The Gantt Report
By Lucius Gantt
Banning books has seemingly become a big thing in America. However, The Gantt Report will refresh the memories that young readers never had, and senior African Americans love to dismiss.
Black people all over the world have felt the oppression and exploitation of colonialism. The African continent has been victimized by colonialism much more than any geographical region on earth.
Colonialism is the practice of a foreign group of people who establishes and maintains control over a territory, community, neighborhood, or a different group of people to take what can be taken to exploit the residing people.
For example, the British were colonial “world champions”. They stole so much land, money, resources, and artifacts from Africa, North America, India, the Caribbean, and other lands it was once said that the sun would never set on the British Empire. Queen Victoria was a pirate!
The French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish, and other countries all took what they could from your ancestors. If you don’t know, the United States colonized and occupied parts of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Panama.
The practice of colonialism stopped being fun when the colonized people began to get guns.
So, the land thieves resorted to an offspring of colonialism, neo-colonialism, the so-called “last stage of imperialism”.
Well, in my mind, neo-colonialism continues today.
Today, just like in our past, instead of Black residents controlling their communities and neighborhoods, persons desiring to rob Black residents of knowledge, resources, and properties send neo-colonialists into ghettos, barrios, and other communities where people of color reside, to do their colonial work for them.
One place where neocolonialism is obvious today is in American politics.
We don’t control economics, politics, commerce, education, religion, and other aspects of life in Fifth Ward, Compton, Liberty City, Frenchtown, Edgewood, 22nd Street, Harlem, and Auburn Avenue, in Fourth Ward Atlanta.
Today, exploiters and oppressors deploy people who look like you to your community to tell you why you should do everything for others but little or nothing for yourself and your neighbors.
The new voices, dipped in chocolate and given “talking points”, tell you what you have always heard, “give as much money as you can to white politicians so whites can get paid while you volunteer!” They say, “Politicians are your friend, your comforter, your benefactor, your protector, your provider”, and so forth.
You are unqualified and inferior. You’ll get to be equal in political Heaven when you die, so they say.
I know some friends and Gantt Report readers don’t like me to write like this, but I try to tell all people, “You are qualified. You are talented and skilled.
EVERYTHING in America is about money. Politics isn’t primarily about “good government”. The only thing elected officials must do is “divide the money or tax dollars”. Campaigns are the same way, political decision-makers get together and decide who gets most of the political money and who gets the least financial benefits.
Whenever you’re involved in a political or commercial venture, do what you do but don’t hate your brothers and sisters who want to control the economics, politics, and progress in our communities.
In a capitalist economic system, trust me, money is most important.
Recognize modern-day colonialism!