SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind

By: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III

Chapter Extract- REAWAKENING

RBG Blakademics

October, 2010

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SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind

By: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III
Chapter Extract- REAWAKENING

RBG Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education Wikizine

Dedication video to Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III

"SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind is a key. It is a roadmap. It is a call to
destiny. With SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind, Dr. Hilliardhelps us
to comprehend why education is so critical to African liberation and advancement.
Within his opening thoughts, Asa inextricably links the mind (spirit), with culture and
education. He notes that to reawaken the African mind, one must ensure that the
goal of education, and the socialization process must be to understand and live up
to African cultural principles, values and virtues. --Wade W. Nobles, Ph.D.
(From the Foreword)
SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind By: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III

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By :Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III, Foreword by Wade W. Nobles SBA: The

Reawakening of the African Mind. Revised Edition, September 1998
Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III was the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of
Urban Education at Georgia State University. Dr. Hilliard is a noted educator,
psychologist, and historian...
Read Dr. Hilliard's Full Biography

Extraxts: REAWAKENING
"To counter the MAAFA , Africans must go through a WHMY MSW, a Kemetic term which
means the repetition of the birth, or a reawakening. The WHMY MSW is also a healing. But
before any substantial healing can take place we Africans must 'begin at the beginning' and
peruse the wisdom of our ancestors. Numerous African civilizations have left the legacy of a
holistic socialization process built firmly on a spiritual foundation. In these paradigmatic African
societies, spirituality could not be seaparated from education, science, politics, health, nature,
culture or anything else present in the society. This holistic approach can be useful in healing
African people today.

We Africans, however, have not viewed our problem holistically. After years of living under
conditions of extreme oppression, we have settled for limited definitions of our problem. A
classic example may be taken from the period of the civil rights movement. The evil and gross
injustice of slavery and segregation violated the civil rights of African people and had to be
addressed. However, the necessary task of fighting for civil rights was insufficient to allow for
the healing of our people. Our healing requires a greater conceptual frame than that provided by
civil rights.
First, we must see ourselves as an African people, or we will be unable to develop this critical
frame.
Second, we must understand not only the role that white supremacy has played in our
subjugation, but also the role that we ourselves have played by not practicing self-determination
in our struggle to counter the MAAFA.

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To reawaken the African mind we must ensure that the goal of our educational and
socialization processes is to understand and live up to the principle of MAAT.
MAAT is a Kemetic term that represents the singular whole for the concepts of
truth
justice
order
righteousness
balance
reciprocity
and harmony
Ancient African socialization processes show us that communitiies can function and be
productive when everyone, young and old, has a sense of purpose and value that contributes to
the community's well being. The principle of MAAT provides one such approach that Africans
can follow.
To arrive at MAAT, however, requires SBA, another Kemetic term which refers to
teachings, wisdom and study.
Our Present Condition
....No matter where Africans are - on the continent or in the diaspora - our condition is the same.
We are on the bottom and descending. The MAAFA continues to take its toll. We are
unconscious, unorganized, unfocused, and lost from our purpose. Our strongest visible
leadership is in hot pursuit of minimal narrow goals like, 'integration,' 'civil rights,' 'jobs,' 'voter
registration,' etc. We seek minimal adjustment and temporary comfort by assimilating to
whatever the political, economic and cultural order may be, even when that order is itself in
chaos, or driven by values that are anti-African.... When we "dream," we often do not dream
original dreams; we merely seek relief from pain. As a result, the dream does not encompass a
meaningful plan or strategy which is connected to moblization.

.....We do not know who we are, cannot explain how we got here, and have no sense of our
destiny beyond mere survival. Most of us hope to hitch a ride on someone else's wagon with no
thought whatsoever as to where that wagon may be going. We have no destination of our own.
Ask our leadership, ask our women, men or children on the street what our agenda is. Ask them
what plans Africans have and what we want to build for ourselves within the next five, ten,
twenty-five, seventy-five or one-hundred years? We are so used to having others make longterm plans for us that the idea of our own five-year plan is petrifying to us. As the 20th century
comes to a close, why do we remain in such a vulnerable and debased condition? Certainly, the
conscious and confined oppression of our enemies is a factor, but several other factors have
contributed to our present condition and prevent us from reaching our full potential as a people.

