Spirit, Indigeny and Modern Christian Missiology: A Short Ride on a Long Train - posted 6/23/09 on blogspot.com

It was a weekday afternoon and I was going home from doing some unjoyous errands and came upon a somewhat familiar, but conceptually incongruous sight, four young men dressed in black pants and shoes, white shirts, ties and the compulsory backpack - Mormon missionaries. They were getting on the same train as I was, but I made sure to get into the same car as they boarded, feeling much like a security agent sent to make sure that they would do no immediate harm, like a wolf patrolling the perimeter of its own forest homelands, sniffing at bushes, trees for signs of interlopers, dangerous to life and limb, family, child and nature's balance itself. I got on that train car with them to observe, to see if there were any new behaviors, any new evidence of their utility in a world gone modern, a world gone mad, to see if they would engage the passengers or myself, as they have in the past, to see if they were prepared to do harm or good.

I have come into contact with these young men in numerous situations. As a person who regularly gives eye contact to people in my travels and work, I have often become privy to the stories of homeless people, veritable life stories of contact-hungry people whose emotional or mental state we often would characterize as unstable, stories from people carrying bibles in their hands, scripture cards in their "briefcases or their religious hearts on their sleeves. Not all of them were Mormons, not all of them were mentally unstable, but many of them seemed to be wandering, aimlessly or aimedly, in the Land of the Homeless.

As I think back to these four young men, I am reminded of a number of my path-crossings with them. A few of these experiences come into focus now as I ponder, contemplate and calculate the primary role of indigenous cultural concepts and lifeways in the world's development. I am reminded of my great and deep feelings of trepidation, quieted anger and historical resentment as I watched these young men, or boys, without words, enter the train car and distribute themselves at least a seat away from each other, not unlike most young men in this society seen traveling together, too homophobic, insecure to sit next to each other and risk touching each other, keeping intimacy and genuine brotherhood at bay.

In yet another crossing of public transportive proportions, a pair of young, European (the only sort I've ever seen) Mormon men boarded a bus headed into deepest, darkest Roxbury, the predominantly African, Black or people-of-colored section of Boston, a city well known for its parochial demography, cut up into it's neat, yet contested sections of well-controlled diversity, carved by capitalist economy, modern classism and cultural momentum. I remember wondering even then, why just men, why not women...why the uniform....why wouldn't they dress as they might as they would go to the movies, if they ever went to the movies or as the people they so vociferously and dedicatedly sought to influence. I gazed upon them with resentment, with controlled and, then, controlling anger, seeing them as lead runners for an occupying force, a cultural, spiritual and political distraction, preying and/or praying upon a people, a population who didn't actually need them and who, most likely, in my estimation, they didn't even truly understand. It smacked so directly and powerfully of the christian missionary process in Africa, the violently coercive force of the forward military troops of and for European colonialism, with its concomitant cultural, spiritual, emotional, social, sexual, "racial", political and intellectual oppression that still lives like a rotting, but living zombie, watching from it's Washington D.C., London, Paris, Luxembourg and Beijing sarcophagi, seeking to forestall all genuine and independent inclinations of African people everywhere, let alone on this Boston bus or the neighborhoods it would whisk these two young men into that sunny afternoon.

I wondered why then in that day and age, was it necessary for yet another christian faction to come into "Little Africa" for it's pounds of religious flesh, its span of ever-increasing spiritual surreal estate amongst people that had been so completely stripped of their original, powerful and empowered indigenous roots and spiritual nature, supplanted by violence, not by intellectual discourse, out of compassion and understanding or spiritual comraderie or ascendancy. These African people were probably some of the most christian and christinized people on the face of the earth. It is well known that even now the face of christianity is changing most dynamically in the areas of the world least populated by Europeans, though they may hold strongest neo-colonial sway there. In short Africans, Latinos and Asians are the fastest growing groupings of new christians around the world. These two young men, bedecked in their workplace attire, were living, walking, fare-paying overkill. Roxbury didn't need them, replete with numerous christian sects of all ilks and sizes and influences and flavors. But there they were, fresh-faced and recently-pressed, ready to save African people from themselves for a god not of their own creation, as often stated by historian John Henrik Clarke, cultural advisor to El Hajj Malik el Shabazz (Malcolm X), but of their own historical coerced adoption, at home and abroad.

At that time, I was not yet aware of the depth of spiritual and cultural displacement that had taken place for African people with the onset of Euro-christian warfare, the legacy of power that would be disengaged from their hearts and socio-political structures, leaving them...leaving us...deep in alien territory, struggling to maintain our legacy of Ancestral connection, our relationship with nature and our relationship to our own stories of love, compassion, strength and spiritual ethos. that bus rode into Roxbury during the 80's crack epidemic. I'm not sure if those young men, the same age as those that would so devastatingly turn inward on themselves, killing each other so often, so brutally, "Black on Black", if those young Mormon men knew what to do with that Euro-political criminal legacy anchoring itself now in the minds of Africans generations and centuries-removed from their indigenous home, if they knew and could offer any more than yet another version of the same religious legacy that had watched, zombie-like, as they descended into hell.

Years later, but not many years later, I would be walking down a main street in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was a cool evening, darkening and quieting as I made my way back to Boston with a friend, back to the culturally and economically diverse, but gentrifying section of Jamaica Plain. We were "getting out of Dodge", as it were, when a Mormon tract was thrust in our faces by a seemingly friendly, but decidedly over-driven young man in black pants and white shirt and tie. I engaged him and his partner in time reciprocally to fend off his assumptive advances. Terse pleasantries exchanged, it seemed neither of us had lost a step, no rhythm displaced, but I can still remember the feeling of intrusiveness that accompanied the interchange. My friend and I might have only shared a passing greeting with the two young men in black, but were indiscriminately marked in that moment as being in need by people who didn't know us, who hadn't seen us long enough to identify the brand of our over-priced sneakers, but maybe long enough to place our faces into longer term memory banks to be recalled someday in a deeper exchange of human connection and compassion.

