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We Have Another War to Fight

By Amani Murph
Black College Wire

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery . . . none but ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear of atomic energy... 'cause none of them can stop the time...

Bob Marley, �Redemption Song�

Whatever its justification, the fact is that this is not be the only war taking place. There are civil wars in Cote D'Ivoire (better known as the Ivory Coast) and in Colombia. The United States has been waging, and losing, a war on drugs since the Reagan era.

Amani Murph

As Africans in America, we are at war ourselves. We have been at war since the first slave was forced to abandon his/her language, culture and land for servitude.

As Africans in the diaspora, we have been at war since Alexander the Great invaded Egypt and raped and pillaged the country for its information, people and natural resources.

As Africans in the diaspora, we have been at war since the 1881 Berlin Conference, where Otto Von Bismarck decided that it was silly for powerful European nations to continue squabbling over African territories. He thought it better that they sit down, like the civilized nations that they were, and slice up the continent over tea.

We have been at war since the Willie Lynch philosophy of divide and conquer divided us on the basis of skin color and hair texture.

The number of African Americans in prison is highly disproportionate to the prison population of inmates of other races. In Oklahoma, Rep. Opio Toure, D-Oklahoma City, is chairman of a task force examining why blacks make up only 7 to 8 percent of the state's general population, but 17 percent of those arrested and 33 percent of inmates. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African Americans account for half the new HIV cases reported in 2001. According to a 1990 report from the Census Bureau, 33 percent of the single-parent households are headed by African Americans.

We, as Africans in the diaspora, are fighting ourselves. We are struggling with our own self-loathing and self-defeating thoughts that allow us to fall victim to the trappings of society.

We can no longer afford to blame "the man" for our oppression. There is no race that has contributed more to this planet than we have. We are deserving of self-love and respect from others.

We must hold ourselves accountable for the numbers of African men and women who are behind bars, been infected with HIV, or have left children without parents.

That is why students must ready themselves for battle. First, we must kill the feelings of inferiority and self-hatred that allow for such harmful behaviors as unprotected sex, skipping classes and drug and alcohol abuse.

Then, we must fight the external war to change the stereotypical images of African American men and women that plague our society. We must fight against ideas of African inferiority. We must fight against those who are praying that we fail.

Learning our history will help us understand how we came to this predicament and the ammunition required for combat. We can access African history through such resources as the libraries and the Internet, and by talking to elders in the community.

The war we are fighting is not a physical war; it is mental and spiritual. It is time for us to get strong, and then get free.

Posted March 20, 2003

Amani Murph is a student at Tennessee State University who is news editor of The Meter.