The prophet Ezekiel is one of the most underrated prophets of the Old Testament. He lived in a time of massive international upheaval in the Middle East thousands of years ago. Back then, warring empires fought each other for control over millions of square miles. Ezekiel lived during the time when the Assyrian Empire conquered the areas of modern-day Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Israel. The northern kingdom of Israel ended by the Assyrians in ca. 722 to 721 B.C. Assyrians also started to crumble under the blows of a resurgent Babylon. In 612 B.C., the Assyrian city of Nineveh fell to a combined force of the Babylonians and the Medes. Three years later, Pharoah Neco II of Egypt tried to conquer Israel and Syria (Aram). At Megiddo, King Josiah of Judah, who may have been an ally of Babylon as King Hezekiah had been, attempted to intercept the Egyptian forces but was crushed, losing his life in the battle (see 2 Kings 23:29-30; 2 Ch 35:20-24). Wars continued. Jehoahaz, a son of Josiah, ruled Judah for only three months, after which Neco installed Jehoiakim, another son of Josiah, as his royal vassal in Jerusalem (609 B.C.). In 605 B.C., the Babylonians overwhelmed the Egyptian army at Carchemish (see Jer 46:2), then pressed south as far as the Philistine plain. In the same year, Nebuchadnezzar was elevated to the Babylonian throne and Jehoiakim shifted allegiance to him. When a few years later the Egyptian and Babylonian forces met in a standoff battle, Jehoiakim rebelled against his new overlord. Nebuchadnezzar soon responded by sending a force against Jerusalem, subduing it in 597 B.C. Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin and about 10,000 Jewish human beings (see 2 Kings 24:14), including Ezekiel, were exiled to Babylon, where they joined those who had been exiled in Jehoiakim's "third year" (see Daniel 1:1 and note). Nebuchadnezzar placed Jehoiachin's uncle, Zedekiah, on the throne in Jerusalem, but within five or six years he too rebelled. The Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem in 588, and in July, 586, the walls were breached, and the city plundered. On Aug. 14, 586 B.C., the city and temple were burned. It wouldn't be until the time of Cyrus the Persian that the Second Temple would be rebuilt. Ezekiel was one of the many Jewish people exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in ca. 597 B.C. Ezekiel was a wise man, he was married, and had a house of his own. Ezekiel knew of international affairs and had a powerful intellect. In the book of Ezekiel, it focused on God's sovereignty, criticisms of Israel's imperfections, criticisms of other nations' imperfections, and redemption. The dry bones being revived and the words about Gog and Magog are some of the great prophetic symbolic messages in the Bible. Therefore, Ezekiel starts with conflicts and judgments and ends with a newly established society filled with justice and tranquility.
Hip hop existed in many events in the world. First, the world had the Civil Rights Movement and by the early 1970's, deindustrialization and poverty were widespread in New York City. Manufacturing jobs were being increasingly replaced with FIRE jobs. The oppressed were desperate for survival. Music is one instrument where people can feel joy and a means to cope. That is why hip-hop was born. It was born by black people who desired human expression, creativity, and their humanity to be honored. In recent months, there have been huge debates on the origin of hip hop and its contents The truth is that modern-day hip hop was created on August 11, 1973, in the Bronx, NYC by Kool Herc. So, Kool Herc was one founding father of hip hop. Was Herc the only founding father? No. Were all elements from hip hop created in 1973 and no elements came before 1973? No. Many elements of hip hop like rapping, dancing, DJs, graffiti, partying, sampling, etc. existed long before 1973. There is no hip hop without funk music, disco, jazz, spoken word, and the blues. During ancient times, West African griots shown lyrics and songs to outline their own stories. The power of the African drum influenced modern music completely, including hip-hop. The banjo came from African influences too. Rapping is one aspect of hip hop. Many scholars say that blues music, spirituals, etc. were influenced by West African musical traditions. The call-and-response style, which is common in jazz, gospel, and blues, came from West Africa. Blues musician and historian Elijah Wald said that rapping existed as early as the 1920's. We know about the Jubalaires rapping in a song called the Preacher and the Bear in the 1930's and the 1940's. The Beale Street Sheiks in 1927 had rapping. Jazz poetry was very common in America back then. By the 1960's, we had Muhammad Ali with his rhymes about his boxing opponents and Pigmeat Markahm's Here Comes the Judge song in 1968. By the 1960's and 1970's, Gil Scott Heron, the Watts Prophets, James Brown, the Last Poets, and other groups did spoken word songs, rapping, and creative sounds that influenced the development of modern-day hip hop. Kool Herc in 1984 said that he couldn't play reggae in the Bronx and the inspiration for rap was James Brown and the album Hustlers' Convention. Disco King Mario (who was a member of the Black Spades) was one of the godfathers of modern hip hop. He was born in Edenton, North Carolina. Later, he moved into Bronxdale, NY to escape racial oppression from the South. By 1971, Disco King Mario was a prominent DJ in the Bronx. He helped Afrika Bambaata (I don't agree with Afrika on everything that he did) to have popularity by loaning him equipment. Mobile Djs existed in New York City, and Grandmaster Flowers and the Smith Brothers in the early 1970's did Djing too. King Charles, Grandmaster Flowers, Pete DJ Jones, and Pete DJ did Djing with hip hop elements since the late 1960's too. Later, the Bronx style and the Brooklyn, Queens style started to become one. Then, modern-day hip hop as we know it was born. It is important to note that African American and Afro-Caribbean cultures (with toasting and other musical themes. Many Afro-Caribbeans admit that they were also influenced by black American music) played a huge role in hip hop's development. Later, Latino Americans contributed to hip-hop too. DJs like Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash (who was taught to mix turntables by DJ John Brown), and Jazzy Jay refined and developed the use of breakbeats, cutting, and scratching on the turntables. Smokey were b-boys back in 1972. So, hip hop was 50/50 invented by African Americans and Afro-Caribbean human beings. The contributions of black Americans and black Caribbeans should be honored and respected 100 percent period.
