"As long as you are using land in this country, using tools and materials and other resources aquired in from others, you will be dependent to a degree."

I am thinking along Mesnja's lines about what we are using right now to build community: computers, the Net, ISPs, etc. This is a new day for Afrikan people, for Black people. Black people have more tools than ever before. Perhaps people are questioning whether or not people need "technology" at all but this only makes it confusing or more complicated since we still have to buy land with Western money and use other resources controlled by the US.

In my post about self-sufficiency I was just expanding, clarifying the issue from my p.o.v. I am not even talking about compromising but considering what is needed to generate the kind of community engagement and revenue-generation needed to learn or master a variety of tools, including technology. As long as people own or create the content of anything they will have control. Teaching people how to create the content, master the tool(s), etc. will lead to more Black folks owning or controlling something.

It has to start somewhere. Europeans came at the world, at Afrikans from all sides: economically, spiritually, educationally, etc. They created content for the arts, media and print and they conditioned us. We have to do the same, coming from all sides.

"Know thyself"

"Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you". So we may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
-- Hebrews 13:5,6

"There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path"
--Morpheus in "The Matrix"

"It's our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"- Dumbledore to Harry Potter "Chamber of Secrets"