Wednesday Word

Good morning,
Grace and peace be unto you!

I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.] - Philippians 4:13 

Kujichagulia (koo-jee-cha-goo-LEE-ah)
Self Determination

"To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves."

The second Principle of the Nguzo Saba is self-determination. This too expresses itself as both commitment and practice. It demands that we as an African people define, defend and develop ourselves instead of allowing or encouraging others to do this. It requires that we recover lost memory and once again shape our world in our own image and interest. And it is a call to recover and speak our own special truth to the world and raise images above the earth that reflect our capacity for human greatness and progress.

The first act of a free people is to shape its world in its own image and interest. And it is a statement about their conception of self and their commitment to self-determination. [Frantz] Fanon has said each person must ask him or herself three basic questions:

       1.  Who am I?
       2.  Am I really who I say I am?
       3.  Am I all that I ought to be?

These are questions of history and culture, not simply queries or questions of personal identity. More profoundly, they are questions of personal identity. More profoundly, they are questions of collective identity, based and borne out in historical and cultural practice. And the essential quality of that practice must be the quality of self-determination.

"To answer the question of "Who am I?" correctly, then, is to know and live one's history and to practice one's culture."

"To answer the question of "Am I really who I am?" is to have and employ a cultural criteria of authenticity, i.e., criteria of what is real and unreal, what is appearance and essence, what is culturally-rooted and foreign."

"And to answer the question of "Am I all I ought to be?" is to self-consciously possess and use ethical and cultural standards which measure men, women and children in terms of the quality of their thought and practice in the context of who they are and must become - in both an African and human sense."

Practice Kujichagulia every day!