Yurugu Notes #1: The Asili Analysis & Affirmations for Reorientation

Some of the stuff floating around in the social media realm, the work space, the political realm and just life in general, what i/us/we are getting excited about, what i/us/we are striving towards, what i/us/we find ourselves concentrating on has question marks popping up all up over my head.  


The celebration of symbolic appointments has my eyebrows raised. The support and continued funding of eastern wars has me confused (1), yet we excited about $10,000 of student loan forgiveness(2)? The celebrated symbolic appointments mission to champion better wages and benefits for police officers and departments(3) but we can’t talk about shit that would actually help like mass redistribution of funds for all. 


Like universal free health care while we are still in a global pandemic even though folks want to act like we ain’t. Like a universal basic income, cause folks want to act like this exorbitant income gap doesn’t exist, like it ain’t hard to find stable work out here without subjecting your body, your health, your mind to consistent stress, harm, and injury. Work that will pay for this high ass food, and these high ass gas prices, and this high ass rent, and this high ass healthcare, and these high ass modalities of tech that we so desparately cling to. Like folks aren’t houseless with little to no income and while others are compensated superfluously. I’m seeing Oakland do what it has been doing for years edging and edging Black folks out of this area to be flooded and replaced with the kind of white wealthy people I only really see on tv (seriously where did they come frommmmm???) 


As the social and economic struggles exacerbate for the masses, the unemployed, the poor, the labor seekers, the ones trying their/our best to maintain income, maintain stable mind, maintain stable body, as a result of prolonged generational exposure and exploitation under this system of mass labor manipulation. We are simultaneously told that cause of the problem is the solution. 

Capitalism is always the solution, right? More and more Black entrepreneurs and that will achieve equity. Representation is always the answer, right? More and more Black people in high paying roles or with greater proximity to whiteness, resources, wealth will “trickle down” and benefit the masses. More and more funded organizations and that will achieve progress for the masses, right. More money to already resourced, already funded organizations is the answer. More and more folks with a unidirectional, individual focused, solo/competitive success value ethic in mind is the answer. 


This social/political gaslighting is real thick out here.

Shit is a little/lotta fucked out here.


I/us/we are still clinging to a lot of outdated illusions that honestly BEEN BEEN needed to be released and swapped out for another way. In this 2022 situation, it feels or looks as if i/us/we have adopted and absorbed, damn near completely, the entire ideological framework of white western thought.


I see the absorption of the whiteness and western values, beliefs, and ideas within myself and I am sickened. I see it in others and it is painful to see it all play out. It feels like such an overwhelming entangled mess of never ending pursuit of consumption, acquisition at all costs, self-denial, self-negation, a spirit of/in a state of forever lack. Always lacking something so in turn do this. Consume this. Buy this. Watch this. Improve this. Be this. It drains me/us/we and it feeds, swells, strengthens the dominator’s asili (seed, origin, essence). 


We are holding on even as these dangerous frameworks and belief systems continue to disconnect us from our bodies, from our inner knowledge and truth, from our cultural identity, from our communal identity and in instead turn us toward a horizon of consistent and infinite cycles of OVERWORK, OVERPERFORMANCE, OVERPRODUCTION, OVERACHIEVMENT, OVERCONSUMPTION, OVERACQUIRE, OVERCONTROL. And this is mostly to meet the need of the self. Or the belief of what you should be doing. Or the following. Or the org. Or the job. Or the school. Or the campaign. Or the foundation.


It is a pattern of being that lacks nourishment. It is a pattern of being that drains and drains until nothing is left. It is a pattern of being that makes us sick. This way is so deeply embedded in our essence. In our desires. In our yearnings. In our daily routines. It informs how we relate to ourselves, how we relate and treat others, what we are able to see as possibility. It is a framework deeply tied to the white euro-american & western worldview and behavior. 


It is not all doom and gloom though. 


