The Problem
The situation with Javits Frimpong is heartbreaking and sad. The people involved must be held accountable, and so should their parents. We should demand that the parents answer questions.
But this is a reflection of a much deeper problem in our community. Our youth are operating with no moral code. No values, no ethics, no morals, and no accountability for their behavior. Anything is acceptable in the name of money and status. Violence, gun violence, doing harm to others: for too many of our young boys, this is the norm.
Humans don’t come out like this naturally, with so much wickedness and a mind and spirit set on doing evil in the world. So I have to ask: who taught you to behave this way? Who taught you violence was good? Who taught you that doing harm to others was good?
The Black community has a human cultivation problem, and no one wants to take accountability, both the men and the women. These are our kids. Who is raising them? Who is teaching them to live life wrong?
This Is Not Our Culture
Before colonization and before slavery, what was the culture of Black people, whether you believe you’re indigenous to America or you came from Africa? Our ancestors lived by a moral code. They had values, principles, and a way of life that held people accountable to their families and their communities. This was never our culture or way of life. Even during slavery and after slavery, this was not us. So where did this come from? Who has been teaching Black people in America to be this way?
The American Media Machine
I believe it’s the American media machine. I’m not blaming hip hop or rap. Rappers are just people from extreme poverty who are being used as pawns to advance an agenda.
If this was never our culture, who taught Black people to sell poison to their own communities and destroy them? Who taught us to worship money and to value it more than human life itself? Look at the rappers. They are emulating drug dealers. So ask who inspired Frank Lucas, Nicky Barnes, Bumpy Johnson and others. These men wanted to be Al Capone, John Gotti, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, the Gambinos. These are not African or indigenous people. We are idolizing white gangsters, profiting from destruction, and calling it the right way to live. That is a value system where money and status come before everything, including human life. The American media machine glorifies it, and that is where it starts in our community.
Values, Not Circumstances
Think about the kids in Gaza and Lebanon who are being bombed every day. They have lost family and friends. Sometimes they don’t have food to eat, clean water, or even medical care. Their hospitals are being blown up. If you put those same kids here, they wouldn’t steal, they wouldn’t fight, and they would respect their neighbors, and they come from a far more impoverished situation. The difference isn’t money. The difference is they were raised with a moral code.
Meanwhile, young Black kids are throwing fits because they want Balenciaga. No respect, no values, failing at school, and the parents buy them designer clothes. We are rewarding the behavior instead of correcting it.
Who Is Raising Our Kids
What’s missing, I feel, is a strong sense of morality and values. A lot of our youth are operating with no moral code and no accountability for their behavior. There is also no system of human cultivation in our community to teach them any different. Everyone is busy chasing money. Who’s watching the kids? We leave them with a nanny, and our kids are being raised by TV. TV is raising them, music is raising them, social media is raising them. These mediums have been brainwashing and corrupting the minds of Black youth for the last 50 to 60 years.
And people are profiting from it. Balenciaga is making money. Private prisons are making money. Legalized weed stores are making money. The system will give you hundreds of millions of dollars if you assist in the destruction of Black and brown communities and minds. All the negative things we do were taught to us. Its purpose is to glorify drugs and gang violence and to teach people no self-esteem and no self-worth, along with materialism, hypersexuality, and immoral lifestyles. None of this is native to our culture.
What Was Kept Hidden
Realize this: the people who rule the world and build nations study your history. They study how Egypt was built. They study how Carthage was built. They study how Sumeria was built and run. They study the moral and spiritual systems that held those civilizations together. They take our culture and our history, keep it hidden from us, and then go out and make themselves successful. They have a deeper understanding of our people, and they use it to their advantage and to suppress us. These things are kept hidden so that we can’t cultivate ourselves. That’s all it is.
Where We Start
We must wake up and take back our children, take back our minds, and reconnect with the values our ancestors lived by. Our kids need a moral code, and so do we.
I want to share one of the oldest moral codes in the world, and it’s African. It’s called the 42 Laws of Maat. These are the morals and values our ancestors built successful societies on: how to treat each other, how to carry yourself, and how to move through the world in good faith. Written evidence of Maat goes back about 4,700 years, but according to the Egyptians themselves, it is far older. It has been kept from us for far too long.
