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Books by Maulana Karenga
Introduction to Black Studies /
Selections from Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt /
The Book of Coming Forth by Day
Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture
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Million Man March: Day of Absence
Handbook of Black Studies /
Maat, the Moral Idea in Ancient Egypt /
Kemet and the African Worldview
Kawaida Theory: An African Communitarian Philosophy
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Karenga
on Malcolm
& the Need for Struggle
Malcolm & Ethics
Malcolm was an ethical thinker. His ethics,
of course, were rooted in a theology called Islam, but also in
African-American social-justice traditions. So he comes with a
lot of preference for the poor, which he calls the masses. His
main criticism of the middle class is its inability to commit
class suicide and substitute mass interest for class
interest.
I sum this up in my book when I talk about
three things he said that were most important: Wake up,
clean up and stand up. The first speaks to intellectual
development rooted in self-knowledge; what Malcolm wants us to
do is to shake off our diminished conception of ourselves as
ghetto dwellers and see ourselves as world-historical people. He
believed that kind of consciousness would call us to a different
kind of action.
Absorbing the Best of Black Ethical
Thought
What I try to do is take the best of our
thinking -- Malcolm, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Douglass, Du
Bois -- and extract from them what I see as being the best of
what it means to be both African and human. And try to use that
to engage other progressive people in the world.
I evolved the kawaida position out of this.
"Clean up" refers to ethics, which is the most
important conversation we can have in the world today. Every
major issue that comes up involves an engagement of ethics --
medical, business, political, scientific, whatever. Malcolm
argues for "clean up," which means to get ethical
grounding on issues to understand their moral meaning for us as
a people. And not just people responsible to ourselves, but to
the rest of the world.
The final thing he argues is "stand
up." That means engaging in the practice of social change
to increase the good in the world. We have to struggle for that,
for human freedom and human equality and human justice. So
that's the kind of book I'm writing.
The Dialectics of Struggle
As in every situation, there's a dialectic
going on, with people rising and falling at the same time. Good
things are coming into being while old things are going out.
It's not a clear course, there are twists and turns in the
road.
In kawaida, we say that struggle is the most
characteristic aspect of the human personality. We struggle to
come into being ; that's called birth. We struggle to make the
most out of being; that's called life. And we struggle to not go
out of being; that's called the quest for immortality. What I
see is that the struggle will increase in this country and in
the world.
Purveyors of Reaction & Changelessness
This actually flies in the face of theorists
like Francis Fukuyama, who say that history is actually at its
end, that the major struggles have been resolved, that
capitalism and imperialism are triumphant, and their cultures
are dominant. Even when they see struggles now -- in Chiapas, or
Palestine -- they redefine them; they call freedom fighters
"terrorists." They call guerrillas
"gunmen."
So what they have done simply with this
concept of redefining reality is tried to stop history. That's
like trying to stop time. It doesn't make sense. If you are the
interpreter of history, you can actually call a halt to it.
That's one of the greatest powers in the world, the power to
define reality and make others accept it, even when it's to
their disadvantage.
The Battle of Hearts & Minds
That's why the real struggle -- we've said
this since the '60s -- begins with the battle for the hearts and
minds of the people: to show them their own capacity to create
history and progress, and to pose new paradigms of how people
ought to relate.
But in spite of the declarations of the
established order, there's no end of history. The oppressed
still want freedom. The wrong and injured want justice. People
want power over their destinies and daily lives, and the world
wants peace. Freedom, justice, power for the people and peace --
these are the moving forces that now thrust themselves on the
historical scene and become engines for history.
An Internal & World Dialogue
What [black people] have to do is not only
have an internal dialogue in our community, but we have to
create and become part of a world dialogue that's part of a
common framework. I argue that there is no future without us
recognizing interdependence -- on the communal level, on the
societal level and on the world level.
"Globalization" has become such a
buzzword, I don't think most people even understand what it is.
Is it economic, is it world trade? It has several dimensions to
it, but it's really capitalism with more technological capacity
to impose its will. That's it. The problem with traditional
Marxists is that they still just want to talk about economics.
But we've always talked culture and race, about compliance,
about how subordinated people are taught to hate
themselves.
So we must make a more critical analysis of
how all this works -- on the political level, on the economic
level and on the cultural level. I think the key struggles going
on now are local. For example, the labor strikes. I think the
immigrant workers have absolutely injected a new energy into the
labor movement.
The Black African-American Vanguard
I think we are still the vanguard. Everybody
bought our moral vocabulary, our moral vision, sang our songs --
other ethnic groups, seniors, women, gays, the disabled. They
did it internationally, too, in other countries. So what we have
to do is recapture that sense of history, of being a moral
vanguard.
No matter what changes are made for other
groups, because of the historical nature of African oppression
in this country, until black people have equality, equality
doesn't exist as an American reality. Any group can go through a
door, but that doesn't necessarily mean blacks can. But if
blacks can go through a door, everybody can.