The Revealers are out here and I am soooo so grateful for their calls toward reorientation. Shout out to Dayna Nuckolls from @PeoplesOracle(4) for pushing me/us/we to reacquaint myself with the work of scholar, writer, warrior Dr. Marimba Ani, author of author of Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior (5). I remember being told about Yurugu in my mid twenties and I was not even ready. Not while trying to “grind it out” in 2011, not while attending Ivy league institution that I struggled with and hated, not while in an unhealthy dynamic and lovership with a Naija boy from the Delta State, not while “all about Black people” but clinging so desperately to white euro-american western markers, titles, journeys of success and living. 


Not ready then. 

But now.

In this 2022 moment.

Dr. Marimba Ani’s words and energy is hitting on a whole nother level. 


The wisdom pouring from this work is like water cooling a chaotic and obscured mind. Dr. Marimba Ani’s work and thinking and visioning is the machete that i/us/we need ripping away the seductive veils of the American way that we so desperately try to embody. When I read or listen to her, those Oya vibes come in real tough shattering the visage and helping me/us/we to see a little more clearly if just for a moment.  This book and most of her lectures (many that you can find online (6) sweeps the veil from our eyes and sharpens the dynamics of our reality. 


And so 

The burning of the veil is necessary.

The shattering of the veil is necessary.

The destruction of veil is necessary.

A daily practice would be lovely

A weekly practice would be lovely

A monthly practice would be lovely. 


There is so much of white euro-american culturally structured thought that exist within i/us/we. Knowing how it manifest is helpful for cleansing it from our psychic, mental, emotional state. The learnings are abundant with Dr. Marimba Ani and want to share some of the concepts she uses to cut through the veil.


Dr. Marimba Ani describes the nature of the Euro-American utamawazo (culturally structured thought) in great detail in Chapter #1 of Yurugu. She gives a whole list of characteristics that informs their thinking, actions and behaviors. But before I get into the characteristics, let me try and relay what Dr. Marimba Ani calls “The Asili Analysis.”


The asili is a kiswahili term meaning “seed.” Dr. Marimba Ani’s Asili Analysis is the great illusion breaker for understanding whiteness and euro-american thought behavior, actions and its impacts on African, Black, Indigenous, melanated peoples of the world. Every peoples has an asili, the seed/origins of their culture. The asili can also be understood as the “primal consciousness” or “generative germ.” For euro-american western folks, the asili, the seed or essence of the culture is ultimately about power over other. All roads within euro-american western society lead back to this asili, to this seed. (7) 


There are manifestations that come about to help support the fulfillment of the euro-american asili. These manifestations are the European utamawazo and the European utamaroho. The European utamawazo is defined as the culturally structured thought, the system of ideas of the euro-american. The European utamaroho is defined as the vital forces, the exertion of will, actions, efforts, direction of motivations, and behaviors. That is to say that euro-american thought, ideology and actions and behaviors are manifestations that exist and have existed in the world with the sole purpose of fulfilling the euro-american asili which is about the pursuit of power over other, control over other, domination over other. 

This statement and description of the euro-american asili is further exemplified by looking at the key characteristics of euro-american ideology or utamawazo. Dr. Marimba Ani lists the characteristics as follows (Yurugu, 105-108):

  • 1) Dichotomization:

    1. All realities separated into binary categories ie: self/other, mind/body, reason/emotion, civilized/primitive, modern/tribal,  intellect/nature, written/oral–One side being “inherently” more good, more superior, than the other

Example: “This racialized discourse is structured by a set of binary oppositions. There is the powerful opposition between “civilization” (white) and “savagery” (black). There is the opposition between the biological or bodily characteristics of the “black” and “white” “races,” polarized into their extreme opposites - each the signifiers of an absolute difference between human “types” or species.” (White Man’s Burden, 6) (8)

  • 2) Oppositional, confrontational antagonistic relationships:

    1. The separation of realities into binary categories happens. And these separations our oppositional and confrontational. And one is superior and must rule over the other ie: reason vs emotion, logic vs feeling, mind vs body, male vs female, tech vs nature, 

Example: “By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power.” (President Andrew Jackson Annual Message on the passing/intent of the 1830 Indian Removal Act which forcibly displaced more 46,000 native folks, over 4,000 died along the journey) (9).


