history – Fried Chicken & Philosophy

September 8, 2026 czvasser Fried Chicken

8 Generations

I loved my grandmother dearly but didn’t have enough time with her. She died when I was 9. I still think of her almost every day. She taught me so many foundational things I couldn’t begin to list them. I can’t remember her voice, but I remember her face, smile, and hair as I do my own hands. I was fortunate to be her grandchild.

But she was my grandmother. Not a great, great, or great. I agonize when I reflect on the 8 generations of Black people that suffered the pain, weight, and indignity of slavery in America. I feel all the hurt of those grandmothers that saw their children raised as chattel. Even more horrible was being born free, living free, only to have your father murdered and your mother raped before being sold off and you, you raped and beaten for the rest of your unnatural life. Surely living as a slave was an unnatural life.

Whips, chains and servitude until you died. There was no peaceful death during sleep only release.

161 years, almost another 8 generations since the civil war, grandmothers still agonize their children growing up in institutional segregation, poverty and disenfranchisement.

And HISTORY is the cruelest part of this. History is written every day. A generation is 20-30 years, and in 30 years, history will suggest now was a wonderful time to be alive. How we have come a long way since Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, but tell a mother whose son is killed tomorrow because he reached for a bag of Skittles that we had more benefits, more “freedom” than ever before. That our futures are brighter than ever. The real truth is HISTORY is the greatest liar of all. Living in the moment is truth. The TRUTH is the second-class treatment, perception, and opportunity we endure today would break my grandmother’s heart.

I don’t have a picture of my grandmother. She only lives in my mind. The only image of her final days lives with me. Everyone else has passed away or wasn’t there. She was beautiful in so many ways and, though I tried, I couldn’t find an image that conveyed her grace.

June 2, 2025 czvasser Afroticity, Fried Chicken

Angry Man

“To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.”
John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke was an African-American historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies, and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s. They New York Times called him a self-made and angry man.

“If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action.” — Carter G. Woodson

May 26, 2025 czvasser Afroticity, Fried Chicken

Africa

Africa, the “Mother Continent,” is the oldest inhabited continent on Earth. The Egyptian civilization is more than 5,000 years old. There were other civilizations in Africa before Egypt. Egypt is an African country. Its people are African.

Africa is home to more countries than any other continent in the world. These countries are: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea and the island countries of Cape Verde, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Comoros.

The most populous country in Africa is Nigeria with 206 million people. The United States has 340 million people. There are 50 million people that identify as African American in the U.S. That’s roughly 15 percent.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER: Countries of the world continue to plunder Africa and it’s to the their benefit to strike deals and bully individual countries rather than work with a United Africa. Bully Economic Countries will keep Africa “Third World” forever. Just as those countries stole 15 million people from Africa and made them slaves, they will continue to keep Africa subjugated. Economic Slavery never ended.

You’re concerned with African history when you should be concerned with African future. A rising tide rises all boats. As the worth of African people rise so will the worth of the diaspora and blacks in America. We’re the orphaned children of Mother Africa. No great grandmothers or great grandfathers. No ancestral home. No real place to call home in America. Slavery severed ties and destroyed, erased and corrupted us forever. We are qualified as African-Americans. Is that another way to say 4/5s. We continue to build boats and sailing ships in anticipation of better seas.