Kujichagulia

Kujichagulia: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves

Self-determination is perhaps the principle I personally hold the closest. It starts on an individual level, where I revel in my power to define who and what I am, but expands so far beyond that. I've been thinking about this one off and on for the past week:

• A Facebook friend shared a status from someone, who was so steeped in his own privilege, that he felt comfortable implying that Black people--daring to assert that Black lives matter enough that public officials should be held accountable for killing us--were somehow being distracted from the real goal. I cannot actually tell you what his real goal was, as a flash of incandescent rage promptly erased it from my consciousness. I think, however, that it had something to do with electoral politics. Kujichagulia means that we decide what our priorities are and fight for them in our own ways. 
• While Detroit is the Blackest city in the U.S., 50% of the Black population in Michigan is living under state, rather than local, control. While the emergency manager has left, the city's finances are now subject to oversight by a financial review commission. For most of the last two decades, the Detroit public school system has been run by state appointed emergency mangers and has been shrunken. There is also the EAA, a state-run district that now includes the "lowest-performing schools"--a district whose chancellor earns a $325,000 salary, where standard operations include 100 kindergarteners in a classroom, and where inexperienced teachers depend on problematic software to teach. Weep for our children, Detroit. Note that attempts to expand the EAA beyond Detroit to the rest of the state failed in the state legislature. And as we strive to live the principle of kujichagulia, recall that "Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children." Particularly since the state is upfront about rejecting any obligation to provide them a "quality" or "equitable" education, merely a "free" one.
• There are many paths forward. Part of self-determination has to be recognizing the right of everyone to find and live their own path. As Baba Malik wrote, "All resistance to oppression is healthy for the oppressed."

My disjointed thoughts...