This subject should be approached with delicate rage. Our &“Great Suffering” (“Maafa” in Swahili) from A.C.E. 1501–1888 is economically explored with the high risk that much else about it will be ignored. The story of the African Holocaust which witnessed the forced importation of 11,000,000 OR MORE Blacks to the Americas was accompanied by the mass extermination of 50,000,000 OR MORE Afrikan Elders, Mothers, Father, and Babies. (Roberson; 1995) In all of human history, the most heinous crimes in the most massive numbers were committed during this nadir of 387 years. Reducing this tragedy of Afrikan suffering and the triumph of Afrikan resistance to it’s unprovoked European aggression to mere money is itself a crime—one that this writer won’t commit.
Maafa as mere money ignores the ETHNOCIDE, or the castration of culture we experienced. Black people’s tongues were cut out for talking Afrikan talk. Our hands were cut off for drumming Afrikan drums.. Our feet were smashed or greased and burned over fire for dancing Afrikan dance and Afrikan books were burned when invading Arabs and Europeans didn’t like that we were writing and reading Afrikan script. (Yochannon; 1081) Maafa as were money ignores the UNDERDEVELOPMENT of Blacks then as now, while focusing on the development of Europe and the Americas instead.
Maafa as mere money ignores Afrikan Ancestral sufferings from European bestial behavior. Quotable voicings of this follow: “I said to him, ‘for God’s sake! Have you bought my wife.’ He said he had…and drew out a pistol.” “They built a long trough like a great long cradle and put all those babies in it every morning when the mothers came out to the field…The rain just came down in great sheets. When it got so they could go to the other end of the field that trough was filled with water and every baby was floating ’round in the water, drowned.” &$147;They whipped my father ’cause he looked at a slave they killed and cried.” (Lester; 1968)
With ALL due respect to the horrors above, Maafa as money, or Maafa Moneybonic$, must never be ignored either. In fact, it would be no overstatement to say that European enslavement of Afrikans PRIMARILLY built the U.S. and today’s global economy. “Why did America take the lead so early in the New World?…Trade. In What?…Molasses. Why Molasses?…It became RUM which was exchanged far Africans on the African west coast. The sale of Africans in the New World laid the financial foundation of the U.S.” (Rogers; 1961)
In A.C.E. 1609 New Netherlands (now New York) was founded by Dutch merchants who soon afterwards set up a trading post to exchange liveSTOCK, furs, and above all rum and slaves. Along the STREET was a WALL of mud and brush erected to exclude “animals and Indians.” Eventually, this avenue was paved and named WALL STREET. (Little; 1982) In regards to Europe, “the population and wealth of England after slumbering for seven hundred years began to develop itself under the influence of slave acquired capital.” (Marx; 1967)
Maafa Moneybonic$ questions and corrects the euphemistic and often insulting terms used to discuss Maafa. By moral and material crime we confer onto a “salve trade” a business benevolence it does not deserve. Participants were not “slave traders” but were “Maafa Criminals.” Since a slave is only a slave when their proscribed duties are done AFTER the Masters’ chains come off, there could be no such things as “slave” raids, “slave dungeons, or “slave” ships. In all such phases, Maafa Criminals—the real Pirates Of The Caribbean—needed CHAINS to keep control. Instead, we might refer respectively to “Captive” Raids, “POW” Dungeons, and “Death” ships. (The MAJORITY of people forced to board these never got off alive.)
Summarily, we conclude 1) Maafa as enslavement is no badge of shame for a) all peoples have both mastered slaves and have been slaves b) the reason it took the U.S. only 355 years to become a world power, but it took Britain 1,920 years is that the U.S. bountifully benefited from forced free Afrikan insight, energy, and ingenuity. For this we must be compensated—Reparations Now! And YES; our beneficiaries can afford it. 2) Remembering Maafa is not “Complaining” or “Dwelling On The Past.” It is a reverent and respectful requirement. So on October 11, 1997 many of us will gather on the Afrikan Village Campground in Yakima WA, at 12:00 noon. We will cry and commemorate, recall and reflect on the Global Afrikan Holocaust that was our Chattel Slave experience. Sisters and Brothers, call me at (206) 725-3274 to attend.