Moments in Time with BLisB (B.lack L.ife is S.imply B.eautiful)

I think we all chose this martial arts school for similar reasons. It was authentic. Our teacher was actually from Japan, where the art form originated. He taught us things that were important to our survival and didn’t feed us a lot of bullshit. I admired that Sensei was a quiet man but very deadly. He made it clear to each of us,who survived his tryouts, that he trained level-headed boys to beco...

No matter how disciplined a youth is, could he really hold off completely? Could he resist his sexual nature until he’s 23 years old? Or is it the American way for the young to abort all the babies they create up until the time they are eligible to marry, have completed their studies, and are qualified to work? Reality says no. So the block was bursting with chaos. Everybody’s fucking everybody. N...

I was trained to control my anger. Yet my training seemed to be failing me now. I stood, boiling yet frozen in that same spot, remembering a line from a book my Sensei once gave me called ‘The Art of War’ ... the line was “WAR IS DECEPTION”. I kept saying the line over and over again in my head to calm myself down...War is deception, I thought to myself. No sense in being sloppy. Think through shi...

Umma and I already knew that we had to move off our Brooklyn block. We talked about it often and had a plan. We were saving up to buy a house with our cash. We agreed that until we had enough money to pay for the house in full we would remain on our Brooklyn block working hard and saving our profit. No tricky realtor with tricky fees. No mortgage bankers or bloodsuckers who a person had to pay for...

We made quiet money,Umma and me. It was strange to us how an American salary was so much more than a Sudanese salary , yet American workers remained poor. It was strange remembering how Umma’s employees back home earned so much less but had so much more. Swiftly we realized that a salary here meant next to nothing. We needed to have a business of our own.

Declaring racism a public health crisis entails linking the effects of racism with the crushing chronic stress and poor health it causes. A difficult task in a country like America whose foundation and wealth has been built on, and sustained by, anti-Black racism. “When you use the R-word (racism), people run-Dr. Georges Benjamin (executive director of the American Public Health Association). “The...

The way I looked at them was if you don’t have no real business, no real money , no real plan, no real power, why should I join you? Should we get together and split nothing nine ways? I mean, I come from a country where men fight over gold, oil, diamonds, and land. Now I live in a country where niggas fight over nothing.

DeQuan did not know he was doing me a favor. He introduced me to the hood as a fighter, a young one with exceptional stamina who never backed down...

We were greeted by three American customs officers who were all wearing pink pig snouts and pink pig ears. We had never heard of Halloween. We don’t celebrate the devil in our country...

Don’t be the asshole who wants to be seen and celebrated all day, every day. Be cool. Take it easy. Carry out your plans in life, slow and steady. Push hard...

I’m telling my story so Black people worldwide will know that we wasn’t always fucked up. Also, that a good life takes great effort and sacrifice, but feels so much better than what we all got now...

In the streets of Brooklyn, a young Midnight uses his Islamic mind-set and African intelligence to protect the ones he loves, build a business, reclaim his wealth and status, and remain true to his beliefs.

July 5, 1852...

Negro? Colored? Black? African? ...These race-conscious people can think , but it is seldom that the American Negro indulges in such an exercise. He has permitted other people to determine for him the attitude that he has toward his own people. This means the enslavement of his mind and eventually the enslavement of his body.

The Study of the Negro...The oppressor...teaches the Negro he has no worthwhile past,that his race has done nothing significant since the beginning of time...lead the Negro to believe this and thus control his thinking. If you can thereby determine what he will think, you will not need to worry about what he will do...the oppressor, then, may conquer, exploit, oppress and even annihilate the Negro...

Higher Strivings in the Service of the Country- The Negro should endeavor to be a figure in politics, not a tool for politicians. Real politics, the science of government, is deeply rooted in the economic foundation of social order.

The New Type of Professional Man Required...The world is not circumscribed by the United States, and the Negro must become a pioneer in making use of a larger portion of the universe...

Vocational Guidance-Negroes do not need some one to guide them to what persons of another race have developed. They must be taught to think and develop something for themselves....The Negro, as a slave, developed this fatal sort of dependency; and, restricted to menial service and drudgery during nominal freedom , he has not grown out of it. Now the Negro is facing the ordeal of either learning to...

The New Program...the program for the uplift of the Negro in this country must be based upon a scientific study of the Negro from within, to develop in him the power to do for himself what his oppressors will never do to elevate him...

Understand the Negro... such has been the education of Negroes. They have been taught ‘facts’ of history but have never learned to think. Their conception is that you go to school to find out what other people have done, and then you go out in life and imitate them...

Hirelings in the Places of Public Servants- ... When education has been entirely neglected or improperly managed, we see the worst passions ruling with uncontrolled and incessant sway...

The need for service rather than leadership... The oppressor must have some dealing with the despised group, and rather than have contact with individuals, he approaches the masses through his own spokesman...If Negroes persist in permitting themselves to be handled in this fashion they will always find some one at hand to impose upon them...

The Loss of Vision...if the Negro in the ghetto must eternally be fed by the hand that pushes him into the ghetto, he will never become strong enough to get out of the ghetto...

Political Education Neglected... The result is that Negroes grow up without knowledge of political matters which should concern all...Negroes in certain parts, then, have all but abandoned voting even at points where it might be allowed...such knowledge is apparently useless for Negroes and unnecessary for the Whites, for the Negroes do not immediately profit by having it and the Whites may functi...

Professional Education Discouraged...Negroes...learned from their oppressors to say to their children that there were certain spheres into which they should not go because they would have no chance for development...this was especially true of the law schools, closed during the wave of legislation against the Negroes...in other words, the thing which the patient needed most to pass the crisis was...