All in all, it seemed as though these young men also had someplace important to go, in a rush, though not overly so, but enough to notice...and they thought they'd throw out some of their bait to a couple of geographically convenient fish to see if they'd reel anything in. They didn't, but the hook snapped of in my jaw, in my craw, waiting to rust and fall out much later as as I chawed on numerous interactions such as this. Many more of them came from the Boston Church of Christ, which was known for gigantic churchish, revival meetings held then in the Boston Garden, too large for the average chapel. Their numbers seemed interminable as I bumped into BCoC reps everywhere, everytime, everyway imaginable, my freely-given eye contact making me a glaring target for their highest hopes for their conversion numbers goals. The BCoCies were often much ruder and more abrupt than the Mormons, but their approaches blurred, though no Mormon ever said, upon hearing my ever-challenging-to-some African name, that they'd instead call me "Adam". The rudeness of that interchange blocked the righteous and right (correctly applied) indignation deep in my throat. The anger passed, but the learning remained.

My anger had been re-upped for active duty as I walked past the living room of my parents' home to see two of these modern missionaries and an older Mormon counterpart sitting there, listening with rapt attention as my father, a deacon in the Roman Catholic church, explained to them, as it would be explained to me later, the finer points of how to approach the African community in USAmerica. It was not so much that my father was the one telling these people how they might best be influential to the African population in and around New Jersey, a formidable number to say the least. My father was at the time a vocal and empowered teacher of the African presence in and source of Roman Catholic doctrine, ideology and philosophical underpinnings. He championed the African historical elements of the Roman Catholic experience like very few others at that time, a time when non-European populations and control mechanisms were beginning to make themselves apparent in the Archdiocese of Newark and all over the world, the entrenched cultural momentum of the church showing it's bigoted and racist tendencies clearly to him and many others who dared to remove the planks from their own eyes (seemingly a very few) or who had their planks forcibly removed by nature of their cultural place as Africans or Latinos by a religious corporate conglomerate that did not value nor respect their presence in the world save for their regular and often stellar contributions to the ever-present collection plate and regular relinquishment of real estate the world over. My father was also relatively highly versed and enlightened in the realities of African history around the world, especially in USAmerica, so if these or any Mormons where going to talk to anyone about the African community, my father was one of the best ones in the world of christianized Africanity to hear it from, especially from the standpoint of a desire to protect Africans in a still hostile cultural environment, a necessity that exists to this day even with a quasi-democratically-elected president who claims multi-racial heritage, but is popularly considered Black.

My problem, again, with the presence of these particular Mormons in my parents' house was that they were indeed gaining intelligence on how to move "against" a population that didn't need them, already removed from the cultural container of their indigenous origins by a so-called-christian set of European nations before, during and after chattel enslavement in castles and ships named after their namesake, Jesus, himself. These particular, thoroughly-modern missionaries had a historical legacy that was playing itself out, continuing materially and ideologically on my parents' fine furniture. The horrid history of christian violence, murder, rape, abuse, cultural domination and degradation had not only knocked on the front door, but it had been invited in and offered a plate of vanilla creme sandwich cookies and orange soda (a stereotypical, but persistent memory I have from just about every Roman Catholic or christian fellowship apres-worship snack table).

Fast-forward years later to a very cold, wintery night in Lynn, Massachusetts. I was, yet again in proximity to public transportation, leaving the commuter rail station after a long and hard day at work. Lo and behold, as I am crossing the street and, I might add, in the middle of the street, a card gets thrust in my general direction. At the end of my energy and patience rope, I firmly said, "No, thank you!". Trying to move on, I realize two key things: 1) this man's hand is moving again toward me on a dark, cold, "tough city" street after I rebuked his advances the first time and, 2) this is the same man that thrust a Mormon tract at me in Waltham years ago. It was as if deja vu had been scientifically proven an empirical surety. I continued to move past him, not needing nor desiring to nor owing him a look in the eyes. My body/mind/spirit knew it was him from his voice and body language and mannerisms alone. I walked briskly home that night in a sort of reeling vertigo, anger and disdain and a bit of confusion raised clear and sharp as the single-digit temperature that cut through my bared skin and sensibilities.

My feelings rose, pushed hard by the legacy of cumulative history and personal experience, but crystallized by the realization that not only had the spectre of christian missionary intrusion found me on this dark and frigid city street near where I tentatively called home, but that, somehow, amazingly and maddeningly, this same Mormon man had gotten, yet more completely rudely and disrespectfully - another shot at me. I was non-plussed. I was mortified and pissed-off and turned inside out all at once, but not so completely as when my warming brain began to realize that there was a defensible case for having hauled off and clocked him right there in the middled of the street - and that I had missed my historical opportunity.

It was a structurally perfect case. A man, alone, gets off a train at eleven o'clock at night. It's cold. It's dark. It's a city with a reputation of crime and bad elements. "Lynn, Lynn, city of sin...you never come out the way you go in!" was the belabored mantra. An unidentified (at that moment) man, so an attacker, thrusts a hand at this man-alone with no one to assist him in this moment of violent, unwanted approach. The man dodges, but strikes his attacker, clear and sharp - and hard - in self-defense...self-defense!... then stands over his unconscious attacker and waits for the police to arrive as he holds the criminal, vanquished, righteously defeated. My Ancestors would be collecting around me, nodding in tacit approval, calling forward the legacy of missionary attacks to this night hundreds of years later, executed courageously by one of their now glorified sons, a modern tribal warrior, still clenching his fist in case the perpetrator flinched a finger or parted a lip to speak.

