RBG Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education

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... [more]

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.”

RBGz WORKING DEFINITION AND INSIGHT INTO AFRIKAN CULTURE


RBG Blakademics reflects the cultural continuity and recurring spiritual and pedagogical themes of Afrikan peoples education and socialization across space and time; from ancient classic Nile Valley Civilizations to West Africa (from which we most directly come from) North , Central and East Africa and throughout the Diaspora, right on up to our present day experience here in the hells of north America. So the process does not put in as much as it draws out what is already pre-existing in our mind and spirit
(our collective ancestral unconscious).


Culture is not one of life’s luxuries: it is life itself.

“Culture” may be defined as “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour… language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, ceremonies, and other related components…” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1989).



At times,“culture” and “civilization” have been regarded as synonymous; at others, culture has been regarded as the end and civilization the means. In anthropological terms, culture encompasses a broad range of material objects, behavior patterns and thoughts. In western society, culture is commonly regarded as something highbrow, a luxury rather than a necessity. Certain activities are deemed to constitute culture, while others are excluded. This paper argues that a democratic culture where there is access, respect, coherence and/or relevance in the public interest is not elitist, but a basis for human and social development.

Senegal’s former president, the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, once stated in an interview: “At intellectual conferences in the Third World culture is made an instrument for politics, although Marx was of the opinion that politics should be the instrument for culture. To Marx the purpose of politics is to make man free in order to be able to ‘create works of beauty’. Culture, not politics is the weave that keeps a society together. But industrialized countries in East and West do not accept the notion that cultures be equal although different. They do not take African culture and philosophy seriously as long as we have no economic power.” 4

“Is ‘culture’ an aspect or a means of ‘development’, the latter understood as material progress; or is ‘culture’ the end and aim of ‘development’, the latter understood as the flourishing of human existence in its several forms and as a whole?”

These quotations reflect a longstanding and ongoing discussion of two viewpoints. These can, however, be combined without one overshadowing the other. They are interdependent and nurture one another.

On the one hand, the importance of culture is thought to lie in its function as a medium of messages for educational or other social purposes. Here, the sharpness of the instrument depends on the dedication, skills and depth of the conveyor.

The other viewpoint emphasizes culture as a means of paving the way for creativity and showing experience that can be neither measured nor weighed. The artist’s imagination, or the world it builds, is a laboratory of the not-yet-experienced.

In the words of John Gardner, the American novelist, “Art is as original and important as it is precisely because it does not start out with a clear knowledge of what it means to say.”

To stimulate our imagination and nourish our dreams, we seek art, literature, film, music and theatre for a varied range of aesthetic experience. This applies to people all over the world, of all social classes and ages, women and men alike. What we cannot dream about cannot be realized either.

Culture helps us transgress limits, self-imposed or otherwise; to challenge ourselves; and to discover talents we were unaware of – talents that are valuable in every kind of situation in life. Without imagination and creativity, we are prisoners of the structures and thoughts of others.

Four aspects of the role of culture in development may be discerned. There is no competition between the four: rather, they empower one another.

They are:

* using culture to illustrate or clarify a medical, political, educational, agricultural or family problem = culture for development

* strengthening the cultural sector = cultural development

* the importance of analysing the consequences of development cooperation on the culture of a country, community or group.

* mainstreaming culture in all development work.

West African traditional djembe music and culture



An Authentic African Village in America


RBGz WORKING DEFINITION AND INSIGHT INTO AFRIKAN CULTURE:



right click and open in new tab for mp3 player

play
Queen Mama Assata Shakur- — We Can Win Our Liberation

play
Professor James Smalls — Culture

play Dr. Marimba Ani — African Worldview

play
Dr. Amos Wilson — On Multi-Cultural Education, Identity and Liberation

play
Dr. Na'im Akbar — On Afrikan Marriage to White

play
Dr. Ani — Black American Individualism



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Text modified from: The Power of Culture


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