Are we "under" the government?

Photos: Jamel Shabazz

      Over the years I have often heard the phrase, "we are not 'under the government'" by some Five Percenters who used it as their reasoning for not participating in various aspects of American life as citizens. Sometimes it was legitimate, like when they exercise free speech, the practice of religion or right to peacefully assemble; all things that our government cannot interfere with. In other cases, that phrase has been used to support some pretty illegitimate claims. Take going to college for example. In the early days of the Five Percent Nation, the pursuit of higher education was often rejected by some Five Percenters who considered it believing in the teachings of the 10%, AKA "the white man's education" and being "under the government." Thus, the path of academic achievement was closed, equated with evil, and those who considered college were often ridiculed. It took one of our ridiculed pioneers, UM-Allah, to attend and graduate from college with a master's degree to show the real value of higher education to others. In time, others eventually began to attend college. I got knowledge of self in college from my enlightener [educator]. He got knowledge from his educator while attending college. His educator also got knowledge from his educator while he attended college in the 1970s. This rejection of higher education and apprehension about academics can still be seen among some Five Percenters today by their overt/covert attacks and snide remarks about the world of academia and those of us who successfully work in and navigate these spaces. These anti-intellectuals are obsessively skeptical of anything academic and show disdain for people whom they believe are educated or affiliated with the government. This distorted perspective has also been used to reject citizenry rights like acquiring marriage, driver's and business licenses, various forms of insurance, home mortgages, paying taxes, and anything else connected to a local, county, state or federal government. It brings to mind the concept of sovereignty, yet this "we are not under the government" mentality is far from what true independence would actually require.

     

    Through my travels, I have gotten to know some folks who are pretty serious about sovereignty. From homesteaders living in solar powered earth-shelters that you can't find on Google Maps, to remote militants stockpiling munitions and food for their fallout shelters. Fron indigenous peoples who are still getting water out of wells, to tribesman living in villages where Verizon doesn't get service. In all of these cases, they are living in rural areas. What I have yet to see is sovereignty fully actualized in large metropolitan areas such as New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, etc. where its citizenry heavily relies upon its city, county, state, and federal government services to support their way of life. This is especially true for those of us who are receiving some form of public assistance, SSI, or SSD. It is difficult to claim autonomy, self-governance, or independence while being in that position as a citizen. Allah himself, who founded the Five Percent Nation in 1964, was intimately connected to his city, county, state and federal government. It was through these government bodies that he was able to successfully assist the youth. 

     Let's start by saying that Allah was an American citizen born Clarence Smith in Dansville, Virginia in 1928 and appears in the government census records of his household during that time period. After moving to NYC in the 1950s he got legally married to Dora Smith, in accordance with the city, county, state and federal marriage laws, and paid the accompanying license filing fees. He eventually took an oath to this government by enlisting in the U.S. Army and saw combat during the Korean War. Following his discharge from the U.S. military, Allah joined the Nation of Islam where his wife Dora was a member; which is a religious tax-exempt organization according to the city, county, state and federal laws of the U.S. government. He also had children with his wife Dora Smith, and partner Willeen Jowers, who all had birth certificates and social security numbers that were registered in the city/county hospital where they were born. After leaving the Nation of Islam, Allah and some of his colleagues founded the Five Percent Nation. His entire life, just like ours, was connected to government.