Though I knew in my heart that this oppressor-approved fantasy was not the finest outcome for this brief, inopportune encounter with yet another christian missionary in the African midst, nor was it indicative of any personal response pattern that existed or would ever exist as part of my own heart, mind and body, I wrangled with the idea of the historical catharsis that would have been enacted by one functionally justifiable - and hard - punch to a christian missionary chin. I was livid as I told my friends the story, sure, as I did, that they probably did not share my zeal at the idea of dropping a man to the ground, missionary or not. I actually can't even remember their reactions, so caught up in my own instant, feel-good replay as I was. And as good as that punch might have felt, however fleeting, it wouldn't clear away the negative and continuing legacy of the christian missionary relationship with Africans or other indigenous people. Africans, on the continent and in the diaspora, still hold dearly to christian concepts and disempowered cultural concepts of themselves, so many displaced from their physical, spiritual and cultural home. Even on the Motherland, Africans flock to christian congregations in astronomical numbers. It is in Africa that the largest Roman Catholic basilica outside of Rome, Italy was erected in one of the most impoverished countries on the contintent. The contradictions are interminable. And on Turtle Island, Native Americans still live in the shadow of christian boarding schools that stripped children from their families, cultures, from their security, self-esteem and ultimately from themselves, contributing to the deep social pathologies that are the scourge of the reservation system. The works of Winona LaDuke, Oren Lyons, Vine Deloria, Jr., Wilma Mankiller and Alfred Taiaiake are but some of the many who so clearly recount the history of violence and devastation at the hands of those that would call themselves "Christians". We have but to look at John Henrik Clarke, C.L.R. James, Kwame Nkrumah, Seku Ture, Eric Williams, Lerone Bennett, Assata Shakur, Marcus and Amy Garvey and Malcolm X for that christian legacy as applied to Africa.

Only a return to, an advancement on behalf of and with a renewed embrace of the indigenous cultural and spiritual reality that has dominated the development of human history over our past three million years would be recompense enough for the tragedy of misplaced materials and intentions that has marked the adoption of foreign and culturally-ineffective spiritual and/or religious systems, structures and ideologies. The intrusion of christianity has predominantly come along with the oppressive colonial and global capitalist systems of economy, ideology and sociology. Winona LaDuke, in her excellently written book, "Recovering the Sacred", recounts in no uncertain terms the dangerous lifeways that have been adopted and sustained in and by this modern world of capital above human potentiality and indigenously grounded spirituality. Poverty, disease and violence have become hallmarks of daily life for so many First Nations, Native American and indigenous people, not only here on Turtle Island, but around the world. And though there have been many instances of genuine support coming from people and organizations purporting to be of the Christian faith, the overriding relationship of christianity and the missionaries that carry it around the world, into villages and neighborhoods and cities, to indigenous cultures has been predominantly negative and culturally damaging. In addition, Vine Deloria, Jr. in his trademark work, "God Is Red", details clearly how Christianity is ultimately devoid of its original functional dynamics having been pulled out of its cultural and historical timeframe and geographical setting to be transported about the earth in its current form. His book explains the necessity for indigenous peoples, particularly Native Americans, to hold onto and utilize the spiritual frameworks that come from their own cultural experience and the dangers that arise from giving those indigenous systems away for foreign systems that come from other cultural frameworks. Brenda Norrell's "Censored News" (http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com) highlights many of the realities of Native Americans in the modern world and many of the challenges that have arisen for these people in a world that forcibly projects foreign systems of thinking and being upon them. The contradictions become clear and unquestionable.




Enter then these four young Mormon men on a train. I'm not sure if their training for missionary work prepares them to have a deep understanding of the people they attempt to win over to their way of thinking. I am not sure if their teachers gave them a fundamental background in the reality of chattel slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism. I'm not sure if their education included compassion, caring, love and sensitivity. History clearly shows us that these virtues are not compulsory additions to christian life and work, though they seem to be major tenets of the faith in general, how and if they get implemented is another issue. The larger issue is that these missionaries and christian missionaries in general seem to have no concern for indigenous people's spiritual and cultural independence, displaying an arrogance and ignorance that are stellar in scope. The adoption of christianity by indigenous peoples has actually moved them further away from their most genuine historical relationships with Spirit, with the earth, with water, wind and all the elemental and nature spirits. This has been tremendously damaging to the naturo-spiritual human dynamic, to indigeny in general. Historical and modern missiology is, again, largely ineffective, if not dangerous to indigenous life and those, like Africans, who have been forcibly ripped from their indigenous roots, that which sustains and defines them. Missionaries have more important and more fundamental work to do amongst themselves, reconciling the contradictions that are the hallmark of modern christianity at large.

These particular four young Mormon men said little if anything to each other during their short trip. Maybe my energetic attention toward them gave them pause (not overstating my influence, but realizing the possibility of their intuitive abilities) or they were deep in thought of their duties ahead, just as I was that day as I considered my own upcoming initiation into Dagara Eldership....yet there watching these young men, officially called "elders" in their religious construct. This time, there was no anger, only concern for those young men and the work that they engage in, the effects of their missionary work in the world. Before they left the train, one of them looked up at me and began to put on that smile that I've seen so many other times before, but he backed off of what I suspected was going to be an amateurish attempt at small talk leading to religious proselytizing. He backed off nicely before he could display the arrogance that comes with some forms of ignorance, such as I have seen in similar situations, once begun by asking me about a book I was reading, then swerving conversationally like a drunk driver toward biblical allusions.

It was apparent that modern christian missiology was alive, structurally supported, but probably not well in that moment. This missionary process was and is problematic and dangerous to healthy human development. Humanity is still in need of a major transformation in its relationship to Spirit. Indigeny, indigenous culture and spirituality is the fundamental path back to that renewed, healthy human-Spirit relationship and the essential ideological shift that so many people world-wide, whether they are indigenous or not yet aware of their indigenous soul, are correctly and currently calling for and working toward.

The above entry is copied in full from my blogspot.com page, "Indigeny and Energetics".....feel free to leave comments here or there if you are so inclined.  Thank you.

