LET'S BUILD OUR OWN

No one knows exactly how many billions of dollars Afro-Descendants as a
people waste each year on vices which only weaken and destroy us as a
people. Some years ago, an Urban League study entitled "The State Of Black
America" estimated that each year African-Americans spend $12 billion on
alcoholic beverages. So, if you add to that the billions that our people
burn on marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and idle sport and play, it is safe to
say that we are financing our own destruction.

Where would we be today if five years ago we had re-routed even half of
that huge river of mis-spent finances into Black-owned farmland, legitimate
businesses, universities and hospitals? Where will we be five years from
now if most of our people make and keep this New Year's resolution: Let's
pledge to take all or at least most of these mis-spent funds and build our
own housing, schools, firms and medical centers.

Let's also pledge at least 10 percent of the wasted funds on upgrading and
expanding our legal battle inside the United Nations to establish our human
rights and secure massive Reparations. And let's pledge another 20 percent
to our historically Black colleges.

To be sure, Samson, in the person of the long-victimized Afro-Descendants,
is holding up the pillars of the white American economy. Were in not for
the billions that we pour into white-owned cigarette and liquor companies
and the white-controlled drug industries and were it not for the many
billions in unjustly extracted taxes that are routed into the oppressive
U.S. government's treasury, the slavemaster's offspring would not be living
in heaven while most of our people are dwelling in hell. Were it not for so
many misguided Black and Brown youth volunteering to serve in Pharaoh's
army, Pharaoh could not wage unjust wars against any Black, Brown, Red or
Yellow nation.

However, when you consider the brilliant leaders who have risen up amongst
us and taught us in great detail about how to remedy our deplorable
condition, we as a people have no excuse in 2005 to continue facilitating
our own destruction while continuing to enrich our oppressors. I include in
the list of magnificent leaders all of the following: the Honorable Marcus
Garvey, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., Malcolm X, Kwame Toure, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, Minister Louis
Farrakhan, Mr. Silis Muhammad, Queen Mother Moore, Dr. Walter Rodney and
Dr. Angela Davis.

Let's not rest until we have proven to our sons and daughters and nephews
and nieces and grandsons and granddaughters that their upliftment is
infinitely more important to us than the deadly vices which we have allowed
to flood our communities for decades. Let's not rest until we have our own
government and our own economy on some of this Earth that we can call our own.

* Minister Malik Al-Arkam, a speaker on Reparations and other topics vital
to the Black community, can be reached at http://www.AllForReparations.org.