With money and power the key ingredients in maintaining control of a society, Black America, and particularly Black leaders, must learn to recognize and harness the two amongst Black America and maintain control over both instead of relinquishing one or the other to white influence and rule.

In his conquest to unite his people and to establish and maintain Zulu power in South Africa, Shaka Zulu, the great African King and Warrior, became ensnared in a battle of self-acquisition and foreign influence and invasion of his country by the European. Eventually, Shaka fell and relinquished both unity of the people and control of South Africa.

The following conversation comes from Shaka Zulu, a movie about the life of the legendary South African chief filmed in 1986.

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Shaka: Tell me Febonah. How do you trap a monkey?

Febonah: (European Ambassador to Afrika) Well, a gourd is used, with a narrow neck. The bait is dropped into the gourd, a piece of fruit or something shiny. The monkey puts his hand, down into the neck of the gourd and then he grabs the bait and he's trapped, because he can't get his fist out.

Shaka: Once he realizes he's trapped, why doesn't the monkey let go of the bait?

Febonah: Because his greed makes him blind.

Shaka: And what is he greedy for, Febonah?

Febona: I suppose, for what he thinks he cannot have.

Shaka: And what new bait have you brought, Febonah? Bring it here for this monkey to see. Something shiny? Bait your gourd again Fenonah. My heart yearns for something shiny.

When our Black leaders compromise Black unity and power for "something shiny," as in "faith-based" incentives and mediocre legislation that neither empowers nor address the real problems of Black America, we are constantly ensnared in the white power structure's ability to control us as a people.

Division amplifies amongst us because when that which we "think we cannot have" is laid before us in substantial or essential-psychological form, our long-suffered desire for what supposedly makes America great is exploited and manipulated perpetually, thus, we remain trapped to the illusion of Life, Liberty, and so-called Happiness.

Read more about the mission of Shaka Zulu:
By Carol Williams
From the Afro Collection

© September 2005 by AfroStaff
Contributed by Carol Williams