Sunday, September 23, 2012

MSM and the Equation of Ideology + Liberation = Power

What do you believe?  What do you believe in?  Why do you believe that?  Our belief system is ideology---our personal ideology could include religion, capitalism, sexuality even education.  Think of yourself as a container---or a storage cabinet where we store our ideas.  Our ideas conceive our selves and from our selves we move through life/reality.

Liberation on the other hand is actualization of an ideology.  Say I tell you I believe in capitalism, entrepreneurship could be an extension of that ideology, therefore a level of liberation.  Or say I tell you I believe in the inherent rights of races to being treated with legal equality (ideology) and then I go and get an education and teach Race Theory or Race Psychology or I become a Civil Rights Attorney, actualization to Liberation.

But how does this go from thought/belief to action and then manifest as Power?  The concept of Power---ability to move, influence, control, exert force upon, whether that be a concrete or abstract, is as normal as oxygen on Earth.  It is natural for humans, particularly men, to seek ways to have Power.  (Women too.)  In fact one could argue that it is how men define themselves.  But what happens when one is racially subjugated into semi-submission psychologically and that's combined with a sexuality that isn't wholly or at all, heterosexual and brings about a social subjugation through closeting, DL-ness, inequalities, lack of manhood expectations (marriage, children, etc..)?  What does a man become?  How does one become a man?

First we would have to consider where one could get Ideology from and use it for.  As a Teacher---I've taught everything from elementary school children up to advanced college graduate courses---and to some degree I am teaching Ideology.  When I teach about Toussaint L'Overture and the Haitian Revolution, I am teaching about people believing so much in their inherent right to have agency over their own bodies, in spite of the laws advocating slavery, that they were willing to wage first an uprising and then full out protracted revolution against the French and Spanish colonists and eventually to some degree their home countries; I am teaching the ideology of self-rule.  Pretty much in all teaching a transference of some sort of ideological framework occurs.  It's often the areas of wrestling with not simply what to teach but how to teach it.  I could teach that Toussaint was completely wrong in leading a revolution; I could frame the discussion and lessons to the side of the French.  I don't but I could.

I don't because I use Haiti as a historical point because it allows people of color to access history and it happens right after the American Revolution and happens parallel to the French Revolution and then I can link it forty odd years later to the Cuban Revolution against Spain.  Implicit in this is not only the concept of justifiable revolution but more importantly, it allows me to passively teach how people shirked off the bonds of slavery at their own will.  I can go into how Toussaint could read and write, thereby showing the importance of education as well as his confidence to negotiate with both the Crown of France and even Napoleon.  It says something for people of color to hear about a man of color dealing with empires.  Eyes alight, questions become intense, the days I show historical films are well attended.  Why?  Somewhere in the students heads is the spark of Liberation.

This spark then erupts into Power.

People who know they are of the image and blood of Power, act like it.  People who study people who look like themselves see that even if they only suspected it before, they have value, they have agency, they may in fact have more Power than they ever surmised.

So you throw back at me, that maybe this all makes sense.  I've outlined the points well, I've even shown it with a good example but what is the usefulness of this?  I'm a pragmatist so I'm always looking to define, if not, then get to the point of a supposition or at least t's application.


Imagine if men (and women) of color who were raised with education for people of color is valuable and possible for them all?

 I have a student whose mind was blown when we went over maps and outlines of the tribes including the Taino people from the Caribbean throughout South America. His first question to me was---"Is this really true?"
Suddenly, he who could trace back his family to the Caribbean, could trace back his skin hundreds of years.  I make sure I teach about Anacoana, Taíno cacica, sister of Bohechío, chief of Jaragua, and wife of Caonabo (chief of the nearby territory of Maguana) a cacique (nation state on the isle that would become Haiti/Dominican Republic) who first encountered the raiding party of Christopher Columbus and demanded unification from the neighboring caciques to oust them.   She sensed the danger they would come to plague the isle with and opted for a preemptive strike.  It's very hard to simply be a nigger this and a nigger that when you know you are the blood of sovereign royalty on Western shores; that most importantly your people were not an easy kill.

Imagine MSM who learn this about themselves, having teachers who hand them materials---not simply speak it to them---but give them the book to go and read and study and keep and tear apart and digest, themselves.  Why is it so important for the Liberated to be able to take the Ideology they're told is useful to adapt and adopt and dissect it?  Because human beings, like churches or political movements or even terrorist cells, can simply tell you what they need you to believe for you to give them your body, your time, your resources but withhold the totality of an idea.

That is the very definition of a cult.

When a teacher wants someone, even an adult to be liberated, they treat them like an equal and give them unlimited access to the text, the history, the ideology so that there is no possibility of over-identification to the leader.  Narcissism is censored by the dispersal of knowledge and wisdom and evolution.  And we know the history of leaders, white, brown, yellow and red who thought that the people should kneel before them, that their being and sterling intellect and insights was to be recognized as the Power.

Imagine now MSM who have had no racial Ideology nor Liberation taught about themselves or their manhood or sexuality?  They will never achieve Power.  Now look around at the groups and agencies that exist to service MSM of color and you have a new lens to evaluate which ones want men of Power present and which want a head count to get some more CDC money, another donor check, perhaps even your own cash as a membership fee.

Imagine yourself empowered.  Knowing a thousand years, two thousand years of your history, shaping your own personal Ideology.  Maybe even having a genealogical timeline done on your blood.  Then you can decide what to do, how to activate this Liberation and that is when you will truly be Powerful.


Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Time Warner Cable, Verizon Fios or Comcast or the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

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