“Consequently you will see the enemy’s children, the enemy’s personality being held up as normal, as representing the norm. Our behavior, to the degree that it differs from that of our enemy, is seen as deviant and thus abnormal. To that degree we confuse equality with sameness, where we think that in order to be equal or greater than our enemy we have to be the same as our enemy; to the degree we think differentness automatically represents inferiority and therefore we become alarmed at anything that says we are somehow different from our enemy.” Dr. Amos Wilson
Is it Respectability Politics or Black Dignity?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black ethics?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black morality?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black superiority?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black dominance?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black excellence?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black exceptionalism?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black self discipline?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black compassion?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black self respect?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black code of honor?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black strength?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black articulation?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black participation?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black competitiveness?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black pride?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black identity?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black culture?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black heritage?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black resilience?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black love?
Is it Respectability Politics or Blacks embracing each other, rejecting societal biases?
Is it Respectability Politics or Blacks focusing on unity?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black melabrations?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black community?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black ancestral honor?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black roots?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black reliance?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black empowerment?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black achievements?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black advancements?
Is it Respectability Politics or Black knowledge of self?
My students tell me that we are not in the slave day so they don’t have to be intellectual, speak articulately because that is outdated.
The white teachers encourage that foolish mindset. I demand headings, they are allowed to put “nicknames” and different colors on their papers and it drives me crazy.
THIS IS NOT US! PROgress is ANTI BLACK values, morals, ethics, and ways.
DR. AMOS WILSON SAID IT BEST……..
“Without critical thinking, there is no ‘self respect’. Without self-respect there is no courage. Without ‘self respect’ there is no self-defense. Without ‘self respect’ there is no justice. Without ‘self respect’ there is no peace. Without self-respect there is no progress.”
“Oppressive violence is both pro-active and re-active, directed and mis-directed. Black men kill each other because they have not yet chosen to challenge and neutralize on every front the widespread power of the white men to rule over their lives”
“The most insane people on the earth today are used as models for sanity. The sanity of the racists European itself is not questioned. The insanity of European normality is not questioned. The possibility that what we call normal is itself insane is not questioned; that organization of this society, the nature of its human relations, the structure of its economic systems, the values that motivated it, are the results of the madness of a people.”
“Education, oppression creating an immature mind, social institutions and their relationship to Black people, how education can make you dumb, the education necessary for Black students, the role of the Black teacher, the reason for the high dropout rate, how the ultimate consumer is created, the necessity of thinking skills and listen skills in the curriculum.”
The Black person is essentially taught what to think in this system because it is the mentality of the servant. The servant is told what to do. The master is taught how to think. Much of your education will be learning and memorizing what other people have developed, and regurgitating it on exams. Learning enough just to carry out the orders of others but not to challenge the power of others. We see this in almost any textbook you can open in this system of education.
“Are these freedoms? When one researches our story they will find the FBI and the United States government destroying black organizations that wanted better housing, education, jobs, better streets, no police brutality, government representation, to do for self, or any other empowering act. But somehow they ( whites) can promote our destruction, encourage our lower self to dominate, and make billions off of our demise without being infiltrated or even called out by the government.”
The major functions of EDUCATION IS TO SECURE THE SURVIVAL OF A PEOPLE, to maintain their very biological existence and enhance their quality of life—NOT A MERE PREPARATION FOR JOBS! African people MUST take responsibility for our education and MUST define education in terms of our interest or be trapped in PERPETUAL SERVITUDE!”
” …the freedom is given after the brainwashing has occured, so that you will choose the wrong thing of your own free will.”
“We talk about the white man as having power.
I want you to recognize that power
ultimately has to do with the relationship
between people. And that the white man’s so-
called power is to a great extent based upon
the nature of the relationship he has with the
black man. We empower him by the nature of
our own behavior and attitudes as a people. He
cannot be what he is unless we are what we
are. To a good extent, the European is our
creation. If we look at our behavior, we will see
that to a good extent it is that behavior; our
values, our consciousness, the kinds of
personalities we’ve established in ourselves,
our tastes, our desires and needs that
maintains the European in this position.
We talk about the civil rights movement. And
the apartheid system of the South.
When blacks decided just to get out of the
buses and walk, the system changed. When
they just stopped sitting in the back. Just
changing that relationship changed the nature
of power in that system.
When they kept their monies in their pockets,
when they sat on those stools and blocked the
other people from them, and changed the
nature of the interaction between themselves
and Europeans, the nature of the system
changed. So, therefore, we have tremendous
power; it depends upon how we align ourselves
as a people and how we decide to relate to
other people in the world, because they cannot
have what they have unless we are who we are. That is why we don’t have to spend a great
deal of time always appealing to them, and
analyzing them, because we can better appeal
to our own sense of self and our own
consciousness.
We waste a lot of time trying to transform
them, when by transforming ourselves, they
will be transformed automatically. The power is
in our hands. We are not destined to be the
servants of white folks. That is not the destiny
of black folk.”
We’re unconscious of the power that’s in our hands. We’re like the Israelites who, threw their gold rings and gold of various types into the melting vat to make a golden God and kneel down to worship it and perceived it as having power over them. African people, with the natural resources of the world at their feet, with minds and bodies second-to-none, have given their power and wealth over to another people. And, have made that people powerful and now are on their knees in front of those people: begging for salvation, begging for jobs, begging for food and begging for their very lives. THE WEALTH & POWER OF A PEOPLE IS NOT IN THEIR LAND BUT, IN THEIR MIND! Japan, which has no natural resources to speak of, is one of the most economically powerful nations, and Europe is in a similar position. If you have an appropriate consciousness, you can con another. You can use words to rob people of their mind, land and wealth and say, “this is a holy book,” and have them give up their land. You can manipulate people and have them spend billions of dollars, the way African Americans [& Africans] do–who would rob, sell drugs, kill and destroy communities & nations, to give their wealth to white folks. THE WHITE MAN IS A GOD THAT WE HAVE MADE – THE WHITE MAN IS A GOD THAT WE MUST DESTROY!