     When our Five Percent Nation began to grow amongst the youth throughout the boroughs of New York, Mayor John Lindsay, a Liberal Republican, formed a relationship with Allah through his Aide Barry Gottehrer and Executive Assistant Sid Davidoff. Mayor Lindsay was a clean-cut lawyer by profession who graduated from Yale University. A former U.S. Congressman and a gunnery officer in the United States Navy, Lindsay was also affiliated with the Bush family. Lindsay ushered at the wedding of Nancy Bush, the sister of former CIA Director and POTUS George HW Bush Sr, and this is where he met his bridesmaid wife Mary Anne. Barry Gottehrer was an investigative journalist prior to becoming an Aide in the Lindsay Administration. His insightful award-winning newspaper series "New York City in Crisis" laid bare the racial and socioeconomic problems in NYC. Considered a political hatchet job, his New York Herald-Tribune series attacked the policies of current Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner II and painted an untainted picture of the Herald-Tribune's endorsed candidate Congressman John Lindsay. This compelled Lindsay to add Gottehrer, and his political narrative shaping expertise, to his Administrative Staff once he was elected Mayor. Sid Davidoff was Mayor Lindsay's troubleshooting consigliere. Another lawyer by profession and visiting lecturer at Lindsay's alma mater Yale University, Davidoff was considered one of President Nixon's worst enemies. Davidoff was named among other political opponents as part of Nixon's covert "Political Enemies Project" list that was revealed during the Senate Watergate Committee investigating the Watergate scandal. It was through these relationships that Allah became intimately connected to his city, county, state and federal government. Through these strategic partnerships, Allah was able to successfully acquire resources to produce projects, programs and initiatives that his Five Percenters used to positively transform their lives and the landscape of Harlem and NYC as a whole.

The Universal Flag and its designer, Universal Shaamgaud Allah

     Upon Allah's approval of our Five Percent Nation's Universal Flag design by Universal Shaamgaud Allah, flag lapel pins were eventually financed and created "under" the direction of the NYC government. Allah was obviously not anti-government so in collaboration with Mayor Lindsay's office, Lindsay had our lapel pins created by Eagle Regalia; a manufacturing company that was founded in NYC in 1910 that specialized in the production of banners, flags, emblematic jewelry, buttons, badges, plaques, and trophies. In addition to our flag lapel pins, Eagle Regalia also created the licensed badges of the NYPD and other government agencies in New York. According to our nation elders, young Five Percenters would be given a flag lapel pin with their righteous name inscribed on it. When a Five Percenter chose a righteous name and earned or was given a lapel pin, it was distributed at the Street Academy [Allah School]; a government property given to the Five Percenters with a ninety-nine-year lease by the Lindsay Administration in 1967. To receive a lapel pin Five Percenters were required to write down their honorable name [birth name] in a book with their righteous name beside it. Some lapel pins had names already inscribed on them. Other lapel pins were blank and were sent out to have their name inscribed on them. These lapel pins were more than just decorative symbols of our cultural identity, accomplishment, and pride. They enabled Allah, in partnership with the city government, to better organize, document, monitor, and deputize a growing youth movement into an unrivaled dynamic of political power. A powerful segment of New York's citizenry that the NY Daily News partly described as "the neighborhoods most respected." On the night of April 4th, 1968 when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, Mayor Lindsay contacted Sid Davidoff and Barry Gottehrer about coming to Harlem to pay his respects and offer his condolences to the people. Against their advice to not come because they could not guarantee his safety, Mayor Lindsay came to Harlem anyway and met with Gottehrer and Davidoff along with Allah and a group of his Five Percenters. As they began to walk the streets of Harlem, people began to join them and together they successfully stopped the Harlem community from rioting.

Universal Parliament, P.S. 154 Harriet Tubman elementary school 
[November 28th, 1982]

     Since our formal inception, we did not seek to be sovereign or nationalized as a government within a government. Allah was a tax paying American citizen who was invested in working with the city, county, state and federal government to help his Five Percenters become productive civic-minded members of this society. Our unique culture was, and is, a way to facilitate that process. It is through our culture that people learn to think global and live as local citizens. At the same time, Allah was not advocating blind assimilation or being a part of "the dead world." He advocated the acquisition of sociopolitical power through showing that our Nation is equal to all nations through the science of education. When Allah saw his young Five Percenters hanging out, he would tell them to go to school and/or get trade in order to make something of themselves and not become a burden to society as juvenile delinquents. He didn't just say this. As I shared, in 1967 with the assistance of city government, Allah established our Allah School in Mecca Street Academy as a brick-and-mortar institution for youth/community outreach within the Harlem community. When young Five Percenters got jammed up with the law Allah even instructed them to turn themselves in to take responsibly for the situation. It's wild to me when I hear Five Percenters trying to avoid the government when our own founder had one of the best rapports that a citizen could have with their local government.