Years ago, I didn't know of the much more revolutionary life of Rosa Parks. Now, I do. Rosa Parks was more than a woman who didn't want to sit in the back of the bus at Montgomery, Alabama. She was born in the Deep South and saw racism firsthand. Yet, she courageously promoted self-defense and justice for all. In the midst of the black freedom movement, she was in the frontlines to show support for the Scottsboro Nine and worked with Myles Horton at the progressive Highlander Folk School. She lived in Alabama, Hampton (in Virginia), and at Detroit. Her life of activism was all about her love for black people. She was a friend to Malcolm X and a supporter of Robert Williams (who promoted active self-defense during the 1950's in Monroe, North Carolina). She worked with the progressives, communists, socialists, anti-war activists, and Black Power movement advocates. Tons of people didn't know that Rosa Parks expressed overtly anti-war and anti-capitalist views. Rosa Parks was a revolutionary in every step of the way. A real freedom fighter is more than a person who talks a good game. It's also a person who is out in the streets to advocate change and build movements of social change. Many people, in recent years, have minimized and even lied about Rosa Parks. It takes a real coward to disrespect a legend like Rosa Parks, especially after she passed away. Now, we live in a new generation where we will set the record straight on the glorious life of Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks fought for the justice of black women like Recy Taylor and Gertrude Perkins (who were raped by racist white men). Rosa Parks spoke out publicly against racism, against police brutality, against poverty and against the Vietnam War. Rosa Parks was a legendary black woman whose legacy of honor, integrity, and determination will forever be respected by all of us indeed.
The Iraq War is now 20 years old since its inception. I remember when it started just like yesterday. I was almost 20 years old back then and was taking classes in college. America was dominated by a mostly Republican House and Senate with the Republican President George W. Bush. The United States of America was much more conservative back in 2003 than today in 2023. The Iraq War was based on a lie that Saddam Hussein had massive quantities of weapons of mass destruction that could be used all over the Middle East. The Bush administration promoted this lie in 2002 and in 2003 plus beyond. The coalition of America and its allies against Iraq was extensive. The war ended the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The war was quickly an American victory in the beginning, and then the Iraqi resistance came about to make it a very long, bloody conflict. Scandals like Abu Ghraib (where Iraqi prisoners in 2004 were tortured and abused in a very perverted, graphic fashion. That even exposed the evil of torture for the war to witness) and what took place in Fallujah took place. American troops were officially withdrawn by 2011. Yet, American troops came back in 2014 after being head a new coalition to stop the insurgency of the reactionary ISIS group. Iraq faces conflicts to this very day. George W. Bush administration's war on terror, after the attacks on September 11th, 2001, still has consequences today as we approach the quarter-century mark of the 20th century. From shock and awe to modern Iraqi society, the Iraq War caused the whole world to change.
