STEPPING STONES 07/10/16 BY OJI MANI FOUNDATION A Charitable Organization For World Relief

Volume 2, Issue 27, July 10, 2016

In this issue...

Public Service Announcements

Quote Of The Week: Dr. Amos N. Wilson

Book Of The Month: “The Wretched Of The Earth” by Frantz Fanon

It’s YOUR Health: Drug Related Crimes

Historical Fact Of The Week: African Americans: Part XXXVIII

Editorial Commentary: Coming!   

 

Public Service Announcements

• The rechartering for The Head Cornerstone Corporation in the State Of Delaware as well as all updated business licenses and associated issues are forth coming pending litigation. Thank you.
• Visit WWW.Ready.gov at your earliest convenience so that you may be informed of basic protective measures before, during, and after disasters/emergencies, learn disaster prepared activities, training, plans, and what shelters are in or near your community, develop an emergency plan for yourself and your family in the event of an actual disaster/emergency, build an disaster/emergency supply kit including a basic emergency medical/trauma bag in case of an event, and GET INVOLVED!
• Get your CPR (Cardio-Pulomonary Resuscitation) and Basic First Aid/First Responder/Basic Life Support including child birth and Emergency Pediatric Care training today. Check with the American Heart Association at WWW.Heart.org for locations. It may just save a life.
•  It’s a lot of fun and excitement, it’s healthy, it’s a great family activity, and it’s very practical. Find a course in self defense for you and your loved ones and learn to protect yourselves. You just never know.
•  We have the constitutional right to BEAR ARMS and many states have the CCW (Conceal Carry Weapon) License for when you and your loved ones are outside of your home environment. Search the web for free information concerning the Conceal Carry Laws as well as other valuable information. Get the CCW License today (where applicable) for you and your family members of age and LEARN HOW TO SHOOT. You’ll feel better that you did.
•  WATER; it’s very essential for normal body functions and not only carries nutrients to your cells, but flushes out the toxins in are bodies that lead to diseases such as cancers, diabetes, and heart diseases. According to the Mayo Clinic and the Institute of Health, water consumption varies for each person depending on many factors associated with life styles, such as current health, activities, and where you live. Be informed about what your daily intake should be and “drink up”. It will make YOUR world a better place.

Public Service Announcements

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We must recognize that the function of education involves securing the survival of a people, advancing their interests, enhancing their quality of life. Educational establishments are as much a part of defense establishment of a people as is their army. A people bereft of educational institutions dedicated and designed to defend their interests and to solve their problems, are essentially a defenseless people, a people vulnerable to the exploitation of other peoples as well as vulnerable to annihilation.”

“The Psychology of Cooperative Economics in the Afrikan-American Community”

Dr. Amos N. Wilson

1941 - 1995

An African American former Social Caseworker, Psychological Counselor, Supervising Probation Officer, Training Administrator in the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the City University of New York, Master Teacher, Organizer, Author, Activist, Pan-Africanist, and entrepreneur. He was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1941.

Familiarly referred to as Brother Amos, he provided the average person with an acute analysis of where we are and the things that affect us. He served as a council to energize our race and those in positions of influence as to how to carry out their leadership responsibilities. Dr. Wilson's activities transcended academia into the fields of business, owning and operating various enterprises in the greater New York area.

Dr. Wilson's Works:

The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child (NY: Africana Research Publications, 1978)

   Are Black and White Children the same? Is the Black Child merely a White Child who 'happens' to be 'painted' Black? Are there any significant differences in the mental and physical growth and development of Black and White Children? What effects does race awareness have on the mental and personality development of Black Children? Are such leisure time activities as the playing of certain games, watching TV., going to the movies, listening to the radio, hazardous to the mental health of Black Children? Is the use of Black English a sign of mental inferiority? Why do Black Children generally score lower than White Children on I.Q. tests? Do Black parents socialize their children to be inferior to White Children? Why have integrated schools and busing failed so many Black Children? If you have been looking for a single source which deals with these and related controversial questions from a black perspective, then this book may be the book for you. For between its covers, The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child, the first of a UBCS series of books dealing with the growth, development, and education of the black child, in a scholarly but readily understandable way, forthrightly confronts these and other issues.

Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children (NY: Afrikan World InfoSystems, 1992)

   Afrikan children are naturally precocious and gifted. They begin life with a 'natural head start.' However, their natural genius it too frequently underdeveloped and misdirected by (1) the fact that the racist and imperialist status quo politically mandates their intellectual under-achievement and social maladaptiveness; (2) belief in the myth that intelligence is fixed at birth and that Afrikans are innately less intelligent than Europeans; (3) a lack of knowledge of their positively unique developmental psychology; (4) a lack of confidence in their ability to equal or surpass the intellectual performance of any other ethnic group; and (5) the general lack of infant and early childhood educational experiences which stimulate, sustain and actualize their abundant human potential. Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children provides effective means by which these political and social maladies may be fully remedies. Intelligence is not fixed at birth. The quality of children’s educational experiences during infancy and early childhood are substantially related to their measured intelligence, academic achievement and prosocial behavior. In this volume, Amos N. Wilson, author of the bestseller, The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child, surveys the daily routines, child-rearing practices, parent-child interactions, games and play materials, parent-training and pre-school programs which have made demonstrably outstanding and lasting differences in the intellectual, academic and social performance of Black children.

