“I Am,, Somebody” (Cried Rev. Jesse Jackson)

I feel sorry watching the history of black suffering in America. While I have been lucky in almost all my 52 years here in America, I believe the solution to the descendants of the slave traders and other nations respecting blacks comes from the mother continent, Africa.

Americans, white and black, are to me, among the nicest and most welcoming people on earth. Compares to other cultures I have studied in my life, Americans will share their knowledge and their meal and even money! Mistakes of the past can be corrected, but it starts with the “Shaka Zulu” survival mindset, as I have explained in my last book “Life is War”.

There are ways we in Africa can show the “white man” (as Westerners are called in Africa) and Asians, that we are also “somebody” worth respecting, and that can come directly from trade choices!

South African apartheid finally came to an end when prominent African-Americans pushed for a boycott of all American Corporations doing business with or in South Africa. Immediately and within months those corporations put pressure to bear and blacks in South Africa were on their way to self-dignity as humans and Mandela were freed! That is why Nelson Mandela came to America and sounded so grateful to all Western nations as also Cuba and others.

The POINT is that in life respect comes from asserting what we have and are, against what the other man needs to survive and cope!

This happens when we can create and manufacture most of or all the products we consume without them and

- can leverage what we have (oil, gold, diamonds, bauxite, manganese, iron ore, titanium, etc) and control and bargain with them without our survival being threatened!

The 1973 Arab oil boycott was the first example of such global leverage and that won the Arabs respect till today! After all the Arabs could survive with little in those days!

Let the black race learn to win our dignity and respect, for after all, we are also “somebody” created by the same God they and we all worship!

Dr. K. Danso- Jun.23, 2020

Livermore, California, USA

(Engineer and Organizational & Management/Leadership Consultant)

Author of: LIFE IS WAR! (2017, Page Publishing)

And

Leadership Concepts and the Role of Government in Africa: The Case of Ghana (2007, XLibris)