  • 3) Hierarchical segmentation:

    • The separation and splitting up of realities into these confrontational binaries lays the ground work for a dominating relationship which assigns more value, superiority and authority to one over the other. (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: Instructions given for classifying Black people in the 1890 U. S census, “Write white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, according to the color or race of the person enumerated. Be particularly careful to distinguish between blacks, mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons. The word 'black' should be used to describe those persons who have three-fourths or more black blood; 'mulatto,' those persons who have from three-eighths to five-eighths black blood; 'quadroon,' those persons who have one-fourth black blood; and 'octoroons,' those persons who have one-eighth or any trace of black blood.” (Every Term the U.S Census Has Used…)(10)

  • 4) Analytical, non synthesis thought:

    • The constant and endless separation and splitting up does not make room for a synthetical perspective in which multiple varying parts come together. To analyze is to tear apart and separate in order “to know.” (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: “The Caucasian race… is distinguished for the facility with which it attains the highest intellectual endowments. . . . The spontaneous fertility of [the Caucasus] has rendered it the hive of many nations, which extending their migrations in every direction, have peopled the finest portions of the earth, and given birth to its fairest inhabitants.” (Samuel G. Morton - Crania Americana - Scientific Racism) (11)

  • 5) Objectification:

    • Realities are separated, people are separated, the self is separated in confrontational pairs of superior vs inferior. The inferior pair is made object and thus to be dominated over. (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: “in 1831, when slavers captured and killed Nat Turner, the leader of the famed Virginia slave rebellion, Turner’s executioners delivered his body to doctors for dissection. Then, according to William Sidney Drewry, a Virginia-born history professor, the physicians flayed the Black man’s corpse and used his skin to make a coin purse. Afterward, they boiled the remaining flesh to make grease.” (The Art of Being Eaten Alive) (12)

  • 6) Absolutist/Abstratification:

    • Speaks to the ways universalism is used to disguise European nationalism and subjectivity (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: “And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.” (John L. Sullivan, Manifest Destiny) (13)

  • 7) Rationalism + Scientism:

    • The belief that everything can be known through objectification and that what objectification presents is truth (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: “For the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.” - (John Winthrop Describes Life in Boston 1634) (14)

  • 8) Authoritative Literate Mode:

    • Speaks to the over emphasis and belief of the written word as the authority and superior expression of knowledge. (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: “the Toronto School of Communication, which includes Harold Innis, Eric Havelock, Marshall McLuhan and Walter Ong. For the Toronto School, writing – alphabetic writing in particular – is the key to evolutionary progress: that is, that literacy is “absolutely necessary for the development not only of science but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language itself,” while orality is the marker of “tribal man.” (Orality) (15)

  • 9) Desacralization:

    • Nature is made separate from the self, made inferior to intellect & technology. Nature is othered and just objectified and seen as something to dominate (Dr. Marimba Ani)

    • Example: “the city has agreed to lease nearly 400 acres of the forest to the Atlanta Police Foundation for just $10 per year. In return, the foundation plans to replace the pristine land with a $90 million training facility for the Atlanta Police Department and firefighters, dubbed “Cop City” by activists.” (To Residents, Razing Atlanta Forest for ‘Cop City…) (16)


This is just a tiny preview of what Dr. Marimba Ani unveils in this extraordinary work. It is such a vital and important resource for navigating these dimensions and realities that we find ourselves in. I feel like every person holding identities that have suffered and experienced harm living in the colonized territory of the United States needs this and should tap in regularly. 

