OnyxCon: Sankofa 2017

It's that time again!!  If you're in the Atlanta area, PLEASE come out to support OnyxCon: Sankofa!!!  Part of the Black Age of Comics Movement, this annual event takes place every winter during February/Black History Month.  It is a way for us to celebrate OUR images from our perspective.  Full of comics, art, cosplay, film screenings, and SO much more!

OnyxCon: Sankofa
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Wolf Creek Library
Atlanta, GA

www.onyxcon.com

BE THERE!!!! 

Reflections: Musings of a Prodigal Son

So...I've moved back to my hometown of Brooklyn.  I've been back for almost two months now.  I've seen a lot of the changes that have been happening here since I've been gone for the last 7-8 years...

And I DON'T like what I see.

None of these changes were made to benefit the people who were originally here; they were made to benefit the Manhattanites who can no longer afford to live in Manhattan, and the newly arrived transplants who disrespectfully carry themselves as if they are originally FROM here.

You're NOT!!!  Stop fakin' the funk!!!!

A lot of this is what I was fighting against before I moved out of the state.  I saw the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, and saw that people just weren't prepared for what was coming, nor were they interested or inclined in trying to fend it off.  It frustrated me beyond belief, and totally burned me out, among other personal issues that I was dealing with at the time.  It got worse almost immediately after I left.

I've only been gone a short time.  I would understand if I'd been gone a good 10+ years; progress and change is inevitable.  BUT...I've only been gone a short amount of time.  I walk around the neighborhood I grew up in, and don't even recognize it.  The borough that I love has lost it's flavor; it's become so stagnant.  All you see around the way are these mainstream big box stores. The local mom-and-pop shops are falling/have fallen to the wayside. You have interloping transplants boguarding and regulating as if they're actually from here, and putting a kibosh on any and all cultural activities that have been going on in our communities for decades before their arrival.

I DO see people keeping up the fight.  Brothers and sisters are out there trying to maintain our cultural and artistic spaces, or are trying to create new ones for us.  The supreme need is the support of the community so that these traditions and institutions can never be lost to us ever again.  They can try to push us out; I think that it's about time that we started to push back.

When our neighborhoods were defunct and crime ridden, they didn't want to have anything to do with us.  Now that we've brought our communities back, they want to leech onto our space, claim them for their own, and push us out.  They abandoned us with 'white flight' back in the day, and left us to our own recourse, suffering with our lack of capital and resources.  Once we brought our communities back, through grit and determination, investing in our own ethnic arts and businesses, now they want a piece of the action, and take over by pricing us out.  I've recently been to Downtown Brooklyn; it looks like a little Manhattan.  That disgusted me beyond belief.  Brooklyn has IT'S OWN identity; we DON'T NEED nor WANT to be another Manhattan.  Take that bullshit back where you came from!

Now that I'm back, I must help to do my part to keep that original part of us alive.  This cookie cutter persona that permeates throughout this city of great originality must be discarded!  WE are the trendsetters.  WE are the originators.  WE are the ones that set the standards for others to follow across the country, and the world.  WE are the innovators of fashion, music, arts, and style.  We were NEVER followers; we are leaders!

To our youth...step it up, and think outside the box!!  To our elders...provide that proper guidance that our youth need.  This mockery of who we are cannot stand for much longer.  Let's be the trendsetters and innovators that we truly are.  Fuck chasing the almighty dollar; your due compensation will surly come in due time.  Besides, having a lot of money doesn't make you right, nor make you the best.

Reclaim that Brooklyn steelo.

Holla at ya boy!!!!

Nuestra Herencia: Alonso De Illescas

Alonso de Illescas, the African slave from Senegal that regained his freedom and established a kingdom of Esmeraldas in Ecuador in 1553 at the age of 25. The Spanish had to fight and beg him. in fact the Spanish priest and negotiator Miguel Cabello de Balboa openly acknowledges that Alonso de Illescas was a man of superior qualities. 