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We cannot advance because we have:

No unified spiritual base that respects and compliments our different religions.
No global view of ourselves as one people.
No geopolitical view of our conditions as a people.
No collective aim.
No structures for socializing the masses of our children.
No structure communicating these things to our masses.
..... To understand our present condition in the world, we must also understand genocide . The
General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention in 1948 (Patterson,
1970). Article II of the Convention defines "genocide" as Any of the following acts comitted with
intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such:
A) Killing members of the group
B) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
D) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
E) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another (Patterson, p. xii).

.....By this definition, African people are clearly victims of genocide. The genocidal practices of
slavery, lynching, colonization, etc. are easy to identify, but the more recent institutionalized and
covert forms of genocide produced by legal systems, educational systems, public health
systems, etc., are difficult to distinguish. There is no public outcry over these latter forms of
genocide for two primary reason:
(1) active propaganda disseminated through the media keeps the masses of people ignorant of,
and agents in, their own genocide;and
(2) lack of media access slows those who are knowledgeable about genocidal practices from
sharing that knowledge with and empowering others.
Genocide, as defined above, is both physical and cultural. Both forms of genocide are visited on
Africans. Physical genocide tends to be practiced most often by the so-called 'ultra right.' This
largely involves well-known processes of segregation physical oppression that have historically
led to the elimination of many Africans. Cultural genocide is practiced mainly by the left.
Historically, it was referred to as "whitening," and was practiced most frequently in Latin
American countries where it continues to be used today (Hilliard & Martin, 1995).

Cultral genocide is in some ways, the ultimate vehicle for the elimination of a people because its
goal, unlike that of the physical form of genocide, remains hidden.

.....Both physical and cultural genocide of Africans involve decisions by non-African elites to
dominate and destroy the African community (Hilliard & Martin). White policymakers, whether
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from the right or the left, liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans, view the very
existence of Africans as a problem.

Thus only African themselves can wake up, prepare, and insure that Africans remain present
and fully able to maintian a quality standard of life"

SBA to SIA: Learning

"Every member of the community should participate in SBA. SBA means
teaching
learning
wisdom
and study or collectively, deep thought.
Deep thought is universal among Africans. Respect for deep thought is reflected in African
languages and especially in terminology about words (i.e. Nommo in Bantu, "So" in Dogon,
Cinni in Sonjay {kwame note: Songhai/Songhoi} A study of proverbs, metaphors, and stories in
African societies shows that deep thought was the rule. SBA is thus, one way of naming African
deep thought. It is both a noun and verb; it is deep thought and deep thinking. It is the word for
teach and study with a slight change in 'determinative,' for clarification of meaning.

In my opinion, the language of KMT (called Egypt by the Greeks) is the most beautiful in the
world. It is alphabetic, and ideographic or symbolic at the same time. It is full of multiple
meanings, simple and complex at the same time. It embodies the deepest of ]thoughts, using
KMT and other African environments (i.e., plants, animals, people, tools, buildings, etc.), to
convey deep thought. The language of KMT was called MDW NTR (divine speech) and one
tried to produce MDW NFR (beautiful speech) {Carruthers, 1996}

SBA is our best effort at transliterating the glyphs in international phonetic alphabetic terms. We
do not know the correct pronunciation. By convention, the vowelless MDW NTR is supplied with
vowels that we guess approximate the original Coptic (a mixture of later versions of MDW NTR
and Greek) is as close as we can come to the ancient sounds.

