Submitted by Ras Jahaziel

The images that have been embedded in your subconscious mind are the motherboard that governs the wiring of your psyche – Source: Ras Jahaziel
Read More @https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/fineartprints/
Read More @https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/fineartprints/
The blogmaster in between the hustle and bustle of yesterday was able to listen to a few minutes of The Peter Wickham Show. Piquing the interest was an exchange with a caller who sought to raise the issue of Black enfranchisement. Peter Wickham exposing his naïveté was unable to fathom- despite the caller’s best effort to explain- how a country that is Black majority finds its people owning a disproportionate amount of wealth and economic influence in the country, a state brought forward from being an enslaved people.
The argument that because Barbados is majority Black means it inevitably empowers Blacks in Barbados to be craftsmen of their fate is simplistic. Regarding the financial sector Wickham thought he was stoutly defending his perspective by mentioning that bank managers are almost 100% Black. He failed to mention all banks in Barbados are foreign owned and therefore Black managers are binded to policies handed to them. He mentioned the credit unions and other non bank entities that are Black owned. He failed to mention that same institutions have to comply to regulations of international agencies to ensure good standing.
What about the business sector? What is the concentration of ownership of the tourism sector? After answering these questions- who owns the significant interest in retail (food and appliances) sector, who controls distributive trade in Barbados. Do we have active agencies that lend and support entrepreneurs and startup businesses in a meaningful way? What about export earning businesses? What is the predominant ownership?
Let us turn our attention to power generation. Why a Black nation that is strategically located close to the equator, we have been too slow to democratize ownership of this sector? We were quick to sell Barbados Light & Power, a strategic asset. Some of us had hoped by now the legacy of Oliver Headley would have inspired Barbadians to build on it by becoming a model country for the adoption of renewable energy.
The last point, Black empowerment is about developing a way of thinking in the majority of our people that shouts to the world – we are confident in our abilities to compete and support a quality life for our people. Having this discuss is not about çussin’ minorities. It is about having a mature discussion towards building an equitable society on the little isl;and we love so much.
Listen to the exchange at 2hrs 20 minutes.
https://downtobrasstacks.castos.com/episodes/brasstacks-mar-21st-2022
Why pick on China?
Who in the world respects Black people?
The English? No!
The French? No!
The Americans? No!
Germans? No!
Canadians? No!
Ukrainians? No!
Australians? No!
Filipinos? No!
Russians? No!
Arabs? No!
Anyone? No!
Blacks? Certainly not!!!
Quite apart from the fact that “Black” and “White” are artificial constructs based on bogus premises and stupid stereotypes (which distort our existential authenticity as much as it does theirs) the simple truth is: all we have to do is respect ourselves. REPEAT: ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS RESPECT OURSELVES!
Respecting ourselves, truly respecting ourselves (not a stand-alone phenomenon, but one that is accompanied by self-esteem, self-belief, self-validation, self-actualization and, most importantly, self-love) is a mammoth undertaking for any people who have had a comparable history to ours. This turn of phrase is laughable for its emptiness, since no others have; not by a long shot. In short, nothing to compare! The task at hand is uniquely ours. The task at hand is two-fold. One. Demand & collect trillions of dollars in reparations from Arabia & the West for 14 centuries of material enslavement. Two. Regain our rightful minds. This task is to effect our own rebirth and cease to be what Professor Thomas has aptly termed natally alienated and morally imbecilic. Admittedly, this is no easy task. One generation of enslavement is bad enough. Fourteen centuries of inter-generational dehumanization is deadly. But rise from the dead, we must!