Please be free to read and respond to my initial letter to my communities to share in my upcoming initiation process toward Dagara Eldership...the second time in history that this has happened outside of Africa....this process led and guided by the work of Malidoma Some', African shaman, healer,  speaker, educator and Dagara Elder.

~~~~~~

To my family, loved ones, friends and colleagues,           
    As I scrapped my first attempt at writing this letter to you, I looked down and into the eyes of a child, full of life, on my saturday morning train to work and was reminded of the fundamental reason that I am called to communicate to you today.  He gazes up at me again, even now, and my eyes come to the point of tears as I feel the weight and repercussions of what I am writing to tell you.
    I have been recently confirmed to be an elder initiate in the Dagara tradition as brought to “the west” by Malidoma Patrice Some’, an elder of the Dagara people of Burkina Faso in West Africa.  Some of you may already know that I have completed a two-year intensive training called Indigenous African Spiritual Technologies, created by Malidoma, his fellow Dagara elders and the Ancestors.  This dynamic, seminal and amazing process of learning and growth has not changed the course of my life, but strengthened the course of my living.  As a teacher, writer, creator, musician, sound healer and shamanic practitioner, the traditional indigenous process that Malidoma has introduced to us has grounded and expanded my own conceptions and manifestations of the work I have been put here on earth to do.  My teaching at the college/university level may be one of the fullest recipients of this shift in my own consciousness, clarifying not only my way of being in the classroom, but also the very reason and motive for engaging young adults in an academic and transformative environment, facilitating their own processes of gaining insight, ways of looking at themselves and each other, redefining their concepts of the human condition and the requirements for being fully human in a world beset by mounting challenges, problems, social and spiritual disconnects and natural and social environmental changed of monumental proportions.
    This process of elder initiation, part of the living genius of indigenous culture, is one that is designed to raise an adult to a higher level of knowing, of communal, social action and spiritual engagement.  Traditionally, it is the initiated elder that was responsible for the overall guidance of the community, for the observance of the balance of energies and work and for the initiation of youth into adulthood, an element almost completely missing from modern cultural life which has exacerbated so many of the problems we face today, leaving young people, young adults unprepared for the challenges life so regularly presents to them, leaving them open to lives of violence, addictions, self-destruction, low self-esteem and emotional insecurity.  Elders are responsible for holding space and guiding the spiritual, physical and emotional security of the people, work that happens in front and behind the direct consciousness of the larger community.  The role of the elder is difficult and calls the initiate into a higher state of embrace of her or his own community and the world at large.
    The promise of this next step to eldership is for the marriage of old and new ways of recreating community and Ancestral connections in a society that finds itself estranged from its own heart.  The promise is for the reconnection of people to the essential and unquestionable cycle of nature, of earth, nature, water and life itself.  The promise is for a mind, a world at war with itself to be transformed through ritual, indigenous healing wisdom and the gift of good and functional and spiritually grounded counsel.  The promise is for the deepened and culturally informed commitment to the preparation of young people to be active, intelligent, compassionate and whole participants in the life of their communities and world, to enter into their own fundamental commitments to the stewardship of family, life, functional spirituality and the earth.  It is these promises that I know I was called to make as that child looked up at me, into my eyes, again and again, as I began to write this very letter.
    To say no to this call of elderhood is to say no to the idea that that child can and should be fully empowered in this world, safe from our most heinous acts of commission, ignorance, negligence and intended good.  To say no is to agree with modern, commercialized culture and its validation and aggrandizement of the shallow, the convenient and wasteful, the addictive, the cult of personality and apathetic ethical cowardice.  To say no is to relegate yet another segment of society to being without progressive humanitarian forces, educated and informed, to do compassionate battle for earth, water, nature and her children.
    I am writing to you today to inform you, engage you and invite you into participation with me and the keeping of my promise to that child, symbolic of children everywhere and the future of the world you may very well know that I work to co-create, the world that you have helped to define, helped me to define, the world that we cannot live without.  I am also asking for your support in a number of ways, in any way you can give it.
    The formal initiation of this second group of elders under the guidance of Malidoma at East Coast Village in Cherry Plain, NY, will span from July 10th to July 26th, 2009.  During that time, I will be put through numerous spiritual, physical and emotional trials, through numerous rituals for which I will need your moral, material and physical support.  There will be opportunities every day for you to come to East Coast Village for short visitations, which I can inform you further about.  There are also unlimited possibilities to send good thoughts, vibes, prayers and energy to me and the other initiates. 
    In addition, I am asking you to support my initiation by sending material monetary assistance to help cover the varied costs, consultations and ceremonies that have been performed already and will be done in Africa on my behalf.  This monetary support for me is one of the keys to the success of this process, one that would have traditionally come in the form of gifts of goats, hens or other food and services.  In our modern world, money is our current functional way of assisting transformational events such as these, yet bringing greater balance to a world that has been destabilized by an unrealistic primary focus on financial capital as opposed to the real gifts of human life and love.  I ask you, humbly, to give generously and as you are able, if you so choose, as this step in my process is expensive and in need of communal support.
    I will soon be sending out information on the divinations and numerology that I do in the Dagara tradition, part of my training and work, and other readings.  This may be an effective way for you to get a deeper understanding of this kind of indigenous spiritual work, gain clarity, direction and healing in your own life and support my initiation through providing exchange for these services.  My divination work is a key part of my spiritual work for individuals and, ultimately, the community as a whole.  You might also give the gift of a divination to someone you know and care about.
