Without commerce and industry, a people perish economically. The Negro is perishing because he has no economic system — Marcus Garvey.

If Black lives matter, then they should matter first and foremost to us Africans. And by matter, it means we should add value to our "Black" lives our African culture our African business, and everything African. It is very hard to push a message of "Black Lives mattering" when all Black people do is support everything non-African. Who are we selling the BLM to? It sometimes seems as if we expect others to add value to our lives while we do not even value ourselves. 

Gucci and all those European fashion houses put in the work to get where they are today. Now I will be honest, I do not always understand what they up to. What they call style and sell for $1000 sometimes is very confusing. But that is not really our concern. The point is they created their brand, and they did not do it alone. Their market added value to it. Not only the public who buy their clothes but the filmmakers, the singers, the magazine reviewers, the governments, the entire market they exist in. They all added value to get them from where they started to where they are today. And we as a collective (Ocacia + You guys) can do it.

“Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something that you have to do for yourselves.”– Malcolm X

If Garvey was correct, how then can Black lives matter? Or do we not study and understand what Garvey and groups like NOI were talking about? What about Malcolm X on education? Clearly, we do not pay attention to Malcolm beyond his handsome personality and cool style. Because what is the reason a life matters in this dog-eat-dog world? Just because our skin is “black” our lives should matter to others? Why? The only reason Gulf Arabs matter is because of their wealth and control over mineral resources. No one in Japan needs to tell the globalized world that Japanese lives matter, they show you in the marketplace that Japanese lives matter when they sell us Sony, Yamaha, and Honda. BLM is a plane from London to New York that leaves you stranded in the Atlantic ocean. Black Lives Matter is an African freedom ship that does not know Africa and allows a White captain to navigate its course. It is the weakest possible response to oppression and its premise are dependent on an appeal to White conscience. And remember we are not having this discussion in 1820 or 1920 but in 2020! After apartheid in South Africa ended, after segregation, after Civil Rights, After-Garvey and still we are having this basic human rights discussion? Will we be still having it in 3020?

As opposed to seeking validation in Tommy and GUCCI clothes what we Ocacia Designer Clothing are trying to do is create something that we own, that we can be proud of. So there will be no need for all those rappers and African celebs to keep singing about someone else's economy and how they validate themselves via it.

“History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.”–  Carter G. Woodson

MATTER

Because my BLACK life matters, I #Buyblack
Because my BLACK life matters I will not hurt my own people with drugs, vulgar arts, or crime4)
Because my BLACK Life matters I will not squander my money or time 
Because my BLACK life matters I teach my children who they are (aka education).
Because my BLACK life matters I remember my ancestors and what they fought/died for
Because my BLACK life matters I wear my African clothes and keep my hair and skin natural.
Because Black Lives matter I have a cultural connection to my Motherland
 
But are any of these things part of the full discussion of Black lives matters? So this is the flaw of these concepts. No wonder so many Whites are proud to hold up the flag and walk it down the street. They would be less eager to do so if the sign said economic empowerment or #buyblack or #pan-Africanism or #Black empowerment. So the entire BLM is terminal, it is a concept so shallow it offers the marginalized African no true access to power.
 

One good came out of the BLM, and that was there no longer is any doubt that racism against African people is real and global. Some have complained that it has escalated racial tensions. 16)Well, so did King fighting for Civil Rights, so did Mandela in South Africa fighting for the right to vote. When Obama was elected the first African-American POTUS racist groups in America exploded exponentially under his 2 terms in office. So RT what is your point? When you spray the house for bugs the next day you see a lot of dead bugs–today we are seeing the fall out of exposing the wicked system of anti-African racism. I would expect racial tensions now that the gig is exposed.

The struggle for anything requires clear objectives. And a poor understanding of the issues that make “Black” lives so irrelevant globally means fixing the prejudice will never happen. No one can tell you a paper is valuable and expect someone to accept it. The value must be created. So what value are Africans adding to themselves to be viewed as equal contributors to society? Economically we are clients of the world, we are sold our own culture at a premium, we have zero respect for our rich African history, on and on. So any fix must start at home, with a repair of the things that cause our lives as Africans to  be globally devalued. And economics and identity are central in this fix. The fact that we own nothing and have a wishy-washy identity rooted in a color is not a good place. The state of our family, single-parent families is not something anyone respects. And not to speak about this while exclusively focusing on White supremacy is criminal and destructive to the highest degree. Because we offer ourselves up to exploitation and oppression because of our shortcomings. Our youth are not Palestinians being executed by Zionism for political violence. At Least in South Africa, they are organized around specific issues of injustice. But in America, it is as shallow, represented by shallow groups. Groups totally confused about the last 500 Years of the Holocaust against African people, because they are African. And how this oppression expresses itself (in our identities, in our access to education about self, in our agency) is critical if we are discussing a fix. But how could any sincere group neglect African agency and claim to be a solution?

“Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: ‘that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves.”–  Carter G. Woodson

If we change just the Black home and create marriage and love and development that one thing it would do a trillion more good than reforming the racist police. And that is the conversation missing. And it is so sad we lack enough self-critique to have these conversations. The biggest threat to our future is not whites, it is us. All those single-parent/broken homes do not make us the next Ancient Egyptians. All that broken economics and lack of support for our warriors and businesspeople = total failure.

So if you went to the year 3020 and found Africans still protesting and holding up signs that Black Lives Matter what would you say to them? Keep marching or try something else? Call me in 20 years later and let us see the legacy of BLM for African people. It was just another phase until Whites got bored running the story.

MORAL OBLIGATION

Because if we have no African storybooks, and someone out of the blue wrote a storybook on say Mansa Musa and you are looking at it and unmoved then you have betrayed your moral obligation to support. And it is a moral obligation that you are presented with if you have the means. And God knows your heart. If you rather go and buy Indian people's dead hair with the money, or some bag made in China, or a European-styled dress or a ticket to London to see the Queen get buried,  then that is your choice. But every choice has consequences and let us never be confused about the consequences of our choices. It is not White supremacy or the man— it is our choices.

source African Holocaust Society