(click here for more: http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2012/10/african-descendants-in-ecuador-afro.html)
 
Alonso de Illescas was born about 1528, in Africa in the region of Senegal. At the age of about 10 years, he was captured by slave traders and taken as a slave to Spain. He was baptized and confirmed in Seville with the name of Enrique. He later took the name of his master, the merchant Alonso de Illescas.
 
He had the opportunity to learn the language of the Spanish, their way of living, raising children, engaging in war and even entertainment. He became proficient in the use of weapons and musical instruments typical of the great families of the time.
 
Around 25 years or so, he was brought to America by the family of Illescas, who managed a sort of joint enterprise between Seville and Lima. In October 1553, sailing from Panama to Lima, the merchant ship that carried Alonso de Illescas, had great difficulty by currents and adverse weather and ran out of supplies.
 
After passing through the rough whether and getting to the Cape of San Francisco, at the height of Portete Cove, in the province of Esmeraldas, the ship that had on board 17 black slaves and six 6 black free men, was pushed to the reef where it ran aground due to the strong wind and turbulent waves. This helped blacks including Allonso to flee into the jungle. The Spanish tried to recapture them, but had no success. From there Alonso and other escaped slaves went to Portoviejo to enjoy their free lives.

On the death of Anton, after overcoming some internal rivalries, Alonso de Illescas, was recognized as the new leader.
Account by Miguel Cabello de Balboa has it that Alonso who once invited to a great feast with the chief Chilianduli with Indians in the village of Dobe, surprisingly at the apex of the party killed 500 Indians, and became the new lord of the people.
They made forays into a vast area reaching Portoviejo instilling fear to the Spanish, who vainly tried to subdue the multiple attacks.
 
Allonso was a skilled negotiator and knew how to win the friendship of the Indians, making appropriate partnerships, particularly with the tribe of the chiggers. For the Indians there was no choice but to agree and accept the newcomers.They therefore supported Alonso and his free blacks in the fight against enemy tribes, especially the dreaded Campaces. As a sign of alliance the Indians awarded their women as a trophy to the black warriors of Allonso to marry, giving rise to a new breed in of people in South America "the Sambo of Esmeraldas." Later in 1599 the painter Andrés Sánchez Gallque, by order of Judge Juan del Barrio, painted the "Chiefs of Esmeraldas Blacks" and sent the large portrait of the King of Spain, Philip II.
 
Alonso was cunning, brave in war, with his quite literary abilities in Spanish language also quickly learned the local languages. With the Spanish colonizers he maintained a relationship that could define as "hate and love," in order to preserve their autonomy while leveraging their friendship.
He established his people in the headwaters of Atacames, called San Martin de la Campaces, the mouth of which was the historic meeting with the priest Miguel Cabello de Balboa, in the month of September 1577.
 
Alonso de Illescas was told by the catholic priest that he had the king's (king of Spain) pardon and has been appointed as Governor of Esmeraldas. Alonso took appointment appointment letter from Balboa and told him he appreciated the King`s offer but added that before he accepts, "I had to talk to my people."
In fact he left with his entourage. Later he came with all his people, promising nothing because the Spanish ship appeared in the bay, from Portmore, causing distrust. They thought it would be another betrayal of their people to the Spanish. Alonso and his black followers did not show up anymore. The Spanish left.
 
When Miguel Cabello de Balboa returned to Atacames River again, he found rafts shattered and plants uprooted, a clear sign that the relationship was broken and he could be danger.
The priest Miguel Cabello de Balboa, along with his colleagues, decided to take the road along the coast to Bahia de Caráquez, as he constantly watched from afar by the Indian pals of Alonso. There were follow up Portoviejo help, then finally reached Guayaquil and Quito on February 10, 1578.
The blacks were indeed free in their new land and resisted any attempt to subjugate them to the Spanish.
 
Miguel Cabello de Balboa openly acknowledges that Alonso de Illescas was a man of superior qualities. He wrote to King telling him that it was not so easy to subdue a man who was well prepared and knows how to defend in all fields.
 
Alonso, married a daughter of Chief Chilianduli and had other women. The children were educated along Spanish families, were taught the use of weapon and also in the manufacturing of weapons. Three of his famous children were Enrique Alonso, Alonso Sebastian, Balthazar. One of his daughters was captured by Captain Andrew Contero, made a slave, sent to Guayaquil and married to a slave of the same Captain. Another daughter named Mary got married to Gonzalo de Avila, they had a daughter, Magdalena.

Rant Session

Okay....

When I started this blog, I wanted to use it mainly as a way to promote my books and other projects, as well as sharing some of my activism.  I never wanted to use it as personal diary where I air out my own personal dirty laundry, and spread my business to the webiverse.  But sometimes....you get taken there.....

I'm working on my latest literary project (basically, my third book), which I was hoping to publish soon.  The plan was originally to publish this project before the summer was out; that quite obviously didn't happen.  I wasn't able to gather the money that I needed to publish this project.  I've come out of pocket before when I published my first two works, and I was in the process of doing so again for this one.  I wasn't able to get the funds together to publish the book until after the summer ended, practically starting this fall.  This book was to be different from the first two; it was to be a memoir based on some Facebook Notes that I had written a few years ago.

The project initially went off smoothly.  I decided to stay with my second publisher to do my third book, considering the ease and painlessness in which I was able to publish my last book with them.  I logged in to my account, paid the fee for the Publishing Package that I wanted, and uploaded my files to their site.  All was smooth sailing at this point, until it came time to deal with my book cover...

I designed my cover myself.  I have some graphic arts skills, and that has helped me in the past.  As it is, I designed the cover for my first two books.  Being independently self-published, that helps you out a lot; that's less money out of your pocket to get someone to do some of these tasks for you.  ESPECIALLY dealing with these P.O.D companies, they will charge you an arm and a leg extra to get tasks like these done, aside from paying the Pub Package fee.  Considering that this is my THIRD book, I already know the games that they'll try to play with you to get you to cough up more money, and already did all the work.

End result...?  Book #3 is on hold INDEFINITELY!!!  These motherfuckers have PISSED ME OFF!!!!  They keep telling me that the image size for my cover is the wrong size (which is absolute BULLSHIT).  The program that I used to design my book cover in the first place LETS YOU create files in the size needed (300 DPI or 'dots per inch').  The publisher kept telling me that the file size is too small, and kept trying to get me to upgrade my package.  NO...FUCKING...WAY!!!

For all of the print-on-demand publishers out there....STOP trying to ruin peoples dreams with your greed! Investing in your publishing packages is economically draining enough, DON'T try to cheat people by squeezing more money out of them for a service they don't need.  People have scrapped, scrimped, and saved to see their dreams of being a published author come to reality; stop doing this trifling ass shit to get more money out of them!

On the real, stupid shit like this is why my FIRST publisher lost the ability to publish my SECOND book.  People have a choice, and I made mine; you're NOT the only game in town.  I'm just mad that I didn't get my money back from my first publisher; they made a bullshit ass claim that they had already created my proofs (which was a bold faced LIE).  I should have sued the shit out of them, but didn't feel like shelling out the money for a lawyer.  Now my SECOND publisher is doing the same shit!

Listen, if an author makes a decision to stick with you for a next project, you should be going out of your way to please them....NOT try to squeeze more money out of them.  I'm not some fucking new jack just trying to get put on; we obviously have a past together, and that should have been respected.

Instead of wasting my money paying these assholes for their publishing packages, what I SHOULD be doing is pooling my money together to purchase THE EQUIPMENT that THEY use, and print the book out MYSELF!!!  COMPLETELY self-publishing your project is also a risk, but its getting to the point where that'll be the ONLY way you can get your literary project out without getting ripped off by these companies.

I just needed to get this off my chest.  I'll keep you guys updated on how it turns out.

