Author: Enid Lee
Date:   11/28/2002 4:22 am PDT

Who are Kevin Richardson
Antron McCray
Raymond Santana
Yusef Salaam
Kharey Wise ?
The first person to post the correct answer will receive a free copy of the latest edition of "Beyond Heroes and Holidays."

Author: Kirsten Lathrop
Date:   12/12/2002 8:02 am PDT

Hi Enid!
They are the men who previously confessed to the Central Park jogger attack.
Hope all is well with you. We're coming along here at Hartford! Hope to talk with you soon, Kirsten
Have a blessed holiday season.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   11/28/2002 7:02 am PDT

Spinelessness is a terminal illness

Often it is the mediocre and the ruthless who seem to thrive but that should not deter us from striving towards excellence and from behaving in an honest and humane manner.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/5/2002 6:10 am PDT

If Africa dressed the world,what a beautiful world it would be!
The Mind Of MangaCom

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   12/5/2002 6:24 am PDT

Never get used to injustice. It is an unnatural condition. Even if you can't remove the injustice today, continue to call it by its correct name.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/10/2002 8:09 am PDT

Today is International Human Rights Day. A thought for today:
" We have Human Rights because there have been many Human Wrongs ."
Source : Norma Willimas, Co-ordinator, Race Relations, Cross Cultural Understanding and Human Rights for the Halifax Regional School Board, Canada.

If we are serious about Human Rights , we must devote ourselves to naming and correcting the numerous Human Wrongs that have been and conintue to be committed against individauls , communities, nations and peoples becase of their race or religion, geography or gender, culture or class, sexual orientation or other social identity.

We can't get to Human Rights without facing the Human Wrongs.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/13/2002 7:59 am PDT

There is much talk about healing when wrongdoings have been exposed in high places. There can be no healing without cleaning . If you try to heal without first cleaning the sore , you will only make it worse . Cleaning is often painful, but there can be no healing without cleaning.

Author: enid lee
Date:   1/5/2003 9:35 am PDT

In reviewing the past year,I see that on November 20th 2002
I wrote:
We will always just scratch the surface if we don't understand systems and structures: the rules that govern certain processes, the obstacles, the arrangements that make some things possible and other things not.That is why so much of what we write in education is so utterly irrelevant because we work almost exclusively at the surface. We are not taught to see how broad social policies connect with the practice of a second grade teacher,for example."
This year I plan to work below the surface and shake from the roots.
This website welcomes any under-the-surface work you are engaged in so that we can learn from it.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   1/30/2003 4:27 am PDT

"History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily."
Source :Letter From The Birmingham Jail. Martin Luther King Jr.1963
This was a helpful reminder to me the other day when I was attempting to understand why the anti-racist equity work I do in schools and organizations was misrepresented by a columnist in a California paper. Instead of asking myself " Why is this happening? " I should be saying " The wonder is that this type of misrepresentataion does not happen more frequently." Privileged groups will attack anti-racist equity work since the goal of this work is to ensure that the privileges of some groups will become the everyday experiences of all groups.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   4/12/2003 2:24 am PDT

Now more than ever is the time to stand up and to speak up for what we believe in. Especially now when might seems to be right and when doublespeak seems to be the only language used in the public domain, now is the time, this is the day to speak your truth with clarity, with confidence and with consistency.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   4/22/2003 6:00 pm PDT

To Be Young, Gifted And Black
(1969) Nina Simone, Weldon Irvine jr

To be young, gifted and black,
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black,
Open your heart to what I mean

In the whole world you know
There are billion boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black,
And that's a fact!

Young, gifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
This is a quest that's just begun

When you feel really low
Yeah, there's a great truth you should know
When you're young, gifted and black
Your soul's intact

Young, gifted and black
How I long to know the truth
There are times when I look back
And I am haunted by my youth

Oh but my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say
To be young, gifted and black
Is where it's at

Nina Simone died at age 70 on April 22nd . Her words reflect a very different world than the one in which young Black people are living in today. What has happened to that world that was waiting ?

I still believe that" In the whole world you know
There are billion boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black,
And that's a fact!"

The challenge we face as educators is to ensure that we create schools and classrooms in which those gifted boys and girls develop their gifts for the benefit of their communities.

