Renowned author of 'The New Jim Crow' says the death of Freddie Gray points to the need for concerted community action to halt excessive force targeted at African Americans. A discussion of the school to prison pipeline and how the The US government, law enforcement agencies, prison industrial complex and banks profit from the War On Drugs.

⁣The Royal Drummers of Burundi, commonly known in recordings as The Drummers of Burundi, is a percussion ensemble originally from Burundi. Their performances are a part of ceremonies such as births, funerals, and coronations of Mwami (Kings). Drums (called Karyenda) are sacred in Burundi, and represent the Mwami, fertility and regeneration. The Royal Drummers use drums made from hollowed tree trunks covered with animal skins. In addition to the central drum, called Inkiranya, there are Amashako drums which provide a continuous beat, and Ibishikiso drums, which follow the rhythm established by the Inkiranya.
The performance of the Royal Drummers has been the same for centuries, and their techniques and traditions are passed down from father to son. The members of the ensemble take turns playing the Inkiranya, dancing, resting, and playing the other drums, rotating throughout the show without interruptions. At the start of their performance, the drummers enter balancing the heavy drums on their heads and singing and playing. There are some extra members who carry ornamental spears and shields and lead the procession with their dance. They then perform a series of rhythms, some accompanied by song, and exit the stage the same way, carrying the drums on their heads and playing.

⁣With soft guttural whoops and a tickle of the water, a pygmy man in Central Africa plucks a fish from the river with his bare hands. Another hunter releases a crude arrow into the canopy above. A monkey falls from the trees, shot directly through the heart. Eyes still bulging from the shock, the hunter quickly slots the monkey’s tail under its lolling neck to make a neat bag of his bush meat. It’s skills like these that have allowed the pygmies to live in the rainforest of Cameroon for generations. But now they’re facing stiff competition for their forest range.
With only 7% of the rainforest here protected, there are rich pickings for the loggers. Now logging tracks have spread like spiderwebs through the forest, leaving the pygmies exposed. Perversely, conservationists are also gnawing away at the pygmies' land. Wildlife reserves patrolled by anti-poaching patrols leave just 1% of the forest available for the pygmies. Emile, an old hunter, bemoans the coming of the white men.“Because there’s this protected zone we don’t have enough to hunt. We were forest people, now we’re beggars.”
Caught between two worlds, the pygmies are making their choice. “'Before we used to live in the forest. Then the tall people came and said you can’t live like this. Before, we always used to run away and hide. Then we said this is getting us nowhere and we left the forest.” The pygmies are reaching out, demanding schools and health clinics. Now many families have abandoned their nomadic lifestyle, settling around mission schools.
Yet outside the forest the Pygmies are struggling to find their place. They are forced into jobs that only serve the whites or the Bantu, the predominant black tribe in the area. They’re losing their identity and are being treated like bonded labour, paid with alcohol, food and cast-off clothing. Ironically, many also find work with the logging companies themselves. Hacking down their forest home for a few cents per tree. In a state of rapid cultural transition they don’t know which way to jump. Their culture grates with the loggers’ work ethics. At the local sawmill their ways are tolerated but not respected. “It’s difficult to work with pygmies. When the hunting season or harvest time comes, they simply leave .You can't rely on them. When people won’t change their mentality they can’t be integrated in the workplace' moans the French sawmill manager. Working for hunters is the only other employment around. Tourists pay $20,000 a week to have the pygmies lead them to the prize prey of elephants and gazelles. Its easy work for the pygmies but it’s killing their land as well. The hunters' guns spell danger to the region's elephants.
Back in the forest, in their traditional leaf huts, a band of pygmies try to live as they used to. Their children line up to have their canine teeth filed - the pain is worth it, they say, for this mark of pygmy beauty. The men hunt, the women gather, digging for roots and grubs to be roasted. But even here the lure of a western way of life is drawing people away. The refrain of many mothers is the same. “I want to stay in the village. The most important thing to me is that [my child] can go to school.”
The pygmies are in an impossible situation, their skills, perfected over hundreds of years, are becoming worthless in a world dominated by profit and loss accounts. They are being exploited in the same manner as the ancient rainforest trees: as an expendable commodity with a short term value. Can the pygmies find a successful identity as the modern world closes in?
Produced by Marion Meyer-Hohdahl

Today, marks the 40th Anniversary since the eruption of the Brixton Uprising (so-called Brixton Riots) - 10th April 1981. One of the biggest uprisings of the Black Community in the UK - and one that reverberates till this day.