To every poison there is an antidote. Ours likely exists in our midst, hiding in plain sight. In fact our problem is not one of discovery but legitimization. Legit # 1: recognizing that we have a problem in the first place. Legit # 2: desiring its resolution. Legit # 3: actually taking the medicine. This is what we owe ourselves, our Ancestors and our children’s children. Yes, we owe it to ourselves! (What they owe us is trillions in reparations). It is entirely likely that a handful among us have undergone this process and effected our rebirth. Speaking personally, we know of only a few; a precious few. And, at the very top of this very short list stands such luminaries as Mirambo, Nzinga, Sandy, Rodney, Azikiwe, Kaunda, L’overture, Hypatia, Nkrumah, Lumumba, Imhotep, Toure, Shaka, Diop, Nyerere, Garvey, Zumbi dos Palmares, Jomo Kenyatta, av gbhnd, hiding in plain sight from most of our blinkered plant-African brothers and sisters, Molefe Kete Asante. Thank you Molefe and your illustrious associates for swelling our Ancestors’ chests with pride! Thank you, thank you, thank you!So, let’s not pick on the Chinese or any other group. Let us simply respect ourselves, truly respect ourselves and be the self-validating people God intended us to be. This must be the basis upon which we relate to ourselves. And this, in turn, is the only basis upon which we should countenance transactions with others; be they large or small, friendly or hostile, material or spiritual.
NM5. Ashe!
Whenever there is a harvest on the slave plantation it is the slave-master who will be going to the bank to continue his process of wealth accumulation.
Read full text – https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/schizophrenia/
The fervent tone of most of the panellists supporting the removal of Lord Nelson’s statute on the Sunday July 12, 2020 programme, ‘The Peoples Business’ muted that of the sole panellist against its removal. There was a lot of emotion, stated positions but no balance view on why the statute should be removed. Research was necessary to determine fact from fiction and emotion from material evidence.
Lord Nelson shared via his writings, his ‘old-school’ views of a profitable British colonial system dependent on the slave trade, i.e., supporting money for the plantation owners and death for thousands of slaves. Production was of prime importance to plantation owners who had mortgages to pay. The common practice therefore was for slave owners to deliberately work slaves to death via overwork, poor nutrition, poor work conditions, brutality, and disease simply because it was cheaper to replace slaves every 7 years than to feed them properly. The high death rate among the Barbados slave population in the 1770s is evidenced by the annual importation of the 5,000 slaves necessary to increase the population by 700 per year. Therefore, slave owners by their actions bring into question the validity of the contention that Lord Nelson’s sinking of ships carrying food including bread fruit to the islands caused the death of thousands of slaves. Sugar cane was a land intensive crop that required plantations used most of the arable land. With few exceptions, slaves were only allowed to cultivate food crops on rubble land but were granted limited time to do so. Owners did import costly foodstuff but they rationed these with a stingy hand. It was the Amelioration Act of 1798 which forced planters to improve conditions for slaves.
Yes, he spoke of his support for slave owners and the slave trade but was Lord Nelson overtly or privately racist. Evidence suggests otherwise. He helped secure the release of slaves, hired ex slaves, paid them well and supported the idea that plantation slaves should be replaced by freed, paid industrious Chinese workers.
Finally, his success at the Battle of Trafalgar created the conditions that supported the British abolitionists. Now in control of the seas, the British adhered to the abolition of slavery capturing 1600 slave ships and freeing around 150,000 slaves.
Whether we choose to learn our full history or err on the side of emotion is left to us.
The Sunday Nation of July 12, 2020 article ‘Black Lives in the Spotlight’ by Colville Mounsey addressed realities centred around the position “that elements of our historical starting points still shape the Barbadian economic power structure’. This balanced article provided a contra position that was interesting, in that it might remind one of the American constitution which informs that all men are created equal, yet generations of blacks continue to be marginalized. The article is worth the read.
From my Barbados experience, though black business people had limited experience running businesses, they all had good ideas. Unfortunately, they were naive always expecting business to be good and never planning for worst case scenarios. Their mindsets prevented them from being responsive to situations which hampered businesses growth and development. In addition, money to cover business lags was not every easily accessible and most of them failed.
Retail banks and credit unions are usually wary of startups. Most of the local companies once providing funding to businesses as well as offering much needed advice and guidance are no longer in operation. A business plan along with collateral security are prerequisites for obtaining loans but whites and Indians have the option of obtaining financial handouts and other material support from family and friends something that is a rarity for blacks. In addition, the long preparatory process inclusive of financial assessment can open doors for ideas to be subtly and overtly sabotaged.