Author: Amy Kelly
Date:   4/9/2004 5:01 pm PDT

Ah! I thought I was going to read a post about the book by (among others) Dr. Theresa Perry of Wheelock College (my alma mater). While this would have *thrilled* me, because I am so inspired by Terry...I am equally thrilled to find a new, powerful poem to bring to my poetry club students on Monday. Thank you! :-)

Amy

Author: Dr. Josiah A. M. Cobbah
Date:   5/4/2006 5:53 am PDT

Charles:

I am just hoping you are my friend Charles Ajah from Ottawa dating back to between 1977 and 1979. If you are then you will remember JAM Cobbah from Ghana who was a student at Carleton University.

Please reply if you are my friend Charles, or call me at +233 24 2621671. I am now in Accra.

Nana Cobbah

Author: Charles Ajah
Date:   6/16/2006 10:43 am PDT

Brother Cobbah:

It is, indeed, me ... and it's been a long time. Yiou may have forgotten, but we were working on a personal matter (when you were at Carleton) that could have turned us into in-laws...remember ? You unfortunately finished (I think), went away and we lostr contact.

My telephone contact numbers are:

Home: 613-526-4040
Work: 818-956-0403 .. I work across the river in Hull.

Please contact me when you can ... and I'm still sad about the failure of our African teams at the Germany 2006 World Cup. This afternoon, I believe the Ivory Coast crashed out in their game with the Netherlands (well, when they were down 2:0 at the 10th minute of the first half, I stopped watching). I'm not quite sure what the status of Ghana is, but I know we probably only have Togo still in contention. Ah, well ...as our people say, God dey !!!

Call me, okay, and give my best regards to your family.
and say hello to your sister.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   7/4/2003 4:53 pm PDT

Who or what is G6B ?
Send your answer to this website .Prize for the first person with the correct answer.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   8/3/2003 9:59 am PDT

As long as there is racism in the society, race matters. Vote "No" on proposition 54 !

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   11/24/2003 5:46 pm PDT

Bully , "a person using strength or power to hurt or coerce others by intimidation." We often think of schoolyards as places where such bullies flourish .Much more dangerous and destructive is the bully who operates at the international,national and school district levels. Bullying seems to be the preferred method of managing human beings in many circles . When facing bullies I seek guidance from the ancestors who have gone before me having faced mightier bullies than those we deal with today. I join hands and voices with those beside me who are struggling for justice around the world despite the bullies. And I am pushed forward by those who are behind me and are counting on me to prepare a fairer world for them. Those who would bully us had better realize that we refuse to be intimidated for we are supported in our struggle with energy and courage from the past, the present and the future.
We will not fail!

Author: Patty
Date:   4/2/2004 6:06 am PDT

Yes, those bullies are indeed all around us. Our school district officials are in the process of making major decisions that will impact thousands within the next few months.They did not know or care that the community would have an opinion. They are top down decisions that have been kept secret from those it affects the most: schools and families. While this proposed changes have negatively affected our kids greatly, they and their families have been empowered. They've radicalized and mobilized. How powerful for kids to see that, yes, their parents feel passionate about their education and are going to fight tooth and nail if anyone jeopardizes it.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   12/16/2003 7:31 am PDT

It takes a long, long time for the truth to come out. In a recently publicized case, it has taken 78 years. In the meantime, this is a reminder: Don't be afraid to tell the truth. Fear is the biggest deterrent to truth-telling ; fear of international, national and local bullies . In 78 years,where will the bullies be? Lying in the dustbin of history!

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/18/2003 7:23 am PDT

When I think of the billions of dollars that support the dissemination of deceit and that supress accurate statements, I feel a sense of despair.The hope I have is the possibility of working everyday with all the strength and strategy we have to uncover the lies and put forward the facts as we know them.The ability to look behind the lies is crucial to the liberation of the mind.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/26/2003 8:43 am PDT

Africans are often portrayed as a divided people , at war with each other . The spokespersons of the African community are frequently selected because of their willingness to tell the world how the places of our birth
make us so different from each other and how little we have in common with each other.But on this the first day of Kwanzaa, let us remind ourselves and each other of the many values we hold in common. Whether we reside on the continent of Africa,or on other continents
or on small islands in the Caribbean we value excellence, deep knowledge and learning for the upliftmentof our poeple and we have done so from the beginning of human history for we began human history.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/27/2003 5:57 pm PDT

This principle for the second day of Kwanzaa is probably the most difficult to put into practice in this society with its heavy emphasis on individualism divorced from a sense of community. Kujichagulia, self determination speaks to the self-determination of Africans as a people and to the importance of thinking for ourselves, speaking for ourselves, naming ourselves and creating for ourselves.

