WE’VE GOT DOLLARS AND NO SENSE!

Brother Nuri Muhammad, a student minister of the Nation of Islam, discusses the need for Black people to improve the manner in which they spend, invest and save their money. He specifically cautions this group in the United States, demographically the eighth richest in the world compared to any other country, against impulsive purchases. Likewise, he encourages them to stop buying so many unnecessary items. Instead, Nuri inspires Black people to invest in land and businesses that can help build wealth and pass it down to future generations.

Part of that knowledge involves understanding the difference between wealth and income. It also means urgently doing something about the fact that Black people in the US gush out 97% of their money on products and services provided by white-owned businesses yet blame the overwhelming majority of their problems on white people. Is it any wonder why Brother Nuri states, “We got dollars, but we need some sense?”

Continued…..White settler colonialism, the bloodsucking capitalist system and the historical exclusion of Black people from the US economy and society at large find themselves as root causes for the atrocious spending habits attributed to Black people nowadays. In general and very distinct cases where the long lost descendants of Africa had no other choice but to pool their resources and do for themselves, those efforts were met by American terrorism, which was best exemplified in the Jim Crow era. These are the legacies of Tulsa, Rosewood and other towns and cities.

For Tulsa, where a thriving Black community was decimated and hundreds killed by a marauding white mob in 1921, even air-bombed by US officials, reparations, as of last year, were denied to three of the remaining victims who are all over one hundred years old. The presiding judge in the case, Caroline Wall, dismissed the lawsuit, which sought recompense for the surviving victims.

“We were taught not to talk about it,” said 109-year-old Viola Ford Fletcher, a survivor of the massacre. “If you talk about it, your family will be killed, I’m proud I’m living to tell about it.”

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This African proverb is a great one to start your week. And its meaning is simple. People may mock you for standing out, but it’s often because your strength triggers their insecurities.

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U.S. COURT: BIG TECH NOT LIABLE FOR DRC COBALT CHILD LABOUR

Big tech companies are off the hook when it comes to buying cobalt mined by child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). An American appeals court said they could not be held liable for children forced to work in terrible conditions. And that means Google, Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla are free to keep buying the metal with no regard for shocking exploitation. The case had been brought by representatives of children who’d been killed in DRC’s mines.

It’s happening as the country suffers an endless conflict. Since 1994 more than six million people have been killed and seven million displaced in what has been called ‘Africa’s World War’.

Continued…. Today, 120 armed groups operate in the country, driven by a desire to control resources worth $24-trillion. It’s argued Western firms’ thirst for DRC’s resources indirectly funds rebels who in turn use child labour to mine in-demand metals like cobalt. Congolese in the east of the country are locked in a vicious cycle of poverty and violence while big tech survive and thrive.

It’s also worth remembering it’s US interference that’s responsible for the state of affairs. Coming off a brutal decades-long colonial occupation from Belgium, and eager to utilise the vast resources to develop Africa, DRC was shot in the knee with the assassination of visionary Pan-African leader Patrice Lumumba, but that wasn’t enough. The US installed a puppet that bled the country for the next three decades. The West served as a loot stash and while millions lived in poverty, President Mobutu Sese Seko held millions in foreign banks, with properties spread across Europe.

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PLO LUMUMBA BLASTS THE ICC

In this episode of ‘Going Underground,’ host Afshin Rattansi interviewed Professor PLO Lumumba, Pan-Africanist scholar and former director of the Kenya School of Law. They discussed the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its bias against African leaders while ignoring the crimes of Western leaders. Lumumba argues the ICC is a tool of neo-colonialism and that it no longer has legitimacy or credibility in Africa. The ICC has mainly targeted African leaders, such as Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, and Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, while turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Western leaders, such as US President George W. Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama. He calls for the disbandment of the International Criminal Court.

Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

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VIRAL A.I. FASHION SHOW

A Nigerian artist has harnessed the power of AI to create a fashion show that celebrates the elderly people of the African continent.

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VIJAY PRASHAD: THE PROBLEM IS NOW!

Historian Vijay Prashad blasted the climate justice movement for disregarding the immediate challenges people in regions like Africa, Asia, and Latin America must face because they have inherited colonial economic systems.

At COP26, the UN’s climate-change conference in 2021, he questioned the relevance of the movement’s commonly used phrase, ‘We’re worried about the future.’

However, food insecurity affects 2.7 billion people globally. Prashad said this reality challenges the movement’s call for individuals to reduce consumption.

What do you think about Prashad’s remarks? Let us know in the comments.

