Three Years Later; Where are the benefits NOT OWNING this trademark?

Official Registered Trademark, December 21, 2021 

     Three years ago on this Winter Solstice date, December 21^st, 2021, I successfully registered the elements of the Universal Flag for our Five Percent Nation as a class 41 licensed trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). As I shared in my article, What are the legalities of our Universal Flag?:

"By law, you cannot trademark a flag, so this trademark was not defined or described as a flag in the USPTO application. This trademark defined, described, and included all of the elemental arrangements of our Universal Flag. This ensured that it could be trademarked not as a flag, while simultaneously protecting our flag in the public domain from any similar elemental arrangements that would infringe upon our registered trademark. In other words, this gave us legal protection/recourse to address any individual/company who was using our federally registered trademark without our licensed permission or any individual/company that wanted to create something similar to our trademark, such as a rainbow-colored emblem like ours with a #6 in the center." 

To learn more details about that initiative I would encourage you to read the article What are the legalities of our Universal Flag? Today I wanted to take the time to build upon that experience, what has happened since that time, and what I think we can expect to see moving forward.

     When I first announced that initiative it was embraced with a great deal of support and attacked with disdain. Some Nation members shared that I was wrong for not presenting this initiative to them personally, and/or to the larger number of Five Percenters collectively for their input before acquiring this IP. These are things that I considered yet decided against it in the interest of time and to prompt an immediate call to action and National response from our members. So instead of talking about it I made the proactive decision to be about it by investing the time and finances to secure the trademark for us. When I received the official document from the USPTO, it is hard to express the prideful feeling of bringing it to our people to say, "Here, this is an invaluable asset that I acquired for us to advance our Nation!" While some members appreciated the socioeconomic foresight of securing this IP, others did not. 

     Following the successful December 21^st, 2021, registration of this trademark, I sent the above January 7th, 2022 Universal Flag Board email to various Five Percenters [men and women] in different regions across the country. As stated in this email:

“My reasoning for initiating that IP initiative was to put in place ‘legal safeguards’ for us to control our national narrative and maintain our cultural identity. Prior to this, anyone could use our Universal Flag and there was nothing we could legally do about it. Now that our Universal Flag is our registered trademark, no entity [entertainers, businesses, institutions, organizations or media sources, etc.] has the legal right to use it and can/will face legal consequences for misuse and abuse of it.” 

I emphasize the words “us”, “our”, and “we” in this email because this trademark was never for me. Because I initiated the trademark process, my name originally appears on the application. Yet, as shown in the above email, I sought out a diverse group of Five Percenters [men and women] to form a committee that the trademark ownership would be transferred to and managed for our Nation. This never happened and what unfortunately followed was mass confusion, misinformation campaigns, and a fumbled bag by Nation members to secure an invaluable national asset and legally protect our cultural identity in the public domain. It was disappointing then and is disappointing now to see the same Nation members unable to publicly defend themselves and secure our financial future. I learned a lot from that experience, especially around organization.

Stymie Beard, Little Rascals Gang

       When striving to organize any group of people around an idea, there usually exists an element that can stymie that group's ability to build. Stymie means "to present an obstacle to" or "stand in the way of'." Sometimes this obstruction is rooted in legitimate concerns for the safety, welfare, and progress of the group -as we often saw demonstrated by the sharp-witted Stymie from the Little Rascals who helped solve his gang's problems. Sometimes folks are not like Stymie and their obstruction is illegitimate, thus undermining the safety, welfare, and progress of the group. Whether legitimate or illegitimate, everyone has a rationalization behind why they choose to support/not support an idea. In presenting our Nation with an actual registered trademark, something tangible and not just an idea, it forced many people to communicate their rationalization(s) and confront their own contributions, role, and responsibilities to our Nation. It was not the fact that what I did for us was inherently wrong; every pioneer and innovation is viewed as wrong by some people who never did it before. For many people, this was the first time that they even thought about what it means to officially register the elements of our Universal Flag as a licensed trademark. Very few people asked me questions to gain an understanding about what we were now in possession of. Most people honestly did not even know what we had or the difference between a trademark, copyright, or a patent. It was obvious when they clumsily used these words interchangeably while trying to present themselves as knowledgeable to explain their stance. Some people unrealistically argued that if Walmart or any company were selling products with our Universal Flag on it, we should find them and teach them. Others protested by saying things like, "we are not under the government", "Universal Shaamgaud didn't do it, do you think you are smarter than him", "It doesn't matter, it [the Universal Flag] is for everybody" and etc. It was evident that the rationalizations people made, to justify why they did not want ownership of this invaluable asset, were not legitimate and clearly motivated by something deeper. 

