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.”
Dr. Marimba Ani on Yurugu and Afrikan Rebirth/ Full Video Workshop and link to her RBG Classroom
Yurugu is on
e of RBG Street Scholars Think Tank'sTwo Required Textbooks
(The other being Dr. Amos Wilson's Blue Print for Black Power)
and Textbook Extracts:
Chapter 1, Utamawazo: The Cultural Structuring of Thought
The African world-view, and the world-views of other people who are not of European origin, all appear to have certain themes in common. The universe to which they relate is sacred in origin, is organic, and is a true “cosmos.” Human beings are part of the cosmos, and, as such, relate intimately with other cosmic beings. Knowledge of the universe comes through relationship with it and through perception of spirit in matter. The universe is one; spheres are joined because of a single unifying force that pervades all being. Meaningful reality issues from this force. These world-views are “reasonable” but not rationalistic: complex yet lived. They tend to be expressed through a logic of metaphor and complex symbolism.
Rob the universe of its richness, deny the significance of the symbolic, simplify phenomena until it becomes mere object, and you have a knowable quantity. Here begins and ends the European epistemological mode. What happened within embryonic Europe that was to eventually generate such a radically different world-view? What part did Platonic thought play in this process? Whether or not all of Western philosophy is “but a footnote to Plato,” certainly his influence on the European style of speculative thought and ultimately on the utamawazo—the general premises and assumptions of the culture—has been formulative and seminal. Any discussion of the nature and origin of European epistemology must focus on, if not begin with Plato. This is not to say that he was not influenced by the pre-Socratic African philosophies that preceded him. But what Plato seems to have done is to have laid a rigorously constructed foundation for the repudiation of the symbolic sense—the denial of cosmic, intuitive knowledge. It is this process that we need to trace, this development in formative European thought which was eventually to have had such a devastating effect on the nontechnical aspects of the culture. It led to the materialization of the universe as conceived by the European mind—a materialization that complemented and supported the intense psycho-cultural need for control of the self and others.
Contrary to our image of the philosopher as being otherworldly and remote, even irrelevant (Aristophanes, The Clouds), Plato appears to have been very much aware of himself as a social and ideological architect. His success was eventually overwhelming. The power of his ideas is evidenced by the way in which they have contributed to the growth and persistence of a new order. This is precisely the power of the Euro-Caucasian order; its ability to sustain and perpetuate itself. Plato’s innovations were ultimately incorporated into the culture because they were demanded by the asili.
Dr. Marimba Ani - Yurugu Video Education
Dr. Marimba Ani - On Afrikan Rebirth
"Without the African connection, we are a disjointed people ...begging for entry into somebody else's house."
Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Notes for an African World Revolution Trenton: Africa World Press, 1991, P.418. Marimba Ani was brought to the Department of Africana and Puerto Rican Studies by Dr. John Henrik Clarke in 1974 as she was completing her PhD dissertation at the Graduate Faculty of New School University. She had worked as a field organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi from 1963 to 1966, and had acted as Director of Freedom Registration for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 which challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City that summer.
Dr. Clarke became her Jegna ("warrior- teacher, intellectual father, ideological influence") as she moved back to New York and into graduate school. It was through his influence that she became committed to Pan Afrikan liberation. After having traveled in Afrika, Marimba Ani (born "Dona Richards") began formal study of the nature of Afrikan Civilization, focusing on the "deep thought" which underlies its fundamental common cultural themes and the varying constructs of Afrikan social organization. She has done extensive work on Afrikan spiritual conceptions and systems.
She is using her articulation of the Afrikan world view as a frame of reference from which to critique European cultural thought, and to construct paradigms for Pan-Afrikan reconstruction. Marimba Ani has developed the concepts of Maafa, Asili, Utamawazo, and Utamaroho as part of the on-going process of Afrikan-centered reconceptualization in which several Pan-Afrikan scholars are involved.
She has helped to initiate an intellectual and ideological movement, the purpose of which is to construct a theoretical framework which will allow people of Afrikan descent to explain the universe as it reflects their collective interests, values and vision.