The term SBA first appears in Kemetic texts during the pyramid age (old Kingdom). It appears
again in the Literacy Age (11th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom). In that text from the tomb of an
Intef Per Aa (Pharoah), SBA is precisely deep thought, which Greek students of African priests
would call Sophia (b, p, or f as labials are spelled in Greek ph, so that SBA becomes SPHA
An important element of SBA is SANKOFA the Akan word that means which becomes sophia
(Obenga, 1992). go back and fetch it. We must know and understand our past in order to move
forward. This does not mean that we should live blindly in the past, but it means that we must
use the valuable wisdom that our ancestors left for us. Part of understanding what is happening
to us in the MAAFA requires that we know where we came from. We can only learn where we
came from if we practice SBA
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African Identity Through SANKOFA

The concept of SANKOFA

Study is a requirement for our redemption. Yet, every discipline that we study must locate itself
firmly within the African tradition. This defines us as a people. While we must be aware of other
traditions in order to appreciate the whole human story, we must be aware of how those
traditions intersect with African traditions. It makes no sense for an African to begin an
intellectual quest from someone else's standpoint.

seems clear enough, but we cannot fully appreciate its value to Africans until we confront a
fundamental question: "Whether to be African or not to be?" That is the fundamental question
Everything else we do flows from this basic point. We are either African or we are nothing;
whether we are on the continent or in the diaspora We cannot claim our heritage when it is
expediant for us and ignore it when it is not. This only creates confusion.
African Students. All African people must be students. In many ancient African schools,
students would spend almost a lifetime in formal training or apprenticeships learning all facets of
subjects. The purpose of education was not to speed through a four year program to get a job
and "get paid" but rather to become a better person and to learn how to live in harmony with
nature, utilizing whatever skill you have. Greater understanding was earned through SBA, the
study of MDW NTR and NFR. MDW NTR means "the word of the divine," and MDW NFR
means "good speech," or "the beautiful word." Jacob Carruthers (1995) has referred to the
combination of MDW NTR and MDW NFR as "African deep thought." Without African deep
thought the WHMY MSW or "reawakening" would be impossible.

The healing process for people of African descent can only be initiated as a consequence of our
engagement in deep thought. Our WHMY MSW requires deep thought about our cultural
essence, our cosmology and metaphysics, our geopolitics, and our strategies for long-range
development, among other things. We cannot evade our responsibility to study. We have a
massive task before us. This time we must get it right.

African Teachers What do African teachers owe African people? It is part of the reality of the
times that our children will be taught, not only by Africans, but by others in formal and informal
institutions (i.e., the schools, the media, etc.). Based on the past, we can expect leittle more
than "schooling" from the larger societies of which we are a part - not education for our
transformation.
African teachers should, first and foremost, be on a quest to practice SBA.MDW NTR texts, the
Geez and other Ethiopian texts, and the Meroitic script of Nubia/Sudan. We also have West
African texts, as shown by Obenga (1995) and Niagoran-Bouah (1984; 1985). African teachers
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cannot ignore our awesome oral tradition, which has been given too little respect (Chinweizu,
1987). We will miss powerful sources of information and understanding if we accept the alien
view that deep thought may be captured only in written form. The written text is one form of
transmission, while oral communication is another. Deep thought can and must precede both.
African teachers must study African education and socialization practices from the continent and
diaspora. But, while doing this, we must remember that schooling, education and "socialization"
are inadequate if we do not study African deep thought. Within African deep thought, the
concepts of schooling, education and socialization were integrated into the larger process of
human transformation - the process of becoming more like the divine. The process of
transformation incorporated different conepts and approaches depending on the time and place.
For example, traditional child-rearing practieces (Gerber, 1958, Pearce, 1977; Ainsworth, 1967)
provide foundations and strategies that can be used on children today. As I suggest in Chapter
5, African traditional schools, sometimes referred to as "Bush Schools," also provide ideas for
curricular development (Harley, 1960s; Warfield-Coppock, 1990). There is something dreadfully
wrong with an education/socialization process that leaves us ignorant of our past, strangers to
our people, apes of our oppressors, and creatures of habitual, shallow thought, and trivial
values. Therefore, there must be an independent African effort to guarantee that our children
and our communities develop the perspectives, purposes, skills and the knowledge to function
in ways that enhance our survival and development. African teachers must understand African
history, practices, spirituality and theories in education and socialization...
By: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III, Foreword by Wade W. Nobles SBA: The Reawakening of the
African Mind. Revised Edition, September 1998

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