THE COLLAPSE OF PAN-AFRICANISM ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT

The word Pan-Africanism has become toxic among Africans for reasons that makes no sense to some of us. Africans for a number of centuries seem to have their loyalties divided among various ideologies and doctrines around the globe. The gradual collapse of colonialism with the inception of the Hatian revolution ushered in Pan-Africanism from the new African nation state in the western hemisphere.

The history since that revolution has not been retold to African people collectively as a basis to approach the new world order. Rather than making this chapter of history an integral part of African history, we have instead dismissed it as a failure. Success is how you define it and failure is also how you choose to define it. Defining what success is among Africans has been confusing at best when it comes to history. We dismiss significant accomplishments that could be the basis of our development as not relevant. Yet we blame others for not telling the history we have not done a good job telling ourselves.

The only time we visit some aspects of our history is when we are completely beat down by racism then suddenly we yearn for the sweet old stories. This should never be the case but instead history is meant to teach and inspire better things for the present and future. If we can not tell our stories, then how can we be inspired to take initiatives that could transform African society.

Speaking of African society, it will be fair to conclude that African society has become obsolete and requires that we go back to the drawing board for a renovation. The wheel does not need to be reinvented but instead we need to build on the accomplishment of the past. Unfortunately perceptions across the community has been mixed and fail to see that renovation is whats needed not reinvention of the wheel.

Travel across the globe and visit African communities on different continents and you will see a common picture of abandonment, dilapidation and petty conflicts. These also leads to the desperation and despair you see among our people collectively. The challenges are a mountain but never the less challenges that could be tackled boldly to ensure a collective wellbeing.

PUTTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN PERSPECTIVE

The 2016 election cycle was a reality check for American politics but also a rude awakening for black America. There is no guarantees when it comes to freedom, peace,security and a dignity of a community of people. They are issues that requires people to be vigilante and scrutinize and push back threats that could threaten individual liberty and freewill.

Think about the fact that we are in the 21st century and one would have taught millenials will be up to speed on the issue that has plaqued this country for centuries and have ruined the quality of life in certain communities. There is a saying Rome was not built in a day but once something is built, people have to study how it was built to improve their learning curve moving forward. The State of black America today should make us worried because a total collapse of the African psyche is detrimental to our chances of survival. 

Previous generations wanted to save the race and Africa first and fought to make sure that objective was met. The millenial generation's objective is to study history to be able to rebuild the community thats been decimated by racism. Some how we have taking a hiatus and substituted reality with so called diversity and multicultural initiatives. Diversity and multicultural initiatives was mainly about strategic partnerships and alliances rather than a panacea to racism or for our unique communal platform..

History tells us the black community went from voting Republican to Democrat mainly because of the issue of race and which party was going to fulfill the black interest. The Republicans for sometime where proponents of pushing for policies that helped the black community. At some  point they abandoned the black interest and the community found an alliance in the Democratic party along the way. Once that alliance was forged till date the community has voted democrat overwhelmingly and has not seriously evaluated the performance of the party as far its socioeconomic interest since the civil rights bill passage. 

The last election cycle showed that Trump had over performed Romney in the number of black votes. So why will a community that will not tolerate racism vote for someone that has made it clear he has nothing substantial to offer the black community except that it was time to break the fever of voting democrat. African American millenials need to evaluate themselves in this country moving forward if they really want to have a seat at the table and a stake in the economic pie or else their socioeconomic standing will deteriorate worse than we see today. For their interest, the black community is headed towards a zero networth by 2050 and that is just around the corner.

THE EMERGENCE OF BLACK ACTIVISM AFTER A COUPLE DECADE OF HIATUS

The black activist scene was allowed to wither away gradually by the black community for various reasons. I think the biggest tragedy in the 20th century all the way into the 21st century was to down play the importance of activism. The African community globally has duped itself into thinking that activism was some how stoking tensions and called for needless attention to the detriment of African people. I have seen various African people who will rather pretend they are invisible for various reasons. The failure to understand the seriousness of what is happening around the world and have allowed their communities to reside in the twilight.