Black-On-Black Violence: The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilation in Service of White Domination   (NY: Afrikan World InfoSystems, 1990)

   The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilation in Service of White Domination represents a distinct milestone in criminology and Afrikan Studies. Its explanatory perspectives on the sociopsychological and politicoeconomic causes of Black-on-Black Violence are exceptionally insightful, incisive and iconoclastic. The Psychodynamics of the Black-on-Black criminal are presented here with a depth and clarity rarely seen before.

   The main thesis of this book is that the operational existence of Black-on-Black in the United States is psychologically and economically mandated by the White American-dominated status quo. The criminalization of the Black American male is a psychopolitically engineered process designed to maintain the dependency and relative powerlessness of the Afrikan American and Pan-African communities.

   Black-on-Black Violence, however, moves far beyond blaming the victimizer. Its meticulous and painstaking exposure of the psycho-social and intrapsychical dynamics of Black-on-Black criminality is startlingly revealing. Its analyses of the collective psyches of both the White American and Black American communities are unsparingly and powerfully instructive. The reader will not be left unmoved.

   Although Professor Wilson argues that Black-on-Black Violence is orchestrated by White America’s need to maintain its oppressive domination of Black America, and of Western Europe’s need to continue-without end-its economic exploitation of Africa, he also contends that the ending of Black-on-Black violence is the primary, if not sole, responsibility of African people in America and abroad. This book, in revealing the anatomy of Black-on-Black violence, simultaneously lays the practical, intellectual and political foundations for its social eradication.

Understanding Black Male Adolescent Violence: Its Remediation and Prevention (NY: Afrikan World InfoSystems, 1992)

   In this ground-breaking volume, Amos Wilson shows in brilliant detail how American society creates and sustains Black-on-Black adolescent criminality in its inner-cities across the United States. He boldly asserts that Black-on-Black adolescent violence is rooted in historical and contemporary White-on-Black violence. He further argues that White-on-Black violence induces in the Afrikan American community a pervasive false consciousness, one which interacts with the adolescent crises of Black males and the socioeconomic conditions which typify inner-city communities to spawn criminality and violence. More than an explanatory analysis of Black male adolescent criminality, Understanding Black Adolescent Male Violence provides very practical and workable remedial and preventative approaches to this problem which threatens the vitality of the Afrikan American community.

The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness: Eurocentric History, Psychiatry, and the Politics of White Supremacy (NY: Afrikan World InfoSystems, 1993)

   This book presents two ground-breaking lectures by Amos Wilson. The first, European Historiography and Oppression Exposed: An Afrikan Perspective and Analysis, was among the first contemporary analyses which delineated the role Eurocentric history-writing plays in rationalizing European oppression of Afrikan consciousness. It explicates why we should study history, how history-writing shapes the psychology of peoples and individuals, how Eurocentric history as mythology creates historical amnesia in Afrikans in order to rob them of the material, mental, social and spiritual wherewithal for overcoming poverty and oppression. Moreover, this engrossing lectures the relationship between the rediscovery and rewriting of Afrikan history and achievement of liberation and prosperity by Afrikan peoples. The second lecture, Eurocentric Political Dogmatism: Its Relationship to the Mental Health Diagnosis of Afrikan People, advances the contention that the alleged mental and behavioral maladaptiveness of oppressed Afrikan peoples is a political-economic necessity for the maintenance of White domination and imperialism. Furthermore, it indicts the Eurocentric mental health establishment for entering into collusion with the Eurocentric political establishment to oppress and exploit Afrikan peoples by officially sanctioning these egregious practices through its misdiagnosing, mislabeling, and mistreating of Afrikan peoples’ behavioral reactions to their oppression and their efforts to win their freedom and independence.

Blueprint for Black Power: A Moral, Political, and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century (NY: Afrikan World InfoSystems, 1998)

   Blueprint for Black Power details a master plan for the power revolution necessary for Black survival in the 21st century. Blueprints posits that an African American/Caribbean/Pan-African bloc would be most potent for the generation and delivery of Black power in the United States and the World to counter White and Asian power networks. Wilson frames this imperative by deconstructing the U.S. elite power structure of government, political parties, think tanks, corporations, foundations, media, interest groups, banking and foreign investment particulars. Potentially strong Black institutions as the church, media and think tanks; industry; collectives such as investment clubs and credit unions; rotating credit associations such as Afrikan-originated esusu, tontine and partner are analyzed. Pan-Afrikanism, Black Nationalism, ethnocentrism and reparation are assessed, often misused and underused financial institutions as securities, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, underwriting, and incubators advocated, thus elucidating oft-negated opportunities for economic empowerment.

