Do I Need a Title?

There is a rumble in a story I am going to tell beneath the surface.

Black Americans, I believe, fail their children because parents place their full trust in a system designed for their children's demise. Black people 'adore' white American's contempt. If it were not true the obvious things to protect and develop their children would be done automatically.

Abandoning our children is a deep and conscious decision made daily. Not plunging into why the system of thought about education exists is abnegation of duty. Or maybe Black Americans are lazy. There are other systems of education that fit our children that is not resistant to creativity and is resistant to social engineering. There are other battles to fight within these schools, but it is better to fight those fights with a sense of knowing the control has shifted in your favor. And then there is control. I don't believe, and I am not convinced Blacks are finished with their assigned role of subjugation.

Maybe, Blacks are waiting to be saved, or simply enjoy complaining. The onus is on us to grab the reins of the horse running amok and bring him to a halt. The reins physically control the horse's movement, but the horse studies the rider's soul, and emotions. His determination of the substance of strength or weakness in the rider supports his compliance, or rebellion. Riders know this. It is why some healers use horses to mediate the healing and balancing of disruption, disorder, psychic pain, and trauma in a wide variety of people. Water mediates and tempers the soul, balances fire's propensity to destroy by directing the heat to heal when needed. Understanding the elements are the genius of indigenous cultures. Education, at the level it is, in modern life is not based upon the structures of living in the world as co-creators, and caretakers, or nurturers. It is based on something insidious.   

What would the American education system look like if Black Americans, en masse, moved away from their norm and rode horses instead of walking mules on acreage they don't own? What would change in the social environment if Black people shifted from the slave/mastery mentality into the difficult waters of self-sufficiency, if they trained their own children's spirits?

At the core of the controversy about education is one unanswered question many white people on both ends of the spectrum ask of each other, but avoid asking Black parents: "If Black lives mattered would Colored folks be so dependent upon white's control over their lives?"  

Gregory E. Woods, Grandfather  

Dec. 15, 2016

What Black Panthers taught me about economics

Greetings everyone,

 

I am not sure if you had a chance to see the extraordinary PBS documentary on The Black Panthers, but you must see it.  As I watched the film, I found myself beaming with pride, breaking down in tears, staring at the television with concern and deeply reflective of this movement and what it meant to our people.

 

We know that the movement fell apart due to sinister and racist actions on the part of the federal government.  However, I thought to myself:  "What if the Panthers had a stronger economic infrastructure?"

 

Of course the movement was amazing, but the more I study history, the more I realize that a powerful economic movement is just what our community needs. 

 

This year, I've made a commitment to doing all that I can to spread the "gospel" of financial literacy and black economic empowerment as far and wide as possible.  Of course, there is The Black Wealth Bootcamp, but we are also adding more to our arsenal.

 

I'd like to make you aware of The Black Economic Empowerment Tour, which is going to consist of me popping up many cities across the world to share both fundamental and advanced concepts that relate to black wealth building, entrepreneurship and cooperative economics.

 

I've never put my PhD to better use.  You will always walk away amazed and evolved, I assure you. 

 

I was in Atlanta last week and our venue was sold out.  We're now planning to come to Chicago on March 26th (you can learn more about meeting me in Chicago here), Louisville, KY on March 12th and Baltimore on April 28th (I'll make you aware as soon as those deals are sealed).

 

We are adding new cities to the tour on a regular basis, and could really use your support.  If you can't make it to the cities listed above, you are still welcome to purchase a ticket that could be used to admit someone in need.  Also, we have a growing list of faculty teaching powerful courses in The Black Business School, with Dr Julianne Malveaux joining us next week.

 

My goal is to take what I've learned from teaching college students over the last 23 years and share this information with millions of black people.  So far, the plan is working, and we've been able to reach a million people per week without any bank loans, grants or corporate sponsorship.  If you feel inspired to chip in, that can help us do even more for our people.

 

If you'd like to know more about our Chicago event, please visit this link.  We have people traveling from as far away as Australia, and we know it is well worth the trip.   Feel free to make it a weekend, we've got hotels we can recommend for you and your family for the events.

 

Until we meet again, please be strong, be blessed and be educated.

 

Sincerely,

Dr Boyce Watkins

Dr Boyce Watkins | info@boycewatkins.com | Watkins Media Group | 935 Carver St. | Westpoint, MS 39773


 

Meeting POWERS

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The meeting of men in dangerous times to discuss each step of an intention to liberate, or offer freedom to bound and chained people on both sides of the equation of slavery and neo-slavery was daunting. But in those moments the negotiations of the first 70 years of the 20th century Negroes did not ask of Power all of the questions a bound people could not ask, and needed to ask. It is reflected in the 21st century by what Black Americans do and don't do.

