A blueprint for the Black diaspora...

One day, a couple of years back, I was in midtown Manhattan, New York City trying to get a cab downtown; and as usual, being a Black man, I was having trouble catching one.

Now, this dilemma has been given several names, the one I like most is 'Hailing while Black'; I've even seen cabbies give Black women a hard time doing this. And this experience was made famous by rock musician Lenny Kravitz with his song 'Mr. Cab Driver'.

But something was different about this day...as I was having trouble hailing a cab, a brotha in a Black Lincoln Town Car pulled up.

He saw me, instinctively knew the trouble I was having and waved me over.

I immediately walked over to the brotha's car.

Now, I know from previous experience how Black Lincoln Town Cars are usually used as 'for-hire' vehicles around NYC and I suspect it's the same around the country; so this was no random guy just driving his car around the city, he was licensed to take in passengers. I explained my situation to the brotha, but he already knew the time. He asked me if I needed a lift; so I got in.

I proceeded to espouse the problem I've been having for years with NYC cabbies; he said, he knew all about it from stories of previous patrons.

I didn't relate this to the brotha, but I was jubilant at the thought of a Black man in a Black Lincoln Town Car coming to save the day; he was right on time...chronologically and politically.

The brotha related to me how he was here from Africa, I believe he was originally from either Senegal or Ghana, and he let me know he was making his living this way.

I then told him how there should be a hundred more people out there like him; if there were, our people wouldn't have problems getting cabs in the city. He then related to me how he was talking to another brotha who got in his car after having the same problems I had; he said the brotha related to him how the american educational system taught him all parts of Africa were nothing but acrid wastelands. Then, the cabbie said he showed him several pictures of metropolitan Africa and the brotha saw how those pics looked just like downtown New York City.

Then the cabbie said this brotha actually started crying, as he said, “...they lied to me.”

In one moment this brotha realized EVERYTHING this school system taught him about Africa...and himself, was wrong.

After the cabbie got me safely to Penn Station, I gave him his fare and a five dollar tip and told him it was a pleasure taking his taxi.

We shook hands and I went and caught my train.

Now, this exchange represents so much more than a simple cab ride, and here, I'll break down why this needs to happen everyday between Black people in the diaspora.

Firstly, like I've said in the majority of my posts, the diaspora needs to share its resources with each other 99.9% of the time. While it would be impossible to work completely independent of the fascist white western system, we should always be ready to SHARE OUR MONIES WITH EACH OTHER FIRST!

We should take great pains to go out of our way to do this. Moreover, you'll be surprised how good you feel behind contributing to the build up of the Black diaspora's monetary infrastructure.

The fact that I was able to share my resources with a brotha who's directly from Africa, made the exchange even sweeter; we should be doing this daily in three or four ways in every city, town and state in this country.

We should especially set up exchanges where we have produce, textile and other assorted items, something akin to a flea market, where we can swap not only monies, but we can barter goods for services and vice-versa.

What I'm writing about is nothing new; this is basic common sense, problem is...our people have been conditioned out of our common sense.

Point I'm trying to make is, had I subscribed to my white supremacist conditioning, I would have dismissed the African brotha as some sort of schuyster and continued to wait on a NYC cab; and then I would've probably had to train it to Penn Station.

So, understand, what I'm continually saying is the most revolutionary act Black people can commit now is getting white supremacist dogmas out of our minds.

We have to get kill off the cerebral klansman who's been force-fed and conditioned into us, so we can unite and thrive.

I explain exactly how to do this in my last post, 'How can the Black diaspora heal the rift between Black men and women'. And like I said there...this is the ONLY way the Black diaspora is truly gonna' get free...THE ONLY WAY!

So LET'S ALL GET TO WORK!

Later,

MontUHURU Mimia.