This is a particularly difficult concept to grasp. Today I heard this principle being explained as "I can be anything I want to be," with no reference to the institutional racist barriers that African people face daily-from profiling to redlining, from theft of land and artistic expressions to misrepresentation of our community and our aspirations on media.

Self-determination means working together to remove these barriers so that we can be a proud, productive and prosperous people wherever we build communities on the face of the earth.

Those who see themselves as allies of African people in their struggle for self-determination must learn that their task is not to speak for us but to restrain those who silence us and rob us our land, our liberty and our lives.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/29/2003 7:34 pm PDT

This principle, Ujima, collective work and responsibility, directs us to a particular kind of work.It's a challenge to think of collective work in a highly individualistic society. I think of the words of a friend of mine as she described 2 members of the African community in Toronto. One person was a tireless community worker, devoting his resources of time, money, intelligence and social connections to building the community. He would often accompany Black parents to meetings with school officials as they tried to have their children well -served in schools. The other member of the community was identified as a spokesperson for the Black community. He was an opinion maker, often being interviewed by the press on Black issues. What was revealing was my friend’s assessment of these two individuals. The first person she described as being "for community"; the second person in her opinion was "for progress" . Ujima calls upon us to make the progress of African communities our collective work.
Ujama, cooperative economics is perhaps the most threatening to the dominant society. It never ceases to amaze how this principle is trivialized year after year. For example, I heard this principle being related to saving up your money to buy something special. The idea that members of the Black community would seriously consider trying to keep their money in thier own communities and to work to build a Pan-African economic base. Something as concrete as supporting Black-owned and Black-identified business would be a good example of cooperative economics all year. .

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/30/2003 8:31 am PDT

Nia, purpose, is perhaps the most important of the principles. "To what end"? ,"Why"? These are questions we should ask before we embark on any of our projects. As African people we must ask ourselves, "How is this direction contributing to the building of a strong African Nation wherever African people are found?” We must never let others define our purpose. There are many well meaning people outside of our communities who think that it is their role in life to guide us but in the spirit of self determination, we must firmly reject their offers and talk among ourselves in order to define our purpose as a people.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   1/1/2004 10:34 am PDT

Kuumba and Imani are the principles for days 6 and 7 of Kwanzaa. Creativity and faith . African creativity is the hottest unacknowledged commodity on the world market , from our music to our minerals .These are ripped off, renamed and repackaged by both the right and the left.

Ours is the task to reclaim our creations and the resources that make our creations possible and to retain the right to future creations for all of those who will come after us . We will need all the faith we can muster for this is a tremendous task.

May we be guided by the principles of Kwanzaa for the 366 days of the year 2004 !

Author: enid lee
Date:   1/2/2004 10:43 am PDT

Whenever you stand up for liberation, for freedom especially when you confront White Supremacy and win as Haiti did 200 years ago, expect to pay and pay for a long , long time; as long as 200 years sometimes. You can expect to be isolated from economic opportunity. You can expect to pay in hard cash for your freedom as Haiti paid France (instead of France paying reparations for all of the unpaid labor of kidnapped, enslaved African people who built the wealth of France) and most importantly, you are going to pay dearly because every effort will be made to subvert your agenda for freedom through decoys, through people from your own community who do not serve the interests of your people.
And even with this costly outcome, it's still worth standing up for freedom and independence. It is worth confronting White Supremacy in all its new and ever changing forms.

It’s still worth standing up because domination and subordination are not natural to the human spirit.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   1/3/2004 8:54 am PDT

Bullying others (whether the bullied are individuals or nations ) is the way to ensure that you will live in fear. You never know when those you are bullying will retaliate and rise up against you.What a way to have to live!

