African centered today is many things to many
people. Most claiming it have not changed much about themselves but talk a lot about what it is in theory.
Applied to education, health care, architecture, philosophy, religion/spirituality, relationships, family, rites of
passage, rituals, beliefs, clothing, hair, names, etc., it is clear that so much and so many of us must begin an internal
process of self reflection, redemption, resurrection, and rebirth. We all do. Internal transformation takes time.
Also, things that Africans have done in history all should not be used as guiding principles of life. Some of them are
rotten to the core.
We need to have a definition of AC, one that is measurable, one
that permits us to evaluate ourselves according to the ideal standard and begin to move in the direction of self correction
and improvement. It is our thought that this has not happened to date because it would require people and groups to
do some serious house cleaning on a very profound level. For example, people like their birth names (usually names
of white, arab, jewish enslavers), they want to hold on to their arab/Christian/jewish religions, they want to continue to
chemically treat their hair, not study, not change their clothing choices, have many wives without marrying them, etc....People
have a difficult time parting from these and other ways and the persons in the best position to define AC are doing these
very things. People do not change unless/until they have to. And if people can continue to do what they want and
still wear the label, then why change?
So we should move forward with this. That we sharpen
the standards and definition. That we develop a rubric by which we evaluate ourselves as an individual, family, community,
school, college, university, society and offer people as guidelines for internal transformation. Below is a blank rubric
that we started recently. Think about it, add to it, etc...this can become a working document as we prepare for the
continued evolution of the African International.
We need to become more black. But
rooted in our classics...Kmt worked out morality, methods, etc.; all of which can be modernized.
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The foundation of rubrics is necessarily based on the ideal; in our case, African represents the ideal.
However given that there are over 50 countries and thousands of tribal groups, what do we mean by African? To answer this
we must go to the source-classical African civilization, which is Kmt. All modern societies have their philosophical,
ideological, theoretical, methodological and cultural roots in their ancient civilizations....except us. The roots are
solidly planted in ancient soil, but elements must be modernized (and are by other populations) to reflect modern/future realities
and expectations.
