To be sure, policy caught Holley in a bold daytime burglary.  Even a criminal has rights in the eyes of the law.  By beating the 15-year-old Chad Holley, Houston Police violated his civil rights.  Bloomberg and his gang of police hoodlums (isn’t that what they call black youngsters when they are collectively involved in criminal activity) have at least been fired from the Houston police force, but Bloomberg, the first of the pack to be fired, faced an all-white jury who let him off without as much as a slap on the wrist.

Police brutality has been as big an issue in Houston as it has in other urban centers.  Indeed a group of Black ministers just ended their three-decades old partnership with the HPD because Police Chief Charles McClelland changed the terms of the partnership, instating a rule that said that ministers couldn’t criticize the police or the city administration, violating free speech rights.   As a result of the absurd edict, 150 Houston Black ministers turned in their police credentials.

I guess Chief McClelland can justify his gag rule against ministers by considering the many times they have been forced to comment unfavorably on police shenanigans.  In March, Annika Lewis, 26, was beaten as she tried to record her own arrest in Houston.  Then, the police took her video card so that she would have no record of the arrest.  Her husband was charged with “resisting arrest” with no other underlying charge against him.  Resisting arrest might consist of as little as asking why one is being stopped.  .  Of course, I am outraged.

I am outraged at the backlash from the African American church about President Obama’s support of marriage equality.  I’m outraged because there are those who suggest that the African American community might prefer a flawed Obama to a racist, hateful, and austerity-embracing Romney, a man who has said that despite a national deficit, he would increase defense spending, and cut social services.  Why do we need more defense spending?  This hawkish position represents nothing but pandering.  If African Americans stay home because they disagree with President Obama’s stance on marriage equality, we are cutting off our noses to spite our faces.  I don’t mean to be flippant when I say that if you don’t like gay marriage, just don’t marry a gay person.  It is ironic that the party that would advocate for a smaller role for government wants government in our private space, regulating marriage and abortion.  Would conservatives be consistent, for once?  Their hypocrisy is an occasion of outrage.

Yet my capacity for outrage diminishes when I look at these incidents through the lens of history.  Sitting at the base of Machu Picchu mountain in Peru encourages one to embrace stillness, and serenity.  It also reminds us how insignificant the day to day is when the arc of history is considered.  Machu Picchu is the Lost City of the Incas, an estate for Inca leaders Pachacuti and Tupac Yupanquai.  It was also a spiritual center.  Its presence was forgotten, or buried in natural vegetation when the Spanish “conquered” the Inca.  It took until 1911, when Yale lecturer Hiram Bingham, with the help of an 11 year old Indian boy, Pablo Alvarez for the Western world to “find” this spot.  Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Yale University has agreed to return artifacts that Bingham stole (in the name of scientific inquiry, of course) from buildings in Machu Picchu.    Viewing a space that was build between 1400 and 1450, basking in its history more than 700 years later, reminds us that moments are fleeting unless we make them something more.  How many times have we rallied against police brutality?  How much, or how little, has that reality changed?  Each of us is a minnow in the ocean of history, and history belongs to those who hold pens.  The Inca did architecture, engineering and so much more, but they didn’t develop written language.  The Spanish swallowed much of their history!  Will the history of African American relationships with “law enforcement” personnel also be swallowed?  That depends on us.

Since the Sixties, when we met Malcolm, we of the organization Us have seen ourselves as heirs and custodians of his legacy, not only in the general way that all Black Power advocates lay rightful claim to his legacy, but also in a more comprehensive, depthful and sustained way thru the study, teaching and application of his most central ideas, embracing them as an expansive Black cultural nationalism that is revolutionary because of its commitment to radical self- and social transformation, the overturning of self and society, and because it was what Malcolm rightly called a rational and compelling response to our oppression and the demands of liberation.

Indeed, we took seriously in both princi­ple and practice, Malcolm’s teachings on self-transformation in and for the liberation struggle, i.e.. “wake up, clean up and stand up;” the indispensability of culture and cultural revolution as a weapon and emanci­patory process to prepare, aid and sustain the liberation struggle; the return to the source, Africa, culturally, psychologically and spiritually; the right and responsibility of self-defense, resistance and the struggle for “freedom by any means necessary”, armed and otherwise; pan-Africanism; a religion with a God in our own image and interests and which is committed to justice, liberation and the liberation struggle; Black united front strategies; Third World solidarity; communi­tarian and democratic African socialism; and anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism.