Even at the end of a successful black businessman life cycle there is generally no succession plan for the handover of the business to a competent offspring. A failed black business most often means a loss of property/ies with black people poorer for it. Successful black businessmen also fail on a macro level in that they do not transfer key business information and knowledge via offers of support and guidance to start ups.
Then there’s this; the A students work for private enterprise, the B students for Government and the C for themselves, with the later typically starting at an early age. There is no need to guess the categories preferred by black people.
My response is not analytical because there’s little evidence to support the perceptions and questions raised by those who doubt that black businesses are disadvantaged. It is an area that should be investigated/researched. Meanwhile, successful black businessmen should develop strategies to offer support to startup businesses.
The stress of poverty and oppression is the main problem in the Black Nation.
With settled and incontestable scientific certainty we know that the original peoples of the universes were as Black as midnight – blue-black. Long before there was anything called a White race, Afrikans had peopled the entirety of Mother Earth. Even today, about 90% of all humanoids are still peoples of colour. Yet we have the internal contradiction of a people which did not create the year, the month, the week, the day, the hour, the minute, the second or anything else foundationally, mustering the audacity to assign a month to those who actually did, as if by right, by papal bull (er).
When they talk about Black history month they are essentially describing events emanating from Nicholas V’s issuance of such a papal bull (Romanus Pontifex) on January 8, 1455. It gave the Portuguese a monopoly to trade with Afrika and in our enslavement – just 570 years ago. It was a declaration of war on the Afrikan world. The Pope presumed that he was the owner of the earth, that some god somewhere had so given it. Some still, to this day, argue that that Bull is still the law of the land – all lands. And though we well know that Afrikan peoples have been here at the beginning of the time before time, the only history which really matters in White history month is the last five hundred and seventy (570) years. And that is so because White people say so and ignorant Black people believe it.
Only in White history does 570 years have any significance in the grand scheme of things – for to them everything around us was built just 6000 years ago. And that ignorance continues despite carbon dating, despite genetic sequencing, despite not making common sense, despite historical inconsistencies. More troubling, is the fixation on this twinkling of the eye, in astronomical terms, by much of Black academia, the Black church, Black elites and the general public.
Could it be possible that this artificiality was constructed to serve the purposes of those who would want to really rewrite history, as if to start anew? And who are those who have benefited from such monumental set of plagiaries? How could it be that the very peoples who invented all the sciences, developed the techno-complexes, settled the entire earth, conquered the seas, invented writing, hundreds of thousands of years previously could now be the slaves of Europeans who never even existed until recently, nor developed a script of their own and were not even writing, generally, until well into the second millennia of the common era.
Black academia serves White and Jewish interests, in presenting the truncated historical record which informs our every action. That the historiographies which have as their point of departure a slavery epoch deliberately leaves out truths which have the immense potential of awakening the sleeping Afrikan giant could only have been informed by sinister motives. We contend that if Afrikan peoples today knew the truth of our existence, it would be apparent that everything of significance Europeans have told us was a lie and that the Europeans, themselves, are in perpetual fear of genetic annihilation, then this White history month could have an entirely different meaning.
There is not one academician in the Caribbean and few elsewhere who would, for example, and with specificity draw on the mountains of literature written by Jewish scholars which clearly show that though we generally blame the Europeans for the Holocaust of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, from the beginning to ‘now’ slavery was a Jewish led enterprise. Those Jewish scholars provide incontrovertible proofs that Columbus was himself a Jew who converted to Christianity in order to receive the support of both the Spanish and Portuguese courts. Of course, it was the ‘Arabs’ who first traded the Slavic peoples, thus giving us this etymology.
