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Rasta stuck in Babylon

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Messenger: SoMuchThingsToSay Sent: 2/4/2016 12:18:35 PM
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I am a Rasta stuck in Babylon seeking guidance.

What do you do when you fully accept that Haile Selassie, Our God, RasTafari is the christ returned, but god sent me here as a white man from England.

The problem myself and anyone else out there like me faces, is not that we don't fit stereotypes, this isn't the problem. The biggest problem we have is that we have no one to teach and guide us. no elders, we learn nothing of Haile Selassie in schools, they only teach us King James edited version of the bible.

Now people like me, we know we are Rasta, because, we don't see any other way. But I have so many questions and no one who can teach me.

That's why I find myself here on this forum. I hope it is active and that there are people who can educate myself.

Thank you. Jah Bless.


Messenger: EVOLUTION Sent: 2/4/2016 3:10:17 PM
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Greetings...when I site the I's reasoning...the 1st words came to I...UNTIL THE THE COLOUR OF A MAN'S "SKIN" IS OF NO MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN THE COLOUR OF HIS "EYES"...words of RASTAFARI SELASSIE HIMSELF...being a Rastafarian has nothing to do with skin colour...it's about the livity...purity of HEART+MIND=CLEAN SPIRIT=GOD.
Your thoughts+words+action should be BALANCE with the LIKENESS of GOD/JAH.
Simple...we are all "SPIRIT BEINGS having a HUMAN EXPERIENCE in these BEAUTY-FULL and AMAZING BODIES"..."WE ARE ALL EXTENSIONS OF GOD/JAH"...please check out the reasoning on "OCEAN"
also my comment on "LOOKING FOR ANSWERS IN MY LIFE"...

BLESSED LOVE...



Messenger: JahGul Sent: 2/4/2016 4:15:44 PM
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As a Rasta from The Netherlands I understand your problem.
The teachings in our schools do not teach about Haile Selassie, and Rastafari,
So I has to look for those teachings in other places, here is a good start. Many Rasta here to teach us, and elsewhere too.
Please feel welcome here and join the reasoning.

Blessings


Messenger: Jah Seeker Sent: 2/4/2016 4:18:48 PM
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Welcome fellow (white) Rastafari borther lol. Plenty of experienced and educated Rastas here to answer all of your questions. Also read up on the autobiography of Haile Selassie I, a very short introduction to rastafari and many other books. ALso plenty of material on youtube and internet.

Blessed love


Messenger: RastaGoddess Sent: 2/4/2016 4:30:12 PM
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**********FROM A BLACK PERSPECTIVE*************



No Colorless Rasta Movement

by Ayinde

All things exist in three basic dimensions, the spiritual/historical aspect, the symbolic aspect and the Earth Movement.

The Spiritual aspect is what the ancients called entering the house of Rasta. This is the metaphysical/spiritual aspect of things. It is this realm all people can enter Rasta irrespective of race, color and social standing, but there is a way to enter that is well defined in our histories (that is for another reasoning another time).




The symbolic aspect is to look the part. In the case of Rasta it is mostly the dreadlocks. Whites, Blacks and all in between can look the part.

The Earth-based Movement is for addressing the issues that fueled the resurgence of Rasta as a movement. The issues which gave rise to the Rasta Movement were Capitalism, Miseducation, Racism/White Privilege and heightened Gender discrimination. Of course, many other abuses spawned from that. How these issues impacted on Black people is what gave rise to the movement in the first place. These issues have not been resolved so the focus should not change.

As I said in an earlier reasoning, Whites can be symbolic Rastas as they can grow dreadlocks and repeat the words. Whites can also reflect on history, adopt the best values and develop spiritually towards entering the spiritual house of Rasta. Whites did not experience Black African sufferings during and after slavery. Therefore Whites cannot directly identify with the Earth movement but they can support, develop in the spirituality and participate. Only Black people who had similar experiences at the hands of the White system in this present lifetime can really identify with the nuances and subtleties that gave rise to the movement in the first place. The Movement was about addressing Black people's experiences at the hands of a White system.

Many are confusing spirituality and symbolism with the mechanics of an Earth Movement, which was developed to address specific issues. Only certain Black people can directly identify with what started the Rasta Earth Movement because the same conditions exist for most dark-skinned Blacks. Therefore dark-skinned Black people, who institutionalized racism impacts on the most, can directly identify with all three dimensions of Rasta at the same time. They can develop in the spiritual aspect, they can look the part (symbolically) and they can directly identify with the sufferings that started the Movement.