 

     Growing up in Western New York I have had the privilege of knowing, working with and being with many members of the sovereign Six Nations; the Cayuga, Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga and Tuscarora. When I was a child, I invested a lot of time on the Tuscarora Reservation because my Ole Dad was friends with the Chief. In later years once I got knowledge of self and began to hear some of these Five Percenter ideas about "not being under the government", I immediately recognized that most of those folks were regurgitating something they heard, read online, or saw in YouTube videos. I could tell that they really had no clue what sovereignty and self-governance practically look like. Even though I've seen some well-intended people seeking sovereignty, most of these folks were males who were trying to avoid the government for less than noble reasons. Most of them wanted to assume a different legal identity to allude past debts like child support/arrears, taxes or to hide criminal background records that they couldn't get expunged. I also realized that most of these folks claiming that they were not "under the government" didn't consider the real responsibility that comes along with it. Self-governance, forging a court system, institution building, credentialing professionals, obtaining housing and etc. hits different when financial institutions, hospitals, county buildings, utility companies, wireless service providers, insurance agencies and automotive dealers don’t provide services in your sovereign jurisdiction. It does not mean that this idea is impossible. As I shared earlier, I know folks in non-metropolitan areas who are serious about sovereignty. What this does means that folks talking like, sitting online in the middle of some of the largest cities in America, must be willing to make serious sacrifices in order to truly live that out. Most folks aren't even built for that and this is the reason they promote what I call a quasi-dual citizenship game; having one foot in and one foot out, when it fits their narrative. In other words, we don't want to get married "under the government", but we will fight somebody at the county building if they try to cut our food stamps or HUD tries to kick us off of Section-8 housing. Some of us claim that we are not "under the government" but actively participate in lawless activities that makes us criminally subject to and under the surveillance of the government. How does that work? Some of us play this quasi-dual citizenship game to get benefits from this government as one of its citizens but then claim independence when we are expected to do something for this government in return. Some people believe that they should be able to buy property and open a business that people patronize, yet they should not have to license that entity, pay insurance, legal fees, permits, taxes, and etc. that ultimately provides the fire, police and other city, county, state, and federal services that protect that property, patrons and supports that business. Does that seem fair to you? People often want what they want, and don't think about where our public, social, emergency, city, county, state, and federal services come from, who pays for these services, and the people who perform these jobs? Historically, Black/Brown communities have often paid for these kinds of government services that support adjacent white communities without receiving them in return, so I understand that inequality. The folks that I am talking about are not people fighting for that kind of sociopolitical justice and equity. I'm talking about folks that are selfish; those who express the same Capitalistic mentality as those historical white communities who have kept/keep us apart from their own socioeconomics and enrich themselves from our labor. 

Photos: Jamel Shabazz

    Under the U.S. government are the legislative, executive, and judicial branches whose powers are granted by the Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the Federal courts, respectively. As American citizens, we are subject to the federal, state, county, and local laws where we live. Before we even open our eyes each day, we have some form of engagement with these entities. Even if we are not gainfully employed, have health or dental care, or a checking account, we are still American subjects. Some of us, probably more than others, are American subjects because we are clearly being supported by some person, people, and government entities. That's humbling to say the least and you would think that folks would be more modest when they are in that position. I definitely was when I experienced this, and still am, regardless of my station in life. Oftentimes, it is the loudest mouths among us who claim that we are not "under the government" who are usually the most reliant upon, or beholden to, our government. From my engagement with them, I can also see that they have never taken a civics class, engaged in the political process, pursued higher education, gotten therapy, or invested in any forms of professional development. These are the adults who have publicly argued that the letters in our English alphabet don't have a corresponding numerical place value, as in A =1, B =2, C= 3, etc. These are the same adults who believe that owning a federally registered trademark of their flag's elements will put their people... who are already American citizens or citizens of other Nations..., "under the government."