It is from this standpoint that we of Us engage in righteous remembrance of Malcolm; and try as best as we can to live his legacy, to offer a rightful reading of this legacy, and to challenge those interpretations that miss the mark, falsify, trivialize or in any other way tend to reinvent and render less meaningful this awesome legacy and shared African heritage. And thus, it is within this framework of history and practice that a critique is imperative of Manning Marable’s new book on Malcolm or any other text that takes a similar misguided, mistaken or misinformed approach, even if originally well-meaning. And in our newly released book, By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X, Real Not Reinvented, my co-editors Herb Boyd, Ron Daniels, Haki Madhubuti and I, Maulana Karenga, as well as numerous contributors have offered corrective and alternative insights. Indeed, this article contains excerpts from my article in the book.

Also, we of Us understood Malcolm’s assassination as martyrdom, a courageous sacrifice of self for the life and liberation of our people. For he could have withdrawn, retired or gone to Africa to stay and work. But he returned to resume his work in spite of the real, numerous and consistent threats to his life. It was for me and my colleagues a model and message of struggle and sacrifice that was central to his legacy, and thus, in founding our organization Us in the wake of his martyrdom and the Watts Revolt, September 7, 1965, we dedicated ourselves to lifting up, teaching and continuing his legacy as a living practice. In fact, one writer from the New York Times noting this, wrote that “Mr. Karenga often refers to the (teachings) of the late Black nationalist Malcolm X, in much the same way Malcolm X had quoted the Black Muslim leader (Messenger) Elijah Muhammad”.

Indeed, we of Us were among the first to boldly stand up and bear witness to Malcolm’s legacy in the midst of the silence and fear engendered by internal and external forces that surrounded his assassination and martyrdom. Our first major public event was a memorial service for Malcolm in February 1966 at which we declared the day of his martyrdom a holiday called Dhabihu (Day of Sacrifice) in homage to his service and sacrifice for our people and the struggle for liberation. Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist in its thrust in reaffirmation of Malcolm’s and our own political practice and teachings, our commemoration also paid homage to the martyred Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba, denounced the Vietnam War as racist, immoral and illegal, and called for resistance to the war and the draft.

Us also celebrated Malcolm’s birthday and established another holiday in his honor called Kuzaliwa (The Day of Birth) the same year in May, bringing his widow and co-worker, Betty Shabazz to Los Angeles to give the inaugural lecture, her first public address since Malcolm’s martyrdom. The following year we called for students not to attend schools on Kuzaliwa and to come to celebrate Malcolm’s birth and life at Us’ headquarters and they responded in great numbers.

We especially embraced Malcolm’s and other African revolutionary leaders’ insistence on cultural revolution that gives us the vision, values, will and way to wage the liberation struggle. And again, for us, as both Sekou Toure and Amilcar Cabral contend, “the national liberation struggle is an expression and ‘act of culture’.” Given this, Kawaida contends, a critical and rightful reading of Malcolm, as well as Toure and Cabral, leads us to conclude that the cultural revolution to free the mind and create a culture of struggle which grounds and supports overall liberation is imperative. Indeed, “without a cultural revolution, there can be no real liberation of the people. But without the struggle for total liberation, a dynamic, self-affirming, self-developing past-and-future-facing culture cannot be created”.

Malcolm, by his own self-definition, was “a Black nationalist freedom fighter.” And his nationalism, Kawaida teaches, is defined by three major principles and practices which we used to define Black Power: self-determination, self-respect and self-defense. This means control of our space, destiny and daily life in this country and the world African community; cultural grounding which affirms our identity and dignity as persons and a people; and the right and responsibility to defend ourselves against systemic and social violence and oppression thru increased and continuing liberation struggle and relentless resistance to open and hidden constraints on African and human freedom. And it is in this way that we practice the morality of remembrance, rightfully reading and reaffirming Malcolm’s legacy and self-consciously conceive and aid in construction of a new way to a good society and just world, and a new way of being human and relating rightfully in the world.

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Introduction to Black Studies, 4th Edition, www.MaulanaKarenga.org.

Chicago is girding for the opening of the NATO Summit on May 20. The ministers and heads of state will be greeted by a rich array of protests, marches, events and counter-summits. Security is already tight near the conference center, and tensions are building.

Why protest a meeting of U.S. allies? One major reason is that after the Soviet Union collapsed and Europe united, NATO became an organization in search of a mission. It was created as a defensive alliance to bolster the West against the Soviet threat. Now that threat is no longer. And NATO has slowly turned from a mutual defensive alliance to a mutual offensive alliance. In the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya, NATO has coordinated interventions into areas outside the alliance.

