Why Our Culture Holds No Power | Dr. Amos Wilson Clip

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Which it is.

[00:00:00]>> Brothers and sisters, we need unity, but in order to have unity, you have to get rid of the dis-unifiers.

[00:00:07]Brothers and sisters, we need unity, but in order to get unity, you have to get rid of the dis-unifiers.

[00:00:13]I have never been in a group, I have never been in an organization, I have never been part of any activity where there was not at least one dis-unifier.

[00:00:21]And guess what? Not only do you have the dis-unifier there whose job is to keep black people disunited.

[00:00:28]Other people who recognize who the dis-unifier are do not expose that person.

[00:00:35]Did y'all hear what I just said? There's always a dis-unifier amongst those seeking unification.

[00:00:42]Every black organization, every black church, every black frat, every black institution has an agent of disunity.

[00:00:52]Everyone has an agent of disunity.

[00:00:55]The problem is not the agent of disunity. They're not the problem.

[00:00:59]You know what the problem is?

[00:01:01]All the people who watch the agent of disunity operate and do nothing about it.

[00:01:08]All the people who hear the agent of disunity, watch them. You watch the person destroying the movement and you don't say anything about it. And do you know why you don't say nothing about it?

[00:01:20]Why do we keep quiet when there when there's a dis-unifier amongst us?

[00:01:26]Why do we keep quiet when there's a dis-unifier amongst us?

[00:01:31]Why do we keep quiet? I'll tell you why.

[00:01:33]The reason black people keep quiet when there's a dis-unifier in their group is because we love to see [ __ ] We love to see black people in pain. We love to see black people suffer. We love to see black initiatives brought down and undermined.

[00:01:55]It's part of the psychological residuals of slavery.

[00:01:58]It's part of the post-traumatic slavery disease. We love to see black people suffer.

[00:02:04]It is ingrained, conditioned in you by four centuries of servitude.

[00:02:09]We love this.

[00:02:11]We love it.

[00:02:13]So, we always We don't even want to be in an organization if it doesn't have a dis-unifier. If the organization doesn't have a dis-unifier, we don't want to be a part of it.

[00:02:23]We need drama.

[00:02:25]Black people will join activities just to promote drama, just to see drama.

[00:02:31]That's why those of us who are serious about African liberation, those who are serious about the Pan-African program, we have to purge.

[00:02:40]You have to be unapologetic enough to call people out who are not there for the right reasons.

[00:02:45]You have to be unapologetic enough to call people out who are not there for the right reasons.

[00:02:54]Because we have a whole section of black America who is dedicated to negativity.

[00:02:59]That's all they want to see. That's all they want to hear. That's all they want to be a part of.

[00:03:04]You have not been psychologically liberated.

[00:03:07]You have not been psychologically liberated. You have not been psychologically liberated until your thirst and your hunger for black drama and negativity has disappeared.

[00:03:20]Do not consider yourself conscious. Do not consider yourself woke. Do not consider yourself to be psychologically liberated until your thirst and hunger for black failure and negativity has dissipated. Until you have extirpated every ounce of the European ghost that lives within your soul, until you have removed completely all vestiges of the European ghost that lives within you, do not consider yourself free.

[00:03:52]You have to take back your psychological freedom.

[00:03:56]You have to take back your psychological freedom. You have to take back your psychological freedom. You have to say, "I'm not going to laugh at that.

[00:04:04][clears throat] I'm not going to smile at that. I'm not going to support that.

[00:04:08]I'm not going to give that my energy because even though I don't like him, that is not productive. Even though I don't like her, that is not productive."

[00:04:16]out of the European impostor living inside of you.

[00:04:21]You have a European taking up space in your mind. That European looks like you, thinks like you, acts like you, but it is not you.

[00:04:30]It is the ghost of your oppressor.

[00:04:32]And that ghost of your oppressor that is living in your psyche is making decisions for you without your knowledge.

[00:04:40]That ghost of the oppressor who is living in your psyche is making decisions about you without your knowledge. Bury the cracker that lives in your soul.

[00:04:51]You can't serve two masters.

[00:04:53]You cannot serve two masters, brothers and sisters. You will serve the Caucasian in you or you will serve the God in you. You will serve the devil in you or you will serve the God in you.

[00:05:03]Which one is it going to be?

[00:05:06]Blueprint for Black Power, chapter three, social and cultural origins of power, pages 68 to 84, and I'm starting where it says institutionals It says the institutional black church.

[00:05:20]The institutional black church and black preachers are cultural icons in the African-American community.

[00:05:28]Black preachers have led the African-American community from slavery to present.