Afrikan-Centered Consciousness versus The New World Order: Garveyism in the Age of Globalism

   In two masterful lectures contained within the pages of this modest text, Dr. Wilson challenges the all too pervasive assumption and false perception that the "New World Order" is somehow ordained -- that if Afrikan people are to progress, they have no other alternative but to remain colonized by White-Western interests. This of course is patently false. Dr. Wilson debunks this myth with an insightful analysis of the Legacy of Marcus Garvey and the proven validity of Afrikan-Centered Consciousness as necessary psychological and material tools in the struggle for true liberation.

Dr. Wilson Speaks On (DVDs):

The Psychological Alienation of Black America

The Impact of the Media on the Afrikan Psyche

Black-On-Black Violence

The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness

The Transformation of Afrikan Consciousness

The Euro-American Roots of Violence, Criminality, & Terrorism

Special Education and Black Children

Riot or Revolt: An Urban Analysis

Global White Supremacy

"When we get into social amnesia - into forgetting our history - we also forget or misinterpret the history and motives of others as well as our motives. The way to learn of our own creation, how we came to be what we are, is getting to know ourselves. It is through getting to know the self intimately that we get to know the forces that shaped us as a self. Therefore knowing the self becomes a knowledge of the world. A deep study of Black History is the most profound way to learn about the psychology of Europeans and to understand the psychology that flows from their history.

If we don’t know ourselves, not only are we a puzzle to ourselves; other people are also a puzzle to us as well. We assume the wrong identity and identify ourselves with our enemies. If we don’t know who we are then we are whomever somebody tells us we are."

—the late Dr. Amos N. Wilson, an Afrocentric psychologist (The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness," Afrikan World InfoSystems, New York (1993) p. 38)

Dr. Amos Wilson died in 1995 under mysterious circumstances. Few understand how he died; yet the method appears similar to Dr. Khalid Muhammad’s death. Both were warriors for the African race. Dr. Amos Wilson asked:

   “Why does the Black man say, “freedom is doing what I want to do!” and why is it that every thing he “wants to do” enriches the European?”

In light of Marcus Garvey’s quotation (1920s), in light of Carter G. Woodson’s statements (1930s), but also in light of Ibn Battuta statement on our excellence (1300s) our work will reward us.

The African Blood Siblings has pointed out the North Star. It’s time to point it out to others. This is how so many of our ancestors liberated our ancestors. This is how we will liberate ourselves. Inspire other ABS readers in everyone (thank them for subscribing), collect other ABS leaders from your age-grade (your community will become Prosperous, Independent and African). While resting, read the excerpt below.

It’s Dr. Amos Wilson’s last interview. In addition, I added many hyperlinks; so if you read something that he said as interesting, I added more information from the ABS site.

They killed this ancestor but his ideas live on in you and communities. He was writing “Blueprint for Black Power” (order from an African-owned store here) and they killed him but the ideas live on and Black Power is ours. Continue your work on the African Blood Siblings Community Centers (write to help more) and distribute our flyer; our restored Communities will internationally connect. We are the redeemers of Africa.

1. AMOS WILSON’S LAST INTERVIEW 1995

{Excerpt from Dr. Amos N. Wilson’s Last Interview done by Muzunga Nia of RAW (Real Afrikan World, in January 1995 in his hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.}

RAW: Now you have raised the possibility of genocide before in books such as Black-on-Black Violence. Could you briefly talk about how Black-on-Black crime serves white supremacy by playing a role in our own genocide?

WILSON: Well, what we are experiencing in the African American community is not just confined to America. You’ll find this experience in the Caribbean, in Africa, wherever you have large populations of Black people. You go to Brazil Black children are being shot in the streets; people just get in their cars and shoot Black children. You will find this sort of thing going on in Uruguay. A lot of us don’t realize that there are large populations of Black People in Central America and South America. Africa is suffering tremendously. You can even look the millions of Blacks in Europe. We are finding that there is a general oppression of Black people across the globe as the global economic system reorganizes itself, and reorganizes itself in a way to leave Blacks out of the global economic system, just as they are being left out of domestic economic systems. What you’re getting here when it comes back to Black-on-Black violence are reactions to the dynamic economic changes.

You’ve got a lot of people who want to lay all of this on family values and the absence of old time religion and things of this nature. And while that’s a part of the mix, you cannot just blame this all on the loss of family values. People don’t eat values, you know. You have to actually work; you have to feed your family. There are concrete material things that people have to have. The mere training of people in family values is not going to solve this problem. As a matter of fact, when you transform people’s material position in the world, you transform their values. So a part of transformation of the values that we complain about is a result of the transformation of the concrete living conditions of Black people.