Free? Are Black Americans free? Have Black Americans evolved beyond the dream of being able to eat with white people? Is freedom defined by dependence? Can a person, or a people be free if their freedom is handed to them piecemeal? If a people treasure their tragedies are they free? Is freedom alive within someone whose image of themselves comes from outside themselves? Are a people free who define themselves from outside themselves? Are people free disconnected from their Mother Land intellectually, and spiritually or emotionally?

I don't think so, but there are millions of Black Americans who disagree with me. Such is the plight and spiritual dilemma of the Wasicun Sapa, the Black White People. - Gregory E. Woods 3.17.13

The PATRIOTS

My Vintage Look

Yoko Ono & John Lennon

Interesting perspective looking at this photograph of Yoko Ono and John Lennon on a ferry moving away from the Twin Towers in New York city. Those two characters were less than patriotic. They were thinkers and Creators. They were stirring emotions and thoughts in the culture that resisted change. The government at the time was deep in the practice of resisting change and about the business of tearing apart the Youth movement, the social platform and structure of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panthers, and trying to rein in the passions and anger and calls for social reform by white youth who were openly examining the mores of the American way of life, and the Domino Theory that justified the War in Vietnam! 

It was an exciting time, but the naive and overly patriotic easily mistook patriotism as blind obedience without questioning the morality of government policy. That is what came to be called patriotism during the Bush administration as fear replaced reason, and Hebrew 13:17 became the Biblical text justifying blind obedience to governmental authority, and dictatorial patriotism became even more mean spirited in action. 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.29.13

Seven women locked arm and arm on the beach in heels. That was a dangerous era for Black men, and for Indians we were just invisible and suffering in forced silence. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 9.29.13

AWAKENING the Black Consciousness

"It is an impossible point of view to stand  powerless against a political machine you have no strategy, or superiority over, Black Man. In the context of where we actually are what is the best course of action to gain the freedom to move, create, and eat in this society as a sovereign nation within a nation? To talk about nature is OK, but at this point most Black folk are divorced from Nature, and are adverse to  camping, or sitting on the ground. Returning to nature is an abstract dream. Blacks, for the most part are committed, it seems, to pleasing, and getting along with whites. There is no inner ideology I've seen to free (us) from (them)! So what does that leaves us with?" 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories sept. 5, 2012




"They say we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, yet we seem to always be fighting or complaining about the freedom we don't have and we get to see how many of us live in fear everyday..." ~Priestess Kefa (8.21.12)

"Americans make the fatal mistake of not evaluating their beliefs, and the questions freedom asks are not addressed honestly out of fear. Fear lays down the foundation for not thinking rendering introspection a remote possibility, This leaves Freedom grimacing at the inconsistencies of inconsistent ways of thinking about freedom as the American concepts of freedom lay waste cultures, land, and people." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (8.21.12)

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants": Thomas Jefferson. "The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance" Leonard H. Courtney. The problem is not enough people are willing to pay the price." - Sonny Simmons (8.22.12)

"We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be." – Leo Buscaglia

Black Panther movement 1960's

black massage therapists at work

Guns & money

“There has to be an active majority who voice their outrage, and out of that a small group of people of action who will do practical things like create a citizens board with the authority to pass judgments against the police in WA. The Black Panthers in their time armed themselves, stood and observed the police in action, reported them, and in short, acted within the confines of the law. It was impossible for the police to do anything against aggressive citizens who knew the law. The Panthers became a force to be reckoned with. They created community within their community, and the voice of the People became a force to reckon with. The US government was afraid, and outraged. Our government began a campaign to undermine what began as community development into a national security issue. Elevated to national security the right to kill insurgents became the law of the land, and the killings started.



With the fall of the Panthers the notorious gang, the Crips, arose out of the rubble. At first clinging to the spirit and tenets of community passed down by the Black Panthers the community held on to the singular hope of community development African-American style. And then a train loaded with weapons showed up on mysterious night and pushed darkness into their souls, and the Crips became a terror in the national consciousness under the social pressure of the larger communities who expected Black and Latino communities to die on the asphalt. The gang rivalries between the Bloods, the Crips has grown into a millions of dollar industry for the criminal justice system, and the film, music, and fashion businesses as the body count across the country has deepen the blood levels on American streets beyond what any individual can survive in, and maintain sanity.


This is a short history lesson, and insight. The train? Witnesses in the early 1980’s recall a train full of guns, and ammo that appeared unmanned in Los Angles one day. The early members of these gangs who survived the last three decades remember how the guns got into their communities.


It takes a warrior to build community in the United States.” –Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories