May 2020

I will share why police should not beat or bully civilians: when a police manhandles a civilian, the civilian begins to breathe harder and deeper. When the abuse gets rougher, the civilian hyperventilates. When police call backup and 4-6+ officers team up against 1 person, the civilian begins yelling and screaming. Now, in all this excessive activity, the civilian may be covid-19 positive. Police may be wearing mask and gloves but the virus will attach itself to bare skin and your uniform or even enter the body through the police officer’s eyes. Once the officer(s) are carrying the virus, they will take it to their squad car; they will take it on all their calls; and ultimately, they will take it to their precinct.

• Rich people gate their community to keep out the unwanted and the uninvited. We Africans must, if feasible, gate our communities.  Gate your homes if the community can’t or won’t. Place a defensible space around your home. Fencing should not allow intruders to see in but you must be able to see out. Make your fence friendly, pleasing to look at but a boundary capable of keeping your family protected and slowing the entry of undesirables and the uninvited. We must hire or train our own community security. City police or sheriff’s deputies should not be patrolling your community without invitation. They should talk to Community Security first.
• Join the NAAGA/ National African American Gun Association; www.Naaga.co online. Get local training on how to use a gun and be a safe owner of a defensive weapon.
• If you’re a dog owner, get your dog trained to protect the family and/or in how to avoid your dog being shot in a police encounter.
• Rent your local school for weekend school programs for our African children. What cultural or historical education they are deprived of in school is taught in weekend school. African languages, martial arts, sports, business education, household operations, sewing, child development, African drums and dance are all possibilities. In time, build a community center or expand on one.
• Why just stop with a weekend school? Organize parent cooperative schools, living room homeschools, or a school that suits your religion just don’t let your oppressor educate your precious children.
• Organize Business Education and Minority Small Business Development Centers for your community. Get black people ready and able to run successful businesses.
• Organize training in all vocational and infrastructure building trades.
• Marshal interest in a community transit system to keep youth off the streets; to help very low income workers commute affordably; also to create transportation to assist seniors and the disabled with shopping and appointments.
• Create Black owned Credit Unions.
• Create clinic, health centers, birth centers, and hospitals in our community to avoid the abuse of medical racism. Every church or mosque should have a clinic or a credit union or both.
• We as Africans should have our own community government and council. Organizing our democratic unity in order to plan and act on our uplift and progress keeps us going in the right direction. Community governance can expand into regional, national and pan-African governance; and is good for making alliances and coalitions. Your council and community can elect a spokesperson or expert to speak to local, county, state or national officials. Organizing our community to have it’s own governance formalizes the people’s power and respects their democracy and human rights .

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”