Her most recent work has been the development of the Maat/Maafa/Sankofa paradigm SANKOFA BIRD (sang-ko-fah) GO BACK TO FETCH IT Symbol of the wisdom of learning from the past to build for the future.as an analytical tool for understanding and explaining the Afrikan experience in the Diaspora and to suggest modalities for cultural reconstruction. Dr. Ani has been lecturing throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Afrika on this new theoretical construct which is part of her endeavor to develop a pragmatic Afrikan Cultural Science. This new science becomes the basis for the creation of Afrikan institutions and Nation-Building in the Diaspora. Having taught at Hunter College for the past 25 years, Dr. Marimba Ani has had the opportunity to develop a number of courses on various aspects of the Pan-Afrikan experience. She teaches Afrikan Civilization, Afrikan Spirituality in the Diaspora, The Afrikan World View, Theories of White Racism, Afrikan Traditional Healing Systems, Nile Valley Civilization, Afrikan-centered theory, Women in Afrika, Men in the Afrikan Diaspora, and a number of other courses.
The following are some of the scholarly writings which have resulted from her work:
* "The Ideology of European Dominance," The Western Journal of Black Studies. Vol. 3, No. 4, Winter, 1979, and Presence Africaine, No. 111, 3rd Quarterly, 1979.
* "European Mythology: The Ideology of Progress," Contemporary Black Thought, eds. M. Asante and A. Vandi, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980, (59-79).
* Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of Afrikan Spirituality in the Diaspora. New York: Nkonimfo Publications, 1988 (orig. 1980).
* "The Nyama of the Blacksmith: The Metaphysical Significance of Metallurgy in Afrika," Journal of Black Studies. Vol. 12, No. 2, December, 1981.
* Yurugu: An Afrikan-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994.
* "The Afrikan Asili," Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Conference on Ethics, Higher Education and Social Responsibility, Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1996.
* "The Afrikan 'Aesthetic' and National Consciousness," The African Aesthetic, ed. Kariamu Welsh-Asante. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1993. (63-82) and To Heal a People, ed. Erriel Kofi Addae, Columbia, MD.: Kujichagulia Press, 1996 (91-125).
* "Writing as a means of enabling Afrikan Self-determination," Defining Ourselves; Black Writers in the 90's, ed. Elizabeth Nuñez and Brenda M. Greene. New York: Peter Lang, 1999 (209-211).
Marimba Ani is an active organizer in the Afrikan Community. She has conducted Rites of Passage programs for Afrikan youth and young adults. She travels frequently to Ghana, West Afrika, where she is continuing her study and support of Afrikan traditional healing concept and practices. She is part of a "think tank" of Afrikan-centered scholars currently spear-heading the socially and politically dynamic "To Be Afrikan" campaign. She is Director of the Afrikan Heritage Afterschool Program, a voluntary effort which has been operating in the Harlem Community for the past 14 years. Marimba Ani holds a BA degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and the MA and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School University. She is Professor of Afrikan Studies in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City. Her daughter Dzifa graduated in May of 1999 from Howard University with a BS degree in biology.
Source of Bio:
Modified from:http://africawithin.com/ani/ani_bio.htm
Yurugu Dr. Marimba Ani - DVD - $20.00
RBG: SDL (Self Directed Learning) Black Studies Outline for Advanced Learners
The Master Keys to the Study of Ancient Kemet/Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III
DR. YOSEF BEN-JOCHANNAN ON IMHOTEP... & more
Dr. Ben, Dr. Clarke and Dr. Van Sertima on Our Holocaust and A Maafa Timeline
Dr. Molefi Kete Asante: Foundations of Afrikan Pedagogy
Afrikan History and Culture Lessons: Our Scholars, Historians and Educators Teach
Dr. Marimba Ani On Yurugu and Afrikan Rebirth
Tony Brown's Afrocentric Education Conference...more
Dr. Chancellor Williams On "The Destruction of Black Civilization"
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop On the Origins of Civilization
Oyotunji Village: "A Spiritual and Cultural Re-Awakening"
Dr. Carter G. Woodson On Education and Mis-Education..more
The American Indian Holocaust
Professor John Glover Jackson, "One of Our Greatest Cultural Historians"
The Science of the Moors, Dr. Ivan Sertima Lecture...and more
Racism: A History (3 Part Video and RBG Notes)
Dr. Leonard Jefferies on the Afrikan Mind and 10 Areas of conflicts with White Supremacy
Dr. Amiri Baraka On Dr. Du Bois's Double Consciousness Precept and more
A People's History Of The United States / by Howard Zinn : RBGz Audio and History Is A Weapon e-Books
Robert F. Williams: The Man They Don't Want You To Know About
"From Jim Crow to Civil Rights to Black Liberation?"
Malcolm X / Make It Plain: The Classic Documentary and A Timeline
A RBG Street Scholar Educational Design
Interests: pit bull breeding, educational scholarship that is grassroots can le, educational scholarship that is accessible and us
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