It is no coincidence that during the latter stages of the US war of aggression against Vietnam, the United States Navy aired combined television, radio, and print media propaganda / recruitment ads aimed specifically at young Black Americans. The ads repeatedly urged Black people to, "Go Navy. You can be Black and Navy too!" Clearly, white America and the US Government sought to exploit, confuse and thereby neutralize and destroy, the very notion of what it really means 'to be Black in America' [reference BlackCommentator.com - To Be Black In America: An Unflinching Necessity - April 19, 2007 - Issue 226].

Today, in the 21st century, the sometimes blatant - sometimes subliminal - but always clear insidious message (via television, print media, books, and internet) from white America to Black people is, "You can be Black and a mindless sellout too!" Bluntly stated, this is but another form of cultural and political genocide directed especially against young Black, Brown, and Red peoples.

The point is simple: The very minds of Black, Red, and Brown peoples of all ages are continually targeted by the US media, including television, radio, and all forms of print media and its concomitant so-called "educational" institutions, to be "neutralized." Real and serious Black independent political thought is a dire enemy to this racist, exploitative American system. As long as Black, Red, and Brown peoples ultimately adhere to the perspective and guidelines of white definitions, we are, in fact, mentally colonized, and in the final analysis - disunited and controlled. Our minds and thought processes themselves remain colonized. To think and actually critically analyze, independent of white definitions, direction, or control, is in itself deemed to be subversive and a threat to white racist America. Yet, this is precisely what we must do if we are to break free from the confines of mental colonization - which colonization ensures continued physical subjugation.

As long as we allow ourselves to be mentally colonized we will remain dependent and politically, economically, and culturally weak - virtually powerless to change both the narrative and the physical reality of our oppression. Colonization is not merely a physical process. In fact, the most devastating and lasting controlling aspects of colonization are mental, without which the physical component of oppression and domination could not endure.

We must therefore address the mental aspect of DE-colonizing our minds by grasping, taking charge of, and changing the very narrative of our oppression. Some few examples of areas wherein we must take mental charge of and change what I refer to as "the narrative" of our oppression are clearly understanding the following:

1. The geographical area now referred to as the United States of America was not "settled" by Europeans. It was invaded and stolen by them from the Indigenous so-called "Indian" peoples of this continent in the hypocritical, despicable and disgusting name of the 'Manifest Destiny.'

2. God did not "give" America to these white invaders. Deceit and mass murder (genocide) on their part against the Indigenous peoples did.

3. America is not nor has it ever been the "land of the free and the home of the brave." It is the "land" stolen from our Red brothers and sisters, and it is the "home" of the Black slaves - who to this very day have gone from the slave plantations to the penitentiary plantations on a massive and ever increasing level. Much of this "land" was taken by force from the sovereign nation of Mexico - which in turn had already been taken by force from the Indigenous peoples by the Spanish empire of Europe.

4. In America, law and justice have virtually never been the same thing. Slavery and the unspeakably brutal slave trade of human trafficking from Africa was legal but unjust and despicable with horrible consequences to the present day. Disenfranchisement of all kinds was and remains, in many ways, legal in America. The military forays and/or wars against Mexico, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Grenada, and Iraq, and quite possibly soon to be Iran, etc., were / are legal in America but unjust and illegal under international law.

5. Political, economic, and cultural exploitation - in the name of "progress" of the poor in America, who are primarily Black, Brown, and Red peoples is, in fact, legal, although it is unjust and hypocritical.

6. The miseducation (under the guise of education) of Black, Red, and Brown peoples by white America, its institutions and media is perfectly legal, although unjust and callously debilitating.

7. White America collectively has never stood for or seriously promoted "liberty, justice, and equality for all." Time to get over this dangerous nonsense.

The time is here and now for us to engage in the process of DE-colonizing our minds. We must take control of our own narrative, and in so doing, advance our abilities as Black, Red, and Brown peoples to both think and act in a united fashion, outside of the box.

We Black people, who are in the belly of this beast known as America, must continue to trust in the very best of ourselves and our natures as a people. Contrary to the capitalist, white racist assertion, the nature of Black, Red, and Brown peoples is one of humanness, not greed and barbarity. This is something that even some few whites in America have recognized but thus far, we have all failed to bring to the consciousness of white America.

The Black struggle continues, even as each day brings forth a new challenge to make and keep real. This is our lot in life and indeed there is no greater calling. Onward...

BlackCommentator.com Columnist Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

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