The history of Afro-Brazilians is long and extensive. Culturally, Afro-Brazilians have made great contributions in world history. While many people try to ignore their great history, we will not. Afro-Brazilian people came from Africa almost five centuries ago. The vast majority of Afro-Brazilians are Bantu people and West Africans in general. Many West African people from the Ga-Adangbe, Yoruba, Igbo, Fon Ashanti, Ewe, Mandinka (and other people who are from Guinea, Ghana, Benin, Guinea-Bissau, and Nigeria) live in the Bahia region. Bantu people were brought to Brazil from Angola, Congo, and Mozambique. They were sent in large measure to Rio De Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and the Northeastern area of Brazil. Black people in Brazil centuries ago came from diverse ethnicities and different African regions. For example, Gilberto Freyre noted the major differences between these groups. Some Sudanese peoples, such as Hausa, Fula and others were Islamic, spoke Arabic and many of them could read and write in this language. Freyre noted that many slaves were better educated than their slave owners, because many Muslim slaves were literate in Arabic, while many Portuguese Brazilian slaveowners could not even read or write in Portuguese. These slaves were largely sent to Bahia. Even today the typical dress of the women from Bahia has clear Muslim influences, as the use of the Arabic turban on the head. Despite the large influx of Islamic slaves, most of the slaves in Brazil were brought from the Bantu regions of the Atlantic coast of Africa where today Congo and Angola are located, and also from Mozambique. In general, these people lived in tribes. The people from Congo had developed agriculture, raised livestock, domesticated animals such as goat, pig, chicken and dog and produced sculptures in wood. Some groups from Angola were nomadic and did not know agriculture. Sugarcane was introduced in Brazil by 1532. The first known evidence of slaves in Brazil was in 1538. Brazil was the number one sugar producer in the world by 1580. Afro-Brazilians fought for their rightful freedom. Palmares Quilombo in Pernambuco, or the present-day Alagoas state, was founded by runaway slaves in 1605. In 1612, Alexandre de Moura, captain of Pernambuco, makes a request to form capitão de campo (bush captain) or capitão de mato to retrieve runaway slaves and fight quilombos/mocambos in the eight parishes. Quilombos is the dominant term in Minas Gerais. Mocambos is the predominant term in Bahia. Black people fought back against slavery continuously. Henrique Dias, a black man was honored by the military in Brazil for fighting back against the Dutch invasion of Brazil in 1633. The Dutch invaded Palmares Quilombo in 1640, but they are gone from Brazil by 1654. Between 1680 and 1750, half of all slaves freed in Bahia purchased their own freedom or were purchased by relatives. Zumbi was betrayed, captured, and decapitated in 1694. Zumbi was a black freedom fighter in Brazil. The Palmaries Quilombo was invaded and conquered by Brazilian forces. Many places like the Sao Francisco Church and Convent of Salvador were built by slave labor in 1708. The biracial Antonio Fransico Lisboa who made sculptures was born in Ouro Preto in 1730. In 1752, Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz publishes, Teologia Do Amor de Deus, Luz Brilhante Das Almas Preregrinas (The Sacred Theology of God's Love, Bright Light of the Pilgrim Soul), the first black woman to be published. Slavery against Native Americans was outlawed by 1755. By 1789, slaves on the sugar plantation Engenho Santana in Ilhéus, south of Bahia revolts, runaway and formed quilombo. By the late 1700's, capoeira existed massively in Brazil. Capoeira is a form of dance and martial arts created by Afro-Brazilians for self-defense, dance, and having fun. By 1809, Aja-Fon and Yoruba from Bahia slaves formed quilombo, the controlled village of Nazare for months. Twenty slave revolts existed from 1809 to 1835. 2.5 million slaves were forced to be in Brazil in 1810. After Brazil breaks from Portugal, more revolts happen. There was the 1826 Zeferina Revolt, which attacks Bahia, Zeferina claimed to be Nâgo (Yoruba) and was from the Urubu Quilombo, who worshipped Shango from the Oyo Empire.
The 1832 Society for the Protection of the Needy was founded in Bahia, free black men raise funds to purchase slaves. There was the 1835 Malé Revolt -revolt by Muslim slaves in Bahia of Yoruba ancestry, 500 slaves took part, revolt had a jihadist overtone and the 1838 Manuel Congo in Rio Janeiro. There was the 1854 book called, "The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America," only narrative of an African-born slave in Brazil. In 1859, Maria Fermina Dos Reis from Manranhão first woman novelist publishes Ursula, anti-slavery abolition literature. The anti-slavery journal of Diabo Coxo (Lame Devil) was published in 1864. Racists in Brazil during this time promote scientific racism. By 1871, the Law of Free Wombs frees all children born of slave mother (called Lei do Ventre Livre). By 1880, abolitionists fight back against slavery. Slavery was banned by 1888 via the Golden Law. Yet, racists promote a policy of blanqueamiento or trying to exterminate the black population genetically. Brazil bans immigration of Africans and Asians (except Japanese people and Middle Easterners) in support of whitening. Racist Rui Barboasa destroyed slave records on Afro-Brazilians making it difficult to determine point of oirgin. By the early 20th century, whtie racists promote blanqueamiento or whitening. In 1911, Joao Baptista de Lacerda elaborates on whitening ideology at the First Universal Race Congress, "in the course of the next century the mixed bloods will have disappeared from Brazil. This will coincide with the extinction of the black race in our midst." Joao Baptista de Lacrerda was a wicked racist coward that I have no respect for. Black people will always exist in Brazil and worldwide forever and ever. The Afro-Brazilian hero Abdias do Nascimento was born on March 1914. Manuel Raimundo Querino publishes African Contribution to Brazilian Civilization,(O Colono Prêto Como Fator da Civilação Brasileiro), first historical study of Afro-Brazilians, the lone voice against whitening ideology. Police raids in the 1920's try to suppress traditional African regions.
