Are we Negroes?

The famous cliché of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “I am somebody,” is repeated daily. People can see that you are somebody, but the question at hand is, who? Puerto Ricans (are called such)...because there is a place called Puerto Rico, giving them a better name. It at least lets you know where they came from. They’ll say – Whites, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Negroes. Pick up on that. It’s a drag brothers and sisters. Albino is legitimate. It means that is what color they are supposed to be.

…Negro doesn’t tell you anything. So you mean absolutely nothing. What can you identify with? Tell us. What do you attach Negro to, what do you attach to it? Nothing. It’s completely in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t give you a language because there is no such thing as a Negro or Afro language. It doesn’t exist. The land doesn’t exist, the culture doesn’t exist, the language doesn’t exist, and the man doesn’t exist. They take you the true Nubians (Havilahites), out of existence by calling you a Negro or Afro-American, and you can walk around in front of them all day long and they act like they don’t even see you, because you made yourself nonexistent.

…Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people and when you look at those of you who are called Negroes, you are called that because you are like a dead people.

Excerpted from Our True Roots by Dr. Malachi Z. York-El.