When a person says in order to be a Rasta one has to identify with Blackness, this is true for all people of all races in a metaphorical sense. This is dealing with spirituality. Anyone of any race can do the work to identify with anything in a spiritual sense.

This brings us to the part about Meritocracy:

Meritocracy is about selecting the most suitable person for a position.

I set out to address Racism, White Superiority and Gender discrimination which are major issues affecting Africans in and out this Movement.

People of all races can research and learn about the sufferings of others and of course many can recall their own personal sufferings and get some understanding of others. But only Black people have experienced the worst sufferings as blacks under the Racist system. If we are speaking about the people with the most experiences of both institutionalized racism and gender prejudices in this White world system then the people are obviously dark-skinned Black Women.

If such people were armed with the historical information then they would have both the information and the direct experiences to speak on all these issues.

Now tell me, can a White/light-skinned person or any light-skinned mixed race person ever directly experience the same ongoing lifelong racial and gender abuses as a dark-skinned Black person? No, they cannot. They can talk about their experiences as Whites or Light skinned mixed and in some cases they get abused badly. However, they cannot experience what it is to be a dark-skinned Black person in the system, growing up being told they were worthless and ugly, then having teachers disregard them etc. They cannot experience what it is to watch television and all the images are nothing like them. They cannot experience these things and much more. What I am saying is they will lack the deeper direct experiences that reaches to the soul.

So on the basis of Merit in a Black Earth Movement that is supposed to address these issues, we should all be looking at helping the worst victims get better informed and then helping them to come forward and advance the cause (once they are interested) as they are suitably qualified, armed with both the experiences and information which is widely accessible today.

In a Black movement, only really informed/enlightened dark-skinned Black people are best qualified to speak powerfully on the issues of racism and gender discrimination.

If there are exceptions where White-skinned people can have the dark-skinned Black people's experiences of Racism and gender discrimination then explain how this is possible.

If the Rasta movement was focused on helping those most affected by the system then we would have much more powerful speakers in the frontline engaging the politics and all other areas. But today too much attention is paid to people who are not the worst victims of the system. Too much chatter and showboating, and too few people with real experiences are coming forward or are being helped forward.





Messenger: RastaGoddess Sent: 2/4/2016 4:33:22 PM
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********************* FROM A WHITE PERSPECTIVE***********************

Double Denial

August 16, 2003
by Rootsie

I write this in response to Ayinde's "White Supremacy in Black Movements" out of my own experiences with 'Double Denial".

When I was 19 years old and first was introduced to Rastafari, I was overwhelmed on many levels. But my primary response was a sigh of relief through every cell of my body: that the Judeo-Christian revelation is fulfilled, and a ghastly history redeemed by a Black man! A Black African man! I had to laugh then and have done so many times at the perfect justice of this. Truly the divine essence of the universe always moves for balance. Now all these many years later I can see even more clearly that the Rasta movement is first and foremost about addressing the issue of justice right here on earth.

But here I was, a white girl. A white girl who, from a very young age, thought and felt deeply about the evils of racism and carried a sense of responsibility for what other white people had done to this world, and to all the people who are not white.

I was greatly relieved, and unconsciously so, for here was a way to differentiate myself from the system of white supremacy, and ally myself with the oppressed of the world, rather than the oppressors. Also unconsciously, I developed a sense of superiority over other whites who were not so aware and educated as me.

What I did not see is that my whiteness and the assumptions that go along with it are with me everywhere I go. I will never be one of the 'sufferahs', one of the victims of this system, not for all the dreadlocks and ganja and black friends in the world. Well, let me amend that: all people suffer in an unjust system, both oppressors and oppressed. Slavery is always a two-way street. I suffer with the injustice of having privileges which everyone does not have. It makes my spiritual work harder. To get to a place of reality with myself and a recognition of the world as it is has been long difficult work.

It is my observation that many whites come into Rastafari looking to blacks to confer some sort of absolution on them, to say "Hey man you are my brother. Skin color does not matter. It's all about the One Love." They are truly shocked and hurt that this is not the reception they receive most of the time. What they do not see is that here they come as privileged whites looking for privileges in a Black movement!

When I first realized this, it really took me aback, for of course no such thing was my intention. That is the point. Seeing white privilege requires bringing inborn assumptions and ways of being in the world to one's consciousness.

Here is the 'double denial': first we fail to see all the ways that our white skin gets us all the goodies, and then we come to Black people thinking to dictate to them what Rastafari is and how the movement should proceed. This is wicked. And unconsciousness is no excuse anymore.