In order to support this initiative, some folks had to justify in their minds why they and others [including the Universal Flag designer Universal Shaamgaud himself], have never done it before. For some folks it was simple; "We are at a point in our Nation's history where we need to own it." For others, it was not that simple. They had to justify a lot in their minds to accept this gift from me. Some people were simply mad that they didn't do it first, and to accept it was to acknowledge my contribution and give me the credit for doing it, even though it was for all of us. Some people were never going to acknowledge it and give me credit, especially those who always had/have something negative to say about me privately and publicly. Some folks felt like me acquiring this IP was me looking down on them and saying that they didn't have the intelligence or skills to do it on their own until I came along. To them, they would rather starve than eat what was being shared them. All of them experienced some level of cognitive dissonance or the discomfort of holding contradictory thoughts. For many, those contradictory thoughts were 1.) We own our Universal Flag 2.) Proof that we don't legally own the Universal Flag because I got the registered trademark for us. For some, they struggled with additional contradictory thoughts. None of what I am sharing is mind reading or speculation. People actually communicated these kinds of sentiments privately and publicly when this initiative was presented to them. With all of these things going on in some people's minds, some folks came up with a whole bunch of illegitimate reasons why they did not want this for our Nation. These kinds of rationalizations are called "defenses mechanisms" in the world of Psychiatry; strategies that people use to avoid certain thoughts/actions that are unwanted. What was so unwanted? Me, and/or me doing this for us. The only legitimate reason that I heard from a few people is that our collective body of members were not ready for that level of responsibility to represent/protect ourselves in the public domain as legal owners of this IP because they didn't know what we actually had. I anticipated this and that is the reason that I secured it first so that we had it in our possession. It was better to have it, and learn how to use it, than to not have it and watch people keep using it. Some folks accused me of doing things wisdom knowledge, or backwards, which is untrue. I knew all about it, did it, and shared the best part with others; that is knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Others who knew nothing about possessing a registered trademark felt like they were forced to do things wisdom knowledge, which is also untrue. All they needed to do is now invest time to learn more about what was now in their possession to use for the benefit of our Nation; that is also knowledge, wisdom and understanding. They were in a perfect position to learn more about what they now legally owned and how it could be used. Not that day, weeks, or even months later. It could have been a year to that date that folks finally educated themselves enough about owning this invaluable asset and how to actually use it. 

     2021 was a pivotal moment in our Nation's history. It was post-Covid, we were "displaced" from our community as I shared in my article Anchor Institutions and the Fate of Allah School in Mecca, we were poorly represented in the public domain and facing dire socioeconomic circumstances. At the date of this writing, all of things have only gotten worst and no one has come forward with anything tangible that addresses all of these National issues. I think failing to accept ownership of our registered trademark was a missed opportunity for us to use this invaluable asset to legally protect our image/narrative in the public domain, improve our collective quality of life, and create multi-capital for our Nation's growth and development, in perpetuity. I would love for someone, or others, to come along and legitimately prove me otherwise. Not with economic development presentation pitches with no capital investment, crochet crown and lapel pin fundraisers, or livestream/podcast monologues called 'classes'. I commend folks for at least doing something, yet none of those things are really moving the needle forward. If they were, we would see the evidence in actual attendance, participation, financial investment, and viewership. Unfortunately, we don't see that evidence. And no, I don't see myself as our Nation's savior on some high horse with the answer to solve all of our problems. I am just one person, who shared an excellent idea, that would have surely solved some of our problems. Three years later, how have we benefitted from not owning this registered trademark? I honestly cannot think of one example. You might be wondering what ended up happening to the IP huh? Well, let me tell you a story, it's called The Magic Stone

The Magic Stone

     Once upon a time there was a people living in a distance land, struggling from a famine that ravished their entire village. Food was scarce, sickness was common, and people suckled cactuses to get what little water that they had. One of their family members seeking to assist his people set out on a perilous journey beyond the borders of their homelands. After a year of roaming the lands, the family member came upon a quarry of magic stones that possessed limitless power to change one's circumstances. Excited, the family member began to make his way back to his village to share one of the magic stones with his people. When he arrived at his village and announced his discovery, a great disturbance arose among his people. While some of his people were thankful, some verbally attacked and threatened to physically harm him. Some of the more superstitious family members began to share legends as reasons why their wisest elders never had the magic stone, so they shouldn't either, despite the desolate condition they were now living in. Others arrogantly dismissed it, boasting that they could have gotten the magic stone themselves, and he was no better than them. Some family members began to spread lies about him and the magic stone, sowing seeds of doubt to turn people against him and his gift. Some family members secretly suggested that he not allow other family members to have possession of the magic stone, while other family members asked him to allow their council to control it. Some family members outright refused the magic stone, believing that he should have asked them did they want it, even though it was clear that their people needed it. After three days of fasting and consideration, he had an epiphany. The next day he came before the village and announced that because his people could only agree that there was no agreement about what to do with the magic stone, he would destroy it. And he did. 

The End

Peace,

Saladin