Source: Interview by Erin Aubry Kaplan L.A. WEEKLY:.
http://laweekly.com/ink/24/01/light-kaplan.php
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Reinventing Malcolm with Marable
Pursuing Pathology by Another Name
By Dr. Maulana Karenga
Every work reflects, consciously or
unconsciously, a philosophical framework within which it is rooted,
conceived and carried out, no matter what claims are made about
objectivity and detached critical analysis, and Manning Marable's
recent, posthumously published and problematic book on the life of Min.
Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, is not exempt from this rule or
reality. Indeed, Marable's work and the subsequent controversy of
denunciation and praise which surrounds it raises larger questions
beyond the book about how we understand, interpret and write history. It
also raises interrelated questions of how we address the tendency of so
many Black intellectuals to embrace the deconstructionist approach to
history and humanities writing, pursuing criticism as an act of faith
and revelation of the unseemly as proof of progress toward "humanizing"
persons thought to be in need of it.
Clearly, deconstructive writing as
critical analysis is to be embraced and encouraged, but
deconstructionism in its most negative forms can easily degenerate into
collecting and musing over trivia, trash and other extraneous
information whose sensationalist character becomes a substitute for
things relevant and more intellectually rewarding. Indeed, it becomes
little more than the passionate pursuit of racialized pathology by
another name. And, at its worst, it takes the form of "scavenger
history," the constant search for stench and stain, bottom feeding on
the salacious, unseemly and sensational. This leads to pretensions and
claims of revealing new material and offering original insights into
things found earlier by others and rejected as uninstructive and
unuseful to a more disciplined and rigorous scholarship.
It is Malcolm, himself, who
affirmed that "of all our studies, history is best prepared to reward
our research." But this, in the Malcolmian critical thinking tradition,
assumes a mind receptive to discovery, not one determined to prove
preconceptions. And it presupposes an emancipatory intent in pursuit of
knowledge, not one that binds the mind in ever-tighter conceptual chains
forged and offered as liberational tools by the established order. As
Malcolm noted in a lecture at Harvard, the logic of the oppressed cannot
be the logic of the oppressor, if they seek liberation.
Marable embraced a
deconstructionist approach to the life of Malcolm X as one of repeated
re-invention as the title of his book, Malcolm X: A Life of
Re-Invention, indicates. It is this academically faddish and popular
culture category that informs and problematizes Marable's work, for it
can be understood as an expression of agency or indictment. Thus, it can
reflect creative and constructive change or manipulative masking and
shape-shifting of the most indictable kind.
It is also Malcolm in his
Autobiography who defined the positive self-constructive changes of his
life. He said, "my whole life has been a chronology of changes."
Moreover, he states that "despite my firm convictions, I have been
always a man who tries to face facts and to accept the reality of life
as new experiences and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an
open mind which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand and
hand with every intelligent search for truth."
This is salutary change and
self-transformation that the Odu Ifa (245:1) teaches when it says, "If
we are given birth, we should bring ourselves into being again." This is
self-creation in the most positive sense, not the negative
deconstructionist conception of invention as a deliberate disguising, a
constant change of costumes and character in manipulative ways.
Unfortunately, Marable's reinvention of Malcolm is too often portrayed
in negative and diminishing ways, depriving Malcolm of one of his most
definitive characteristics, an audacious agency reflective of the
awesome history and expansive humanity of his people.
Conceptually imprisoned by the
philosophical framework he has chosen and presuppositions it invites and
imposes, Malcolm is portrayed as a wily wearer of "multiple masks" with
an astute ability "to package himself." Moreover, he lined his life with
"layers of personality," "manipulated" his voice, told tales and was
"consciously a performer."
Pursuing the deconstructionist
popular culture path, Marable situates Malcolm in the folk tradition of
Black outlaws and dissidents, not the tradition of master teacher and
moral leader. He assigns to this list Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner,
Stagger Lee, blues guitarist Robert Johnson, and catering to the hip-hop
constituency, rapper Tupac Shakur. A few lines down we discover he is
not talking about Malcolm, but rather Detroit Red. This too is a problem
of his portrayal of Malcolm, the collapsing of Detroit Red with Malcolm
X, refusing to accept the radical rupture Malcolm makes to reconstruct
himself as a more worthy and world-historical person and a continuously
unfolding human possibility. This is the audacious agency that appealed
even to President Obama in his search for an African anchor for his
identity, purpose and direction, and is the basis of Malcolm's
durability as a model of African and human excellence and achievement
among his people.
Marable tells us that he and his
researchers and perhaps co-writers of sections, wanted to humanize
Malcolm, a kind of saving him from his "manufactured" self and from the
alleged mythological conceptions of him hosted and harbored by those too
appreciative of Malcolm to see his flaws. But it is important to know
what these "humanizers" really mean by this self-assigned and
sanctimonious sounding mission of humanizing Malcolm. In such a
conception, the flaws are the defining feature of Malcolm's being human
and his excellence assumes a secondary role and relevance.