    Also, I may be making an African garment, called a boubou, available to you to adorn or make creative, loving attachments that are representative of your support and commitment to me at this time and to the promise I have made to this world to be a full, empowered participant.  You might also send me an item that I might attach to this garment that will become my symbol of spiritual and responsible advancement.  This attachment or decoration may be your wish for me, the world or a part of you that you wish that I carry forward with me in this important work, this important, crucial time in history.
    Finally and of great meaning and value in this support I ask of you, is your presence in our homecoming which will take place on saturday, July 25th as a crucial, vital part of our initiation.  I, along with the other initiates, will be in need of your love, your hugs, kisses, closeness and words of loving support and validation as I complete this step in the eldership process.  The more people and love we can generate, the more loving power and energy we can send the initiates out into the world, back into the arms of the beloved community with.
    As I sit at the pond near my residence, remembering my morning train child inspiration, now under a setting sun, I am reminded of the work that lay ahead of me: my proposed Ph.D., my research on the connection between media, spirit and our disconnection from nature; my book (hopefully my second!), “Indigeny and Energetics”, the historical reframing of  indigenous human culture and spirituality; my continued work in higher education, cultural media studies; the necessity of creating youth initiation programs; performing my communal spiritual work; the deeper work of affirming real, authentic, balanced, compassionate and empassioned manhood; and ultimately the validation of love in our lives and times.
    I truly thank you for hearing me at this most vital juncture of my life.  As so many of you probably know, I could have said much more, but I hope that these ‘few’, but heartfelt words have conveyed even a quarter of what this move toward Dagara eldership, this step toward a new relationship to human empowerment, means to me, East Coast Village, Malidoma, the Dagara elders and the Ancestors who watch over us and protect us and provide us immeasurable spiritual energy.
    Please be free to contact me at (my phone number), rohoyamto@earthlink.net or (my address in Massachusetts) if you need more information or would like to discuss this process with me.
    Your spiritual, emotional, physical, material and/or monetary support is essential to me at this time as all of you have been throughout my life, growth, learning, work and development.  Already, I am indebted to you for listening and supporting me thus far.
   
I thank you all,
I love and respect you all,

Ukumbwa Sauti


East Coast Village
252 Bly Hollow Road
Cherry Plain, NY
Robert Walker (East Coast Village Elder): robertdwalker@taconic.net

http://www.eastcoastvillage.org/

http://www.malidoma.com/

• Photo retrieved 6/20/09 from http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/enlarge/african-wild-dog-
youngster_image.html

"This is a train-wreck waiting to happen...and the locomotive is getting up to speed now.  People, please go to your local library and ask them to give you or acquire the documentary, "Mickey Mouse Monopoly" or the book, "The Mouse That Roared", by Giroux.  These two sources will explain some of the complexities of consumption of the disney stories.  There ARE definite problems with the standard disney formula of depicting non-European characters, women (and, therefore, men) and historical content.  In short, much of disney's work has been negatively stereotypical, sexist and anti-historical, the latter of which is not a problem if the society that consumes the work is already firmly grounded in historical reality and perspective, which the USAmerica is NOT.

I am concerned most for the patently uncritical, fawning, thank-god-for-disney, talk that I've been reading on the blogosphere.  If this were just another of disney's all-too-thinly drawn and sexist princesses, we'd have enough to tackle with the self-esteem of young girls already suffering due to the sexualization of overly-thin and physically-impossible models.  The disney princesses are a disempowered bunch of "women" who are all patiently awaiting their princes to come and save them, validate them and sweep them off into some imagineered fantasy that doesn't, of course, exist.  Again, THIS would be no problem if we didn't already live in a world full of sexist practice and media messages that accompany constant male violence against women, unequal pay, unequal social access and power and a narrowing of the feminine experience into a quicksand pit of consumerism.  Since when was any disney princess at the center of any women's movements' imagery or discourse, if only to negatively critique them?  Now add the element of Tiana's Africanity and what do we get?...a New Orleans-style blackened princess who, as stated by another respondent on another site, spends a bulk of her on-screen time as a frog.  Interesting. Then we can question - EASILY - why voodoo/vodou/vodun is yet again demonized as a criminal context like in so many movies and books in this culture when it would have been a powerful spiritual cultural element if the stories had been told by conscious African(-American) writers.  Voodoo is an African religion/spiritual system, not a foil for euro-christian exploitation and devaluation.  Consider for a moment if we reduced Roman Catholics to a bunch of raging lunatics who preyed upon helpless soles [with] bread hexed with demonic energies and spells.  I am sure the vatican would begin its lawsuits at the first hint and its public outcry.

Are we to assume that Tiana will hold more and deeper cultural space for Africans (and others)in USAmerica than Yaa Asantewa, Queen Tiye,and Queen Nzingha?  These were/are REAL women!  And we're salivating at the thought of a disney-fied African(-American) princess?

Yes, we could back away from the discussion of race altogether, the discussion of sustained and current degradation of African and other indigenous lifeways in this culture, but we'd be sliding yet deeper down the slope of ignorance and myopia as we deny the presence of the very social ills we say we're so far beyond.  

You tell a woman with a husband-blackened eye sitting on her safe-house bed that a character like Belle is just harmless entertainment.  You tell a woman whose father (and/or mother) silenced her spirit and voice from her early childhood days (I know too many with this experience) that Arielle's sacrifice at the end of her story is just fantasy.  You tell an African woman who has met and bested the challenges of holding life, family and spirit together in the face of the legacy of slavery, emotional and historical assault and economic marginalization that a faux-princess that just happens to share her skin color is going to be some liberating messiah of cultural ascendancy, lifting her pain, her wounds and bestowing upon her a renewed sense of self just because some multi-billion-dollar corporation decided to appropriate her image and make a sad, but successful attempt to capitalize upon her vulnerability, selling it back to her as "fantasy", "fun" and "diversity".

"Mickey Mouse Monopoly" reported the statement by disney's past CEO, Michael Eisner, that they had no duty to educate or teach or enlighten, only to make money.  This is what disney does to this day...and they will use any means to do so.  They don't do this to make us feel good about ourselves...and if we do, we are doing so with the curtain pulled securely around the wizard...never looking beyond the veil of "fantasy" and "wonder" and technical acumen behind which disney ignorantly and arrogantly spins tale after tale about culture and history and masculinity/femininity...