As Fela Kuti said:

“if you dey follow follow

make you open eye

open ear

open mouth

open mind

open sense

(Mr. Follow Follow)”(17)


reORIent

reORIent

reORIent


let us reORIent our feet

let us reORIent our eyez

let us reORIent our sense

toward the afrikan asili, the indigenous asili

let it wash over us

and over take our ethos, our mindset

the driver of our motivations

wash over us

wash over us

wash over us 

ase

if we are to burn the veil

the afrikan asili must be in mind

if we are to shatter the myth

the afrikan asili must be in mind

if we are to spit out the gag

the afrikan asili must be in mind

let the asili conduct our feet

point the direction toward greater harmony

connection

creativity

Let the mimicry end


let us imagine the asili

let us dream of the asili

let us sing of the asili

let the asili

hold our hands

as we reclaim our sense

as we reclaim our eyez, our mind

be a grounding force

asili 

be a grounding force

so that we wont be so easily whipped

Around by the psyches, delusions,

and ill-seeded ideologies of others.

reORIent

reORIent

reORIent  

-An Affirmation


Referenced Readings & Talks

  1. Mauldin, William, “U.S. to Send More Than $2.6 Billion in Ukraine-Related Military Aid” Wall Street Journal, 09-08-2022 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-announces-more-than-2-6-billion-in-ukraine-related-military-assistance-11662634127

  2. Federal Student Aid https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief-announcement/

  3. Moench, Mallory, “S.F. Mayor Breed wants millions to hire and keep police officers. But will the plan work?” The San Francisco Chronicle 06-09-2022 https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-Mayor-Breed-wants-millions-to-hire-and-keep-17231703.php#:~:text=London%20Breed%2C%20then%20acting%20mayor,in%20San%20Francisco%20in%202018.&text=2of2-,S.F.,%2450%20million%20with%20increased%20wages.

  4. Nuckolls, Dayna Divination for Liberation https://www.instagram.com/p/CgdSRpBlhfr/

  5.  Ani, Marimba, Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior Afrikan World Books 1994

  6. Dr. Marimba Ani - Cleansing ourselves of european concepts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvZ-en9oiqo&t=7258s

  7.  Ani, Marimba, Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior Afrikan World Books 1994 (10 - 13)

  8. Kareithi, Peter, “White Man’s Burden: How Global Media Empires Continue to Construct Difference” https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.514.5715&rep=rep1&type=pdf

  9. “President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress 'On Indian Removal'” National Archives https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/jacksons-message-to-congress-on-indian-removal

  10.  Karklis, Laris and Badger, Emily. “Every term the Census has used to describe America’s racial and ethnic groups since 1790” The Washington Post 11-04-2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/04/every-term-the-census-has-used-to-describe-americas-racial-groups-since-1790/ 

  11. Puiu, Tibi. “Crania Americana: the most influential book on scientific racism” ZME Science 07-24-2018 https://www.zmescience.com/other/crania-americana-influential-book-scientific-racism/

  12. Joseph, Channing. “The Art of Being Eaten Alive” Oxford American 03-23-2021 https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-112-spring-2021/the-art-of-being-eaten-alive

  13. “Manifest Destiny” Ohio History Central https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Manifest_Destiny#:~:text=O%27%20Sullivan%20summarized%20his%20view,self%2Dgovernment%20entrusted%20to%20us

  14. “John Winthrop describes life in Boston, 1634” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/john-winthrop-describes-life-boston-1634

  15. McNeil, Courtney. “Orality” The Chicago School of Media Theory Winter 2007 https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/

  16. Mahoney, Adam and Danso, Adjoa. “To Residents, Razing Atlanta Forest for ‘Cop City’ project is ‘an Act of Disinvestment’” Capital B Atanta 06-06-2022 https://atlanta.capitalbnews.org/atlanta-cop-city-climate-change/

  17. Kuti, Fela. “Mr. Follow Follow” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsToGea4MWI 





Shani Ealey