Malcolm expressed a myriad of
flaws, but Marable believes he exaggerated some and left out others, and
he must set the historical record straight, assigning him flaws which
cater to or coincide with current tastes and talk, disrobing and
redressing him in costumes of assumed audience and publisher and PR
preference. Thus, Marable dismisses Malcolm's pre-Muslim serious
juvenile and adult lumpen life, downgrading it as lumpen lite. He
pursues his deconstructive argument against available evidence by
characterizing Malcolm's pre-Muslim life of crime as a thief, robber,
numbers runner, dope-dealer, pimp, panderer and burglar by terming it
"amateurish," "clumsy," and "ridiculous," and calling his crime partners
"a motley crew."
In addition, he tells us that
pre-Muslim Malcolm's efforts to shield his younger brother from lumpen
life, "suggests he was never himself a hardened criminal." It's like
arguing a mafia member, shielding his son from his business or a pimp
protecting his daughter from prostitution makes them less lumpen, i.e.,
less committed to crime. It is such specious speculation and repeated
misreading of Malcolm in too many places that calls to mind a diligent
but mistaken scholar trying to translate a Swahili text with a Zulu
dictionary. (TO BE CONTINUED)
21 April 2011
Source:
LA Sentinel
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Promoting Cooperative Economics
Education and Practice through Kwanzaa—Ajamu Nangwaya—24 December 2011—
We have the chance to move from a celebratory approach to Kwanzaa as a
holiday to one that integrates its essence, values or principles in
organizing the economic development of the community. Ujamaa or
cooperative economics is usually advanced by some celebrants of Kwanzaa
as the way to African American economic empowerment. However, it is our
contention that the ideas behind this principle are little understood by
those promoting it.
For many Kwanzaa practitioners, it
is the mere buying of goods and services from African American-owned
companies. This practice does not speak to the ownership and governance
structures of the enterprises that are patronized. Wealth from economic
production is a collective endeavor, as it is virtually impossible for
the individual to create it single-handedly. Under the dominant economic
system of the day, the people (the workers) who create wealth are
generally not the ones who own and enjoy the use of it. Furthermore, the
popular perception of the Ujamaa principle does not have a dialogue with
the notion of “shared social wealth”, and the economic model that would
best manifest this idea and practice.
We believe it is time for African
Americans and all those who want a better economic life in this country
to promote the knowledge of cooperatives as organizational models and
tools for economic and social development. Cooperative education is a
necessary, but not a sufficient condition for its adoption by the
community. It must be put on display and experienced, as a practical way
to meet the material and self-actualizing needs of the people. In order
to disseminate the information about cooperatives, we should utilize the
public forums that are used to celebrate the holiday as educational
instruments. We may use each principle to highlight particular and
relevant aspects of the structure and operation of cooperatives. In the
community organizing phase of our educational effort we should
experiment with different spaces (living room meetings, public meetings,
street corner, places of worship, etc.) to reach the people.— MediaCoop
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Malcolm X
A Life of Reinvention
By
Manning Marable
Years
in the making-the definitive biography of
the legendary black activist.
Of the great figure in twentieth-century
American history perhaps none is more
complex and controversial than Malcolm X.
Constantly rewriting his own story, he
became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and
an icon, all before being felled by
assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine.
Through his tireless work and countless
speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands
of black Americans to create better lives
and stronger communities while establishing
the template for the self-actualized,
independent African American man. In death
he became a broad symbol of both resistance
and reconciliation for millions around the
world. |
Manning Marable's
new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement.
Filled with new information and shocking revelations
that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a
sweeping story of race and class in America, from the
rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the
struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties
and sixties.
Reaching into
Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his
parents' activism through his own engagement with the
Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the
world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the
never-before-told true story of his assassination.
Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of
the most singular forces for social change, capturing
with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in
the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.
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Karenga
on Malcolm Justice for the Poor
Kwanzaa 2004
Kwanzaa Message 2006
The 10 Best Black
Books of 2010 (Non-Fiction)
Gramsci"s Black Marx
Whither the Slave in Civil Society?
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Maulana Karenga: An Intellectual Portrait
By Molefi Kete Asante
In this book, the most prolific contemporary African American scholar and cultural theorist Molefi Kete Asante leads the reader on an informative journey through the mind of Maulana Karenga, one of the key cultural thinkers of our time. Not only is Karenga the creator of Kwanzaa, an extensive and widespread celebratory holiday based on his philosophy of Kawaida, he is an activist-scholar committed to a "dignity-affirming" life for all human beings. Asante examines the sources of Karenga's intellectual preoccupations and demonstrates that Karenga's concerns with the liberation narratives and mythic realities of African people are rooted in the best interests of a collective humanity. The book shows Karenga to be an intellectual giant willing to practice his theories in order to manifest his intense emotional attachment to culture, truth, and justice. Asante's enlightening presentation and riveting critique of Karenga's works reveal a compelling account of a thinker whose contributions extend far beyond the Academy. Although Karenga began his career as a student activist, a civil rights leader, a Pan Africanist, and a culturalist, he ultimately succeeds in turning his fierce commitment to truth toward dissecting political, social, and ethical issues. Asante carefully analyzes Karenga's important works on Black Studies, but also his earlier works on culture and his later works on ethics, such as The Husia, and Odu Ifa: The Ethical Teachings.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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