English. (nothing wrong with striving to learn English or other foreign languages. But why does it sound more intelligent and sophiscated to us more than our own?)

5.    Our modern measure of intelligence for children and social intellectual status is determined by the child’s ability to use English language more than their local languages. No matter how intelligent you might be, nobody gives you chance if your intonation is considered local. (the Asians learn science and technology in their local languages and still do well. Why should we write off a child because their command for English language is poor and even go further to write a law that makes is impossible for them to proceed to higher institutions except they pass English even when they are good in other sciences)

6.    You are considered beautiful if you are more light skinned. So much so that we had to construct a black and proud cliché to pacify our identity inadequacy. (have you ever heard white and proud? Have you ever seen white women buying and using curly hair from black women? Nothing wrong with long hairs, but why is it considered a standard here?)

7.    We live in an averagely hot equatorial climate but have to wear coats (suits) around as a standard for decent and cooperate dressing (a coat worn by people living in humid subtropical zones like Europe).

8.    And many other cultural inconsistencies.

For over 200 years, we have not been able to really pick up pace equally with other races economically and technologically. And of course it’s not possible. It’s like a bird trying to swim in water. The best that can happen to the bird is not drowning immediately. But she will never meet up to the swimming pace of the fish and will eventually drown. Except we discover and embrace our African identity, we are not going anywhere!!

You’ve heard numerous motivational stories of how a baby cub was abandoned and picked up by a farmer. The farmer put him side by side with his sheep’s and it grew into a lion but behaving like a sheep all its life because he lacked the knowledge of its identity. The first rule of existence is that you can never express you full potentials if you don’t discover, embrace and express who you are. Because when we do, we discover that black is the purest form of light. Hypothetically abstracting from science, Dark matter is the main constituent of the universe; Almost 70% (where do you go in the world and not find black indigents). Dark energy is responsible for the expansion of the universe. (black people are the man power that built the western civilization). The black body is the hypothetical perfect absorber that can absorb any light frequency without being changed. The black body is also a perfect radiator (sadly, this is the part we don't know and never explore). We have been everything to everybody but for ourselves”. 

Your identity is everything. Imagine there is no part of your intellect that reminded that you are a human and therefore at the top of the food chain, you will be living and behaving like an animal or even worse. If we don’t discover and embrace the black originality pattern to this human race, we will forever remain subjugated.

Join me in this REBUILDING THE FRACTURED BLACK IDENTITY SERIES as we try to discover new great African realities.

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THE AFRICAN RENAISSANCE – THE BLACK SCIENTISTS – Daniel Hale Williams

THE AFRICAN RENAISSANCE – THE BLACK SCIENTISTS – Daniel Hale Williams

Our society has distorted who we are. From slavery to the reconstruction, to the precipice on which we now stand. We have seen powerful white men rule the world, while offering the poor white man a vicious lie as placation. And when the poor white man’s children wail with a hunger that cannot be satisfied, he feeds them that same vicious lie. A lie whispering to them that regardless of their lot in life, they can at least be triumphant in the fact that their whiteness makes them superior to blackness. But we know the TRUTH and we will go forward to that truth to freedom. No man, no myth and no malaise will stop this movement. We forbid it. Because we know that it is this darkness that murders in the best in us and the best of us.
                       ….. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

This darkness is the darkness of the ignorance of our identity. The ignorance that we are kings and queens. Someone said that when black people learn our true history, that knowledge instantly changes how we see ourselves in the world. It then you will realize we are truly meant to be great.

I bet you have never heard that the first person to invent and perform an open heart surgery in America is a black man; Daniel Hale Williams.

Daniel Hale Williams was one of the first American cardiologists to perform open-heart surgery in the United States and went on perform other history making operations. founded a hospital with an interracial staff;  Provident Hospital and Training School and Co-founded the National Medical Association and also the first African American physician admitted to the American College of Surgeons.

Daniel Hale Williams III was born on January 18, 1856, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. He was the fifth of eight children born to Daniel and Sarah Williams. Daniel's father was a barber who was deeply religious and imparted a sense of pride in his eight children. He moved the family to Annapolis, Maryland but died shortly thereafter of tuberculosis. Daniel's mother realized she could not manage the entire family and sent some of the children to live with relatives. 