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PALESTINIAN WORSHIPPERS ASSAULTED ON RAMADAN

This video’s gone viral showing Israeli police using batons on Palestinians trying to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque for Ramadan prayers. Worshippers were forced to pray in alleys after being denied access to the holy site in East Jerusalem.

It’s feared Israeli authorities and far-right settlers may step up their targeting of Palestinians during the holy month.

Tel Aviv’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip has so far killed 31,000 with no ceasefire in sight.

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PALESTINIAN SCHOOLS ZIONIST ALAN DERSHOWITZ

Check out this recent clip from British journalist Piers Morgan’s talk show. Palestinian activist and political leader Mustafa Barghouti compared 6-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab being trapped and killed inside a car amidst Israel’s military attack on the Gaza Strip with Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945. This countered US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who blamed militant group H*m*s for more than 30,000 Palestinians—including 25,000 women and children—being killed since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Palestine-Israel conflict. Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling in January stated Israel is plausibly in violation of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

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UN FORCES IN DRC WATCHING AS M23 GO BY?

A video allegedly showing M23 soldiers walk in a file past a MONUSCO (UN) troop base in Rwindi, eastern DRC, has sparked anger online. MONUSCO has branded the clip ‘fake news.’

In November last year, MONUSCO and DR Congo’s military started Operation Springbok, aimed at securing the provincial capital Goma and stemming the killing of civilians.

The carnage has not stopped, and hundreds of thousands have been freshly displaced since the third quarter of 2023.

Seven-million people have been displaced - and six-million killed - in DRC since 1994, in what has been described as Africa’s World War.

MONUSCO, with a billion-dollar annual budget, a decades-long presence and tens of thousands of armed personnel, has proved incapable of halting the violence. President Félix Tshisekedi cited this when he demanded the UN mission’s exit from the country. MONUSCO began withdrawing personnel in late February.

What do you make of this video?

WOMEN DEMAND PEACE IN GAZA AND CONGO

Women are bearing the brunt of war in Gaza and Congo. And thousands marched in Africa on Women’s Day to raise awareness.

In Morocco and Tunisia protesters remembered the victims of Israel’s onslaught. In DRC, women in the city of Bukavu drew attention to increasing sexual violence in country’s east where fighting between the army and rebel groups has intensified.

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NO XENOPHOBIC VOTES

South Africa has, for a long time, been grappling with harassment of, and violence against, foreigners and immigrants, especially those from the African continent. This includes refugees and those seeking asylum in the country, both documented and undocumented, despite protection by South Africa’s constitution of all these people.

The resentment arises in part from the scapegoating of foreigners over economic hardships, lack of equitable social amenities, unemployment, crime and drug abuse.

Continued….Many blame their lack of economic opportunities on migrants ‘stealing’ their jobs by working for a lower wage (many of the migrants come from poorer counties).

With elections to be held in May, xenophobic South Africans are being wooed by political parties that endorse the deportation en masse of immigrants. In this clip, Julius Malema - the leader of the hard-left EFF party - strongly denounces this stance and makes clear why he won’t be trying to win over the ‘xenophobic vote.’

Would you vote for him?

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AKALA PT.2: UK’S KNIFE CRIME NOT A BLACK ISSUE

People in the West love to blame crime in their country on people of colour - the UK included.

In this clip, watch rapper and activist Akala neatly deconstruct British TV host Piers Morgan’s argument that knife crime is a ‘Black problem.’

Statistics don’t lie, and figures indicate regions with higher knife crime than London, predominantly committed by White people. Yet, the race angle is only brought up to vilify Blacks.

Where race does play an issue in violence among Black men, Akala points to internalised self-hate and socio-economic factors.

As The Guardian writes, “Black-on-Black violence is a myth created by a section of the law-and-order lobby to facilitate an acceptance by the Black community of intrusive policing techniques. The causes of Black-on-Black knife crime are the same as those of White-on-White knife crime - but we do not speak of White-on-White violence.”

What are your views on this?

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MALCOLM X: ‘ONLY HOPE FOR BLACK MAN IS STRONG AFRICA’

The Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) was a Pan-Africanist organization that human rights defender Malcolm X founded in 1964. The OAAU was modelled on the Organization of African Unity, an intergovernmental body on the continent that was the African Union’s predecessor. The former had impressed Malcolm X during his visit to Africa in April-May 1964.

The OAAU aimed to fight for the human rights of Africans in the Americas and promote cooperation between Africans on the continent and people of African descent in the Americas.

In this clip, Malcolm X explains how the struggle of all people of African descent is inextricably linked.

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