For centuries activism became the strategic deterrence that African people where able to develop in preventing senseless attacks on their communities. As time passed by, there where certain individuals that emerged with ulterior motives of their own about the need to push back on external assaults on our communities. Every society has a standing army for a reason which is to protects its sovereignty. Forming strategic partnerships and alliances is part of the ultimate aim of building strength where weakness resides.

The strategic partnership and alliance coalition building to push back on racism and other forms of discrimination has been around for a longtime but Dr. King put it in full gear during the civil rights era. It paid off big time and the civil rights bill was passed which ultimately made racism and other forms of discrimination illegal but also served as a platform to effectively litigate against racism. The civil rights bill is a master bill but as time goes by, the millennial generation seems to be downplaying the importance of the legislation.

Millennial activists and organizations formed in the 21st century such as black lives matter if they expect to be effective will have to study the success and failures of the past. This will allow them to properly evaluate the seriousness and magnitude of the work to do especially after a period of pause. Millennials are now paying a price for being careless and not taking activism serious enough and treating it more like a subject that should only be part of the conversation when terrible things happen. Such as a sudden rush to protest during the Trayvon Martin case and Michael Brown case which is no different from other events that may not have received attention for various reasons.

So the question becomes why did other issues get the publics attention and somehow others fell by the wayside. Perhaps its indicative of how we seem to have forgotten about how important it is to protect our freedom, peace,security and dignity. The issue of activism in American life is a conversation that warrants a serious discussion at this point given how the 2016 campaign and election process played out. Activists are like the night watch in Game of Thrones meant to guard the realms of mankind and that is a responsibility to be taken seriously.

DONALD TRUMP AND RELEASING THE RACIST GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE

The attempt to normalize a Donald Trump presidency was something people flirted with perhaps as a means of coping with reality. Given what we know now can we still entertain that idea or we are now skeptical. That's a question we all have to ask ourselves because it certainly weighs on those with some sanity that it could all come crashing down. I will predict that if things are allowed to go on this way, the world will go through a difficult turmoil.

 Bare in mind we almost avoided such a tragedy in 2008. The financial crisis is still a problem that has not been solved entirely yet given that debt levels on the consumer, private companies and government sector is significantly high. When you do not get into the details of the numbers you might not know how serious the challenge is and you might be easily carried away by the feel good stories. Some have called this period the 'quiet before the storm' which should leave us all uneasy.

The president was elected by a group of electorates whose true motivations for voting him into office is speculative to say the least. But his past statements and his style of campaign should have tipped us all perhaps to take the election seriously. Mr. Bernie Sanders could not have said it better when he called the election very important election in a lifetime. People took it for granted and now here we all are trying to manage through what is already looking like a disastrous presidency. 

The electorates had a choice between 3 aspiring presidential candidates and even if change was needed, Bernie should have been the obvious choice. Some how working people had a disconnect with reality on who will best serve their interests. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in my estimation did not have the right ideas to govern the United States for obvious reasons. Both Trump and Clinton view money as the end all be all and that in my view disqualifies one from public office. There has to be a sense of purpose and service to societies welfare if governance will prove successful. We all here now and lets brace ourselves for a roller coaster ride with not being sure how it may all end!

AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLITICS AND WHERE COLIN KAEPAERNICK FITS

Mr. Kaepaernick will not be the only athlete in black America to use his platform for social activism on behalf of the community. Muhammad Ali and others have played a role in the past and it is refreshing that Colin and Marshawn Lynch and other athletes are following the right foot steps. In a society where celebrities are held in high regards, it is important that they show a sense of awareness about issues affecting regular people.

The political climate at the moment is polarized and to make it worse the issues are laced with racism and xenophobia. Working people are finding this as a form of escapism for the harsh reality of not being able to make economic gains in their personal lives. We have seen this movie before so many times one will think policy makers will be a step ahead to prevent the nation from going down a road to misery and abject poverty.

