Are We Trolling OR Teaching?

     In my last article What Is A Poor Righteous Teacher? I shared some insight on the etymology of the word "poor", its use in the 1800s until now and how it has been misinterpreted by some Five Percenters as evidenced by their quality of life. There are many Five Percenters who understood and appreciated that article because they do not represent that segment of our population. They desire more for us as a Nation and that is also evidenced by their quality of life. However, there were those who felt that my article was inaccurate and an unfair assessment of the poverty mindset among some Five Percenters. From their perspective I painted the Five Percent with a broad brushstroke which contributes to the negative narratives about us. That does not accurately reflect the content of my article or any of my contributions to this society. While genuine peer review and accountability is always important with our work, it is also important to offer practical solutions to what we see as problematic. Sitting back talking or just repeating what someone else said is not enough. We must have something to share, something we built that actually works. So lets build about that work and what works.

     For two decades I have consistently worked to be one of the many positive representations of the Five Percent. This work, from my youth initiatives, articles, books and animation series to being a Humans Rights Commissioner and Educator in my city, has literally served as evidence to help win court cases for incarcerated Five Percenters fighting to prove our cultural legitimacy. I am very proud of this and the various other ways that people have benefitted from these contributions. Among the different niches that Five Percenters have, we are not all a-alike. While there are some Five Percenters who represent the best of what we teach, there are others who behave like they don't agree with Dumar Wa'de's statement that We Are Not A Gang. You can see by how they live and a simple glance at their social media will have you confused about what they actually represent. Their social media is usually a hodgepodge of vulgar memes, trolling, throwback pictures of Five Percenter pioneers, Henny toasts, wannabe IG model flicks wearing our Universal Flag and video clips of questionable Eighty-Fiver behavior. These are the same folks who long to be professionally recognized as a credible source of Five Percent culture. The irony is, I am actually one of the most qualified people to teach them yet they usually don't want to learn who is causing all of this to professionally happen... Most times I am outright embarrassed by what I see and often find myself in awkward positions striving to diplomatically explain to outside onlookers that, "all of us [Five Percenters] are at different stages in our growth and development. Regardless what knowledge you think we have, some of us are evolving as civilized people, some of us are not and will not evolve as civilized people. That choice is entirely up to us." I receive so many emails, inboxes and DMs from people inquiring about our culture via the out-of-pocket behavior they see that I actually saved a standard response for folks to save time responding. Yeah, it is that serious.

     See, when we gain knowledge of self it is not like we start off with a blank slate and everything we have thought, said or done prior to that simply disappears. It does not work that way. In this journey we are not simply learning things. We also unlearn things that are not good for our growth and development. Well, we are supposed to unlearn things. We all experience this, even if we claim to be born into the Five Percent Nation. Living within this wilderness of North America we are all exposed to what others think, say and do. Some of that exposure is corrupting and contradicts our culture. All of us have to deal with this reality and none of us are exempt from it. How committed and consistent we are to deal with that corruption and those contradictions is entirely up to us. It is apparent, at least to me, that some of us have a much harder time with civilization than others.

     Over the years of having knowledge of self, the biggest challenge that I see among many of my fellow Five Percenters is how to connect What We Teach TO What We Will Achieve. Now some Five Percenters would argue that "What We Teach and What We Will Achieve" is not an authentic plus degree. Regardless if we think this or not, it is not debatable that there is a huge disparity between what folks say they teach and what they are actually achieving. There is no shortage of content you can find on social media of people sharing longwinded posts about Today's Mathematics or pictures with captions pontificating about what we teach and how it should/shouldn't be taught. However, there is a severe lacking of the same content that practically shows what we are actually achieving with these teachings. There is "some" content yet not nearly as much content as adults taking group pictures and talking. When I started sharing YouTube videos well over a decade ago and writing articles, my consistent focus has always been to demonstrate how I am actually using what we teach to positively impact my family and community in a practical way. My social media presence is based upon the same premise and over the years that focus has expanded beyond my family and community to include my city, other cities, states and countries. This is the reason that the national and international press contact me in regards to content related to our Nation of the Five Percent, why I currently have five books in a Curatorial Activism archive at the British Library and how I've had the professional opportunities to work with actors such as Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson and others. I have done and do all of this as a proud, public Five Percenter who literally comes in the name of Saladin Allah. I am not a Five Percenter at a Parliament but Marco the security guard the rest of the month. For whatever reason, some folks just don't like that I am in this kind of public position. When they are not playing a lazy game of Poison The Well, they are clumsily trying to discredit anything that they see me do while deliberately ignoring the things that are clearly of credit even to their own families. 

