Here is something I found online about Nathaniel, a self admitted imposter. I see his name all over the internet, so I thought his admission should be known.
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http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/open-forum/28987-ras-nathaniel-opportunist-who-used-rastafari-movement-confession.html
From: Siphiwe < infinite.aboriginal@gmail.com >
Date: Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 10:26 PM
Subject: Ras Nathaniel was an opportunist who used the Rastafari Movement
Ras Nathaniel was an opportunist who used the Rastafari Movement: A Confession
Greetings and Blessings to the Rastafari Family Worldwide,
The purpose of this email is to bring about healing and growth for myself. Everything you read in this email is absolute, point and exact. How do I know that Ras Nathaniel was an opportunist who used the Rastafari Movement? Because I was Ras Nathaniel. By confessing this, I release from that which is breaking me down and I begin to know myself, accept myself, and call into fruition help that I need from the ancestors to build myself up.
I, formerly know as Ras Nathaniel, was an opportunist who used the Rastafari Movement.
I was an opportunist who hid behind a false image to cover up my deep-rooted insecurities of feeling ashamed, weak, and scared as well as to avoid the responsibility of working, providing for and raising my daughter, and actually building community.
The following mechanism/steps were used to ensure I got what I wanted: I traveled to a community, listened carefully, identified what was needed, researched that specific information, selected words from His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I to clothe the information in "divinity" and manipulate how the community received the information, presented the information and gave myself credit, offered to implement the plan (if my selfish conditions were met), and fed the community a load of bullshit that had them believing the plan was really for their benefit. I used the Rastafari community's resources to eat, sleep and travel on four continents. I didn't build anything and didn't help anyone. I sought out places where something was already built/established, and vamped the resources until I tore it apart. When my "game" was uncovered I moved somewhere else. I used my contacts to move to another. My mechanism was to always use HIM Haile Selassie I words, emphasize the "positive" and present my "knowledge" of Rastafari to hide the fact that I was lying about being "a serious Ras". I smoked everyone's herb. I manipulated the movement by researching its history and mandates, published them along with a proposal of what to do (that always included me in some beneficial way) and then pressured the community to "take responsibility". In this way, I set it so that the actual work and building was someone else's job, while I manitained a high profile image.
What I did was similar to some people who use non-governmental organizations (ngo's) as a career. Take someone who works at an ngo doing famine relief. Let's say they get $100 in donations/resources. Out of that $100, maybe $20 of food actually reaches its intended clients. The other $80, of course, goes to the ngo for providing the "relief". This includes the ngo worker's salary. Now, who benefited the most? Was the ngo actually helping its clients? No - making them dependent for $20 of food is not helping them, its robbing them! . . . . Did the ngo worker beneift? Of course - that worker enjoys the luxury and security that his/her client doesn't at the client's expense. If the ngo worker's purpose was sincerely to help the clients, he would just give them $20 of food out of pocket, or make sure that the $80 went to the clients. So now the ngo worker tells friends and family, proudly, "I do humantarian work, I'm involved in famine relief." This allows the ngo worker to protect his/her image as "a good person" when really he/she is just an opportunist. I am the ngo worker, I am the opportunist. I gave the Rastafari community $20 while consuming $80 of its resources, all while fronting that I was serving the community.
How I Fronted the Rastafari Image and Avoided Responsibility
Attracted to dreadlocks, I started growing my own, though I knew nothing about Rastafari. As my hair grew, I kept meeting people who identified themselves as "Rastafari" who seemed to have wisdom and power that I lacked and that I wanted. So I started reading about Rastafari, I frequented Rastafari establishments/events, and started to imitate what I observed. I started listening to reggae music, I started dressing like Rastas, I started speaking like Rastas, I started eating like Rastas, and though I often felt paranoid and insecure, I started smoking herb. I started talking about what I read to impress on people that I knew what Rastafari was all about. It was all external knowledge - something I got from outside of myself. When I learned about Nyahbingi, I started to chant the songs and front I was a Nyahbinghi warrior even though I sometimes ate fish or chicken and engaged in oral sex. I was scared to sip the chalice, too, but I forced myself to project the image that I was not scared and "weak-minded". I played on the harps or chanted around the alter to appear "on the battlefield" while actually hiding that I was a coward who wanted to escape Babylon, not actually confront and destroy it. I did all of this to be "accepted". WHY?
During my childhood, I did not play with or see other melanated children or family except for Christmas and perhaps a few other holidays. Early in elementary school, I was bullied by some "white" boys and I was scared to fight. When I learned about "slavery", I became ashamed of my ancestors and who I was. I was embarrassed by the little bit of "black" culture that we did have in our house. I didn't want to know myself or claim my African ancestry.
As I entered college, I started to read "conscious" black history that condemned the "Uncle Tom" who submitted to the slave-master's system. I started to resent my father as a coward and a sell-out who didn't sit-in with the civil rights movement, didn't join the Black Panther Party, and had a "don't rock the boat" philosophy. My mothers side of the family was light skinned, and my uncle "passed" as "white", married a "white" woman, and his children, the only cousins I knew, were "white". So I resented my mother and her side of the family, too. How can a person reject their ancestors, resent their mother and father and claim to love themself and help/serve the "community"?