Peace,

Saladin

Should Allah's Five Percent Form a Tribal Government?

   On October 18th, 2019 the Yanadameen Godcast, a Youtube podcast hosted by Hip Hop Artists Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian and Rah Digga of the Flipmode Squad, was joined by Actor, Hip Hop Artist and Community Advocate Born Mastermind Allah to discuss nation building and steps needed to form a tribal government. This episode highlighted an initiative spearheaded by Born Mastermind to nationalize Allah's Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths into a tribal government. You can view this episode in its entirety HERE. 

     While this was the first time that many Five Percenters became aware of this initiative I was aware of this for some time before it was publicly shared. The first time I heard about this determined idea was in 2018 during a panel discussion about community building and the political process at our Annual Show and Prove. That panel was coordinated by our late great brother Cee Aaquil Allah, moderated by the elder God Minister Justice and featured King Civilized, Born Mastermind and myself. While King Civilized and myself elaborated on our insight and journey in the political arena and community outreach, Born Mastermind spoke about creating a plebiscite and forming a tribal government. The second time that I heard about this initiative was early 2019 when I built with Born Mastermind in Mecca [Harlem] during the Official Street Naming ceremony. We exchanged math and soon thereafter discussed his initiative more extensively and my projects, programs and initiatives. We also discussed potential collaborations. Following that conversation he also sent me information to do further research and decide if I was willing and able to be involved in this initiative. It was following that initial conversation, unanswered questions I posed, research I did and the cultural inconsistencies I saw that I decided not to be involved. So I ceased to follow-up on the private meeting texts and donation initiative Born Mastermind began to organize around his idea.

    In regards to the cultural inconsistencies I saw, there were things that were not in line with our teachings. In a November 15th, 1967 interview at the Otisville Reformatory School for Boys, Allah, the founder of our Nation of the Five Percent, shared, "I'm not against the United States. The Earth got to be build on. And it's your duty to teach the uncivilized we don't care whether he's black or white," and "... you got to educate these children in a way to show them why they must keep this country themselves, black and white, must unite together... now many of my people are against me." This, among many other statements by Allah, made it clear that he and his Five Percent were not Pro-Black or Anti-White nor were we against American citizenship. Allah, who was a military veteran at this time, did not refer to his Nation as a tribe nor did he promote the idea of being a sovereign body operating apart from the local, state or federal government. 

Who is the Founder of the Five Percent?

     Since our formal inception, we did not need nor seek to be nationalized as a tribal government. Allah’s Five Percent is already a Nation, with a National Flag, a common culture, chronology and land [territories]. When it comes to nationalization, for one to claim federally recognized tribal enrollment status you must prove your ancestry as a descendant of Indigenous People here in North America and/or use other tribal constitution criterion to prove your nationality as outlined by that particular tribe. This means you must show genealogical proof and/or other enrollment criteria that you descend from First Nations People such as the Seneca, Hopi, Olmec, Mayan or any of the other 550+ federally recognized tribes. If you are saying that you were here before these 550+ federally recognized tribes then you must be able to show and prove that. That requires more than books and artifacts in a museum as proof. Although we recognize that we are descendants of First World People, the Original People and fathers and mothers of civilization, and can cite archaeology, paleontology and other facts as evidence to support that, many of us who descended from those First World People have difficulty proving our ancestry genealogically and genetically.
     Forming a tribal government was not Allah’s impetus, program or goal. Allah was practically invested in community outreach and youth advocacy to help his Five Percenters become productive members of this society. Our unique culture was and is a way to facilitate that process. It is through our culture that people learn to think global and live as local citizens. At the same time Allah was not advocating assimilation or being a part of “the dead world.” He advocated the acquisition of power through showing that our Nation is equal to all nations through the science of education. 