The key to understanding the relationship that Black-on-Black crime has to white supremacy and genocide is knowing the context in which the problem occurs. Too often people want to talk about the problems that exist in the Black community as if they are unconnected to everything else going on in the country. This is a terrible mistake in analysis. You have to begin with the political and economic context in which a people exist in order to begin to understand their behavior. When Blacks commit violence against other Blacks, they’re committing it within a certain political economic context. Violent acts are social acts. We may call them anti-social, but they are still social, whether anti- or pro-, which means that they have to do with the nature of relationships between people. That’s what we mean when we use the word social. If we are to understand the social relationship of Blacks to whites and to the social and political system in which we exist When we look at this system under which we exist as Black people, we’ll see a connection between it and the kind of behavior the Black community is undergoing at this particular time.

RAW: So you’re saying that the rising tide of Black-on-Black crime is a direct result of the position of powerlessness that we currently occupy vis-a-vis the restructuring global economy?

WILSON: Yes, to a very great extent. We don’t think of crime as serving a social function. Some people’s negative behavior serves the interest of other people. For instance, Black children dropping out of school serves the interests of other people’s children, who then don’t have Black people to compete against. Our dropping out becomes a service to those who then can enter the positions for which we are no longer in competition…. As a matter of fact, during the first reconstruction, Blacks were robbed of the 40 acres and a mule promised them by the U.S. government as part of the REPARATIONS for slavery. A lot of people think that’s just a myth; but that was an actual act of Congress. This would have given Blacks an economic leg up, an economic independence which would have served as a platform for our political independence as well…. the white planter recognized that if you gave Black people this kind of land, they would not be able to use them in the cotton fields; they wouldn’t be able to profit from their destitution. It’s important to understand how you actually create poverty in a people so that you can use their services. You strip them of everything; therefore, they become utterly dependent upon you, and you use their dependency as a means of creating your own wealth and power.

Black people aren’t poor by accident. This serves the interest of somebody. The energy that we put into hurting each other is the energy that we can’t use to compete against other people. The stereotypes of Black-on-Black crime serve as a justification for other people to take advantage of us. But in a deeper sense, it serves to hide the criminality of whites. It makes us think that whites in America are not criminals and have not created a criminal.

RAW: Now is it not true that numerically and statistically, whites commit more violent crimes than Blacks?

WILSON: Definitely, just as there are more whites on welfare. Because of the media, you are lead to believe that Blacks are the only ones on welfare. But whites get far far more money out of the U.S. government. Most of the money distributed by the U.S. government is paid to middle class white folks and upper-class white folks while we are made to believe that it is the poor Blacks and the people on welfare that are getting the bulk of the money from the federal government. You see, a service is performed there. While the white upper class robs the nation of its wealth, and even robs the white middle class, the elites point to Blacks as the ones who are bankrupting America.

This is why you get image after image of Blacks on welfare, Blacks on crime. Those images serve the interest of those who are taking advantage of the system and want to hide how and what they are doing to the system. Our so-called criminality, our so-called being on welfare serves a useful political and economic purpose in the society.”

RAW: In your book, The Falsification of African Consciousness, you write about the critical role that history plays in developing the consciousness of a people. Could you elaborate on how knowledge of our true history can help us to overcome the myriad of problems facing us?

WILSON: Those who do not study history will repeat it. We’re talking about the first and second Reconstruction repeating itself. What I find interesting is the attitude that we in America have toward history, the belief that history is mere recapitulation of dates and times. Some people actually believe that history is unimportant in academic life or the life of a people. But one of the things that brings the importance of history to mind very quickly is when you try to teach Black History in schools, watch the objection you et to teaching Black history and culture. If history were so unimportant and meaningless, why is it that we have such strong opposition to the teaching of African history and culture? Why is it that the powers that be define how history is taught and what history will be taught? It’s because they know intrinsically that history defines who we are. We are history. We cannot live in the future – the future is always in front of us. And the present is essentially the leading edge of the past. You don’t leave your past behind. The past lives in your brain; in your behavior; the way you see life and the way you see yourself. Everything that happens to you in the present is filtered through past experiences present in your mind. This means the past is operationally present at every moment If that past is distorted, if your perception of it is incorrect, if it’s absent. Then when you look at things in the present, your perception will be distorted. You will not be able to effectively use what your see right in front of your face. You will not be able to take advantage of possibilities that you have nor will you be able to design your own future, because your history has been distorted. Whites have stolen and distorted the history of Blacks so that they can influence the type of behavior we exhibit. They have been able to shape our behavior to support their domination of us as a people. Thus, we continue to serve their interest.

RAW: Even when some of us find ourselves in a position of power such as Mayor, Governor, or President….

WILSON: Oh yes, definitely. You must recognize that consciousness is power; being aware, knowing something, and being able to do something is what consciousness is all about. This grants power. Remember, we act in terms of what we know, what we believe, what we expect, what we value, what skills we have. All of this is part of consciousness. Therefore, when you manipulate these things, you manipulate people’s ability.

History teaches us methods of coping. We learn from experience. Why do we teach our children things? We don’t want them to make the same mistakes we did. In teaching history, we transfer from one generation to the next methods of solving problems. When we don’t pass history on, you don’t pass on problem solving methods and techniques to the next generation. That generation, without a sense of history, is unable to solve problems, because it has not received methods to do so. It’s important to understand that the history we’ve been taught is not a history that brings with it problem-solving skills and other things needed to solve the problems that we face as African people.