East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention

East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention
May 18, 2013
Philadelphia, PA

Support the Black Age of Comics Movement!!!  Support Black artists and producers!!!

Be there!!!!

Cultural Expression

Okay, this one is a bit of a rant session....

As you all know, I am a card carrying member of the Nationalist/Pan Africanist movement.  I espouse the Afrocentric ideology, not only in my own writings, but in my everyday mode of living.  I will be RBG until my last day on this physical plane.

At the same time, BECAUSE I am a part of this movement/community, it gives me more of a standing to critique and/or criticize some of the things that we do within this movement/community.  As an alternative to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, there are those in the "conscious" community that came up with a holiday of their own called the "Umoja Karamu" (loosely translated to Unity Feast in KiSwahili).

????????

No disrespect meant to my fellow activists and revolutionaries, but...are you shitting me?!?!

Look...we know that the way the holiday is presented and propagandized today is totally contrary to what really happened historically.  I get the fact that we need to celebrate our own cultural holidays as an alternative to this wicked societal system that we live in.  But come ON!  WHY are we making up holidays?!?!  If we were really culturally aware, we would realize that we don't have to make up our own holidays; there are plenty for us to celebrate.  If you are involved in the Kemetic spiritual systems, there are a number of holidays that are expressed through that faith.  There are probably a few others if you follow the belief systems of the Akan, Yoruba, Dogon, Vodun, Lucumi, and other African faiths.  We don't need Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, or Christmas, or to make up 'black' versions of those holidays.

There are a number of groups and organizations that create African-centered/afrocentric calendars to distribute to the community.  Some are historically based, some are culturally based.  If I were ever to create my own cultural calender, I would list the following holidays:

All of Black History Month
Veneral (Spring) Equinox
African Liberation Day
Juneteenth
Summer Solstice
Black August/African Liberation Month
Autumnal Equinox
Black Solidarity Day
Winter Solstice
Kwanzaa

I would also include the birthdays of iconic ancestors and freedom fighters, and also include the independence days of various African and Diasporic countries into the mix.   

Kuumba Njia TV: The sequel

A while back I had written about an idea that I had for a black-owned digital television channel, calling it Kuumba Njia TV ("The Creative Way", or "The Way of Creativity" television edu-tainment).  I had outlined a treatment for it, and had sent out a few feelers to those that I know and trust in the media field.  I had gotten back a good bit of positive feedback.  I would like to come back to this topic, and follow up on it a bit.

Having our own channel would open up a lot of doors for us that have previously been closed before.  For actors, it would give them the opportunity to have steady work, and be able to consistently practice their craft to a mass audience.  They would be able to gain name recognition, and build up their acting resume'.  They can polish their craft, and increase their skills, having more of a choice as far as projects are concerned.  Let's face it; you'll be able to see all shades of Black faces morning, noon, and night.

For producers, the potential is limitless.  In my personal opinion, it would be the best way for us to explore entry in to genres that we are completely underrepresented in, or don't have much of a presence in at all.  For once, we'd be able to have a Drama series stay on the air for more than a handful of episodes, before getting yanked off the air.  I would also like to see us have a presence in an Animated series.  I know plenty of writers that have great ideas for an animated series, myself included.  Also...why can't we have a science fiction series from our perspective on the air?  Who's to say that we don't/won't exist in the future?  Comedies are good...Reality TV I can do without.  And having a documentary series on the air a la PBS...?  Need I say more?

For programmers, this can also be new and uncharted territory for them as well.  We can be as diverse as we want to with our programming, airing shows from other countries within the Diaspora.  We could also screen movies from other countries within the diaspora.  One suggestion that I had made for acquisitions was to send a representative/Acquisitions Officer/Media Buyer to some of these Black film festivals to scour for talent.  If not the festival winners, then maybe a filmmaker whose project moved something within you.  Also, I would like to see them bring back certain shows that had been successful on other networks at one time.   I remember watching a show on BET (back when it was still Black-owned) call "Screen Scene", which was a magazine show about brothers and sisters in the film and television industry, and the projects that they were working on.  "Teen Summit" was also a great show that deserves a rebirth, and I have to admit that I used to love watching "BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley".  Ed Gordon did a masterful job after Tavis was fired, especially with the other flubs that they had hosting it before he finally took over.  Shows like these need to be rebirthed, and correctly emulated.