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   2/3/2004 3:24 pm PDT

Shallow Understanding

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
King, Martin Luther, Jr (1963) Letter From The Birmingham Jail New York. HarperCollins Publishers .p.16.

On this national holiday to honor the work and life of Martin Luther King ,Jr, it's a good time to find new ways to deepen our understanding of the way racism works and what we can do to confront and dismantle it . Mainstream media , popular culture and even the material used in many of our schools would lead us with a shallow understanding of the dynamics of racism.In discussions about racism , the emphasis is often on the good will and not on the deep understanding that can lead to appropriate action.

Over the next month,following this holiday and leading up to Black history month, many educators of good will run the risk of leaving their students with a very shallow understanding of the nature of racism and the resistance to racism. I recommend Letter From The Birmingham Jail as a good text for examination and study for deepening our understanding of the struggle of racism.

Many of our students have heard the I Have A Dream Speech . Give them a taste this year of Letters From The Birmingham Jail. Dr. King was the author of that too!

Author: Amy Kelly
Date:   4/9/2004 4:56 pm PDT

{{Sigh}}...I am an adult, fairly "well-educated" person, and I JUST learned the truth behind the "myths" of Rosa Parks. I was in a multicultural education class examining the power analysis for all groups in power v.s. "minorities" that are not in power, and therefore experience a wide range of discrimination and bigotry aimed at denying them ANY power. One such example is misinformation. It is a disservice to us ALL! :-(

Author: Graciela Vega
Date:   3/17/2005 9:27 pm PDT

I had the students read "A Blueprint for your Life" by Dr. Martin Luther King. I had the students write a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King explaining what the blueprint of their life will be.

I agree that misinformation plays a disservice to us. After reading a theology of liberation, I have come to understand withholding information and ommission are a form of sin. Let me refraise that withholding knowledge and ommission, whether premeditated or not, is also a form of injustice. As I was review both of the Social Studies textbooks I noticed there are many wholes of information in the book, I make an effort to include information which has been left out. I also tell the the students to question the book. Over Spring Break, I had the sixth grade students in my classroom use the questioning method presented in "Beyond Heroes and Holidays" book and analyze the reasons for the creation of the book. I had them question who wrote the book and for what purpose. Who was being left out of the book? In closing, I will definitely, have my students read Letters From The Birmingham Jail.

Author: enid lee
Date:   2/22/2004 6:34 pm PDT

Who is Timothy Stansbury Jr.?

Author: Amy Kelly
Date:   4/9/2004 4:52 pm PDT

I hadn't heard of Timothy Stansbury, and when I researched what happened, on both "conservative" and more "Liberal" news websites, I was distressed. I don't know if I'm more distressed at the way folks in "power and DENIAL" characterized what happened....or by the fact I never heard about it at all. I listen to a morning show based in New York. I SHOULD HAVE heard about this.

I try to find *some* solace in things that infuriate me. The only thing I could find in this is that in my search to find out who Timothy Stansbury was, I found this site:

http://www.riseupradio.org/

I know it's off topic and no real solace at all. I just wanted to point anyone who might read this and find out about this MURDER, to someplace powerful and constructive, as this site seems to be.

Amy Kelly
Arlington, MA
teacher aide in Newton, MA
EMI course participant

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   3/16/2004 12:43 am PDT

Thanks Jamaica for welcoming President Aristide. Thanks to the Jamaican citizens who provided support to Haitian refugees who arrived on the shores of Jamaica some weeks ago when those refugees were being told they would not be welcome in the United States. When small Black nations help other small Black nations it never hits the big White media. We are shown only images of ourselves hurting each other. Our job is to tell the truth about ourselves.

Author: enid lee
Date:   5/16/2004 5:43 am PDT

One of the questions I hear most frequently when I work with teachers is :
“What do we do about parents who do not value education?”
I have taken to answering in the following vein:
Replace that question with these three questions and the course of action will become clear and easy:
‘What do the parents value?’
‘How can we find out what the parents value?’
‘How do we link what the parents value with what we call education?’

I welcome your response to my response to teachers.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   11/26/2004 10:45 am PDT

Merryl Lives On Through The Work We Do

On Friday November 19th Merryl Pisha, friend, amazing human being and warrior for racial justice died after a long and courageous battle with cancer.