A Source with more Amos Wilson threads: https://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/afrikan-educational-systems/38411-amos-wilson-last-interview-1995-a.html

Amos Wilson was with us up until 1995. During his time here he was well respected by his peers and was known for not pulling any punches when it came to telling the truth about the realities of black people in America and abroad. A giant that's truly missed.

  

BOOK Of THE MONTH

“The Wretched Of The Earth”

by Frantz Fanon

ISBN: 0-8021-5083-7

 

IT’S YOUR HEALTH

Drug-related crime

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the United States, illegal drugs are related to crime in multiple ways. Most directly, it is a crime to possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse (such as cocaine, heroin, morphine and amphetamines). Drugs are also related to crime as drug trafficking and drug production are often controlled by drug cartels, organized crime and gangs.

The statistics on this page summarize the various ways that drugs and crime are related in the United States. Links for other countries are provided below. Some drug-related crime involves crime against the person such as robbery or sexual assaults.

Contents

1 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics

2 Drugs and crime

3 Criticisms

4 See also

U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics

In 2002, in the U.S. about a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had committed their crimes to get money for drugs, compared to 5% of violent and public order offenders. Among State prisoners in 2004 the pattern was similar, with property (30%) and drug offenders (26%) more likely to commit their crimes for drug money than violent (10%) and public-order offenders (7%). In Federal prisons property offenders (11%) were less than half as likely as drug offenders (25%) to report drug money as a motive in their offenses.

In 2004, 17% of U.S. State prisoners and 18% of Federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs. These percentages represent a slight increase for Federal prisoners (16% in 1997) and a slight decrease for State prisoners (19% in 1997).

Drugs and crime

Drug abuse and addiction is associated with drug-related crimes. In the U.S. several jurisdictions have reported that benzodiazepine misuse by criminal detainees has surpassed that of opiates. Patients reporting to two emergency rooms in Canada with violence-related injuries were most often found to be intoxicated with alcohol and were significantly more likely to test positive for benzodiazepines (most commonly temazepam) than other groups of individuals, whereas other drugs were found to be insignificant in relation to violent injuries.

Research carried out on drug-related crime found that drug misuse is associated with various crimes that are in part related to the feelings of invincibility, which can become particularly pronounced with abuse. Problematic crimes associated include shoplifting, property crime, drug dealing, violence and aggression and driving whilst intoxicated. In Scotland among the 71% of suspected criminals testing positive for controlled drugs at the time of their arrest benzodiazepines (over 85% are temazepam cases) are detected more frequently than opiates and are second only to cannabis, which is the most frequently detected drug.

Research carried out by the Australian government found that benzodiazepine users are more likely to be violent, more likely to have been in contact with the police, and more likely to have been charged with criminal behavior than those using opiates. Illicit benzodiazepines mostly originate from medical practitioners but leak onto the illicit scene due to diversion and doctor shopping. Although only a very small number originate from thefts, forged prescriptions, armed robberies, or ram raids, it is most often benzodiazepines, rather than opiates, that are targeted in part because benzodiazepines are not usually locked in vaults and or do not have as strict laws governing prescription and storage of many benzodiazepines. Temazepam accounts for most benzodiazepine sought by forgery of prescriptions and through pharmacy burglary in Australia.

Benzodiazepines have been used as a tool of murder by serial killers, and other murderers, such as those with the condition Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Benzodiazepines have also been used to facilitate rape or robbery crimes, and benzodiazepine dependence has been linked to shoplifting due to the fugue state induced by the chronic use of the drug. When benzodiazepines are used for criminal purposes against a victim they are often mixed with food or drink.

Temazepam and midazolam are the most common benzodiazepines used to facilitate date rape. Alprazolam has been abused for the purpose of carrying out acts of incest and for the corruption of adolescent girls. However, alcohol remains the most common drug involved in cases of drug rape. Although benzodiazepines and ethanol are the most frequent drugs used in sexual assaults, GHB is another potential date rape drug that has received increased media focus.

Some benzodiazepines are more associated with crime than others especially when abused or taken in combination with alcohol. The potent benzodiazepine flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), which has strong amnesia-producing effects can cause abusers to become ruthless and also cause feelings of being invincible. This has led to some acts of extreme violence to others, often leaving abusers with no recollection of what they have done in their drug-induced state. It has been proposed that criminal and violent acts brought on by benzodiazepine abuse may be related to lowered serotonin levels via enhanced GABAergic effects.

Flunitrazepam has been implicated as the cause of one serial killer's violent rampage, triggering off extreme aggression with anterograde amnesia. A study on forensic psychiatric patients who had abused flunitrazepam at the time of their crimes found that the patients displayed extreme violence, lacked the ability to think clearly, and experienced a loss of empathy for their victims while under the influence of flunitrazepam, and it was found that the abuse of alcohol or other drugs in combination with flunitrazepam compounded the problem. Their behaviour under the influence of flunitrazepam was in contrast to their normal psychological state.

