RBG Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank's Purpose:
This Educational Program and Research Project is Dedicated to Further Building the Hip Hop--Black Liberation Movement Connection by Integrating Conscious Digital Edutainment with A Scholarly Self Directed Learning Environment.

Welcome to one of the baddest EduTainment Resources on the Web. A one-stop-shop for education,consciousness raising, entertainment and liberation. And the nicest thing about it is that you can become a contributor. Just start out by reading this overview and learning how things work. You can play a video right within this start page and even browse to it's music. Or turn on an audio playlist to facilitate your browsing. Tons of other options, too numerous to mention here are also right at you finger tips. Ride it however you like, it's all good. Once you get going, check out a Multi-Media Article that interests you and make a comment. I, RBG Street Scholar-Your Zine author, editor and guru will respond. The aforementioned approach is a kol gateway to doing bigger and better things in and with the Communiversity.

WHAT IS RBG STREET SCHOLARS THINK TANK AT ZIMBIO ALL ABOUT?

It's about creating and maintaining the best "Afri-Conscious Cyber EduTainment Portal / Communiversity on the Web".

It's about saving time doing study, learning / teaching together and having madd fun doing it.
The merticulously researched choice of links can be thought of as our votes in the popularity contest that is the "Best of the Best in Black Internet" . The intention is to provide a diverse and concise starting point for you to begin your quest for whatever information you are looking for from a progressive/radical/revolutionary Black perspective . As most of these sites have vast links sections of their own, so do the sites they link to, and so on, and so forth—starting from these links, you can delve further into whatever area interests you.

You got a myspace, youtube, odeo, website etc.
Add your Stuff Folx--and let's learn from each other, build together and teach the world

Our Zines are intended to help us develop and maintain a resource for scholarly research, build together and learn about any subject / topic related to what we're already about: Namely, the "Africentric Idea of Education" let's take the learner from G.E.D. to Ph.D in the contemporary liberal arts and sciences;

Including:
> computers & information technology,
> history and cultural development,
> religion and spirituality,
> sociology,
> political science,
> creative productions/ entertainment,
> education,
> health promotion and disease prevention
> economics and
> psychology
A one stop shop using all forms of media to interactively showcase our ideas of relavent education, unification, collectivity and self definition.

They say " Black Folx Can't Unite, I say they're a lie" Let's show the world our truth and culture; all under the umbrella of Black Nationalism> PanAfrikanism> Scientific Socialism> Revolutionary Change>Afrikan Internationalism.

Browse existing content in any of our four Zines and you will discover that they are all concentricly integrated, thus providing you with a most rich and wholesome interactive learning experience.

Help RBG Street Scholar, your Resident Guru, build our school with your good works.

Rate each others work as to keep us on point.

I'VE STARTED US OUT WITH SOME SOLID CONTENT. NOW WE MUST CONTINUE BY BUILDING TOGETHER. A GOOD WAY TO START IS BY FIRST SIGNING UP AND THEN BROWSING EACH FIELD IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS PANE TO THE LEFT AS TO GET QUICKLY ORIENTED. A LINK BELOW TO "RBG STREET SCHOLARS THINK TANK RULES OF ENGAGEMENT" WILL TAKE YOU DEEPER STILL.

THE FOLLOWING IS A GUIDING SYNOSIS TAKEN FROM THE COMMUNIVERSITY PROPER:
With strick attention to developing our student’s basic education skills in the context of the highest standards of academic excellence, suitable for one to confidently sit for high stake exams(ie. SAT/ACT and MCATs, LSATs), we simutaneously advance the psycho-emotional healing and spiritual upliftment of our people by providing KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND OVERSTANDING of the historo-cultural, socio-political and psycho-educational experiences of Africans in America in away that RADICALLY REAPPRAISES EDUCATION from the pained and angry perspective of the oppressed black community.

WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS:
With the present day high rates of Black on Black homicide, suicide, and imprisonment and a rise in single-parent homes, rampant police brutality, unprecedented unemployment, and Blacks use of popular (ENEMY) culture (through music, video games and popular movies) to celebrate "anti-intellectualism, ignorance, irresponsible parenthood, drunkenness, dope dealing, weed smoking, cocaine, x-pills, loose sexual behavior and criminal lifestyles / thuggism"; we have chose to design a curriculum that, rather than getting caught up in the entertainment / BLACKPLOTATION aspects of hip hop/rap, will use hip hop/rap within a historo-cultural, socio-political and psycho-educational framework to address these various death walks forthrightly. Our new methodological style is intended to get our young people to begin to think critically about themselves, their world and their role as people of Afrikan descent.

WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE WANNA GO:
This work is a comprehensive (but only a core framework) sequenced survey of subjects and topics that have confronted Afrikans in America throughout our 246 years of chattel slavery, 100 years of aparthied and only “one generation of freedom” here in America. I like to describe the school as a “cultural development and leadership training communiversity”. From our research, we have determined that the idea of Sankofa, which means "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today", really encompasses the whole Afrikan-centered ideal. Nonetheless, as this is a work in evolution and always under construction, we have chosen to focus our teaching/learning journey most directly on the past 45 years of our struggle for human and civil rights—

THE THEME “THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THINGS STAY THE SAME, WE NEED A REVOLUTION, THE SYSTEM AIN’T GONA CHANGE UNLESS WE MAKE IT CHANGE”.

The content and character of the curriculum is Afrikan-centered and the goal is academic excellence in persuit of black power. We tease out the social, political, economic and moral imparatives of black power in the 21st century by zooming in on two povital questions throughout our course of study:

“WHAT IS BLACK OPPRESSION IN AMERICA AND WHAT IS AFRIKAN LIBERATION.”

RSS

Black History Month and GLBTQ African Americans

Written by herrintk on

From: wildernesswanderings.org

“If a race has no history,
If it has no worthwhile tradition,
It becomes a negligible factor
In the thought of the world,
And it stands in danger
Of being exterminated.”
Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black History Month

The Father of African-American History
Imagine a world in which people like you have no written history, or that which has been written is incomplete or distorted. Before Dr. Carter Goodwin Woodson (1875–1950) began his work, there was very little information, and much of that stereotypical misinformation, about the lives and history of Americans of African descent.

Carter G. Woodson
Dr. Woodson was the son of former slaves, but earned his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1912—only the second black American to do so (after W. E. B. DuBois). This achievement was even more extraordinary since he did not begin his formal education until he was 20 years old. He had been denied access to public education in Canton, Virginia, where he was born in 1875, and did not start school until he moved to Huntington, West Virginia. He received his high school diploma two years later, a bachelor's degree from Berea College in 1897, and went on to earn A.B. and M.A. degrees from the University of Chicago before attending Harvard.

ASALH
In 1915, he founded The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (the Association) and The Associated Publishers to assure an outlet for the publication of works of African-American history and the scholarly work of black scholars. The Association is now known as The Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH). In 1926 the Association, under Dr. Woodson's leadership, established Negro History Week to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. He established the second week of February 1926 as the first annual Negro History Week and fifty years later it expanded into a month-long commemoration. The idea spread to South America, the West Indies, Africa, the Philippines, the Virgin Islands and the UK (where it is observed in October).Today this commemoration is known as Black History Month.
Previous information adapted in part from: http://www.nps.gov/cawo/, please consult for additional information and resources.

Not only did Dr. Carter leave us with a strong foundation to build upon, he also left us a model; a model of self preservation through telling our stories. Telling our stories is something the GLBTQ community has to engage in with reckless abandonment. It is only through telling our stories do we define ourselves rather than allowing others define us; in doing so redeeming our humanity: dignity and respect. In the spirit of Black History month, over the next several weeks, I will profile several African American GLBTQ spiritual/religious leaders who have contributed to telling the stories of African American GLBTQ people.

Four related resources I recommend:

Harris, E. Lynn, ed. Freedom in This Village, Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005.

Griffin, Horace L. Their Own Receive Them Not, African Americans Lesbians and Gays in Black Churches. The Pilgrim Press, 2006.

James, G. Winston and Lisa C. Moore. Spirited, Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity. Redbone Press, 2006.

Johnson, E. Patrick and Mae G. Henderson, eds. Black Queer Studies, A Critical Anthology. Duke University Press, 2006.

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