During that battle, Merryl lived every day to its fullest, never allowing us to focus on her illness but always encouraging us to carry on with the work for greater justice. Those of us who participated in the summer Equity Institutes in Boston for the past 4 years will remember Merryl’s inspirational presence and her profoundly practical wisdom for working across race and putting race on the table in classrooms and faculty rooms.

All of us here at Enidlee Consultants will miss her. Merryl will always be one of us .We will honor the gifts she gave us by continuing to challenge racism and to work for more humane and equitable schools. For Merryl, these were lifelong commitments.

The Boston Equity Institute will now be known as The Merryl Pisha Equity Institute.

A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday December 4th from 3.00-7.00 at Cambridge Friends Meeting House on 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge, MA 02138-4816 (617) 876-6883.

Enid, Clem, Linda, Marcela, Mike, Victor, Deshonne and Zina.
at
Enidlee Consultants.

November 21st 200

Author: Emma Branch
Date:   3/1/2005 12:27 am PDT

I am a school social worker on a child study team (cst) in newark new jersey for a charter school, k-8 with 98% African Americans families/students. The rest are Latino heritage. I am the first non white school social worker there. I have observed many forms of racism from the other members on this team. This racism has been focused towards me and our special education students. In the beginning I continued to take an inventory of myself to try to see if I am the problem or the cause of the problem. In addition, I did every thing I could to win my white team mates respect. (Without losing my dignity.) Finally, I accepted the fact that yes, they are racist, lazy, uncaring white women. I realize that if I react I will be the one and only person fired. The first year, I managed to suffer in silence and do what I could to be certain that our students got what was written in their IEP's. Parent's noticed "atlast, someone really cared about their children and became very fond of me. This caused "suspicion among our CST towards me. They immediately started to assinate my character, isolated me and finally forced me to resign. This has happened in plain sight of many teachers that are African American. Our principal is Australian and speaks to most African Americans as she would/have to an Aboriginal. African American staffers out number whites 4 to 1. However, there are no African Americans in decision making positions. What most people are of aware of is one can do anything to a single African American and the rest will stand back and watch, hoping it does not happen to them. Some where there appears to be an unwritten law that prohibits African Americans for standing together. Even when the see educational decisions being made that will forever affect our children and the future of African Americans! They remain silent and hope to "get their contracts renewed."

Author: Wanda McCoy
Date:   3/6/2005 5:09 pm PDT

I wonder if anyone can assist me in my search for teachers using anti-racist education or social justice education in mathematics with elementary school children.I would be interested in visiting the classrooms of said teachers and or reading articles about them.

Author: Susie
Date:   4/26/2005 9:14 am PDT

You have said there is no neutral ground regarding multicultural education. But you say, "What we have talked about here is pretty radical; multicultural education is about challenging the status quo and the basis of power. How can teachers really expect administrators, who hold the greatest power in the school and the school district to support a challenge to the basis of their power?

Author: Graciela Vega
Date:   5/5/2005 6:47 pm PDT

There are ethical issues in involved limiting perspectives and access to students. If multicultural education is not presented then access to education is denied. How is there justice in denying students from multiple histories, from giving only the history of one people. I just picked up my Enid Lee reader from the Summer Conference of Putting Race on the Table. In the reader Queen Hatsheput's thought rung a chord with me. One can not blame anyone one for one's ignorance, have scripts mot been left behind to remind you (me). Yes, the writing is there. It is a matter of presenting it to our students, our parents and our administrators. We need to prepare students for the global village, how are they to understand, communicate and become collegues of people from different communities around the world if they are ignorant of the multiple histories, empires, city-states, contributors to science, medicine, creations, values and religion. Think how much more rich their world will be as a direct result of the transformative multiple perspectives presented in the classroom. Then again, I might already be preaching to the choir. I am a teacher in the seventh grade classroom working in language arts; the sixth, seventh an eight grade history asks for multiple perspectives to be presented in the standards. When the textbooks has a void, I search the internet, libraries and make an effort to show a different side. One thought has come to my mind, it is this. There are many ways to lie and to sin. Omission is lieing by withholding information. If textbooks are witholding information, then they are lieing fhrough omission.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   9/1/2005 10:49 am PDT