The summit will focus on Afghanistan. The allies will discuss how quickly to transfer authority over to the Afghans, and what kind of commitments will be sustained after the troop withdrawals, slated to be completed by 2014. After more than 10 years, Afghanistan is an unpopular war, opposed by the vast majority of Americans.

National Nurses United will organize one of the most visible demonstrations. They oppose the war in principle, but also because of its costs. The U.S. spends almost as much on our military as the nations of the world combined spend on theirs. President Barack Obama has helped bring the Iraq War to an end, but the administration’s budget spends more on war in Afghanistan than it does on education here at home.

NATO is the symbol and the centerpiece of the U.S. commitment to global military intervention. The demonstrators are right to take their protests to its doorstep. Nonviolent protest will make their message clear. Violence or vandalism will only divert attention. Gandhi and King chose nonviolence because they were wise. Nonviolence works. Its moral witness is far more powerful than the fear and anger created by violence.

If the message is clear, Americans will stand with the demonstrators. The only country the U.S. should be focused on rebuilding is right here at home. We have the most powerful military in the world, but our students aren’t keeping up, our roads and bridges and basic infrastructure are in decline, poverty is spreading. And abroad, we’re increasingly known not for the aid we provide but for the bombs we drop.

Last week in Washington, Republicans in Congress passed a budget resolution that increased military spending while cutting funding for food stamps and child nutrition. Republican Mitt Romney has called for raising military spending — already above its Cold War levels in comparable dollars — even as he supports a budget that would require cutting Medicare and virtually eliminating domestic government investments in education, food safety, roads and bridges, new energy and more. Obama’s budget is less unbalanced, but even he would sustain a military budget far higher than required for defense.

Instead of diplomacy and peaceful engagement, the U.S. increasingly employs drones and remote-controlled missiles to “speak” to our adversaries. Too many scorn diplomacy as weak, as “soft power.” But in fact, Americans would be better served if we had fewer smart bombs and more educated kids. We’d do better if our military were smaller, our diplomats more active and our economy stronger.

If nonviolent, the protests at the NATO Summit will be compelling because their means fit their ends. Chicago and America would be far better off with more peaceful citizen organizing and less military mobilization.

The task, as Us perceived it then and contends now, is to forge and embrace a cul- ture which both prepares the people for the struggle and sustains them in the process of the struggle for a world of social justice, human freedom and human flourishing. This meant then and continues to mean selecting and stressing elements of Black culture which represent the best of African and hu- man values, values which protect and pro- mote human life, human freedom and max-imum human development and extend to rightful concern for the well-being of the world. It means embracing values, views and practices which open up new ways of seeing and approaching the world, that rein- force and raise up the people, support and sustain the struggle and point toward the new world we struggle to bring into being.

Key to this process of deepening cultural consciousness and expanding struggle is the ongoing dialog with African culture. Kawai- da, the philosophy of our organization Us, defines this dialog as the constant practice of asking questions and seeking answers from African culture to the fundamental and en- during concerns of the African and human community. At the heart of this project is the continuing quest to free ourselves, live full and meaningful lives and become the best of what it means to be both African and human “in the fullness of ourselves,” as Marcus Garvey taught us. Moreover, it involves an ongoing search for models of excellence and possibilities within our culture, speaking our own special cultural truth to the world and making our own unique contribution to the forward flow of human history.

To truly dialog with African culture means, first of all, using it as a resource ra- ther than a mere reference. To simply use African culture as a reference is to mention to make a point without grounding or devel- oping it, and never using it to answer ques- tions, solve problems and produce and pur- sue paradigms of excellence and possibility in thought and practice. To dialog with Afri- can culture is to constantly engage its oral, written and living-practice texts, its worldview and values, its understanding of itself and the world, in an ongoing search forever better answers to the fundamental ques- tions and challenges of our time.

We must always recognize and respect the fact that our culture cultivates in us our own special way of being human in the world and that this particular African way of being human in the world provides a pathway to the universal. Ours is a history of struggle, creativity, achievement and con- stant concern for the right, the just and the good. And it is within the context of this rich and most ancient of histories and cultures, that we must work our way on and in the world, imagine excellence and achieve it, conceive good and pursue it. This ongoing search for solutions and models of human excellence and possibilities must occur, Ka- waida contends, in every area of human life, but especially in the seven core areas of cul- ture: history; religion (spirituality and eth- ics); social organization; economic organiza- tion; political organization; creative produc- tion (art, music, literature, dance, etc.) and ethos, the collective self-consciousness achieved as a result of activity in the other six areas.

