The Liberator Magazine Question
Liberator Magazine editor, Brian Kasoro, asks:
At the beginning of 2009, we had to make a pivotal decision: Do we take the quick path of artificial inflation and seek protection under the umbrella of a financial master with loans, credit debt, and grant money? Or, do we cook this Liberator project slow and prudently, with grassroots support directly from the people?
Well of course we know the answers to these questions. There would be no point in calling “Liberator Magazine” Liberator Magazine without some behavior related to liberation. It’s like Make Magazine being funded entirely by corporate entities that really don’t want people to build and think for themselves—such liberation from dependence on corporate, “ease-of-use” products is suicidal for such investors.
I’m going to dare to make one small assumption about Liberator Magazine: this is a venture that sees nothing wrong with the concept that peoples of African descent should be interested in subjects that are undeniably African (and the punch line: everyone on Earth is of African descent). Denial about such a “strange” interest is implied constantly. It is the current American trend—an America that used to call rock-n-roll “animalistic nigger bop” has built a multibillion dollar business empire on Black graves of people they ultimately hate. Every time a white kid in Nebraska says the word “cool” she is dipping in the Black pool. This white kid does not have bow down to every person of color she sees—you would think that eventually she would get tired of being called “white” and start to question for something else (and not some hippie colorblind bullshit but something else).
This American trend has a Roman heritage. The Imperial Roman traditionally despised the weak—this is what the coliseum gladiator represents. Because traditional Africa was collectively unable to independently conceive of nuclear weapons—and other technical systems of “high” civilization—Africa is “weak” by the Roman standard. Why bother to waste precious fossil-fuel energy on showing “politically correct” respect to the weak? Too many African young people—properly assimilated to the “real world” of white empire—know this Roman romance very well. So when Brian Kasoro goes on to ask for funding for a symbol of non-Roman liberation, I’m sure he knows how much popularity is opposed to him:
We need at least 32 more people to join us and at least match the average $14 a month donation that the current 32 North Star donors are contributing. Or, whatever you can give. And that would complete this effort. The long journey to grassroots stability for The Liberator would be complete, allowing us to focus our complete energies on the magazine in 2010 with some serious force.
Please sign up here to donate monthly: liberatormagazine.com/northstars.
~Thank you.
My vision of these 32 people does not include people who are already in some kind of Black-liberation media business (like me). It does not include people who have written for Liberator Magazine (like me). What about the people who just want to be a part of an ‘audience’—what happened to that honorable middle class? What about the people who are paying a $60+ cable bill for “entertainment”—don’t some of these folks read Liberator Magazine? What about the people who are affluent enough to not only have a computer (and a “smart” phone) but they also have a Facebook.com account, adorned with photos of expensive things in the frame? Don’t these people have a relatively small contribution for Brian and company?