From: richard@auvax1.adelphi.edu
Subject: Read This! New Info On An Afrikan Unification Movement
Organization: ADELPHI UNIVERSITY
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 23:48:05 GMT

To all who read this,
        I am the chairman of a wonderful and revolutionary new group, the
Afrikan Concerns Association.  Presently, we are attempting to give birth to a
newspaper with a vision, Afrika Unbound!.  This paper is designed to bridge the
Black student populations of Africa, America and the Caribbean.   Any written
contributions you can make are welcome. Also welcome is any help you can give
in expanding the numbers of organizations (caribbean clubs, etc.) that we
connect with.  Please give out my address to anyone who seeks to further the
cause of liberation and empowerment for the African Diaspora, as we are
utilizing all means of mass communications to reach the people.  I look forward
to hearing from you all.  Do not hesitate to write.
Peace and Power!
Richard Dennison, Adelphi University, Long Island, NY 11530
Here are two articles I wrote (to give U an idea)
Afrikan Concerns Association

On 'By The Time.......Arizona'

	MTV premiered a music video done by rap group Public Enemy called 'By
The Time I Get To Arizona'  two weeks ago, and made much hash about how
controversial it was.  They cautiously went about showing it, with a call in
vote line and interviews with Chuck D (an Adelphi alum.) and certain Black
scholars of Martin Luther King.  Of course, the regular media did their bit as
well.  The video shows Chuck D and the S1W's apparently carrying out
assassinations of certain racist politicians in Arizona,  punctuated with shots
of various events in M.L. King's life up to his murder in Memphis.  One of the
issues raised to greater public awareness by this video is the fact that
Arizona, of all the States, refuses to acknowledge the MLK holiday, a day when
one has simply to go home and do nothing (and still get paid).  Also raised is
the fact that many of the people who seemed to be doing things for black folk
got  'shut down', assassinated.  MLK, JFK, Malcolm X, Panther Party, A.
Lincoln, countless individuals.  
	The controversy apparently circles around the fact that Public Enemy
chose to show themselves practicing the 'eye for an eye' procedure in dealing
with the murder of Black leaders, contrasting with the well emphasized
non-violent approach of MLK, all in one video that could come across as an
apparent threat to known Arizona politicians.  The certain Black scholars
interviewed by MTV and the Media stated that, in their opinion, King would have
not  agreed with this video, as he was a man of love.  Chuck D indicated that
King's thinking was much more hard core in his final months, and that he might
be even more so bent if he knew how he was to die.  Chuck went on to say that
he does what he does to raise dialogue about important issues that people seem
to have forgotten or ignored, so that Black society can move forward instead of
remaining mired in the mud of ignorance, covert racism and violence.  Indeed,
Yusef Hawkins would be just another dead black boy if it was not for the
attention brought to the circumstances of his murder by the protests initiated
by the much hated Rev. Al Sharpton in Bensonhurst.
	Now, I cannot say that I know all the facts or that I am an authority
on the life of MLK, but enough is known to make some deductions and come to
some conclusions here.  To know how the cake is, one must see how the cake was
made, and to me it seems that African Americans always end up falling in some
pit, and when they gather the strength to get out of it another is dug and set.  	



	Consider this, slavery ended and what?  the ex-slave became a 'free'
uneducated laborer forever in debt to the ex-master, doing practically the same
work he did as a slave for the same person, unable to leave the plantation or
vote.  The poor Black laborer who manages to escape the plantation heads North
for what?   To find that  he owns no land or home, and his plantation skills
have no value in an industrial town or city.   So, living in some high rent
city slum somewhere, he ends up doing some menial job such as cleaning up
garbage or shining shoes while denied the right  to eat, drink, ride, or be
educated in the nice, clean, comfortable accommodations the whites reserved for
themselves (a practice adopted by the South Africans).
  	This was the history and reality that  MLK was born into and lived. 
Realize that all throughout this a large part of Christian White America had
been murdering and mutilating Blacks in the most horrible ways they could
muster, and you can ask the NAACP for proof.  The KKK, Knights of various
orders, and citizens in general did what they willed while the law either
helped or turned its back.  Hard as it is to believe, whole families in a
neighborhood would turn out to see a 'nigger lynched', an event sometimes
advertised for in local papers like some dramatic play or picnic.  I once read
and re-read and re-read an account of adults and children scrambling for these
souvenirs - the teeth, bones and genitals of a young Black man who had been
stabbed, chained to and dragged through the streets with a car, shot over a
thousand times, hung, emasculated and burned alive while the law looked on. 
For what?  A young White girl claimed that he raped and beat her, the rapist
later proving to be her own father. 
	Lynchings, bombings, rape, terror, murder, and on.  Through all this
MLK lived and, unquestionably due to his religious upbringing, he held fast to
his belief in nonviolent protest and justifiably won the Nobel Peace Prize for
it.   As to whether he would agree with the P.E. video is a matter of
conjecture, but for certain it has brought about dialogue.  In the interviews,
Chuck D was asked why he did not make a video more in the line of non-violence
as was portrayed by MLK's life, to which he replied 'we are not sheep'.  In
reference to Chuck D stating his belief that MLK was leaning more towards the
view of self defense upheld by Malcolm X, he was told that it was more likely
that King held to the view of Ghandi.  Chuck simply stated that Ghandi was
'also assassinated.'
	Look too at  the example America has set.  Japan bombed Pearl Harbour,
so America took out Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  Over two million souls.  The Third
Reich murdered four million Jews, and America along with the Allied Forces
forced the Germans to march through the death camps to witness the mangled
bodies of those their Nation had murdered, and they were made to pay the Allies
reparations.  Perhaps Blacks too should demand reparations, and exhume the
corpses of those Black souls who died seeking the justice written of somewhere
in the Constitution, to remind White America of its past deeds.  
	Still, today, the ghost of slavery lingers on, and the plantation is
now the factory, or the car wash, or the garbage route.  1.5% of the Black
population owns any land, and most rent the place they live in.   Without a
college education, connection, or great fortune you cannot rise in the
workplace.   Money buys a good education, period.  The cash made on the forced
labour of slaves, which made America an economic power, has established what I
will call a White fund.  This is passed from father to son through the
generations.  Black people, who were made poor by being robbed in the past of
the fruits of their labour, have established what I will call a No Fund.  So,
there is little but luck passed down to young Black man for him to purchase the
college education he needs to live the American Dream.   He may fall victim to
the dark allure of drug dealing, or a life of crime.  And again, should he make
it somehow, he may have to face the bias of the Business owner or new Massa,
who may be more inclined to promote a less qualified White worker than himself,
perhaps the son of his friend.
	In ending, I think that the critics should be less concerned with the
video and more concerned with the realities.  The KKK still exists, now with
the company of the New Nazis, the American White Party, and other such groups
who have inherited the hatred of their ancestors.  And no, it is not only
so-called ignorant Whites that support the views of these groups.  This goes
all the way to the White House.  When times get hard the rats come out of
hiding, and times are hard right now.  It may be difficult for most Whites to
accept the fact that collectively their race is responsible for some terrible
crimes inflicted on the Colored peoples of the world, but the greatest
redemption is to seriously work to right past wrongs and have a heart of
goodwill towards all men.  To be Black in America is a difficult thing, and I
would like to hear the honest answer from a White person of what he or she
would do if they were born Black instead of White.  The P.E. video reflects the
hatred Black Arizonans and others must feel in their hearts on MLK's  birthday. 
Start by making Arizona pay respect to the man who, in the midst of evil and
hatred held on to the law of love, a thing most humans have not enough love to
do.  

Written by  Richard Dennison
President, Caribbean Cultural Awareness Club
Chairman, Afrikan Concerns Association


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