By Farayi Mungoshi

AMERICA was built on the blood and labour of slaves, but now that the slave trade is over and the once undeveloped country of America is now a developed super-power what other use is there for the slaves or their offspring?
They have done their part and are no longer needed.
The work slaves did has been replaced by machines and the influx of immigrants willing to work longer hours for far much less than the black Americans are requesting has seen to it they continue to become irrelevant to this new world.
Apart from the celebrity black Americans who are in showbiz, most black Americans are getting shoved further away from the light.
They live in the ghettos and areas that America is even embarrassed to be associated with, areas where guns, drugs and prostitution are a way of life because that is all they know or were exposed to.
They did not bring this upon themselves, but instead these were introduced into black communities in the 1960s as a way of discarding them.
It is not surprising that many are now behind bars, others for crimes they did not commit, but because they have become redundant and an embarrassment.
Black Americans are few, they are a minority and are even fewer than the Hispanics in America, yet the noise they have made is so much that one would think they are just as many as the white folks there.
They have managed to make so much impact in the media that they cannot be ignored.
They walk differently, talk differently and are proud.
As black people we possess a power and intelligence other races do not want us to find out about hence in America, they have made it their business to brainwash blacks into thinking they are worthless and useless.
Society depicts them as outlaws, pimps, prostitutes and drug lords, as usually shown on television.
This depiction of the average black man is a diversion from the real truth of who they are and what they are capable of.
In the early 1900s, having seen how much they were oppressed and looked down upon, blacks in Oklahoma decided to regain their lost pride and integrity.
They started doing business among themselves.
Over 600 African-American-owned businesses were born out of this move.
The community boasted over 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores, two movie theatres, a hospital, bank, post office, libraries, schools, private airplanes, medical centre and a bus system.
This became known as ‘Little Africa’ or the ‘Black Wall Street’ because it was so prosperous they had a successful infrastructure and employed thousands of black folks.
They had everything they needed within this community.
The dollar could circulate over 36 to a 100 times within the community before leaving the vicinity.
In other words, this means they could survive without America, despite being in America.
America was not happy about this of course, and they were jealous – how could these things they had labelled as non-human be capable of achieving such wealth and prosperity?
How could this slave be a doctor or pilot, let alone the owner of airlines and hospitals and in America at that?
The African-Americans there employed their own and taught their own.
There was another small country in America, a place where blacks had managed to restore their pride and integrity.
A place where they could stand up for themselves and teach each other morals and values that upheld them as a people, something a slave was perceived to be incapable of.
After all, they did liken black folk to monkeys; so how could these monkeys be capable of flying their own planes (six blacks owned their own planes), build cars, schools and hospitals among many other things?
Dr Berry, who owned the bus system, was making at least US$500 per day and this was in 1910.
Imagine how much his descendants would be worth today?
America would not be the same place it is today had folks at Black Wall Street been left alone.
Black Wall Street was evidence of what black folk are capable of, the truth they do not want the average blackman to know because if he knew what he was capable of he would stop listening to them and their lies.
In 1921 on June 21 Black Wallstreet was bombed from the sky and burned to the ground by whites, of course, led by the infamous Ku Klux Klan.
About 3 000 African-Americans were killed on that fateful day.
This piece of history is rare because it exposes the true face of America and the true strength of united black people.
This is one of the reasons Muammar Gaddafi was assassinated.
He was just about to turn Africa into Black Wall Street, a place where we would have our own currency as Africa, backed by our own gold and resources as well as trading within our walls.
This would have bankrupted the World Bank and other power houses which are making money out of Africa.
Africa’s money would have circulated within Africa and we would have stopped borrowing from the West or buying from the West because we would have everything we need at home.
History has taught us that whenever we concentrate on ourselves and our resources as Africans, we are capable of building some of the greatest inventions ever.
Look at the pyramids in Egypt and their advanced agricultural system thousands of years ago.
We’ve got the Great Zimbabwe and the trade that was going on there which crossed oceans.
However, this history and type of knowledge that elevates the average black is not good for the West hence little is spoken of black people and their great exploits and in other instances the written evidence of such exploits has been destroyed.
This war is still going on.
It may seem silent and invisible to most people, but this war is real and ongoing.