Thug Life Army

There are some things Afeni Shakur wants you to know about her. She's 57 years old and she's a recovering addict. She sometimes confuses the steps she takes for recovery with the Black Panther Party platform; one has 12, the other has ten. She prays to God a lot and she was a leader in the Black Panther Party, which was really training for where she is today. Oh, and she is late rap icon Tupac Shakur's mother.

Afeni began her speech by reading from the novel by Jasmine Guy, Evolution of a Revolutionary. She then began sharing her thoughts on fear, but not before first quoting Nelson Mandela. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure," said Mandela in his 1994 inaugural acceptance speech.

From fear, Afeni segued into courage, asking that the audience have the courage to stand up to the violence in their own neighborhoods. To stop little kids from being molested. "That's why I''m really here today, y''all. The first part was just to draw you in." When adults are hurting children, it is our duty to not be afraid, to not turn away, but to create a safe area for that child. "Let's start a conspiracy," she said. Afeni's conspiracy would be to stop the violence going on in our neighborhoods.

Part of that means we have to be kinder to each other. Just to illustrate how cruel we can be to each other, she mentioned two words thrown around a lot. The one tossed at women is "bitch." Are the ladies sick of hearing that one or what? Screams of agreement rose from the females in the crowd. And what about that word we call brothers , you know that word. "Nigger." She invited the people in the crowd to call her a nigger, and they did. She outlined that, to be part of the conspiracy, new rules can be created, rules that would get rid of the nasty names we call each other.

As one final piece of advice, Afeni demonstrated to the crowd how she keeps going when the going gets tough. She got down on her knees in the form of prayer.

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