   I understand Born Mastermind’s desire for organization, collective work and responsibility. Many of us understand this and are already working individually and collectively within our respective areas as Allah’s Five Percent. Many Five Percenters felt violated, expressed outrage and publicly shared their contempt upon hearing that Born Mastermind along with a small group of people came together as a plebiscite to draw up a constitution, form a government structure and vote to nationalize Allah’s Five Percent and our Flag without our consent. Although Born Mastermind shared his perspectives on nationalization during a 2018 panel discussion I took part in at our Annual Show and Prove, he did not formally bring this initiative before our Universal Parliament for input nor did he share it with many of the elders of our Nation. Many Five Percenters felt blindsided seeing and hearing his tribal government initiative for the first time on a Hip Hop podcast. That shrewd, non-participatory approach often makes any initiative, regardless how well meaning, doomed from the start.

     Living in Western New York I have had the privilege of knowing, working with and being with many members of the sovereign Six Nations; the Cayuga, Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga and Tuscarora. When I was a child I invested a lot of time on the Tuscarora Reservation because my Ole Dad was friends with the Chief. When I first began to see these ideas about sovereignty, particularly among Moorish Science Temple members, I immediately recognized that most of those folks were basing that upon what they read online or saw in YouTube videos. I could tell that they had rarely if ever been around First Nations People, on their territories and had no clue what sovereignty and self governance practically looks like. Even though I've seen some well intended people seeking sovereignty, most of these folks were males interested in forming a tribal government for less than noble reasons. Most of them wanted to assume a different legal identity to allude past debts like child support/arrears, taxes or to hide criminal background records they couldn't get expunged. Whether well intended or not, I also realized that most of these sovereignty seekers didn't consider the real responsibility that comes along with it. Self governance, forging a court system, institution building, credentialing professionals, obtaining housing and etc. hit different when financial institutions, hospitals, county buildings, utility companies, wireless service providers, insurance agencies and automotive dealers don’t provide services in your sovereign jurisdiction. It doesn't mean that the idea of sovereignty is impossible, it means that folks must really be willing to make serious sacrifices in order to truly live that out. Most folks aren't even built for that and this is the reason they promote the dual citizenship game; to have one foot in and one foot out. Some do it to acquire benefits from a society as one of its citizens, but then claim sovereignty when they're expected to do something for that society in return. In other words, I can buy property and open a business people patronize yet not pay any taxes to the society that contributes to the fire, police and other services that protect my property, patrons and supports my business. Does that seem fair to you? 

     I do not consider Born Mastermind’s nationalization initiative, nor his intentions, evil. I do consider them not well thought out, grandiose and culturally inconsistent. I think that he truly thinks that his initiative is in the best interest of Allah’s Five Percent, and like with other controversial decisions he has made concerning our Nation in the past, he is doing things his way regardless to who tells him otherwise or what the consequences are. If the name and flag of the tribal government he was nationalizing was unique, it wouldn’t be problematic. Unfortunately, he is using our Nation's name and flag for his tribal government initiative. When you use the name and flag of any Nation that already exists, that is a serious problem. 
     The bottom line is this: I am not in support of creating a tribal government because Allah’s Five Percent is already an autonomous Nation. That is our body politic. We are culturally self-governed and come together locally, regionally and nationally for Parliaments to build upon how our local and general body is operating in accordance to our culture. If changes need to be made in the best interest of our ciphers then we build upon that and collectively make a decision in the best interest of the body. We have no individual leader and encourage collective leadership with everyone possessing an equal degree of input in our affairs. Our ciphers are a consensus method designed to get everyone’s equal input, not a plebiscite where the few can decide what is best for the many. When the few vote to make decisions for the many that process produces dissatisfaction, dissension and division... Regardless what our profession is, we are Allah’s Five Percent credentialed within various industries. We own property and thus have jurisdictions, as Allah’s Five Percent. We are not in need of autonomous Federal recognition or jurisdiction nor do we need permission to operate as we already do. What we do need is for some of us to realize that we already have everything that we need, and simply build upon that.

Peace,

Saladin