Before I get going with the subject of this month's column, a little background:

When I was a 6-year-old, back in Brooklyn, my mother decided to go against the grain. Instead of sending me to a public school, she enrolled me in a private school founded by pan-Africanists and black revolutionaries.

The goal of this institution was simple, though far from easy: the decolonization of young African-American minds by systematically dismantling and removing all the oppressive ideas planted there by their former enslavers, in order to elevate self-esteem, deepen spirituality, broaden cultural references, shape social values and heighten political awareness.