This untapped potential still exists.  The Black media is shrinking more and more everyday.  We need to build up our own resources, and use them to the maximum of their capabilities.  We need a strong foundation to work on, and continue to build on.  A media outlet like this can be a HUGE stepping stone.  It is a greater way to create greater cohesion with our brothers and sisters within the diaspora.  It is a great way to expose ourselves to each other, and give us a voice to communicate with one another.  With the dearth of documentarians out there, writers, actors, budding producers, filmmakers, and other visionaries....there is NO WAY that we can fail.

"Up you mighty race...you can accomplish what you WILL"
--   Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Kuumba Njia TV: The Road to Independent Black Media

I have to admit....I hated the conversion from analog to digital reception for basic television.  I thought that it was unnecessary, not to mention intrusive; why should the government be telling you how you can watch free TV?  I was one of the people that resisted; I never got one of those converter boxes, nor did I get cable (couldn't afford it).  Not to mention...the rising cost of cable, and the unregulated and unchecked greed of the various cable companies that were out there.  I just spent more time reading, or writing up my various projects (screenplays, novels), or surfing the web.

It wasn't until recently, when I heard about a new Black-owned digital channel, that I began to change my mind about the digital conversion.  I had heard of this new channel called BounceTV, based out of Atlanta, GA.  There was an article about it written in one of the local Black newspapers out here in Baltimore (I believe it was The Afro).  The channel was being headed by Martin Luther King III, and Andrew Young.  That's when the idea hit me...

If they can do it, why can't the rest of us?

Considering my media background, I had already known about  the past attempts at creating a Black-owned cable network (NUE-TV, MBC/Black Family Channel, Real Hip Hop Network, etc).  Most of them eventually folded, while BET was sold into white hands.  TV One, in my own humble opinion, leaves much to be desired as far as original content is concerned.  Not to mention, TV One is only 1/2 Black owned; Comcast owns the other 51 % of the company.  But...a digital television channel, on the other hand?  That was uncharted territory.  This was actually a first.

I went online, and did some research about creating a digital television channel.  Financially, it is so much more feasible to accomplish, than to create a cable network.  It would cost I believe around $100k-$150k to start up the network.  You would have to apply with the FCC for an operating license, and also find a Network Engineer to run it.  Also, you would need to see what available carrier space is available for your network to run on.  With more channel space being made available every other week, that's not very hard.  And...all you would need to see the channel is an HDTV antenna, if you're not already hooked up to a cable service.

To find out more, you can just go to the FCC's website, or just type HDTV channels into the search engine for either Google, Bing, or Yahoo.  The information is able to be printed out for your own personal records.

I decided to come up with my own idea for a digital television channel, hence the title for this particular entry.  Kuumba Njia Television; "Looking to Edu-tain the Masses".  Many of us in the 'conscious community' always talk about owning our own media so as to be able to control our own images, and how they are presented to the public.  Not to mention, how a venture like this can help to create jobs for our community.  You have jobs from production workers (directors, camera people, editors, graphic artists), to office assistants, to technicians (lighting, sound, computers), to actors and writers. 

The initial treatment for the channel has already been written up.  It could be completely funded by the black business community, and global black dollars.  Why complain about Black media not receiving funds from Main Street or Wall Street like their White counterparts?  We need to fund our own media, and show and prove just how powerful  and successful it can really be.  We could also eventually create sister channels that target other specific types of programming (sports, movies, talk shows, etc).

So, what say you?  Are we ready to build this media empire?