First apprenticed to a cobbler, he rebelled against repetitive, menial labor and moved to Edgerton, Wisconsin, to live with his sister Sally. He boarded with a foster family. Like his father, he took up the barber career and bass violinist. Later he worked in a law office. With the sponsorship of a prominent physician, he ultimately decided he wanted to pursue his education. He worked as an apprentice with Dr. Henry Palmer, a highly accomplished surgeon, for two years and in 1880 entered what is now known as Northwestern University Medical School. Daniel graduated with an M.D. degree in 1883.  Dr. Williams practiced medicine in Chicago at a time when there were only three other black physicians in Chicago. Because African-American doctors were denied privileges at white hospitals, he worked as a surgeon at the South Side Dispensary in a ghetto area until 1892. "In 1890, Reverend Louis Reynolds, whose sister Emma was refused admission to nursing schools because she was black, approached Dr. Williams for help. To counteract this practice, Dr. Williams founded the Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses, now called Provident Hospital of Cook County in Chicago. This emerged as the first hospital in the country with a nursing and intern program that hired African Americans. This hospital had the distinction of being the first medical facility to have an interracial staff. In 1889, he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health and worked with medical standards and hospital rules. He was a surgeon at Provident (1892–93, 1898–1912) and surgeon in chief of Freedmen’s Hospital, Washington, D.C (1894–98), where he established another school for black nurses. He opened his own medical office in Chicago, Illinois, and then completed further training at Chicago Medical College. The hospital employed white and black American doctors and was dedicated to the belief that everyone deserved the best medical care possible. He became a trailblazer, setting high standards in medical procedures and sanitary conditions, including adopting recently-discovered sterilization procedures in regard to germ transmission and prevention.

He also worked with the Equal Rights League, a black civil rights organization active during the Reconstruction era.

In 1893, Williams continued to make history when he operated on James Cornish, a man with a severe stab wound to his chest who was brought to Provident. Without the benefits of a blood transfusion or modern surgical procedures, X-rays, antibiotics, surgical prep-work. Williams successfully sutured Cornish’s pericardium, the membranous sac enclosing the heart, thus becoming one of the first people to perform open-heart surgery. Williams’ procedure is cited as the first recorded repair of the pericardium in America. His patient survived and lived for many years after. He was discharged 51 days after his remarkable surgery (http://www.cookcountyhhs.org). He was considered a pioneering heart surgeon during a time when technological discoveries were revolutionizing the practice of medicine. The success of the procedure rated headlines in the Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, although many people doubted that an African-American doctor could evolve such an innovation.

In 1902 he successfully sutured a heavily bleeding spleen, another first in the U.S. By 1901 Williams had operated on 357 ovarian cysts in African-American women also and white women. A condition previously believed to occur only in white women.

In 1894, Williams moved to Washington, D.C., where he was appointed the chief surgeon of the Freedmen’s Hospital, which provided care for formerly enslaved African Americans. The facility had fallen into neglect and had a high mortality rate. Williams worked diligently on revitalization, improving surgical procedures, increasing specialization, launching ambulance services and continuing to provide opportunities for black medical professionals, among other feats. In 1895, he co-founded the National Medical Association, a professional organization for black medical practitioners. This organization was instituted as an alternative to the all-white American Medical Association that did not extend membership to black doctors.

In 1913 Williams became the first African-American surgeon nominated as a charter member of the American College of Surgeons.

Williams left Freedmen’s Hospital in 1898. He married Alice Johnson, and the newlyweds moved to Chicago, where Williams returned to his work at Provident. Soon after the turn of the century, he worked at Cook County Hospital and later at St. Luke’s, a large medical institution with ample resources.

His papers were printed in their entirety in the Annals of Surgery and in abridged forms in the Chicago Medical Recorder and the Illinois Medical Journal. Williams became the only black charter member of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.

He retired from medicine in 1920. After his wife's death, he attended a few private patients, gardened and swam in his spare time. In 1926, Williams retired from St. Luke’s after surviving a debilitating stroke.  He lived out his retirement years in Idlewild, Michigan, an all-black resort community, until his death on August 4, 1931.  He was 75 at the time of his death.

Today, William's work as a pioneering physician and advocate for an African-American presence in medicine continues to be honored by institutions worldwide.

As a sign of the esteem of the black medical community, until this day, a "code blue" at the Howard University Hospital emergency room is called a "Dr. Dan." In words that could later be said of Vivien Thomas, a colleague wrote, "His greatest pride was that directly or indirectly, he had a hand in the making of most of the outstanding Negro surgeons of the current generation."

So today, slavery is over, the black man everywhere has access to equal social, political and economic rights but yet we are still in great darkness, especially in Africa. You may ask, when will we be free of this darkness? I say to you, despite the economic turmoil and political instability, our freedom will soon be upon us. For the truth rushing to earth is saying that the next level of freedom that is upon our generation is intellectual. Not fighting white supremacy, or a political arrangement. But fighting black emptiness. We have to prove intellectually that we are a free people. Soon and very soon, it will proved that God created all men equal intellectually. No lie can live forever. But for that to happen you and I need to get up, get responsible and think our way through this mess.

If we did it before, we can do it again. And even more!!!

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