"Own It" -Drake

     

     As a public Five Percenter, my experience is not all Sun, Moon and Stars. I deal with bullsh*t just like everybody else, sometimes more than you could imagine. I have experienced dudes calling my home hundreds of times in a day. Yeah, I said hundreds. I have received snapshots of dudes gossiping about me in sausage party group chats. I have gotten pop-up trolled by lurkers who never even liked a post about my children. Dudes have circulated sloppy snippets of my content offline to try and discredit me. I have also been publicly/privately threatened with violence online and etc. None of these experiences involved women. Not one. While I have had some limited experience with girls harassing me when I was a teenager, never in my life did I ever expect to experience this kind of behavior from 30-50 year old dudes. Never! Allah was in his mid thirties and early forties when he was teaching youth in the streets of Harlem and I could not imagine him behaving like this. That dysfunctional behavior has nothing to do with Five Percent culture or "building." It has everything to do with what I see as a mental health and/or a substance abuse problem or folks who have become institutionalized; something that I am very well acquainted with because my Ole Earth [Mother] was a social psychologist by profession. No healthy, heterosexual, working family man would be that fixated on another man and behave like this. 

     Some would probably ask, "Saladin why do you even care?" Well as I mentioned earlier, we are all exposed to what others think, say and do while living in this wilderness of North America. So it does affect us, even if it is just a distraction seeing or hearing about it. In order to maintain a positive mental health state and sense of homeostasis we have to develop effective ways to neutralize and manage this exposure. After words, sometimes that exposure has the exact opposite effect; like the time someone posted a screenshot of my Atlantis School For Gifted Youngsters Page to denigrate my work and I instantly received new followers, messages of support and donations to my Atlantis School Renovation Project.

     When it comes to our stability, it is important not to minimize or gloss over the impact this COVID-19 pandemic is actually having on our individual and collective mental health, including those who claim to be "woke" or have knowledge of self. In fact, it is my assessment that this pandemic will born a mental health epidemic that will undoubtedly impact our Five Percent Nation. As Five Percenters, attending virtual parliaments, posting videos about Supreme Mathematics and taking pictures wearing our Universal Flag is not an effective mental health plan. Based upon some of our behavior, some of us need serious professional help and there is nothing wrong with that. We all need help in some capacity. What IS wrong is using social media and/or substance abuse to try and self-medicate. 

     A decade ago, in 2011, I published the book Explorations of God/Earth Mental Health that offers insight on what we have begun to see, particularly among some Five Percenters, and how we can address this. Following the recent tragic deaths of my father and brother on the same day, hours apart, under two entirely different circumstances, I took the initiative to get therapy for the first time in my life. I never experienced anything tragic like this before in my life and I wanted to be proactive in putting resources in place that can support me through my grieving process. Access to a safe-space that enables me to unpack and process my thoughts and feelings about this tragedy and trauma with an objective black therapist, not just talking to my physical/universal family, has been very therapeutic for me. I would definitely encourage others to do the same to help unpack and process tragedy and trauma; especially those black/brown males who never talk about being molested as children and/or who have experienced sexual violence while they were incarcerated. I am fortunate to have never experienced this and can only imagine how difficult it must be for those who quietly carry around this question about their manhood and sexuality. I would also encourage Five Percenters to explore becoming a therapist if they are interested in that field. We need more of our own people creating these culturally competent safe-spaces to support our positive mental health. Lastly, we need more people showing evidence of our Five Percent teachings with actual achievements, not just being trolls. 

Peace,

Saladin