The black community seems worn out from constantly battling the same issue only to witness their economic gains lost amidst racial tensions. But this is a different time the 21st century to be exact, one that is supposed to be a century full of hope and promise for young people especially millenials. So how is it that past problems are very much alive as we saw in recent scenes in charlottesville and else where. The young protesters regardless of the side you were on looked like millenials. How did the pendulum in American politics swing from Barack Obama to Donald Trump literally in a blink. 

During Baracks farewell speech to the nation and his supporters he made a profound statement "reality has a way of catching up with you." He said his mother told him that and it resonates really true with American society and its politics. If America wanted to match forward all it had to do was to vote both in th primaries and at the presidential election for Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is very much a progressive and was ready to build on progress where at least some of us taught the nation wanted to move which is in a progressive direction.

The nation was barely out of the global financial crisis which brought depression/recession to both the developed and developing economies around the globe. We have to be practical when it comes to whether Barack Obama should have spent his time addressing Americas problem with racism. His presidency was once in a life time experience for black America and the rest of the world. He personally tried to advance race relations in America but the GOP made it a point to frustrate his socio-economic policy regardless of whether they agree with him or not. Eight years later we are here talking about black America protesting against racial injustice when it should be rebuilding communities that have been significantly impacted by an onslaught of racist government policies. The way forward is by doubling down on the work of social activists and never taking those efforts for granted. 

THE LAUGHABLE STATE OF U.S 2016 POLITICAL SCENE

A few years back none of us would have taught Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee because it is nothing to take serious. Now we are here and we can see how what started as a joke has turned into reality right in front of our eyes. The question is how did we get here, well we got here because of a complacent general public. For far too long the American public has relied on the news media to inform them about the State of their national affairs and foreign policy. The general American public do not do their own home work in terms of fact finding to know where the truth lies. I mean come on we all have lives to live and we are barely keeping up with politics but oh we sure are keeping up with the new tech gadget,fashion and  the personal lives of reality/movie stars.The Republican primaries started with more than a dozen candidates and some how even the conservatives chose a reality star as their candidate. We all know how conservatives talk about their constitution and so called christian values so why did they choose him. Lets now come to the democratic party and you basically have to candidates that are political veterans offering populist solutions to pacify the masses. Donald Trump is yet to say anything substantial about how to move the country forward in the 21st century just so you all know. All the candidates on the field are quite old and this lives me not very optimistic for the future but I will give them benefit of the doubt and hope this is the last badge of older politicians we have to deal with. The election of Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new set of young political candidates but for some reason on the democratic side we have not seen alot of young candidates compared to the Republican side. The Republicans had Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio but what happened to the Castro brothers on the democratic side. I will hope that 21st century challenges can be effectively addressed by well informed younger politicians who have proven themselves in the private sector and have drive to learn within the political arena. I will hope next time we see people such as Marc Cuban and young vibrant entrepreneurs along those lines to ensure that we succeed in the 21st century. If not we could be living our own worse nightmare which will be succumbing to our inner demons and withdrawing from building a functional world that works for all communities.

DEATH OF SAUDI KING ABDULAH ll AND INEVITABLE FALL OF YEMEN

The world is in a volatile place as we speak and the Mid-East seems to be the hotspot for the moment. The world has witnessed serious  issues happen which should make us worried such as the fall of Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muamar Ghardafi of Libya. The next person that seems to be in line is President Asad of Syria and this will only make matters worse. These events goes to show that international law has failed and the global security architecture is very compromised. Unfortunately the countries that were supposed to ensure  that international law was not compromised worked very hard to undermine it.  Those countries i have mentioned are currently in turmoil and radical groups are having a field day suppressing a civil society. Restoring some sanity is almost impossible at this point and it looks like we are going to be on a roller coaster ride for a while. Unfortunately as time goes on we seem not to take these issues serious enough to halt policies and diplomatic moves that only inflame an existing problem. The times are very uncertain and every one should not think anything is guaranteed at this point because it is not and one way or the other our lives will be affected.