Just as there are organisms and superorganisms, for example ants and ant colonies, there is ultimately a single over-arching superorganism, the interconnected whole that is all life on planet earth. No matter what we do we cannot destroy the earth, but we can certainly render it uninhabitable, which seems to be the path we are steadfastly embarked upon. What can we do to reverse course and preserve humanity in perpetuity?
Attain harmony within and amongst societies while insuring a lasting balance in our ecology.
America’s action, or lack thereof, is crucial in all of this. The United States was created based upon the bold declaration that all are “created equal,” but we have yet to meet this impeccable standard. Black people have, from the nation’s genesis, been at the base of the yardstick and all others’ progress towards absolute equality measured against our quest.
The Black Studies component is the essential element of the multicultural studies movement since it chronicles the history, perspectives and development of the people chosen to chart the move towards absolute equality in the most influential nation on the planet. As a consequence, African Americans have furnished the cultural base of the country, since the culture of a nation arises from the bottom, not the top.
African American Studies not only has key contributions to make in understanding, and promoting, the quest for equality, it also has quite a lot to say about the survival of humanity since Africa is where humanity came into being, and survived and thrived for countless millennia before we did so anywhere else.
Yes, Black people are “at the bottom of the totem pole.” But are not those “at the bottom of the totem pole” literally the first ancestors? Are they not the ones from which all those “above” were seeded. They are truly the essential ones from which everyone, and everything, that comes after got its start. To understand anything go back to the source. And if the subject be humanity, we must certainly go back to the source, the African Source.
How many times have we lamented, “Why do we have to save everyone else? Why do we have to be the saviors of humanity?” But it is written that, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” And so, after all is said and done, are we not in fact the Chosen Ones, and is not this the Promised Land?