“The Black community has run the longest, most successful boycott in history—the boycott against their own Black businesses.”
“Why does the Black man say “Freedom is doing what I want to do.” Why is it that everything “he wants to do” enriches the European?”
“If our study of Black history is merely an exercise in feeling good about ourselves, then we will die feeling good. We must look at the lessons that history teaches us. We must understand the tremendous value of the study of history for the re-gaining of power. If our education is not about gaining real power, we are being miseducated and mislead and we will die “miseducated and mislead.”
“To manipulate history is to manipulate consciousness; to manipulate consciousness is to manipulate possibilities; and to manipulate possibilities is to manipulate power.”
“When you are filled with self-hate your mind is reversed. Meaning you will love the things that destroy you, and you will hate the things that advance your growth.”
“The more we share our stories, the more connected we become as a community.”
”We could not be Africans and slaves at the same time; we could not hold on to our African identity, our African selves, knowledge of our African culture, and be enslaved…the subordinates of another people. It is only when that knowledge is removed, erased, degraded, stolen, taken and distorted that we lose our identity. It is then that our identity is placed upon us by another people and by external forces. Therefore a lack of self-knowledge is a lack of self-awareness is also an insensitivity to the self. But an insensitivity in the self is also an insensitivity to reality and to the outside. Without the sensitivity of the outside world and the self, we are left to blindly stumble from one point to another.”
“If you want to understand any problem in America, you need to focus on who profits from that problem, not who suffers from that problem.”
Only when you look at yourself as a NATION…can you change things…”
“The love we have for each other is the greatest threat to those who rule over us. If those who rule over us want to stay in power, then they must destroy our ability to love each other in a healthy sort of way.”
“We’re Taught That LOVE Is Something That Occurs Spontaneously: THIS IS NOT TRUE! The Ability To Love And How To Love Is Taught. We Must Come To Understand What Is Real Love And What Is Use And Abuse. African People, We Have To REDEFINE What Is LOVE.”
“We have been duped into self-hatred by the European. He made us hate our heritage, hate our skin, hate our hair, hate our noses and our lips. He’s made us hate Afrika itself and the whole heritage. He’s made us hate being black as individuals. So consequently we’re going to love somebody who doesn’t remind us of who we are and what we are.”
“A love that flows out of hatred is a love that is ultimately selfish and self-centered. It’s a love that ultimately does not give another person humanity and does not recognize them as an individual. This kind of love is a love where you love yourself but you can only love yourself at the expense of destroying the ones you love, only in reducing them in some form or another. Love that comes out of hate is a love where you’re gonna love somebody who maintains you in your self-destructiveness…Now the people you fall in love with will often be the people that help you maintain your self-destructive nature. You love them because why? They help you destroy yourself.”
“WHILE YOU DEAL WITH YOUR SENSE OF UGLINESS, INADEQUACY & INFERIORITY, YOU ENRICH EUROPEANS & OTHERS! You think that a people whose very lives depends upon a sense of ugliness, inadequacy and inferiority that many of us try to compensate for by consuming clothes, jewelry, cosmetics and a lot of junk, would ever rescue you from that state of mind when their very economies depends on it? You must recognize the functionality of African maladjustments and whether you’re educated or not that maladjustments will stay in there because it serves the interest of Europeans [and others]. Therefore, your study of psychology, sociology and history shouldn’t be a matter of just studying group behavior but a process of UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF! We must look at how the experiences of Africans-BOTH NEGATIVE & POSITIVE-have created the current mentality of Africans and how others [Europeans, Arabs, Asians] try to create our history and experiences as to create our minds for servitude.”
“How did we get this Religion we talked about earlier? I talk about Star Trek, and we talk about what the time warp that Star Trek depicts quite frequently, of how people move from one state of consciousness and one world and are suddenly flipped into a new world. They go through a warp and all of a sudden, everything that they use to use to guide themselves, no longer counts, the language that they use to speak can no longer be
understood in the new world. The values that use to guide their behavior are no longer workable, in fact it gets them into trouble. The gods, the culture, the nature of the social relations, and all of the things they used prior to meeting the warp, no longer suffice. Now they must learn new values and new behaviors, and new orientations in order to adapt themselves to the new universe they live in. We’re in that kind of position today. think about the African world, the African lived in prior to being broth across the oceans (and those captive already in the Americas), think about the gods we praised, think about the organization of our society, think about the languages that we spoke, the food that weate, the dress that we wore, the music, the song, the dance, and all of those things that defined us as African people, and think how horrendous it must’ve been for us to be thrown into this world (within a snap), where there’s a whole new language, a whole new social hierarchy, a whole new set of authorities, people pushing you around who you don’t understand, people who are putting strange tools in your hand, people who are trying to get you to relate to them, and to relate to each other and in a very different kind of way from what you’re use to relating to.
Think about the stress and the confusion, and
think about the abuse, think about the horror of that situation our parents and great grandparents were put in. And there was somebody that said then, “if you pray to this god, if you talk this way, if you dress this way, if you relate this way, you’ll get a greater sense of security, your anxiety will be reduced, you will feel good, and you will be able to withstand, the pain of your existence, and the god then that I am going to hand you, is one that I have created for you, and a theology that comes with it, is one that I have created so that you will continue to serve me, as you continue to serve it.”
This post was reposted from 2026 – "YOU PEOPLE"