In the area of history, Us maintains, we must study history to learn its lessons, ab- sorb its spirit of possibility, extract and emu- late its models of excellence and possibility and honor the moral obligation to remember. Indeed, we must measure ourselves in the mirror of the best of our history and con- stantly ask ourselves how can we use the past as a foundation to inform, improve and enrich our present and expand the horizons and promise of our future.

In the area of religion (spirituality and ethics), we must uphold our most ancient spiritual and social justice traditions that introduced the concept of humans as posses- sors of dignity and divinity as early as 2140 B.C.E. (before the common era) and spoke to the world saying, “speak truth, do justice, care for the vulnerable, honor the elders and ancestors, cherish and challenge the chil- dren, maintain a right relation with the envi- ronment and always raise up and pursue the good.”

Our social organization must be con- stantly concerned with values and practice that affirm and strengthen family, communi- ty and culture, especially the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles which aid us in build- ing a peaceful and harmonious togetherness and to struggle for freedom, justice, peace and human flourishing in the world. In the area of economics, our culture teaches us the principle of ujamaa which in its most expan- sive sense means shared work and wealth rooted in a profound sense of kinship with other humans and respect the environment as sacred space.

Our culture teaches us also to view poli- tics as a collective vocation to create a just and good society and advance human good in the world. And the best of African culture teaches that our creative production or art is at its best functional, collective and commit- ting, celebrating not only the transcendent and awesome, but also the ordinary, reveal- ing the beauty and sacredness of everyday people and their struggles to live dignity- affirming and fulfilling lives. Finally, our culture provides us with an ethos, a self- understanding that undergirds and instructs our self-assertion in the world, and fosters human excellence, social justice and cease- less struggle for good in and for the world.

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Introduction to Black Studies, 4th Edition, www.MaulanaKarenga.org.

And then we had the Honorable Alexis Herman, the former Secretary of Labor whose down home humor and corporate knowledge combine to offer sage, savvy, and humorous advice. She shared that a potential employer said the best job she could get was as a secretary, and she fulfilled his prediction by being Secretary of Labor for the United States. She offered students pointed advice about navigating a labor market that is lagging, about one that only generated 115,000 jobs last month, when more than 170,000 people withdrew from the labor market because they are so discouraged that they think the jobs are not there. But my sister Alexis Herman didn’t allow in the negative, but encouraged students to be positive and encouraged, to do their homework and prepare for interviews, to be focused and phenomenal. It is important to note that she is the woman Dr. Dorothy Irene Height laid hands on, a sister who brings us all together and encourages us all to make a difference.
Between Herman and Sharpton, my students got a blessing. They were told to persevere, to accept their crown and destiny, and to do their homework to make their dreams come true. While Drs. Herman and Sharpton were simply speaking to Bennett students, in some ways they were speaking to our nation and our world. They were reminding us that despite tough and crazy economic times, each of us can make a difference in our own circumstances when we are focused, committed, and forward thinking.

There are more than 1.7 million young people, and some not so young, who will graduate from college this may and June. How many will have the one-two punch of Rev. Al Sharpton and Alexis Herman. They are my friends, and I am glad to have them. They are luminaries, and visionaries, folks who speak both ebonics and high phonics. They sowed into the lives of 109 Bennett women who have graduated, but they have also sowed into the life of our nation. I have been blessed to have them grace our campus presence.

The bottom line of the Sharpton/Herman message was powerful. Re. Sharpton urged us to claim our crown, our dignity, and the array of our possibilities. The3 Honorable Alexis Herman reminded us that to win the game we have to play it. Between them, they advised Bennett students to clam their destiny, even in a tough economy. It’s an interesting time. Young people are being kicked to the curb with the possibility that Pell grants will be further cut, with the possibility that interest rates will raise in student loans.

The absolute bottom line is that this is a tough and challenging economy and there are o9pportunities. At Bennett there where to speakers who urged students to claim their crown, to never give up, despite the challenges of the economy. Their message hit home on our campus, but it also hit home in our nation and our world. Thank you, Rev. Al Sharpton and Hon. Alexis Herman for coming to Bennett. And sharing your wisdom with our students.

The defeat of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Sunday’s French elections provides a clear lesson to America. So does the fall of the conservative Dutch government, the rebuke of the British conservative government in local elections, the defeat of the establishment parties in Greece and the turmoil in Spain. Europeans are using democratic elections and demonstrations to send a message: Austerity is spreading unacceptable human misery.

For months, conservative pundits have criticized President Barack Obama for not forcing more deficit reduction. House Republicans boast that their Mitt Romney-endorsed budget would cut deficits faster by slashing spending — although they refuse to reveal what they would slash. Deficits are unpopular. They represent out-of-control government spending. Tightening our belts in hard times seems both responsible and inevitable.