Criticisms

The concept of drug-related crime has been criticized for being too blunt, especially in its failure to distinguish between three types of crime associated with drugs:

• Use-Related crime: These are crimes that result from or involve individuals who ingest drugs, and who commit crimes as a result of the effect the drug has on their thought processes and behavior.
• Economic-Related crime: These are crimes where an individual commits a crime in order to fund a drug habit. These include theft and prostitution.
• System-Related crime: These are crimes that result from the structure of the drug system. They include production, manufacture, transportation, and sale of drugs, as well as violence related to the production or sale of drugs, such as a turf war.

Drug-related crime may be used as a justification for prohibition, but, in the case of system-related crime, the acts are only crimes because of prohibition. In addition, some consider even user-related and economic-related aspects of crime as symptomatic of a broader problem.

See also

• Drug abuse
• Self-medication

(Continued)

 

HISTORICAL FACT OF THE WEEK

AFRICAN AMERICANS

“A People Of The Many Descendants Of Afrika”

 Part XXXVII

Post Civil Rights Era XVI

African American culture, also known as “Black” culture, in the United States refers to the cultural contributions of African Americans to the culture of the United States, either as part of or distinct from American culture. The distinct identity of African American culture is rooted in the historical experience of the African American people, including the Middle Passage. The culture is both distinct and enormously influential to American culture as a whole.

African American culture is rooted in Africa. It is a blend of chiefly sub-Saharan African and Sahelean cultures. Although slavery not only greatly restricted the ability of Americans of African descent to practice their cultural traditions, but it was brutally and literally tortured out of them, many practices, values, and beliefs survived and over time have modified or blended with Caucasian American culture and other cultures such as that of Native Americans. There are some facets of African American culture that were accentuated by the slavery period. The result is a unique and dynamic culture that has had and continues to have a profound impact on mainstream American culture, as well as the culture of the world.

Elaborate rituals and ceremonies were a significant part of African Culture. As with many spiritually based ethnic groups around the world, West Africans believed that spirits dwelled in their surrounding nature. From this disposition, they treated their surroundings with mindful care. Africans also believed spiritual life source existed after death. They believed that ancestors in this spiritual realm could then mediate between the supreme creator and the living. Honor and prayer was displayed to these " ancient ones", the spirit of those past. West Africans also believed in spiritual possession as it is written and taught in major religious texts.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century Islam began to spread across North Africa; this shift in religion began displacing traditional and pagan African spiritual practices. The enslaved Africans brought this complex religious dynamic within their culture to America. And so, as with all other aspects of ingrained African culture, it was violently and forcibly stripped in order to make the African subservient and thus, ‘the slave”. The spiritual appetites of the newly formed slaves were daily fed with a severely distorted version of the Christian doctrine to pacify their conditioning processes and to make them more controllable by misteaching the long kept illiterate slaves falsehoods of their GOD given fate.

After emancipation, unique African American traditions continued to flourish, as distinctive traditions or radical innovations in music, art, literature, religion, cuisine, and other fields. 20th-century sociologists, such as Gunnar Myrdal, believed that African Americans had lost most cultural ties with Africa. But, anthropological field research by Melville Herskovits and others demonstrated that there has been a continuum of African traditions among Africans of the Diaspora. The greatest influence of African cultural practices on European culture is found below the Mason-Dixon line in the American South.

For many years African American culture developed separately from European American culture, both because of slavery and the unmatched persistence of racial discrimination in America, as well as African American slave descendants' desire and need to create and maintain their own traditions. Today, African American culture has become a very significant part of American culture and yet, at the same time, remains a distinct cultural body.

From the earliest days of American slavery in the 17th century, slave owners sought to exercise control over their slaves by attempting to strip them of their African culture. The physical isolation and societal marginalization of African slaves and, later, of their free progeny, however, facilitated the retention of significant elements of traditional culture among Africans in the New World generally, and in the U.S. in particular. Slave owners deliberately tried to repress independent political or cultural organization in order to deal with the many slave rebellions or acts of resistance that took place in the United States, Brazil, Haiti, and the Dutch Guyanas. African cultures, slavery, slave rebellions, and the civil rights movements have shaped African American religious, familial, political, and economic behaviors. The imprint of Africa is evident in a myriad of ways: in politics, economics, language, music, hairstyles, fashion, dance, religion, cuisine, and worldview.

In turn, African American culture has had a pervasive, transformative impact on many major elements of mainstream American culture. This process of mutual creative exchange is called creolization. Over time, the culture of African slaves and their descendants has been ubiquitous in its impact on not only the dominant Caucasian American culture, but on world culture as well.