Part of the problem here is that we ARE believing the hype.  disney is very good at that.  We'll probably consume Tiana at record levels right on the heels of every other sad carbon-copied disney female character, only this time with greater energy, fueled by ideas of "finally, a black disney princess" and "oh, I just can't wait!" and other such blind grasps at honoring the diversity that is this USAmerican culture...albeit at odds with itself.

This movie, no matter how technically wonderful, as it will be, is bound to be full of historical, cultural and gender potholes, if the trailer is in any way representative of the full-length movie.  But don't believe me, just because I'm saying it, or have studied these elements for years any more than you should simply eat everything that disney dishes out on its pretty plates.  Please, doing your daughters and sons an important favor and service and duty, check out the documentary and/or book as suggested, in essence...check the list of ingredients of your media before you consume it.  Or do we just feed our children food without really knowing what's in it?   Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm....."

I guess I can't get the concept of "train-wreck" out of my head on this one.  Somebody tell me I'm really off on this one....please...I'd love to relax into my summer haze and eat corn dogs and buy unrecyclable foam coolers for $1.99......land of the almost-free, baby.

This one was snagged from the following page/URL

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=40873

oy redux.

I'm sorry, I couldn't look away...there were too many links.....the crap was all too deep...the stench too odiforous....I dare say, go to the site below to read what these people are saying about Tiana, the "Black" princess and Disney....and us/humans/African people.......

http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/2008/08/first-black-disney-princess-in-theaters-christmas-2009-trailer/

There are alot of responses to this one, including mine...which as of this post is probably being looked over by the moderator....(yikes...I suspect a conspiracy....I click submit and it tells me, "Duplicate comment detected;
it looks as though you've already said that!"  I hope that means it went through....ok, here's what came outa my digital pie-hole....(tell me if you see this post there!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We're kidding, right?  We have to be!  We are STILL WAITING for DISNEY, of all cultural bandits, to throw out on its big-screen toilet seat a culturally sensitive version of a woman?...a princess?...let alone an AFRICAN(-America) princess?  We have every right to watch out for this one.  Disney has done nothing but create models of dependent, weak, sexualized women in their major franchise of so-called princesses (ain't one of 'em got an army and I ain't seen no map of their princessdoms...where are their families? Show me some real female power here....but no....that's not what they do!)

For all of the women clamouring to take their daughters to this movie.....please, please, PLEASE, I implore you.....go first by yourself.  Media images can be powerful.  Listen to the  bell hooks critiques or to Jean Kilbourne or Susan Faludi.  These women are actually thinking and caring about your daughters.  Disney wants YOUR money and your daughters' allegiance to characters that don't represent them, that narrow their definitions as women and create stories of dependency and oppression.  PLEASE check out the documentary, "Mickey Mouse Monopoly" before you watch or buy anything else Disney-fied (Demand it from your local libraries!).  Please, for the sake of their self-esteem.  If any of you are so concerned, but need more information, please look at the above writers/academics.  Also reference, "THe Mouse That Roared" by Giroux.  (Sweet mother, my sentence structure is all discombobulated now!)....(sigh....methinks I'm sweating)....

It truly concerns me that in this day and age, we have knee-jerk reactions to anything promised to be "black" in the public eye.  Neither Obama nor Tiana is gonna save African people from our own task of redefining ourselves (have we learned nothing from Kwanzaa? - or are we waiting for Disney to make a Kwanzaa movie before we think that's ok?!), looking into our past to mine the depth, the wealth of queendoms, kingdoms and chiefdoms, of political and spiritual ascendency, of governance, of communalism beyond "why can't we all just get along", of real technological advancement on every level of being.  Disney knows nothing of all that and I wouldn't trust them with 1% of our history as African people.  We have way too many film and tv producers, far too many writers, far too many teachers and professors, far to many thinkers and doers and lovers of truth and creators and poets to depend on a $ingle-minded, cycloptic megalith like Disney to throw us one more doe-eyed, disempowered princess....whether she be black, Black, Blaque, African, African-American, Afro-American, Negroid, Africoid, Carribean, Nubian, Abyssinian, Ethiopian or whatever they wanna draw us as."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a train-wreck in the making.

oy....another frustrated response to some frustrating discourse about the even more frustrating idea of DIsney creating an African(-American) princess.....you've got to read it to believe it....just "google" disney black princess and see what shows up....but this entry is (copied in full) from the following page:

http://joannejacobs.com/2009/04/27/second-guessing-disneys-black-princess/

At this moment, the response is up for moderation, so might not even show up if people's sensibilities get a little snipped....too bad.

I was non-plussed by the responses.....please go and see, but don't stay long....


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

" No, an inter-racial couple isn't racist, but it is in the tradition of racism that many African people in solitary/tokenized situations are not matched with those of their own heritage.  Breaking up the African family was a program of slavery in this country and it took media form by showing few if any solid African family units.  The Evans family in TV's "Good Times" was one of the few up until later years into the 90's when the largely de-culturized African family showed up.  Point of reference....look up the challenges of Eric Lasalle as Benton in "ER" and his critiques of the writers and producers in putting him in repeated, but troubled relationships with African women, but his only sustainable one was with a European woman (British).

And the voodoo connection does not demonize a character, but the portrayal can demonize voodoo.  Voodoo, or better Vodou/Vodun, is a powerful African spiritual system that is practiced in many forms in many places by many people.  Our USAmerican relationship to voodoo is one of comedy/tragedy, people largely ignorant of what and how it is, so when we hear of it, we assume it must be a negative connection.  Standard christian policies demonize vodou and many other indigenous traditions, spiritual or otherwise.

