If Seeing is Believing...
“Africa and its people are the most written about and the least understood of all of the world's people. This condition started in the 15th and the 16th centuries with the beginning of the slave trade system. The Europeans not only colonialized most of the world, they began to colonialize information about the world and its people.”
Dr. Henrik Clark
Why do Hollywood and the publishing gods continue to produce motion picture films that depict black people in roles of servants (The Help and The Butler) and slaves (12 Years a Slave)? Looks and smells to me like the same old black stereotypical themes of the past. Is it any wonder that Hollywood film critics are willing to heap praise upon such films.
Don’t get me wrong, there great individual stories that came out of such struggle and degradation. But, there are other stories of great struggle and accomplishment that they refuse to acknowledge, let alone write about in screenplay or otherwise.
How can the image factories produce movies and books that have alien beings landing on earth in order to give birth to the human race (and the first civilizations)? They can conjure plots and story lines that see the dead returning to life (zombies). They can suggest a futuristic earth where evolution is turned on its head and apes get the best of man (Rise of the Planet of the Apes).
They can do this, but cannot release narratives were blacks build empires and run nations successfully and on their own behalf. The only idea that seems alien to them is the image of blacks acting out their self-prescribed destiny on a world stage.
Consider recent films like 300, Alexander, Gods and Kings, and Gladiator. In each of these blockbuster motives, the backdrop for their storytelling is an empire created by Europeans. No one is questioning the accuracy of these films (with the exception of Gods and Kings which was another whitewashing of history by Hollywood).
However, black people the world over share a proud and glorious history (one that is not been told) filled with accounts of great empire builders and world travelers. Consider the empires of Kemet, Nubia, Ethiopia, Cush, Sumeria, Thebes, Zulus, Ghana, Moors, Phoenicians, Axum, and more…many, many, more.
So, how can America elect a black man in the most powerful office in the Western world, and not accept images of powerful black women and men as historical truths. Black genius that charted the stars, raised pyramids, harnessed rivers and explored the world.
The answer is systemic racism (lies handed down through the generations), pure and simple. When black history is deleted, omitted and distorted in public schools since its inception, this is the consequence. The vast majority of white and too many black believe that we didn’t have history before white came and got us.
They say that our ancestors left no written accounts to validate black contributions to the human race. Thus, they argue that the narrative of which I write are but fairytales and fantasies. The truth is while blacks relied on oral traditions, black (the first) civilizations invented writing in the forms of Metu Neter and other forms of hieroglyph and pictography.
So, in the end, we can’t rely on anyone (especially American sources of art and/or information) to tell our story. We must dedicate our considerable talents to that end, be it novels, TV shows, music, performing arts, fashion, and etch.
While we at Harlem Books reach out to all discerning readers (of every color, nationality and creed), our works are primarily aimed at the long neglected African-American lovers of (truthful) fiction and legendary tales of ancient Nubian, Kushite and Kemetic civilizations. Our epic tales, like SECRET OF THE NILE VALLEY and the AUSARIAN PROPHESY are rich in black history and framed in extraordinary African mythologies and the esoteric sciences of the High Nile Mystery System. And, while immensely entertaining, our books provide informative insights into our present social (human) conditions; as well as, valuable predictions about the unfolding new world order. Hotep!