Slaveholders limited or prohibited by law and by penalty of death to any slaves acquiring or any persons providing education of enslaved African Americans because they feared it might empower their chattel and inspire or enable emancipatory ambitions besides destroying all taught justifications for the kidnapping, torturing, trade, and enslavement of the African people. In the United States, the legislation that denied slaves formal education likely contributed to their maintaining a strong oral tradition, a common feature of indigenous African cultures. African-based oral traditions became the primary means of preserving history, morals, and other cultural information among the people. This was consistent with the griot practices of oral history in many African and other cultures that did not rely on the written word. Many of these cultural elements have been passed from generation to generation through storytelling. The folktales provided African Americans the opportunity to inspire and educate one another.

Examples of African American folktales include trickster tales of Br'er Rabbit and heroic tales such as that of John Henry. The Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris helped to bring African American folk tales into mainstream adoption. Harris did not appreciate the complexity of the stories nor their potential for a lasting impact on society. Other narratives that appear as important, recurring motifs in African American culture are the "Signifying Monkey", "The Ballad of Shine", and the legend of Stagger Lee.

The legacy of the African American oral tradition manifests in diverse forms. African American preachers tend to perform rather than simply speak. The emotion of the subject is carried through the speaker's tone, volume, and cadence, which tend to mirror the rising action, climax, and descending action of the sermon. Often song, dance, verse, and structured pauses are placed throughout the sermon. Call and response is another pervasive element of the African American oral tradition. It manifests in worship in what is commonly referred to as the "amen corner." In direct contrast to recent tradition in other American and Western cultures, it is an acceptable and common audience reaction to interrupt and affirm the speaker. This pattern of interaction is also in evidence in music, particularly in blues and jazz forms. Hyperbolic and provocative, even incendiary, rhetoric is another aspect of African American oral tradition often evident in the pulpit in a tradition sometimes referred to as "prophetic speech."

Other aspects of African American oral tradition include the dozens, signifying, trash talk, rhyming, semantic inversion and word play, many of which have found their way into mainstream American popular culture and become international phenomena.

Spoken word artistry is another example of how the African American oral tradition has influenced modern popular culture. Spoken word artists employ the same techniques as African American preachers including movement, rhythm, and audience participation. Rap music from the 1980s and beyond has been seen as an extension of oral culture.

The African American Museum Movement emerged during the 1950s and 1960s to preserve the heritage of the African American experience and to ensure its proper interpretation in American history. Museums devoted to African American history are found in many African American neighborhoods. Institutions such as the African American Museum and Library at Oakland and The African American Museum in Cleveland were created by African Americans to teach and investigate cultural history that, until recent decades was primarily preserved through oral traditions.

Generations of hardships imposed on the African American community created distinctive language patterns. Slave owners often intentionally mixed people who spoke different African languages so as to discourage communication in any language other than English. This, combined with prohibitions against education, led to the development of pidgins, simplified mixtures of two or more languages that speakers of different languages could use to communicate. Examples of pidgins that became fully developed languages include Creole, common to Louisiana, and Gullah, common to the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a variety (dialect, ethnolect, and sociolect) of the American English language closely associated with the speech of, but not exclusive to, African Americans. While AAVE is academically considered a legitimate dialect because of its logical structure, some of both Caucasian and African Americans consider it slang or the result of a poor command of Standard American English, though Standard American English is also, considered slang by European English speaking countries. Many African Americans who were born outside the American South still speak with hints of AAVE or southern dialect. Inner-city African American children who are isolated by speaking only AAVE sometimes have more difficulty with standardized testing and, after school, moving to the mainstream world for work. It is common for many speakers of AAVE to code switch between AAVE and Standard American English depending on the setting.

The Black Arts Movement, a cultural explosion of the 1960s, saw the incorporation of surviving cultural dress with elements from modern fashion and West African traditional clothing to create a uniquely African American traditional style. Kente cloth is the best known African textile. These festive woven patterns, which exist in numerous varieties, were originally made by the Ashanti and Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo. Kente fabric also appears in a number of Western style fashions ranging from casual t-shirts to formal bow ties and cummerbunds. Kente strips are often sewn into liturgical and academic robes or worn as stoles. Since the Black Arts Movement, traditional African clothing has been popular amongst African Americans for both formal and informal occasions. Other manifestations of traditional African dress in common evidence in African American culture are vibrant colors, mud cloth, trade beads and the use of Adinkra motifs in jewelry and in couture and decorator fabrics.

Another common aspect of fashion in African American culture involves the appropriate dress for worship in the African American church. It is expected in most churches that an individual present their best appearance for worship. African American women in particular are known for wearing vibrant dresses and suits. An interpretation of a passage from the Christian Bible, "...every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head...", has led to the tradition of wearing elaborate Sunday hats, sometimes known as "crowns."

For most African Americans, the observance of life events follows the pattern of mainstream American culture. While African and Caucasian Americans often lived to themselves for much of American history, both groups generally had the same perspective on American culture. There are some traditions that are unique to African Americans.

Some African Americans have created new rites of passage that are linked to African traditions. Some Pre-teen and teenage boys and girls take classes to prepare them for adulthood. These classes tend to focus on spirituality, responsibility, and leadership. Many of these programs are modeled after traditional African ceremonies, with the focus largely on embracing African cultures.