Whites can never assume leadership or eldership in Rastafari-NEVER. To come to Blacks with our dreadlocks and other trappings of our difference from other whites and say 'Hey me too! Me too! I'm not like the rest I am one of you!' is ridiculous. Although it is positive that we are not comfortable just to be an 'average white', that we are looking for a way to voice our resistance to an evil system of white supremacy, that is just the beginning of a very long journey.

The journey involves the realization that, short of dying our skin, there is no way to rid ourselves of this whiteness, and not even then. We must own it and move from there. Logically, this journey would lead us to efforts at educating other whites, since it is to other whites that we can legitimately speak of our experiences and help them bring their own privilege into consciousness. And it is whites who are the problem, whether they want to be or not.

We can benefit from the spiritual foundation of Rastafari and grow much in it, but our growth remains incomplete if we do not then take action in our own lives to bring white supremacy down. This is the only 'power' we can have in Rastafari.

Male privilege and male assumption makes it irresistible for many whites in Rastafari to avoid trying to make power grabs or to claim authority and eldership. It is another level of the 'double denial,' not to see that male privilege and white privilege taken together account for the disastrous events taking place in the world. Unconsciousness of these motivating factors is at this point wicked, and perpetuates more and more wickedness in the world, whether that is one's stated intention or not. 'I didn't know' is simply not an excuse. It is our responsibility to know.

We cannot dictate the future of the Rastafari movement to blacks. We are not here as 'the great white hope'. We are here to learn, to support, to help when asked. This is unbearable to those who remain unconsciously motivated by their privilege. I see very ugly shows of white arrogance all the time by those who feel the need to push their way into the gates of Rasta.

Because I write about European history in its reality, I am sometimes accused of being ashamed to be white. I lost all shame when I started seeing and telling and being the truth. The ones locked in shame are the ones who loudly, through speech, dress, and the outside trappings of 'righteousness', come trying to deny the reality of their white skin and what it buys them, and seeking the same privileges in a black movement that they take for granted in the white world.

Until 'righteousness covers the earth as the waters cover the sea', whites cannot claim equality with blacks in Rasta, not in the material realm until the injustices in the material realm are addressed.






Messenger: Jah Seeker Sent: 2/4/2016 4:57:07 PM
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Good read RastaGoddess, however i cannot and will not agree ever for the white apologists. I will never also claim to lead the Rastafari movement or tell people of African descent how Rastafari should be run or percieved, but i will never apologize as if i did something or am responsible for slavery. Do i have certain advantages and benfits because of my white skin? Yes. Is it my fault? No. Am i against that? Yes.

To me it is as simple as that.

Blessed love, Rastafari


Messenger: JahGul Sent: 2/5/2016 2:44:15 AM
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Thank you Rastagoddess for sharing those interesting and truthfull reads.

I Will look into those reasonings one of these days

Blessings


Messenger: jessep86 Sent: 2/14/2016 7:26:32 PM
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The the I Rasta is stuck in Babylon,Rasta is not to be stuck in Babylon ways. Live Holy and Righteous as possible in the land your in , to liberate our minds, to free up our irits from the entanglements and attachments , to stop relying on that corrupt system and rely more on the natural order, leaning not on the mis understanding of mankind's opinions but to lean on JAH in all things, living for wisdom rather than money and LIVING IN LOVE rather than fear lust and anger. Seek peace, and knowledge befor vengeance. True Rasta is In the world but not of it. Never identify with Babylon, but rather know we are eternal , divine, Spiritual souls , know the power of the trinity, inquire in the temple of Haile Selassie, man and womban is Angelic, offspring of the Allmighty who gives us power in the relationship, be close with Quadamawe , The First of all creation, who we live up in , who sets the example, who gives the teachings, forsake all for ONENESS AND UNITY with JAH and all things will be tooken care of when we know JAH and the Holy One working in US and through us. Selah.


Messenger: GARVEYS AFRICA Sent: 2/16/2016 7:08:01 AM
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Goddess I strongly disagree with your statements that only dark skinned blacknpeople should be allowed to lead. Marley to Malcolm.... To His Majesty himself. One has to disagree. Even if just with that deh point ! In fact the whole thing from a black perspective was written poorly. The author cannot differentiate between light and dark skin therefore setting an automatic rift within the Black community..... Maybe they wanted to say African/none African but choose the wrong terminology. But it kinda threw off the whole thing

Bless up



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