[00:05:34]Rarely has a secular leadership establishment gained long-term and broadly effective influence in the African-American community superior to that of the ministerial establishment.

[00:05:46]Black preachers have been consistently and almost exclusively supported by the black community.

[00:05:53]This type of support has provided many of them with the power of relative independence. The relative independence and the relatively and the relatively open time schedule enjoyed by the ministerial profession has permitted them large degrees of freedom and social latitude than is the case for what be secular leaders who practice or professions or work at other jobs usually in the empty usually in the employ of white establishments. However, the foundation of the black ministerial power, influence, and leadership in the African-American community is in large part due to the custodial control of the key cultural institution, the institutional black church, the use of institutional Christian theology, ideology, doctrine, dogma, and ritual by black preachers that own divinity as God representatives on Earth and their ministering to to certainly important spiritual supernatural needs of their congregation.

[00:06:57]As the African-American communities prominent leaders, as custodians and leaders of its central cultural establishment, the fabled black church, the nature the nature, organization, and functionally and functionality of the black culture of the black cultural power must be attributed more to the quality of the leadership of the black preachers than any other alternative leadership group. Therefore, the theological ideological rationalities which undergird the legitimacy, power, and direction of the black preacher establishment and its leadership of the African-American community must be critically analyzed if we are to understand the relative potency and impotency of the black American culture.

[00:07:44]This profligate wasting of the tremendous power potential of the black community, its feeble and misdirected growth and development are not due to malicious intent on the part of the black preacher leadership establishment, nor is it due to a lack of courage or dim-wittedness of this group. The fault lies in the nature of the imposed borrowed theological ideological rationale which undergirds the black church and which guides the perceptions, expectations, and social relations and behaviors of its leadership.

[00:08:17]We must keep in mind that enslaved Africans were not Christians when they were brought to the New World. They were predominantly practitioners of their indigenous African religions and behaved in according to indigenous African codes of ethics. They were also Muslim as well.

[00:08:37]Therefore, the Christian the Christian religion along with its ideological doctrines were taught to and imposed on enslaved Africans by the white masters.

[00:08:48]Obviously, the masters taught the slaves Christianity The masters taught the slaves Christianity for their own conscious and unconscious self-serving reasons.

[00:08:57]The The theology they passed on to the slaves was necessarily based in order to serve and justify the dominance.

[00:09:05]Therefore, the essential ways the theology which undergirds the practice and outcome of white Christianity was distinctly different from that which undergirds black Christianity despite the apparent and superficial sameness of the two. In other words, blacks did not relate to, pray to, and serve Jesus Christ in the same way for the same reasons white do. And I say that all the time.

[00:09:30]Even though it appears they do.

[00:09:31]Christianity as a central cultural institution has not empowered the black community in the same ways it has empowered the white community or it has the other alien Christian communities or in ways other communities are empowered by their own religious institutions. As a matter of fact, Christianity as it is practiced in the African-American community has probably done much more to disempower that community than to empower it. A brief review of the history of the development of Christianity among African slaves in America readily reveals why this is the case. A very schematic presentation of Stamps' review and development of the black church doing slavery will provide us with some idea of what that institution has [ __ ] a why excuse me some idea of why that institution has [ __ ] black empowerment as much as it had as it has advanced it. And welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Happy Monday. Welcome back to On the Shoulders of Giants. I am Joseph War continuing my reading Dr. Amos Wilson's seminal book Blueprint for Black Power a moral and political economic imperative for the 21st century. And start off with a video about Dr. Umar talking about there's always an implant there's always somebody in the movement to hamper the movement to mislead the movement to break down the movement.

[00:10:58]There's always some kind of linchpin some kind of agent some kind of bear some kind of some black person who signed up to work for the interest of the white supremacist right um whether consciously or or unconsciously by the actions deeds and actions words all those different things right?

[00:11:18]And you know yeah whatever this ain't about Umar but yeah. So but what he was saying I was I was paying attention to what he was saying and you know he fits the bill but paying attention to what he was saying but also getting into tying it to what Dr. Amos Wilson is talking about in his chapter because in this second half of chapter three what we're basically doing is cuz remember the first half is we set the foundation of cultural power and how culture can help produce power and now we are moving from culture as the foundation of power to explain how cultural disorganization mis-education and value distortion actively weaken a group's ability to build and sustain power once again explaining how cultural disorganization mis-education and value distortion actively weaken a group's ability to build and sustain power. Hence what Umar was explaining right? There's now in the way he was saying there's always going to be you know an agent a sellout somebody working for the man right? But what is the root of that? Why does that happen? Where does it come from cuz it's one thing for us to to recognize that it happens but what's the why behind it?