To this day, some African American couples choose to "jump the broom" as a part of their wedding ceremony. Although the practice, which can be traced back to Ghana, fell out of favor in the African American community after the end of slavery, it has experienced a slight resurgence in recent years as some couples seek to reaffirm their African heritage.

Funeral traditions tend to vary based on a number of factors, including religion and location, but there are a number of commonalities. Probably the most important part of death and dying in the African American culture is the gathering of family and friends. Either in the last days before death or shortly after death, typically any friends and family members that can be reached are notified. This gathering helps to provide spiritual and emotional support, as well as assistance in making decisions and accomplishing everyday tasks.

The spirituality of death is very important in African American culture. A member of the clergy or members of the religious community, or both, are typically present with the family through the entire process. Death is often viewed as transitory rather than final. Many services are called home goings or homecomings, instead of funerals, based on the belief that the person is going home to the afterlife; "Returning to god" or the Earth (also see Euphemism as well as Connotation). The entire end of life process is generally treated as a celebration of the person's life, deeds and accomplishments - the "good things" rather than a mourning of loss. This is most notably demonstrated in the New Orleans Jazz Funeral tradition where upbeat music, dancing, and food encourage those gathered to be happy and celebrate the home going of a beloved friend.

The cultivation and use of many agricultural products in the United States, such as yams, peanuts, rice, okra, sorghum, grits, watermelon, indigo dyes, and cotton, can be traced to African influences. African American foods reflect creative responses to racial and economic oppression and poverty. Under slavery, African Americans were not allowed to eat better cuts of meat and were forced to eat the intestines, feet, ears, tails, necks, as well as all other unwanted parts of animals, and after emancipation many often were too poor to afford any different.

Soul food, a hearty cuisine commonly associated with African Americans in the South (but also common to African Americans nationwide), makes creative use of inexpensive products procured through farming and subsistence hunting and fishing. Pig intestines are boiled and sometimes battered and fried to make chitterlings, also known as "chitlins." Ham hocks and neck bones provide seasoning to soups, beans and boiled greens (turnip greens, collard greens, and mustard greens). Other common foods, such as fried chicken and fish, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, and hoppin' john (black-eyed peas and rice) are prepared simply. When the African American population was considerably more rural than it generally is today, rabbit, possum, squirrel, and waterfowl were important additions to the diet. Many of these food traditions are especially predominant in many parts of the rural South.

Traditionally prepared soul food is often high in fat, sodium, and starch. Highly suited to the physically demanding lives of laborers, farmhands and rural lifestyles generally, it is now the contributing factor to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in a population that has become increasingly more urban and sedentary. As a result, more health-conscious African Americans are using alternative methods of preparation, eschewing trans fats in favor of natural vegetable oils and substituting smoked turkey for fatback and other, cured pork products; limiting the amount of refined sugar in desserts; and emphasizing the consumption of more fruits and vegetables than animal protein. There is some strong resistance to such changes, however, as they involve deviating from long culinary tradition a well as the “mental slavery” or traumatic psychological damage from close to 500 years of brutal conditioning that is still very prevalent in African American communities today including identity crisis.

As with other American racial and ethnic groups, African Americans observe ethnic holidays alongside traditional American holidays. Holidays observed in African American culture are not only observed by African Americans but are widely considered American holidays. The birthday of noted African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr has been observed nationally since 1983. It is one of three federal holidays named for an individual.

Black History Month is another example of another African American observance that has been adopted nationally and its teaching is even required by law in some states. Black History Month is an attempt to focus attention on previously and purposefully neglected, distorted, and/or completely eliminated aspects of the American history, chiefly the lives and stories of African Americans. It is observed during the month of February to coincide with the founding of the NAACP and the birthdays of Frederick Douglass, a prominent African American abolitionist, and Abraham Lincoln, the United States president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

On June 7, 1979 President Jimmy Carter decreed that June would be the month of African American music. For the past 28 years, presidents have announced to Americans that Black Music Month (also called African-American Music Month) should be recognized as a critical part of American heritage. Black Music Month is highlighted with various events urging citizens to revel in the many forms of music from gospel to hip-hop. African American musicians, singers, and composers are also highlighted for their contributions to the nation's history and culture.

Less widely observed outside of the African American community is Emancipation Day popularly known as Juneteenth or Freedom Day, in recognition of the official reading of the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19, 1865 in Texas. Juneteenth is a day when African Americans reflect on their unique history and heritage. It is one of the fastest growing African American holidays with observances in the United States. Another holiday not widely observed outside of the African American community is the birthday of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz). The day is observed on May 19 in American cities with a significant African American population, including Washington, D.C.

Note: A special thank you to all of the many internet sites where the information contained in the “Historical Fact Of The Week” derived especially Wikipedia.org and Britannica.com. All gathered information was edited by Akil A. Bomani specifically for “The Historical Fact Of The Week”. No infringements on copywritten material nor violations on any rights of any kind whatsoever intended. Your services are very much appreciated.

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Now recruiting for ALL POSITIONS.

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