Language does not equal Culture

So I was uptown politickin with some Egyptologists and I should have known there would be contradictions…There were plenty, but the thing that sticks in my craw a day later was the idea that we just need to learn African languages. You know the argument, we speaking the white man’s language so no matter what, whatever we think is still gonna fall into the trap of fitting into the white man’s oppression.

Language is an expression of culture. I had to agree on this point. A alien culture was imposed on us by stripping us of our language and forcing us to speak European languages. I had to agree here. But then, a brother equated the two, culture and language. If we learn African languages we will regain our African culture. Language is a product of culture, not the other way around.

We can learn African languages, we can put on African clothes, but this is not necessarily substantive change. You could still be thinking and acting in a capitalist\reactionary manner. You still haven’t created a Revolutionary culture. Once you build a Revolutionary culture, you at the same time create a language. When the Panthers called the cops pigs, that was a product of Revolutionary culture, When the Rastas call the cops Babylon it is also a product of culture. It is still the English language, but language isn’t stagnant, it grows because it comes out of your culture and your culture is dynamic. We must build a Revolutionary culture. We must start with principles we want to live by. Let principles be what guides us and what we judge everything by.