Meditations on Bafyòti Energy
Meditations on Bafyòti Energy
BAFYÒTI is a kikongo word invoked during the Bwa Kayiman call during the Haitian Revolution meaning black collaborators/uncle toms/uncle ruckuses, those participating, supporting, and who are sympathetic toward the system of white domination and oppression and in turn receive wider access to power, privilege, resources. I first heard of this word specifically when human rights attorney, healer, rememberer of the way and warrior for the people Ezili Danto was talking about how the charitable industrial complex and U.S involvement in Haitian politics is a continuation of a generational legacy of exploitation and oppression of the Haitian people. She talked a lot about symbolic appointments, indirect rule, and the placing of Haitians in certain positions of power to fulfill the agenda of western imperial powers, rather than the Haitian people. And I couldn’t help but see how this bafyòti energy weaves in and out of our social, economic, political and cultural realities in the settlement known as the U.S.
The Bwa Kayiman Call
Spoken in the KiKongo language on August 14, 1791 – The Bwa Kayiman Prophecy and Call, which began the Haiti revolution, is: E, e, Mbomba, e, e! Kanga Bafyòti. Kanga Mundele. Kanga Ndòki. Kanga yo!
Ezili’s English translation: The Supreme Creator (E, e, Mbomba, e, e!), Master of Breath shall foil the black collaborators/traitors (kanga bafyòti). Kill/tie up/stop the tyrannical white settlers/colonists, strangers (kanga mundele). Bind all their evil forces/sorcerers (kanga Ndòki). Stop them!
The Essence and Mood of Bafyòti Energy
Bafyòti energy accepts and thrives in the mythologies perpetuated by the White Imagination.
Bafyòti energy accepts and never questions the definitions, the narratives, the rules, the societal frame and make up as laid out by white power structures.
Bafyòti energy seeks to recorrect history and restore the “benevolent” white savior, the “good” white missionary, the “generous” white philanthropist…
Bafyòti energy is quick to berate, judge, shame, and ridicule another Black person in the presence of white eyez, especially white eyez and white bags in order to rent perceived “privileges” and/or earn a few extra coins, a few extra dollars.
Bafyòti energy is more concerned with building and fortifying relationships with them, then healing and restoring relationships with us.
Bafyòti energy splits the self, turns the self against the self, scorches the self, scorches the mind with flames of illusion.
Bafyòti energy is inner conflict, a soul fighting to hold on to the way and one seeking the reprieve that comes with the acceptance of mythologies promoted by the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal imagination.
Bafyòti energy drains.
Bafyòti energy is pretended and purposeful neutrality.
Bafyòti energy is the squashing of independent minds, thinkers, utterers in favor of the replicated sounds and cries of the ones committed to the values, directions, and purposes of the white capitalist patriarchal imagination.
Bafyòti energy is the inability to see your mother, your father as kin. Your siblings as kin. Your neighbors as kin…only able to see the Black, the poor, the less resourced, the non-affliated as containers for your blame, for your judgment, for your proof of superiority, for your evidence of being seemingly “different from the rest, better than the rest.”
Bafyòti energy is the belief that a life committed to death will bring happiness.
Bafyòti energy seizes the opportunity at every chance. At every chance, the possibility of squeezing out another’s last little bit of coin, hard earned coin, in favor of rapid, quick, fast growth and profit.
Bafyòti energy is seductive.
Bafyòti energy is alluring.
Bafyòti energy is the devil disguised as oshun.
Bafyòti energy calls for separation, separation of self from self, self from truth, truth living in our bones.
Bafyòti energy tells us that the way is of imitation, replication, emulation, mimication of their way, the way is the road of destruction, masked as the road of progress.
Bafyòti energy is promoted as an aspirational way. The way of firsts, the way of representation, the way of access to the thrones of destruction, confusion, and surface desires.
Bafyòti energy seeks individual gain and status only. It honors cycles of achievement in a system of white domination, manipulation, double speak, and control.
Bafyòti energy repels at any visuals that show Black relationships thriving. Working through conflict. Sharing concerns and with love and respect honoring those concerns.
Bafyòti energy never sees the fruits of a flowing spring, always preferring the empty nourishment of illusions on the way to the desert.
Bafyòti energy is a road that leads toward the desert, not the river. Towards a cycle of taking and taking rather then giving and receiving.
Bafyòti energy is a mood of confusion masked as clarity.
Bafyòti energy is too same same. Only able to do what has come before. Only seeking validation of those holding power rather then those connected to the way. The way of harmony over separation.
Bafyòti energy is diasporic. We all are facing and living through the impacts of Bafyòti energy at large.
Bafyòti energy crushes, smashes, and demands compliance or it is death to you, fired to you, silenced to you, NDA to you, outcasted to you…
Bafyòti energy swells with the energy of our perpetual pursuit of titles, degrees, labor wage agreements, financial relationships.
Bafyòti energy infects the spirit with powerful longings for quick power, fast power, the kind of power that is nourished by blood.
Bafyòti energy is seeing another Black person, and on your journey to power, succumbing to desires of validation, affirmation, recognition, setting your feet on the path to destroy that person.
Bafyòti energy is the foolish belief that rulers of power give a fuck about you and your “goodness,” “firstness,” “onlyness,” “holder of titleness.”
Bafyòti energy is the perceived power you feel, the betterness you feel, the higherness you feel, the accomplishment you feel and continue to feel at being one of the few. Always one of the few.
Bafyòti energy is aligning yourself with the zombis of the state, the askaris of the state, the soldiers of the state, bred and conditioned to kill you and your neighbors on sight and then get paid.
Bafyòti energy is continuing to see your answer, your solution, your salvation and redemption in them and not us. Why not us?
Bafyòti energy is continuing to see your answer in money, blood money.
Bafyòti energy is continuing to see your answer in the white way, the white road, the white path.
Bafyòti energy is the separation of self. Separation from the afrikan asili. Separation from our origins. Separations from the songs of our bones and blood.
Bafyòti energy is an energy that develops within a people under great threat and under great oppression. In way, it develops as an instinct, a yearning towards survival.
Spells for interrupting Bafyoti Energy
Bafyòti energy releases its hold on us through our connection with each other.
Bafyòti energy releases its hold on us with regular attention, attention to our sacred heads, our divine purpose, attention to our feet, aligning of our feet toward reciprocity, rhythms of giving and receiving, rhythms that join, merge, nourish.
Bafyòti energy begins to evaporate with more and more remembering, with more and more attention on ancestral memory.
Bafyòti energy is interrupted with clear sight, clear hearing, open mind, open mouth.
The grips of Bafyòti energy lessens in a remembered self, a rooted self, a diasporic self.
The grips of Bafyòti energy lessens when we lean away from the transactional and lean toward maintaining and watering our relationships.
Bafyòti energy releases its hold on us when we….
To be continued….
References
Danto, Ezili. “Haiti January 1: Another Independence Day Under Occupation”
Armah, Ayi Kwei. “2000 Seasons.” Per Anhk 1973
Woodson, Carter G. “The Mis-Education of the Negro” Eworld Inc 1933
Ani, Marimba, “Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior Afrikan” World Books 1994
Lorde, Audre, “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger” Sister Outsider