We have been appealing for the local expert on the Jewish Synagogue, Karl Watson, to explain to us the forces which would have led to the erection of such a place of ‘worship’ in Barbados in 1654. While he is at it, he might want to tell us why the synagogue in Brazil, the oldest in the western hemisphere, was built as early as 1636, a few years earlier, and what the relationships between the two were. Also, why was Barbados so important to international Jewry for such a congregation to be so established, as the second oldest in the western hemisphere? If you are contending that the last 570 years of history is such a significant epoch, why can we never come to an accurate understanding of the underlying forces in the society at that time, in relation to world Jewry? We will leave questions about the significant (leading) Jewish role, especially Dutch Jewry, in the slave economy in North America to your colleague Skip Gates, a ‘prominent’ White historian in Black face operating up north.
During White history month we will not be hearing the likes of Dr. Ben, Van Sertima, James, Williams, Jan Carew, Diop, Obenga, Clarke, Smalls and thousands more as Afrikan Studies Departments continue to face cuts in budgets. We are certainly not going to hear anything of the majesty of Afrikan peoples – that history before time, before Europeans even existed. Instead we will be fed with general narratives which support European history and culture, in Black face, of course. We will be seeing ‘exceptional Negroes’ being paraded who could ‘shuck and jive’, Negroes who could run behind a ball, a man who could offer the other cheek – not down below we hope, even milquetoast presentations of both MLK and Malcolm X as a staple and to protect the ‘sensibilities’ of Europeans.
Let us deal with some of the social forces which have harmed the Afrikan interests in recent times.
The most sinister of these must be the ‘selection’ of Barack Obama for the presidency of the USA. Obama used that position to strategically relocate the ‘civil rights movement’ firmly into the camp of the LGBTQ political formations. It is pellucid to us that this Obama was appointed to do a job of the master pimp. And Obama did a massive devastation of Afrikans within the USA, and elsewhere, were by most metrics the vestiges of slavery continued to wreak havoc from coast to coast.
With the merging of these social formations the whole orientation of human rights discourses have been forever transformed by Obama. Black interests were made to take a back seat while the society is set sail down a cultural dead end with a social ‘experiment’ whose outcome is not uncertain. It is an experiment which could only come from the mind of the Devil or White people in Black face. Thus we’ve seen the Black church, led by people like Barber, Sharpton, and more, going all in, on the Obama legacy of mainstreaming bulling with all its emerging ‘specializations’.
Obama and his supporters even weaponized this hideous agenda. With this many were forced to break with him. It was when he decided (implemented) that Afrikan countries, in order to receive America aide, had to change their laws to permit bulling in all its manifestations. This was however consistent with his generalized attitude towards Afrikan people – our destruction. Certainly, he was a White man in Black face, no?
Even when we look at American military aggressions on Africa during the Obama presidency we see a level of militarism not inconsistent with the other form of cultural penetration as described above. When Obama came to office there were only four (4) American military bases on the Afrikan continent. On leaving office there had markedly increased to eighty-four (84), in just eight (8) years. Could he have been anything but a White man in Black face like Northam, the now embroiled governor of Virginia?
One good thing about Obama though. Were there not an Obama we could not have a Trump. For Trump may very well be a blessing in disguise. For what Donald Trump has done, is doing, has contributed more to the destruction of the American imperium than we could have hoped for in our wildest dreams. How ironic? For that is the subject of our next contribution.
“The events that transpired five thousand years ago, five years ago, or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now, five years from now, or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event.”
-Dr. John Henrik Clarke -–
That global experience that is commonly referred to as “history” effectively divided the world into two distinct regions that can accurately be called White Heaven and Black Hell.
Read full article on Ras Jahaziel’s website
[Barbados Underground] Walter Blackman responded to BU commenter TheOGazerts on the observation that Barbadians are engaged in the Charles Herbert, a rich Bajan Actuary that contrast starkly with Walter, a Bajan Actuary who is Black and forced to return to the USA to make a living – David, blogmaster
TheOGazerts, Barbados, our idyllic island home, will continue to vomit up its shocking contrasts.