For the utilisation of exploration into the inner and outer verse

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Ghana is experiencing a new gold rush but widespread corruption is causing illegal mining to flourish. A Ghanian investigative reporter uncovers corruption, even among those who are supposed to be stopping it.

Are superfoods all that they’re cracked up to be? There’s plenty of worldwide hype about eating chia seeds, goji berries and quinoa - but what benefits do they really bring?

This documentary looks at what superfoods do for people and more. How is the healthy eating boom influencing agriculture and business? There are more and more restaurants serving superfoods in Germany. Florian Klar of Bochum opened the first superfood bistro in the Ruhr region about a year ago. He buys in all types of food, using local suppliers when he can, but he also uses exotic superfoods in his meals.

Quinoa, goji berries and chia seeds can now all be found in supermarkets as well. The food industry has discovered selling these products is lucrative and changed its product selection accordingly. Superfoods are simply that a foodstuff contains a high amount of nutrients. "Every country has its own superfood,” says nutritionist Matthias Riedl. Blueberries, flax seed, blackcurrants, and kale are all superfoods native to Germany.

The film also takes viewers to Bolivia, a key quinoa exporter, to see how the hype has influenced farming there. Exports of the so-called "Inca corn” quadrupled between 2007 and 2013. The rising price of quinoa on global markets has led Andean farmers to increase the size of their fields. Yet after just two straight years of quinoa harvests, the soil is already exhausted and barren.

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⁣Mzansi's Youngest Sangoma, this plays in the southern part of Africa, the initiate is very young, but as we know, you can get your ancestral calling either very young or when your a bit older, Malidoma Some also talks about this, go look it up.
footage taken from Daily SunTV

Essex County College's Africana Institute's Garvey/Nkrumah Lecture Series from 2014 featuring Dr. Leonard Jeffries. Created by the Essex County College Media Production & Technology Center.

Topic:

Pre-Colonial Afrikan-Centered Development

1. Spiritual, Social, Political and Economic Aspects of the Development of Afrikan Societies

2. Ubuntu

3. Are we connected to the past? If so how? If not why not? [Epigenetics]

4. Nile Valley Civilizations as a model of Afrikan Development


Readings:

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa [Walter Rodney]
Chapter 2 -- How Africa Developed before the Coming of Europeans-Up to the Fifteenth Century

Zulu Traditional Healing, Afrikan Worldview and the Practice of Ubuntu: Deep thought for Afrikan/Black Psychology [Kevin Washington]


Dr. Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi

Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Economics
Associate Director, Research & Publication
Editor-in-Chief/Managing Editor East Afrikan Journal of Research
Tumaini University Iringa University College
Tanzania, East Afrika


Dr. Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi a citizen of the United States of America and expatriate resident of the United Republic of Tanzania. Dr. Dukuzumurenyi is a graduate of Grambling State University, Grambling, LA with a Bachelors of Arts in History and Masters of Public Administration in Public Administration with emphasis in Health Service Administration and of Southern University A & M College with an earned Doctorate of Philosophy in Public Policy Analysis from the Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. Dr. Dukuzumurenyi is an Afrikan-centered educator, public policy analyst, public administration scholar, political scientist, and public lecturer on Afrikan education, history, economics, politics and spirituality emphasizing systems design and strategic planning in the development of Afrikan political, military, social and economic agency. He has served the Afrikan community as an Afrikan American Studies, Geography and Economics teacher in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System of the United States for nine years, as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Southern University A & M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for one year and as Associate Director of Research and Publication, Editor of the Journal of East Afrikan Research and Lecturer on the Faculties of Education, Cultural Anthropology and Tourism, Business and Development Studies at the University of Iringa in the United Republic of Tanzania, East Afrika for two years. The guiding influences for Dr. Dukuzumurenyi have been the works of Dr. Amos N. Wilson, Dr. Asa Hilliard, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochanan, Dr. Marimba Ani, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Minister Malcolm X, Stephen Biko, Shaka Zulu, Mangaliso Sobukwe & Ptahhotep to name only a select few.