Our community and our youth need a set of principles, so that when they go out into the world, they can say: “These are all the things I know not to do, to make sure I’m functioning well in the world.”
Now imagine if someone had sat those boys down every morning before they left the house and had them say: I will not kill. I will not be violent. I will not be angry without cause. I will not burn with rage. I will not make anyone weep. Maybe they would have gone out into the world with a different mindset, no matter how they felt that day. Maybe they would have made a different decision.
This situation is that serious. Before we send our boys out into the world, we should have them recite all 42, so they start every day grounded in morality, values, and living life right. Say it in the morning to set your intention. Say it at night to hold yourself accountable. Read it with your kids, and read it yourselves.
I will be making more resources available, but this is where we start. The full list is in the appendix below.
The 42 Laws of Maat
What Is Maat?
Maat was the ancient Egyptian principle of truth, justice, balance, order, and harmony. The Egyptians also pictured her as a goddess, shown with a single ostrich feather on her head. Maat was the order that kept the universe running, and everyone from the pharaoh to the farmer was expected to live by it. Its opposite was isfet: chaos, injustice, and disorder.
In the Egyptian view of the afterlife, the heart of the deceased was weighed against Maat’s feather. The person then spoke 42 declarations of innocence before 42 judges. These are also called the 42 Negative Confessions. The purpose was a life lived in truth and balance, where your character, your family, and your community stay in order.
How to Practice It
Some people today turn these declarations into a daily practice, done twice a day.
Morning. Read the “I will not” version out loud. You are setting your intention for the day: this is what I will not do.
Night. Read the “I have not” version out loud and answer honestly. If there is something you did, don’t skip over it. Name it, make it right with whoever you wronged, and decide what you will do differently tomorrow. That’s how you hold yourself accountable.
Parents can do this with their kids, one line at a time.
The 42 Declarations
I will not do wrong. / I have not done wrong.
I will not rob with violence. / I have not robbed with violence.
I will not steal. / I have not stolen.
I will not kill anyone. / I have not killed anyone.
I will not steal grain. / I have not stolen grain.
I will not steal offerings. / I have not stolen offerings.
I will not steal the property of God. / I have not stolen the property of God.
I will not tell lies. / I have not told lies.
I will not take away food. / I have not taken away food.
I will not curse. / I have not cursed.
I will not commit adultery. / I have not committed adultery.
I will not make anyone weep. / I have not made anyone weep.
I will not grieve without cause. / I have not grieved without cause.
I will not attack anyone. / I have not attacked anyone.
I will not be deceitful. / I have not been deceitful.
I will not steal land. / I have not stolen land.
I will not eavesdrop. / I have not eavesdropped.
I will not slander anyone. / I have not slandered anyone.
I will not be angry without cause. / I have not been angry without cause.
I will not violate another man’s wife. / I have not violated another man’s wife.
I will not pollute myself. / I have not polluted myself.
I will not cause terror. / I have not caused terror.
I will not transgress. / I have not transgressed.
I will not burn with rage. / I have not burned with rage.
I will not shut my ears to words of truth. / I have not shut my ears to words of truth.
I will not blaspheme. / I have not blasphemed.
I will not be violent. / I have not been violent.
I will not stir up strife. / I have not stirred up strife.
I will not judge hastily. / I have not judged hastily.
I will not pry into matters that are not mine. / I have not pried into matters that are not mine.
I will not talk too much. / I have not talked too much.
I will not do harm or evil to anyone. / I have not done harm or evil to anyone.
I will not work treason against the king. / I have not worked treason against the king.
I will not pollute the water. / I have not polluted the water.
I will not speak with arrogance. / I have not spoken with arrogance.
I will not curse God. / I have not cursed God.
I will not act with pride. / I have not acted with pride.
I will not steal from the poor. / I have not stolen from the poor.
I will not take the food of a child. / I have not taken the food of a child.
I will not try to raise myself above others. / I have not tried to raise myself above others.
I will not increase my wealth except by what is mine. / I have not increased my wealth except by what is mine.
I will not scorn God. / I have not scorned God.