It is only after listening to people on BU describing how “bright” a certain white man is to have completed a degree in actuarial science, then to have gone on to complete the tough actuarial professional exams, then to have gone on to develop a multi-million dollar actuarial company in Barbados, that I found myself making some comparisons. We both demonstrated at the university and professional exams level that we possess the intellectual capacity needed to become fully qualified pension actuaries. However, the demonstration of brain power is where the similarity abruptly ends.
Now for the contrast. He is a bright, rich, white man. I am simply a black man.
In Barbados, this is a huge, huge deal and it naturally and invariably translates into a situation where a universe of opportunities are opened to him, whilst all doors are closed to me.
So whereas someone can boast on this white man’s behalf, that he made millions from selling an actuarial company which he developed in Barbados (not sure if this is correct), I am left to inform BU readers that I was awarded an OAS Fellowship to study actuarial science at the masters degree level with the expressed intention of providing actuarial services to the National Insurance Scheme of Barbados. Alas, I completed my studies but, on my return to Barbados, was never allowed to work at the NIS. I applied for the vacant position of Supervisor of Insurance, which was advertised by the Erskine Sandiford administration. After a series of interviews, the final two candidates were Walter Blackman and Joycelyn Hinds. I attended the final interview and have heard nothing since. I discovered later that Wismar Greaves was placed in the post. Could it be that this was the point at which CLICO was being prepared for its “great” journey?
Attempts to work at ICB amounted to a mere exercise in futility.
More recently, the Government of Barbados, for the first time, advertised the position of CEO of the Financial Services Commission. I knew something was afoot so I made sure that I applied. As expected, I never even got an acknowledgement. However, Sir Frank Alleyne told Barbadians that the FSC had searched the whole world and could find no one but Mr, Randy Graham to fill the position.
What has allowed me to remain mentally strong and steadfast is my firm belief that no one selected Walter Blackman to “unfair” or destroy. This “square pegs in round holes” problem is systemic and thousands of progressive-minded Barbadians, if given the chance, can easily recount incidents of being similarly “unfaired” and discriminated against.
There is some purpose to this madness.
Back in the early to mid-1980’s, a grand designer decided to “corner” and control government’s financial services market. Individuals were handpicked to head major government revenue agencies and to follow certain career tracks (e.g. Supervisor of Insurance, NIS dept, PS/Director of Finance).
For example, Sabina Walcott was made Commissioner of Inland revenue. Grantley Smith was Director of NIS, before moving on to the PS/Director of Finance role. William Layne was Financial Controller of NIS, Supervisor of Insurance, and then PS/Director of Finance. Ian Carrington was Supervisor of Insurance, Director of NIS, and has now moved into a PS/Director of finance role.
Any person or agency wishing to investigate the nature and state of the government’s finances from 1985-2015 is well-advised to start by questioning and interviewing these four individuals along with Erskine Griffith, a former PS/Director of finance, who was ultimately “rewarded” with a minister of agriculture’s salary. These persons were in the best position to know how come government’s financial rules could be violated so easily, and how come the problems raised by the Auditor General for so long could be so contemptuously disregarded with no repercussions or consequences.
With respect to the FSC, every Barbadian watched in disbelief as the organization did little or nothing to protect the rights and benefits of CLICO’s policyholders, or to punish the guilty persons responsible for the scandalous raid on the insurance company. However, when it was discovered that the Judicial Manager was about to publish a report which proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that David Thompson initiated the steps which led to the CLICO raid, the FSC sprang into action and tried to block the publication of the report. Was this the reason why the nephew of David Thompson was put in the CEO post? Was it sheer coincidence that he left the post after all attempts to block the publication of the JM report failed?
We castigate, shun, and in some cases, jail uneducated black Barbadians for their acts of ignorance. At the other extreme, we block well-educated black Barbadians.from taking up positions commensurate with their experience and training, and from participating meaningfully in public life. Participation in public life is now being characterized by corruption, malfeasance, and deceit. Instinct tells me that a social backlash cannot be very far away…
(Episode 1 – Racial Prejudice & Discrimination) –