For years, Greece’s soaring deficits have been the object lesson of the right: Run up deficits and investors won’t buy your bonds and you’ll face bankruptcy.

But the real lesson of Greece, Spain, France, Ireland and others is that slashing spending in a weak economy serves only to drive the economy back into recession, increase unemployment and spread poverty. And it does little to reduce deficits or to reassure investors who worry about the economy tanking. Austerity is like bleeding a patient who is still recovering from a heart attack.

The U.S. enjoys better growth than Europe because we’ve done more to stimulate our economy and have been slower to turn to deficit reduction. But states and localities forced to balance budgets because of state constitutional requirements are laying off teachers and police and firefighters. Now the federal budget is being cut, adding to the drag on the economy. And if, no matter who wins this fall, the administration and Congress join in a “grand bargain” that combines spending cuts and tax increases, Americans may well learn the European lesson about austerity directly.

This economy is barely out of the operating room and just beginning to recover. Large companies are sitting on trillions of profits looking for customers. Small businesses won’t hire until they see consumers coming in the door. We still have mass unemployment, falling wages and more families losing their homes. Yet Washington seems unable or unwilling to act.

This week, a committee of the Senate and House will consider the only major jobs program before the Congress: the transportation bill, which funds rebuilding roads, bridges and mass transit. The Senate passed a small, two-year authorization with overwhelming bipartisan support. But zealous House Republicans have defeated everything except temporary extensions.

This makes no sense. In fact, we should be doing much more to rebuild America. Interest rates are at near-record lows. The construction industry is idle. There will never be a better opportunity to borrow the money needed to rebuild an infrastructure that is in dangerous disrepair.

Maybe we should pay the legislators to junket in Europe. Let them see the riots, visit with defeated politicians, talk to embarrassed economists now calling for a change in course. The House Republican caucus doesn’t seem to worry about the growing poverty in our cities or wonder whether those cities will blow up this summer. Perhaps they might reconsider if they learn from the Europeans that enforcing brutal measures on citizens to pay for the mess caused by banks doesn’t just increase poverty and unemployment, it shortens political careers.

In the wake of the bank bailout, banks qualified for low-interest and even no-interest loans. Students have always had to pay their share, and in this economy a 3.4 percent interest rate can hardly be considered low interest. Now, if nothing is done the rate can rise to 6.8 percent, and 7.4 million students will be affected. This is hardly compatible with President Obama’s pledge to make our nation, once again, a leader in the educational arena. Instead, higher interest rates for student loans are a step backwards, often discouraging students from attending or continuing college, or extending the time it takes for them to finish degrees. This is especially true for African American, working class, and first generation students (these characteristics do overlap) because these groups have scant finances and sometimes equally scant parental support, for their college journey.

The average college graduate leaves school with $25,000 of student loan debt, the average African American student with even more. The time it takes to complete college has inched up, partly because students stop out a semester or two to gather funds, partly because some college have been forced to cut faculty so much that essential courses are not offered frequently enough. Students are shouldering a bigger burden on their student loans, and colleges, are also burdened when state legislatures apply drastic cuts to their higher education budgets. Many states are hampered because they, unlike the federal government, can’t carry deficits from year to year.

Yet if we were able to invest in higher education now, we’d have a stronger workforce later. As it is, heavy student debt prevents young people from fully participating both in the labor force and life. Many take jobs because they can make great money, eschewing jobs like social work or teaching because the don’t pay enough. Many others, living with Mom and Dad, delay marriage and homeownership while they tackle debt. While these student took on debt knowing they’d have to pay it back, what kind of country makes upward mobility so unaffordable that students literally shackle themselves to debt so that they can have a shot at participating in our changing labor force.

Why can’t we treat students the same way that we treat corporations, offering them subsidized interest rates, or even zero interest rates. After all, they are helping us meet national goals and are key to our national and international survival. But banks are a bigger and more effective lobby than students, and we don’t mind subsidizing banks, while students are another story.

The human costs are high. The shattered dreams are heart breaking. I’ve seen Mom and Dad borrow on their home so baby girl can go to college, only to find the amount they have is simply not enough. I’ve seen folks turned away from student loan opportunities because their credit is bad, forcing them into higher loan options. I’ve seen students opt to work more hours, affecting their grades but paying their bills. Some students choose off-campus housing because they think it is cheaper, only to find themselves hungry and stuck with costly bus rides. Again grades suffer.

We say we believe young people are our future. We have a funny we of showing it. We have a generation shackled by debt, and legislators who have only come up with the option of throwing women’s health care under the bus to lower rates.