[00:12:42]What is the incentive that pushes a black person to see power being built for themselves and their people and to actively go against it but that goes to the disorganization the mis-education and the value distortion of the group of a weak group already right? So one of the well well let's say um the initial argument the initial argument or the central argument of this part of the chapter is um and before I get deep please hit that like button comment subscribe and share.

[00:13:26]And uh my my merchandise is attached to this video you can support always to support me is in the description so please do that hit that like button comment subscribe share. Please hype this video as well so more people can get this information. YouTube is not pushing these videos but all you have to do is like the video and share it and make sure you hit the hype button and more people can see these videos. But central argument of these pages is um when a group's cultural when a group excuse me when a group's culture a group's values a group's identity are shaped by external forces when your oppressor has shaped your culture your values and your identity you and your people as a group become psychologically and socially disorganized making real power impossible to achieve because we don't know how to work together. We were never taught how to work together because the only time we had to work together was for the interest of the oppressor.

[00:14:31]Now in our case in real life in real American history only two real times black people in America worked together was for one when during slavery where we had to work for the interest of white people and two when we were forced to work together during Jim Crow.

[00:14:48]But outside of that because we are psychologically culturally and socially disorganized building power for ourselves is impossible.

[00:14:59]We have to reorganize ourselves.

[00:15:03]We have to uh we have to unscramble our brains. We have to reprogram ourselves right?

[00:15:12]Dr. Wilson is talking about the foundations of power because power requires a group to have cultural clarity.

[00:15:23]It requires a group to have value consistency. We're not a monolith remember. Psychological unity and institutional alignment. We are so disorganized disjointed we're a fractured group of people. We're everywhere right? Without this any type of cohesion all groups with resources will remain fragmented and dependent.

[00:15:51]Right?

[00:15:53]So well excuse me even if we have resources even like Africa the continent of Africa they have access well the resources are in the ground but they don't have that so they are fragmented dependent on the Europeans. Us we don't have any resources.

[00:16:10]So not only are we resource-less but we're fragmented and dependent upon the white establishment for everything that comes to our survival.

[00:16:21]So our key points in this is cultural disorganization leads to powerlessness.

[00:16:27]External cultural external cultural control distorts value. Mis-education reinforces cultural weakness. Identity confusion weakens collective action.

[00:16:38]Identity confusion weakens collective action. Individualism undermines group power.

[00:16:44]Cultural values shape economic behavior.

[00:16:47]Lack of discipline weakens organizational power.

[00:16:51]Cultural contradictions create internal conflict. Social institutions must reinforce cultural strength.

[00:16:58]Psychological liberation is necessary for power. Cultural renewal is required for long-term power. Then you know I get [snorts] into wrapping this up and I got some more information that I'm going to give you a core connection between um what Dr. Wilson is talking about and what's happening today.

[00:17:16]So we're going to jump back into this reading.

[00:17:22]We're going to jump back into the reading on page 70.

[00:17:27]And like I said this is um this is Stamps' review of the development of the black church during slavery. So please hit that like button please hit that hype button subscribe share tell everybody about what's going over what's going on over here on On the Shoulders of Giants. We're getting it in we're learning.

[00:17:50]Says many masters considered Christian indoctrination an effective method of keeping slaves docile and content.

[00:18:03]I'm going to read it again. Many masters considered Christian indoctrinations an effective method of keeping slaves docile and content.

[00:18:15]While the first Africans were imported in the 17th century some purchasers opposed converting them to Christianity least baptism gave them the claim to freedom. After the colonial legislations provided the convert provided provided the conversion would not have the effect the opposition diminished.

[00:18:38]Therefore most masters encouraged Christian proselytization among their among their bondsmen and and conversion uh preceded and and conversion provided rapidly.

[00:18:54]The master class could look upon organized religion as an ally.

[00:18:58]Church leaders now argued that the gospel instead of becoming a means of creating terrible and strife excuse me a means of creating trouble and strife.

[00:19:09]Trouble and strife was really the best instrument to preserve peace and good conduct among the Negroes. This was a persuasive argument and a point of fact recalled one churchman.

[00:19:24]It was this connection that ultimately opened the way for the gospel on the larger plantations.

[00:19:32]Through religious instruction the bondsman learned that slavery had divine sanction that insolence was was as much as an offense against God as against the temporal master.

[00:19:46]I'm going to read that again.

[00:19:49]Cuz this This the indoctrination this is the ideologies. This is the programming that's going in.

[00:19:56]Through religious instruction, the bondsman learned that slavery had divine sanction. That insolence was as much an offense against God as against the temporal master.