I'm Not Afrikan, I'm Negro

By Sicebise Msengana

To analyze the above statement would take volumes of books on philosophy, history, economics, psychology, biology, slave studies and a host of other disciplines. It is the nucleus of a problem that has caused a whole people to change the concept of who they were, their status in the world, and effectively erased the history and culture of their original homeland. The Afrikan was literally written out of the history books from the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade onward. Adjoining those realities, Afrikans were brutally forced to abandon every tradition, custom, ritual, religion,

Go Back to Africa

By Sicebise Msengana

It is difficult not to get angry when hearing the "Go back to Africa" argument. This argument is not about Africa but the so-called kindness of white America. It assumes: white America has been very kind and offered the best parental care ever to Africans, besides the European powers. Black Africans were enslaved and sold by their own African brothers. Chattel slavery was immoral wrong, but whites ended it. Racism ended when Jim Crow laws were abolished. We even voted for the first black president, Barack Obama. Racism is a done deal -- get over it! If black Americans are still suffering, it's their own fault!

Where Was God During Slavery

By Sicebise Msengana

Where was God during slavery? In other words, what did he do to stop the Transatlantic slave trade? This is a tough question because God has been silent on many issues facing his creation. Instead,  he has been hidden, never letting us see or hear God, but occasionally trying to get our attention through indirect means: "working" through people, revealing his supposed existence through creation and dropping "hints" here and there. But it is not direct.

The Weapon of Theory

By Sicebise Msengana

www.warscapes.com

Address delivered to the first Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana in January, 1966. 

If any of us came to Cuba with doubts in our mind about the solidity, strength, maturity and vitality of the Cuban Revolution, these doubts have been removed by what we have been able to see. Our hearts are now warmed by an unshakeable certainty which gives us courage in the difficult but glorious struggle against the common enemy: no power in the world will be able to destroy this Cuban Revolution, which is creating in the countryside and in the towns not only a new life but also — and even more important — a New Man, fully conscious

Modern Racism

By Sicebise Msengana

Modern racism: It pays to pick on sensitive issues -- because we have to address these important issues or future generations will pay for the sins of the parents. Racism still persists today simply because people think it is non-existent. And most people think it will magically go away, if we ignore or don't talk about it. Racism will exist as long as humanity exists.

I Write What I Like

By Sicebise Msengana

Steve Biko: Irrepressible Revolutionary African Giant Still Relevant Today

I Write What I Like, a collection of writings and speeches from the work of South African/Azanian Black Consciousness pioneer, Steve Biko, originally published in 1978, remains one of the monumental pieces in the history of writing about black liberation in the world. As Lewis Gordon describes the book in the foreword, it is "a classic work in black political thought and the liberation struggle for all humankind" (p. vii). Desmond Tutu hails Biko in the preface as the "father of Black Consciousness," a movement that he argues was "surely of God," and Thoko and Malusi Mpulwana introduce the book by explaining that black solidarity is still urgently needed in the current context of post-apartheid society, particularly as erstwhile atomized identities from diverse segments of the black community vie for recognition in the shaping of a different society. They salute this re-publication of Steve Biko's writings as an apt tribute to the legacy of African heroes and heroines who sacrificed their lives for the cause of liberation from white colonialism: Albert Luthuli, Mthuli KaZhezi, Ongopotse Tiro, Mapetla Mohapi, Griffiths Mxenge, Victoria Mxenge, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, and the nameless others whose lives were snuffed out by apartheid's torturers and assassins.