In addition, the Disney attempts to portray anything but weak, dependent women is almost non-existent.  They are at least a constant disappointment to anyone who cares about education, clarity and cultural justice.  Much of what Disney does is oppressive and shallow, sexist and racist all at once.  I think they are better off leaving African people, Asians, Native Americans, merpeople, women and animals out of their stories altogether.  Let them talk about what they know: narrow-minded, self-absorbed European, middle-aged men whose worldviews are as wide as the princesses' barely-there waistlines and as deep as the one-dimensional characters they are used to creating.

"as long as she's pretty"? "stay cute, make money"?!?  You've got to be kidding!!"

Unluckily....I don't think they were kidding.  

Oy.

From Facebook in response to the above link:

Ukumbwa Sauti M.Ed. at 4:58pm May 7

"OMg!....now that I've read the article I am ABSOLUTELY sure this was most stupid, backwards, inane, idiotic thing for adults to involve themselves in. This is the image of freedom we want to have of ourselves as we put our chicken-engorged heads down to sleep at night?!? Yes, this is USAmerican free-dumb! Was she trying to "feed the masses"? This is ALL kinds of wrong....Folks, let's get a clue...and some social integrity!

What do we say to our children after we come home from a freakin' "protest" at a chicken joint cuz we couldn't get two free pieces of dead poultry muscle?!?!?
Yeah, we're the ones who kill who kill and fight for toys and big-screen TVs at Xmess! There's your bed-time story, little Meghan.

Sleep on that."

See the other hundreds (and growing) of posts on the Book of Face.   Maddening.
(the Oprah photo is from the above NPR URL)

Required reading.....

...for anyone studying indigeny, energetics, indigenous spirituality, christianity, European religious history, culture, philosophy.  This is a fundamental work in understanding the relationship of Native American/indigenous spirituality and religious concepts and their relationship to european christianity and the peoples that carried these two traditions.  Deloria makes a clear and concise case for the reevaluation of the efficacy and function of christianity outside of its cultural space and in all of the geographic and cultural spaces it has been forced into.  Christianity, in Deloria's critique, clearly becomes a brickish template slammed down upon the more culturally congruent and functional spiritual and religious concepts and practices that were created and practiced by Native Americans on Turtle Island (north America) as opposed to the avenue of ultimate salvation that christians have characterized it as.  Deloria shows this to not only be fraudulent, but impossible because of the very nature of spiritual/religious creation by humans in time and space.  "God Is Red" is a valiant representation of spirituality /religion as a functional, organic cultural production and relationship with Spirit, not merely a dogmatic exercise and tool for socio-political, psycho-sexual and imperial control.

Deloria's calcuation of the culturally divergent conceptions and uses of space and time shine forth as academic genius from his pages.  This is key to his thesis.

If "God Is Red" is not on your reading list, your understanding of indigenous spirituality and religion may not be complete.  It should be read in every christian seminary, school and missionary headquarters.  If christian missionaries and developers of missiology would understand (largely a matter of openness and choice, not intelligence, of course), embrace and live the truths of Deloria's work in this text, mission work and other forms of proselytizing would cease for the betterment of all those whose cultures have been and are still yet to be depowered and destroyed by the unGodly superimpositiion of christian concepts and practices upon people's for whom these displaced and contentious ideas and lifeways were never meant.

The following is my response to a Blogger post entitled: "Pope: the economic crises is an opportunity to rediscover the real meaning of Christmas " by Alice/White Light Black Light.

"I appreciate the Pope making this point about xmas.  The problem with this hollow statement (the symbolism of which can be used progressively for those so inclined, so thank you to him for that) is that he does not openly and actively speak about the problems of capitalism and corporate imperialism and its negative spiritual, physical and ideological function in this world.  Even with his papal mandate, he does not have the fortitude to speak truth, full truth in the face of one of the most degrading and oppressivve systems the world has known to date.  And largely, the xian community does not speak up or act against the inequities or injustices of capitalism-inspired and empowered consumerism.  His message is hollow and therefore even further damaging as it may lead his followers to believe that something is happening out of the power of HIS word...which it does not.  His words are placation, pat and at the very most symbolic.  If he were to actually believe and act upon the full meaning of his words, he would be gutting the vatican of all the gold and silver from plundered peoples and lands, foregoing the materialist consumerism of the roman catholic church....a real and powerful action and message that would serve as great symbolism and example to those who actually feel his leadership has any genuine and positive ramifications in this world.

Thank you for posting this message, but I must reiterate that we must look deeper into the actions of the catholic church historically  and currently (including the rampant disrespect of indigenous life and spirituality by the vatican in particular and the roman catholic church in general).

On another point, I challenge the pope to interpret the "real meaning of [xmas]" in a functional way that helps his followers actually apply the lessons the bible may have to offer for peace and justice to occur on the ground and in the lives of people worldwide.  I challenge the pope to apply his own  holy book to help us realize the spiritual call to embrace the earth as a sacred entity and to resolve the patterns of natural resource extraction, processing, production, sale and waste that is the core of the consumerism in his world.

The pope should check out "the story of stuff" on youtube, read some Nkrumah, Zinn, Ture, Deloria, LaDuke, Chomsky, THEN get back to us.

What was that story about an eye of a needle and getting into heaven?....or that thing about the plank in one's own eye?!  Hmmmmm."

The original post can be found at the following url:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8352560&postID=2884514073424601934&page=1

Now that I think about it - maybe I don't really appreciate the pope's point about xmas.  Hmmmmmmm.

<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OqZMTY4V7Ts&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OqZMTY4V7Ts&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>

 

 

 

"Put "environmentalism" into your search engine and see what comes up.

                        (long pause.... waiting for you to do as suggested.... ok...do it later...)

            As I pondered the relationship of environmentalism and revolutionary energetics in the purview of the information supersidewalk, I was confused, surprised and disappointed considering my assumption of the positive nature of a movement or set of ideas named "environmentalism".  Envisioning images of well-written picket sign slogans outside of corporate headquarters, brave and valiant, nay intrepid eco-warriors in Navy Seal-esque inflatables buzzing behemoth high-tech whaling ships on the cold, open seas and quietly powerful women setting up shop in beloved trees, I was summarily smited by such resources as:

 "Environmentalism.com home

