Wekesa O. Madzimoyo
So you think she'd be satisfied with having her picture on the $20, huh? Do you think she'd let you be satisfied with a pat on the head when your children are being killed? Do you think that she would want to share a bill with Jackson, an enemy of African people? Yes, they'll make a special effort to put him and the White House on the back side. (See link in comment section) Do you think this is an honor to her, or is it a pacifier for you?
Addition:
We're going for white approval for security. We hide our fear from ourselves and our seeking white approval with delusions of power and inclusion. We need to call on the spirit of Araminta (Harriet Tubman) to help us fight the oppressor not to affirm a delusion of inclusion when our children are being shot in the street.
We're going for white approval for security. We hide our fear from ourselves and our seeking white approval with delusions of power and inclusion. We need to call on the spirit of Araminta (Harriet Tubman) to help us fight the oppressor not to affirm a delusion of inclusion when our children are being shot in the street.
This "honor" is not something we forced our oppressors to do! It's also not the best way we would have chosen to honor her. It's an illusion of "post racial," "we've progressed," "white people have changed," etc. all over again. Are we excited about honoring her, or about white people (America) honoring her? Why? What does it symbolize to us?
CAUTION: Be very careful when your oppressor honors YOUR warriors! Nana Baffour (Asa G. Hilliard III) used to say, "I sure hope America doesn't come to love us like they love Native Americans."
You've heard me say it before. It's what AYA calls the ILLUSION-DELUSION DANCE. Step I: Oppressors supply the illusion (fake reality) that affirms something we value, want, need and deserve! That's what makes it feel so good. We DESERVE to be affirmed by having the nation recognize Harriet.
Step II - We supply the matching delusion (denial of reality). And the "illusion-delusion" dance is on! If it were just illusion, we'd find out and make the shift, but when we supply the matching delusion, this dance can continue forever, or until the oppressor calls another - usually a more deadly dance.
Step III - The oppressor rewards and promotes those who supply and project the matching delusion. Both Ben Carson and Obama are fitting examples. I know. Discovering Santa is not real hurts.
The root of our delusion is fear - deep seated fear of white psychic, social, economic, and physical brutality. This is not a put-down of us. I don't say that we "should have no fear." We have every right to feel fearful. Unfortunately Araminta on the $20 won't resolve it.
Only we can - like Harriet, and our ancestors before her - heal the wounds and quell the fear by our using our "Circle of Culture." What would have happened had she accepted a token, and decided that she was free?
Araminta (Harriet Tubman) as a symbol of inclusion (white acceptance, approval, tolerance, etc.) or a symbol of delusional power functions to hide our fears from us. It hides the monster that is current day white oppression from us, and it hides from us the fact that this monster is alive and well and is devouring our wealth, our health, our children, our lives - daily. Who wants to be reminded of that, right?
Problem is - we can't evoke or create the protection and support that we need to RESOLVE OUR FEARS and to AMASS REAL POWER, if we're deluding ourselves that we already have it or no longer need it because American has changed, is changing and we don't need it any longer.
Don't go for it.
A FB friend, Raiford Anissa, said in an earlier response to this post that "Harriet Tubman images counters the history we've been fed and changes mindsets for everyone" She's not alone. Delusional "progress" is a powerful thing and thousands upon thousands believe the same.
Sorry Raiford Anissa, history (more accurately OurStory) does not side with this "it will change mindsets" belief.
An image can be made to represent anything that the storyteller intends. I doubt that those making the decision (Black or White) intend for her image to inspire us to break the present day system of oppression, and if need be, to take up arms as she did.
I'm no mind reader; still my guess is that their plan is to make her image and story of inclusion and fake Black power. We have a poignant example. We, our children, and the nation has come to think of Martin Luther King as a "Prince of Peace," not a "Drum Major for Justice." We don't think agitating for a "radical redistribution of political and economic wealth" from the 10% to the poor when we see his image - though it should. His image doesn't move us to openly oppose and refuse to fight in the wars of US imperialism in the world - though it should.
If we were so moved, then his image would serve us! Instead his image and the selected quotes, speeches, etc. have been made to serve those who oppress us.
Also, be careful about the "everyone" in the phrase "changes mindsets for everyone." If that also means that the image will change white folks mindsets. That's the delusion of power.
Did white people electing Obama President change white folks mindsets? Or are we catching more hell now regardless of his "accomplishments?"
You choose. I'd rather have an ounce of real power, than a truck-load of _____ that's sprayed to smell like power.
Like Ayinde Madzimoyo, I'm not even suggesting that we protest this placement. I am suggesting that we don't go for it. That we flip-the-script.
As for me, I call on Araminta for revolution - not the overnight rat-ta-tat-tat made for television kind. I want the Araminta kind of revolutionary guidance, courage, wisdom and strength. I want the surer warrior-healer-builder kind.
I call on the spirit of Araminta NOT to affirm their illusion or my delusion of inclusion and fake power.
I call on her to keep me "clothed in my right mind," and to keep my freedom train on the track. You see she never lost a passenger, and her train never was run off the track. Incidentally, that gun that she carried - it wasn't for Black people who got scared. It was for white people who would try to stop her freedom train!
I pray and trust that we "flip the script" I trust that every time we touch that $20, she inspires us to say as did she: "I'll be free or die." I trust that she'll inspire us to heal, to build and to fight for against real oppression and fight for real freedom and sovereignty (not delude ourselves), and help others get to that kind of freedom too.
If we do not flip the script, then neither we, nor our Tubman $20s will mean anything to our children. And, as Ayanna Gregory, says "no libation will be poured in our honor, and like the Sahara, the sands of time will bury us like we never existed."
Ase!
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