Until I graduated from college, I shielded my shame and insecurities behind athletic and scholastic success which validated my image of myself as not the "lowly slave". After my collegiate and athletic career, however, I could not shield my inferiority complex, which by now included sexual inferiority - I wasn't "hung like a black man" and I suffered from premature ejaculation. I eventually cracked under the pressure to graduate and quit school, using the excuse that the university was "wicked".
I felt I had to prove that I was not going to be an Uncle Tom. Thus, I dropped out of school attempted to drop out of the "system" to avoid taking responsibility and to be "free". I had no plan, knew no trade - so I drifted throughout the United States and Europe under the pretense that I was on a "spiritual journey". I was controlled by my lower nature and sensations - I hitchhiked, lived in alternative communities, experimented with drugs and sex (including one experience with a man). This only caused me to feel even more ashamed and intensified my insecurities. I returned home, rekindled a brief relationship I started with a "white" girl I met while traveling and got her pregnant. This is when I started listening to reggae music. I quit my two jobs because I did not want to work or pay rent. I abandoned my five-month-old daughter and her mother using the Biblical excuse that Israel had to "put away their foreign wives."
At this point, I started smoking herb heavily (to be accepted), and with no income, I couldn't pay rent, so I started squatting abandoned buildings, claiming that I was protesting the system, even though I would still recieve food-stamps and I had a driver's liscense.
I was running from myself - deep down I felt like a punk, scared of my "hood" brothers, intimidated by my melanated sisters, yet I was fronting that I was some revolutionary, militant and that because I was "gifted" and one of the "talented tenth", I was destined to become a leader/hero. I felt obligated to uplift "my people". This was my state of consciousness when I came into the Rastafari Movement. I appropriated and projected its outward image. I used my intellect to craft a mission in the movement (Issembly for Rastafari Iniversal Education - IRIE) and then used IRIE's mission as an excuse to ignore my responsibilities and my family.
I sought Redemption via acceptance and credit in the Rastafari Movement - I could acknolwedge my slave ancestors (only the heroes who fought back and were recorded in history) while appropriating the "unconquered Royal Ethiopian in the West" image without going through the seasons of invelopement from the condition of post traumatic slave syndrome to sovereignty. I accepted the instant credit.
I made sure to attend as many significant Rastafari gatherings as possible. A pattern emerged. I arrived at an event with an agenda. I presented the agenda (what I wanted to do) disguised as community development (what the community must/needs to do). I attempted to get a consensus of support. If I couldn't get community consensus, I gathered individual support or adopted some one else's idea/agenda, then publicized the support I did receive, emphasizing the positive and presenting a biased version of what took place though making it look like I was giving an objective report. I would then use the support as "authorization" to implement my agenda which would lead to another travel opportunity which started the process all over again.
As I became more skillful, I attracted more support as well as opposition, which I used as a platform to publicly defend my image. I received and accepted invitations to attend events. I solicited and received financial donations and in-kind services from the community, and in several instances, I relocated to receive room, board, herb and in some cases, a car. And what did I do, what did I contribute in return? I peddled information, exposed people while hiding my own shortcomings, created controversies, disrespected some elders, and manipuated communities' concepts and hopes.
Afriad to confront the Babylon system and destroy it ( I didn't have a clue how), I looked for an escape and found it in the concept of Repatriation. "Come out of her my people so that you partake not of her sins, neither her plagues . . . (Revelations 18:4)" meant to me that it was pointless to build anything while in the west. Hence, I justified not working or building anything in the west and twisted my poverty from irresponsibility to a badge of resistance. When I learned of the Ethiopian Millennium from Rasses in Atlanta, I manipulated the concept in an attempt to force Repatriation, using the condition in Shashemane as motivation and shaming the Rastafari Movement into action. I also used Haile Selassie's visit to the US in 1954 and the early Ras Tafarite Repatriation movement in the US to appropriate "authenticity" to myself in order to offset the balance of Rastafari power in Jamaica while at the same time, I attempted to manipulate both the Rastafari Movement and the African Union to gain power and force my agenda to become the Black Moses of Ethiopian Millennium Repatriation. The Bicentennial Global Dialogue that was held in Barbados in August, 2007 was to be the fulfillment of that stage of the five-year plan/agenda. When I failed to achieve my agenda, I bailed out at the first available opportunity, still trying to save face, claiming that I had faithfully served my five-year duty.
Look carefully at my track record. I maintained lots of exposure, publicity and international recognition. Yet, I built no institutions, no businesses, not one person can say I helped them Repatriate. I gave no material support to anyone while receiving material support to myself. I healed no one, and my own household suffered from division, strife and domestic abuse. I used media as a self-serving propogandist. Ras Nathaniel was an opportunist who used the Rastafari Movement for personal gain and to hide insecurities.
Healing
I have now been on a healing journey for seven months.
I can not grow and invelop higher spiritual consciousness by seeking it in external form. I can not rely on my intellect to guide me and manifest results. I must learn to control my lower nature/psyche and master my emotions, sensations, and desires. I am accepting responsibility for my actions. I have cut off my locks, I am no longer fronting a Rastafari image, I am no longer hiding, and I am learning how to honor, listen and obey my ancestors. I am thankful for the Rastafari Movement which taught me many things and without which I would not be where I am now. I am growing.
Absolutely,
An infinite aboriginal formerly known as Ras Nathaniel
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