Intellectual Maroons: Architects of African Sovereignty by Uhuru Hotep, Ed.D. Kwame Ture Leadership Institute ktli.org Abstract In 1999 Jedi Shemsu Jehewty (Jacob H. Carruthers) coined the term “intellectual maroon” as a moniker for Black thinkers who have “declared their freedom” from European intellectual bondage. Organized into four sections and using the metaphor of the journey toward enlightenment, this paper identifies the six states of knowing called the Johari Sita that lie at the core of the intellectual maroon worldview. These six states provide the rudiments for an Africancentric model of identity formation, mission construction, and self-realization supportive of our drive for political and economic sovereignty. In the first section, Wade Nobles’ idea of conceptual incarceration, Kofi Addae’s comfortable captivity and Louis Farrakhan’s illusion of inclusion are identified as major pitfalls along the road to intellectual maroonage. In the second section, the Black scholar’s embrace of Uhuru Hotep’s intellectual disobedience, Addae’s nyansa nnsa da and Maulana Karenga’s liberational logic are seen as “landmarks” along way toward intellectual maroonage that are also “doorways” into advance states of Black awareness. The third section focuses on the training of intellectual maroons, which is informed by four seminal disciplines: reality confrontation, sankofa or re-Africanization, systematic enemy analysis, and social reproduction theory. The fourth and final section of this paper outlines the work of intellectual maroons, which revolves around launching a whm msw to restore Maat and terminating the maafa. In all fundamental ways, Jehewty’s intellectual maroon is identical to Marcia Sutherland’s “authentic struggler, Amos Wilson’s “true nationalist”, and Asa Hilliard’s “Jegna.” Introduction “The white man’s propaganda has made him master of the world, and all those who have come in contact with it and accepted it have become his slaves.” – Marcus Garvey One extraordinarily valuable gift bequeathed to us by the late Jedi Shemsu Jehewty (aka Jacob H. Carruthers) is the term “intellectual maroon.” Mentioned only in passing in an essay entitled “Thinking about European Thought” published in his last major work, Intellectual Warfare (1999), my essay seeks to flesh with symbol and metaphor what is an exquisite idea. In addition, as a Banksian reconstructionist document, my essay provides Africans in the Diaspora with the rudiments of an Africancentric model of identify formation, mission construction, and self-realization supportive of our drive for political and economic sovereignty. “Intellectual maroons,” according to Dr. Jehewty, are “Black thinkers” who after analyzing the “core of the European worldview” have “declared their freedom” from European intellectual bondage “through their publicly stated thoughts” (p. 52). Much like the Maroons of old who self-emancipated by escaping from European induced physical slavery, intellectual maroons self-emancipate by escaping from European induced psychological slavery. Physical slavery and mental (psychological) slavery are merely opposite sides of the same coin, which is the standard currency of aggressors, oppressors, and exploiters. This essay identifies the core concepts essential for African centered self-actualization leading up to intellectual maroon status found in the “publicly stated thoughts” (published writings) of six leading African centered scholars, i.e., “Black thinkers” who fit Dr. Jehewty’s description of intellectual maroons. Finally, the intellectual maroon is the centerpiece of the Johari Sita, a six-part Africancentric leadership/followership training model I developed for the Kwame Ture Leadership Institute in 2000. In this model, the intellectual maroon is the transforming agent, but it is the African community via the family that is the chief beneficiary. To reach intellectual maroon status requires total immersion in five states of knowing. All five states are discussed in this essay. And all five states are facets of the Johari Sita (Swahili for “Six Jewels”). This term, however, will not be used except in this Introduction. But if one reads carefully, one will uncover the Johari Sita framework under girding this research. To be continued
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 14:48:24 +0000
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