Good evening. My name is Naomi Beverly and I am a senior Broadcasting and Mass Media major at Temple. Tonight I am going to speak on what I think the role of the African woman is in the struggle to end oppression of African people here in the United States, at home in African, as well as throughout the world.
First I want to
define African
for those of us who are still confused. An African is a e or inhabitant of Africa as well as a
person of African
ancestry or descent. So it doesn�t
matter if I was born and raised here, or if your parents were born and raised
in Jamaica. You and I are African, and
do you want to know why? The only difference between us is that your parent�s
ancestors were on a slave ship that first stopped in the Caribbean to enslave
them before coming to America to enslave my ancestors, but they are all off the same boat.
Amy
Jacques Garvery, Universal Negro Improvement Association
Part of the reason it is the end of 2002 and we are still struggling to define ourselves and find our identity is a direct result of not having a knowledge of our history and our past. We are one people, with one nation and one common enemy. There is, and has been for many years, a conscious, calculated effort being made that, unfortunately, has been very effective at making Africans all over focus on our differences. By diverting our attention with the superficial and inconsequential differences between us like culture and language and geography we are kept from concentrating on what is really important-that we are all brothers and sisters in a struggle for freedom and liberation that will continue until we wake up and unite against oppression. The only solution is revolution. It is the responsibility of every African to unite and fight to end racism and oppression of our people worldwide. Reformation is not the answer and will never be the answer because you can not reform evil and it is pointless to try.
It�s sad and what makes it even worse is that as students we are in such a unique position to be a positive force in this struggle. Far too many of Africans are selfish and worried only about what they are going to do to make life comfortable for themselves and their own individual families. Then there are those who think they are elite or better than everyone else because they are better paid and/or accepted and understood by whites, and talk like them and live with them and pretend to be like them, as if that is something to be proud of. I know people who think like that are corrupted by the evils of this system, because by nature Africans are social, communal beings. Community is a way of life and a part of life for us.
The tools and education we need
to combat this corrupt, racist, evil system we live in are not going to come
from any college or university set up by our oppressors. These institutions are set up to maintain
the status quo, as well as to keep us uneducated, miseducated and
ignorant. The schools we go to are
reflections of the society that
created them.
Sister Assata Shakur (left) told us that that nobody is going to give
you the education that you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history if that knowledge
is going to set you free. All our
schools do is brainwash us-the history we learn in school is a down right lie,
they don�t even have the decency to cover things up and pretend to tell the
truth. Again, I stress that you cannot
reform evil and shouldn�t waste your time trying. Until we become independent,
critical revolutionary thinkers we will continue to be stuck in a system that
systematically deprives Africans of basic human rights and necessities.
We need to wake up out of what can only be described as a
deep sleep. We need to wake up out of this coma we have been in for the last
400 years. We are indigenous to the
most rich and fertile region on the face of the earth in every sense of those
words, yet Africans everywhere are the least educated, most impoverished, most
undernourished and most deprived people on earth. Our land, our labor and our minds have been exploited for far too
long, and in my opinion, in these days and times a lot happens to us is our own
fault because we know what we need to do and refuse to do it. Too many of us are scared to die fighting
for our freedom, but will break their necks to enlist in their army to kill our
brothers and sisters for a college education designed to keep them ignorant and
oppressed. Too many of us love them and their money and their lies more than
they love themselves. What most people
don�t understand is that most revolutionaries do what they do out of love. I know I do. I love myself and my people more than anything. It breaks my heart to see children no older
than three and four with a light in their eyes that is dimmer than it should be
because all they know and all they can see is the poverty, homelessness,
despair, death, disease and destruction of their mothers and fathers and
brothers and sisters. What will it take
to make us see that revolution is the only solution, and anybody who says it is
not is not only lying to your face, but does not have your best interest in
mind. 
Malcolm X once said that
�the
role of the African woman is to make the man more militant� and I agree
emphatically. To be militant is to be
aggressively active in a cause, and what should we fight more aggressively for
than our freedom and our liberation?