  Links and articles analyzing the destructive religion of environmentalism."

 "The Death of Environmentalism

 File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML

 In this remarkable report on how environmentalism became a special ...

modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ..."

"Environmentalism Refuted - George Reisman - Mises Institute

 Environmentalism is the product of the collapse of socialism in a world that is  ignorant of the contributions of Ludwig von Mises-a world that does

not know ..."
 "The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights: Environmentalism and ...

 Argues that environmentalism uses false scientific claims to frighten the unwary , has a doomsday mentality reminiscent of Dark Age fanatics, ..."

 (electronic search, Google, retrieved 10/25/08 from   http://www.google.com/search?q=environmentalism&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

The above links were not the only ones that came screaming bloody-humanity-murder off of my computer screen, but they were the ones that demanded the most of my attention.  As a student of progressive and revolutionary social movements and politics (and physics), I know that there is always a reactionary backlash to any substantial progressive or revolutionary action or set of ideas.  The presence of these websites on the first of many pages about environmentalism was a clear statement of the organizational power of these reactionary forces and, unluckily, a tip-off to a possible deficit of organization of the environmental movement, at least on the pages of Google. 

            I wondered why one of the first links, "environmentalism.com" was an anti-environmentalism page.  Had no one in the environmentalist movement thought about, cared enough or had enough money or time to safeguard one of the main portals to information about one of the most dynamic and enlightening ideological thrusts in these modern times?  Was the environmentalist movement merely a hodge-podge of under-funded and over-emotional neo-hippies sitting at their Macintosh laptops in their hardwood-floored group-domiciles in Cambridge, Austin, Oakland and Portland?  I wasn't sure, but then I couldn't remember the last time I met someone who proudly and expansively bore the moniker of "environmentalist" on their sleeve or in their words (interestingly enough, my experience with "republicans" and "democrats" is much the same).

            Perusing environmentalism.com, embarrassed that the ‘bad guys' had outbid ‘us' on ‘our' domain name, I found their reference to the Unabomber as an "explicit environmentalist" akin to the same extreme kookism that marks the globalization movement's characterization of anything or anyone remotely smelling, walking or talking like socialism (peoplism as I like to call it conversationally), a system which focuses primary attention and resources to the needs of humanity.  Silly, right?  Deep within that kookism reference, the parallel between anti-peoplism and anti-environmentalism was clear.

            The nature of that first Google page could have also lent itself to the pernicious move of the capitalist corporatocracy toward the destruction of net neutrality, a real and current effort that threatens the democratic nature of the internet and would render non-tribute-paying (read progressive, socially-responsible and/or peoplist) sites imperceptible or virtually inoperational in the web realm.

            Nefarious machinations of the capitalist corporatocracy (thank you, John Perkins, for a perfectly concrete and functional buzzconcept) notwithstanding for the purposes of this communiqué, there is an element of our human experience that is deeply missing from the somewhere-over-the-radar work of environmentalism and the steadfast legions of reducers, reusers and recyclers.  The contemporary environmental/green movement is missing a major power dynamic in its attempt to bring balance back to our natural world.  We find ourselves doing material things in relationship to our desire to "save the earth".  We find ourselves doing political things, all be they rocks against a brick wall (not pessimism, but a reminder that if the rocks are numerous and big enough, brick walls can be reduced to dust) in the interest of creating a world free of rampant pollution and animal (including human) extinction.  We find ourselves doing physical things, biking instead of driving fossil fuel vehicles, taking stairs instead of elevators, building green buildings instead of status quo office complexes to help cool a warming globe.

            And we still find ourselves in the lurch of wholism and functional completion in our efforts to live in harmony, in balance with the very physical and naturo-spiritual reality that gave us birth."

Copyright 2008 Ukumbwa Sauti


 

http://indigeny-energetics.blogspot.com/

Please take a moment to check out my new blog on Indigeny and Energetics on Blogspot.  I'd appreciate any feedback on my development of these ideas.  I am working on a book and will be looking to get quotes and input from indigenous people around the world and people who are studying indigenous spiritual techonologies and traditions. 

Here is a copy of my first post:

Indigeny and Energetics Introduction 01

This work around indigeny and energetics seeks to place indigenous thought and practice, including naturo-spiritual dynamics (nature and human spiritual development have always been partners in history), in its correct historical perspective, to empower indigenous people and others through a change in conceptual outlook and an opportunity to move humanity forward in time with the correct vision and intellectual and spiritual motives. Indigeny and energetics seeks to provide a place for the organization of thought and work that has been put into a tailspin by the forces and ideas of modernity/capitalism and the machine/industrial age, which the framework of indigeny puts into a correct perspective as a sub-cultural, functionally-limited and necessarily temporary socio-political dynamic.

Indigeny and energetics concepts are strengthened by the substantial and growing awareness of the relationship of capitalism/consumerism/ materialism to the continuing destruction of the natural environment, the home and sustenance of humanity on both the physical and spiritual planes. Indigeny has existed for thousands, upon millions of years - modernity for about 250 to 500 years at most in its infancy, adolescence and adulthood. Modernity is aging quickly, becoming outmoded, fraught with irreconcilable ideological and material conflicts. These conflicts cannot be mitigated within the offending system due to the nature of its shortcomings.

This blog is offered as a repository of the initial literary developments and writings of indigeny and energetics (concepts developed by Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed.) in particular and as a place for discourse on the issues of sustainability, environmentalism, spirituality, religion, media, modern culture and technology in general.

Ukumbwa Sauti is informed and guided by the works of Malidoma Some’, Vine Deloria, Jr., Winona LaDuke, Jerry Mander, John Perkins, Kwame Nkrumah, Seku Ture, Malcolm X/El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Ted Andrews, Bernadette McDonald/Douglas Jehl, David Helvarg, George Gerbner, Ben Bagdikian, St, Suzan Baltozer, Don Jorge Tamayo and the millions upon millions of indigenous people who have contributed so beautifully to the great body of knowledge and work and life and living experience that we know as human development.