This an urgent plea for some contacts and direction to enable those concerned to provide direct assistance to our Black sisters and brothers who are dying and are abandoned in the Mississippi and New Orleans flood.I note that many of the people who are left behind are Black. I note also that in spite of the fact that 36% of the people in Mississippi are Black, person after person who is interviewed on CBS is White. The pictures of Black people are of voiceless and helpless figures waiting on White goodwill .
If there are connections, plans that will specifically assist Black people in Mississippi and New Orleans to escape and survive with dignity and self determination, please post them on this site .
Thank you,
Enid Lee

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   9/6/2005 2:00 am PDT

This has been a rare week in the media when so many have dared mention the unmentionable : Racism and Rescue in New Orleans .
After Phase 1:Awkward Admission we must expect and be ready to respond to the following :
Phase 2: Clever Cover-up
Phase 3: Downright Denial
Phase 4: Awful Amnesia

We are now in phase 2 . It has already begun. Publicizing stories that claim that it was really the fault of poor Black people in New Orleans that made for this tragedy because they did not leave when they were told to leave;
highlighting the generosity of corporations especially those with records for poor Labor Relations and of course, capturing the sound bites from a few well-placed Blacks who say it's much more complicated than race and class.

We know it's coming so as you raise money,
raise questions about racism
and injustice
and raise the profiles of the thousands of ordinary folk ,of grass roots organizations and of especially Black community workers who are helping their abandoned sisters and brothers. The Clever Cover-up will continue and so will we! .

Author: enid lee
Date:   9/7/2005 5:04 pm PDT

Every teacher in every class is making a statement today about the Katrina disaster. Whether you say something or you say nothing to your studetns , you are making a statement. You can use this event to further anti-racist ideas and social justice action , or you can perpetuate the racist status quo.
How did you deal with Katrina today.?
Remember, don't just raise money, raise questions !

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   11/1/2005 8:19 pm PDT

Do you recognize the names Treyshun, Taronta and Joshoa?
They are the 3 young African American boys whose short lives were ended as their mother,described as schizophrenic dropped them into the San Francisco Bay.

May their memories live on.

May the tragedy of their shortened lives spur us on to find just and long-lasting solutions for this human destruction.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   12/11/2005 2:20 pm PDT

Part of a Wampanoag's message when asked to speak in 1970 at an event marking the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts.

"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my
People.
When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and
other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people.

Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."

I am reminded by these words that a people's generosity is not always greeted with gratitude . It is sometimes greeted with genocide.My job today is to continue to work for group self-determination and group self-defense of People of African Ancestry Worldwide and to join hands with other peoples who are struggling for survival,self-determination and dignity.

Thought for Thanksgiving Day
May generosity be greeted with gratitude and not with genocide.

Author: Enid Lee
Date:   12/26/2005 10:12 pm PDT

Umoja means Unity, the guiding principle for the first day of Kwanzaa and for every day of the year. The spirit of Unity amongst us as African people must be nurtured
everyday.

There are those who insert themselves in our midst only to divide us, and to convince us that we cannot go forward without them.

If they are truly our allies, they will work amongst those who prevent us from seeing each others beauty and learning from each others wisdom.

Knowing ourselves and our common history will strengthen the spirit of Unity among us.

Author: enid lee
Date:   12/27/2005 10:17 pm PDT

When Brother Malcolm X spoke of the importance of self-determination for African people, he often included the word “group” in front of the words “self-determination” What an important reminder! Group self-determination would enable us to respond in a way that ensures our survival in the wake of such horrors as Katrina. Instead, many of us watched helplessly and with pain in our hearts as our brothers and sisters were dispersed and displaced; children taken from the arms of their parents and families separated from each other. Once again our fate was decided by others.
Let us ask ourselves everyday, “What can I do to ensure that not just me, but my people as a whole, African people, wherever we are found, on islands on continents, whether we speak Spanish or Swahili, whether we are female or male, that we are able to speak for ourselves, name ourselves and create for ourselves?” “How do my actions help my people survive and flourish?” These are important questions in a time when our extinction as a people appears to be premeditated in so many quarters.