Later, in 1931, the Brazilian Black Front (Frente Negra Brasileira) was founded by Arlindo Veiga dos Santos, Isaltino Veiga dos Santos, and Jose Correia Leite. A Voz da Raca (The Voice of the Race) was its paper. It fought for social and economic uplift of Afro-Brazilians and was the most important black organization since the abolition movement. Gilberto Freyre promoted the lie that racism doesn't exist in Brazilian society. In 1944, Abdias do Nascimento founded the Black Experimental Theater (Teatro Experimental do Negro or TEN) in Rio de Janeiro, which celebrated Afro-Brazilian culture and trained black actors, at a time when black roles were played by white actors in blackface. Brazil has the civilian rule in 1945 and ends in 1964. The racist whitening agenda ends. In 1959, the class film of Black Orpheus existed to celebrate Afro-Brazilian life. The Alfonso Arinos Law prohibits racial discrimination. Pele wins the World Cup with Brazil. In 1967, Gilberto Gil performs at the Third Festival of Brazilian Popular Music, inaugurating the Tropicália, cultural movement in the arts and includes Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethãnía, Gal Costa, Tom Zé. Florestan Fernandes was purged from the University of Sao Paulo. Fernandes had a counter theory to Freyre's "racial democracy." Freyre's "racial democracy" was espoused by the military dictatorship and Brazilian society. Fernandes coined the phrase “the prejudice of having no prejudice." Brazil bans race on the census. The 1978 Black Consciousness Movement (Moviemento Negro) an organization dedicated to the promotion of Afro-Brazilian culture and social empowerment in Brazil is formed. Founders included Flavia Cardanca, Hamilton Cardoso, Vander Lei Jose Maria, Abdias do Nascimento. The organization was founded after the assassination of taxi driver Robson Luz by police. In 1974, Ile Aiye became the first group to de-segregate Rio Carnaval, tried to re-Africanize carnival. Edivaldo Brito and Benedita da Silva helped Brazil in many ways. Celso Pitta was Sao Paolo's first elected black mayor. Brazil by the 21st century has affirmative action. In 2004, Taís Araújo acquired a major starring role in Da Cor do Pecado, becoming the first Afro-Brazilian in a leading role in a telenovela. Salvador, Bahi is the largest Afro-Brazilian metropolitan area by 2007. Racists forced the Ms. Globeleza title to be removed from Nayara Justino because of her Afro-Brazilian heritage. Afro-Brazilian Marina Silva makes her competitive bid for the presidency of Brazil in 2014.
Involving the mysteries of life, there should always be inspiration. The corporate media in many cases lost their credibility with promoting deceptions like some of them once believed that the Vietnam War was a righteous endeavor. Some in the corporate media even demonized the mass demonstrations of civil rights protesters in Chicago back in 1966. Mike Wallace told Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. if mass demonstrations were a detriment to progress. Of course, Wallace is wrong. Now, we have some in the corporate media who exploit the blatantly false misinformation found in some sections of the Internet as an excuse to promote censorship or intimidate people who desire the exposure of corporate corruption. The reality is that we don't have naivete. We just some that we have record economic inequality in the world, and neo-liberal wealthy elites desire policies that want oligarchy instead of fair distribution of the wealth in the world. The poor, the working class, and the middle class are the major engines of the economies of the world. Their sacrifice, work ethic, strength, and resiliency must be honored if solutions are to be made. Draconian austerity is not embraced by most people. That is why huge protests now are all over France against pension reforms plans. Censorship has been going on for a long time in the Internet and in other places. Whether people agree with me or not, people have the right to show their voices. Far too often, some want to use methods in trying to suppress dissent. I still have hope, because our ancestors suffered a great deal more than us, and they survived unspeakable injustices. I have hope subsequently because I believe in the human capacity for self-improvement and the God-given rights that we will earnestly protect and defend.
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