KENDRA SCHAFYYA

• A man: I want happiness.
• Buddha: First remove "I", that's ego, then remove "want", that's desire. See? Now you are left with happiness.

Look behind you. Are you leaving a trail of bodies in your wake?

African Killer Bees

• *: How much do you know about African killer bees? I heard about them some years back when they were causing a panic in Texas and Florida. The way the media made it sound, another "African plague was threatening the innocent people of our country." All I'd hear was that the African "killer bees" were 10 times more deadly than "normal" bees. So I looked it up. After some research, I realized something: These bees are no different from us.
• The Bees: First of all, they're not purely "African." They're actually a mixed breed. In the Americas, these "Africanized" bees descended from 26 African queen bees accidentally released in Brazil by a biologist named Warwick Kerr. Kerr had been interbreeding the common Italian honey bees with bees from Tanzania in southern Africa. Hives containing these particular queens were noted to be especially defensive. Kerr was attempting to breed a strain of bees that would work better in tropical conditions than the weak European bees used in the Americas. But after their release, these 26 African queen bees mated with local bees from Europe, and their descendants have since spread throughout the Americas.
• You: You see the relation yet? Who was brought to work? Think about the Americas... and the mixture of Africans and Europeans... what (or who) did it make?
• Bees: These Africanized bees are tough. They're known for having much greater defensiveness than European honey bees. They are more likely to attack a perceived threat and, when they do so, attack in larger numbers. This is how they earned the nickname "killer bees."
• You: Think some more. Think about how we respond to any threat, real or perceived. See the connection yet?
• The Bees: The reason for this ferocity goes back to the roots. In central and southern Africa, bees have had to defend themselves against other aggressive insects, as well as animals that destroy hives if the bees are not sufficiently defensive. In addition, instead of beekeeping, when people wanted honey, they would seek out a bee tree and kill the colony, or at least steal its honey. The colony most likely to survive either animal or human attacks was the fiercest one. Thus the African bee naturally developed ferocity.
• You: Now think about which group of people in America suffered the most abuse, and had to fight back the most. What did that do to them?
• The Bees: But not all Africanized hives are defensive; some are quite gentle, which gives a beginning point for beekeepers to breed a gentler stock. This has been done in Brazil, where bee incidents are much less common than they were during the first wave of the Africanized bees' colonization.
• You: Sounds like how, since slavery, the strength and aggressiveness of Blacks has been seen as a threat, leading people and institutions to cultivate weakness in young Black people. By grooming young Black people, especially men, to be "gentle," less and less people rebel and fight back against threats and abuse.
• The Bees: In places where the Africanized bee has been "re-domesticated," it is considered the bee of choice for beekeeping in Brazil. It is not only more well-adapted to the tropics, but more industrious than European bees.
• You: Ah, just as the "gentle" Negro is the best Negro, right? Think about it. This generation of passive, obedient Black men works harder (for whites), only to receive nothing, except for a pat on the head here and there.
• The Bees: Still, the Africanized bee is widely feared by the public, due mostly to sensationalist movies and exaggerated media reports. In truth, the sting from a "killer" bee contains less venom than the sting from a regular bee, and they've only killed about 14 people altogether, which means that they're actually less dangerous than most venomous snakes. But as the bee spreads through southern America, officials worry that public fear may force misguided efforts to combat them.
• You: The bottom line is, not matter what, you're still a nigger. You're still a dangerous, deadly nigger that needs to be exterminated. No matter how good or bad you are, you will be painted in that light, and many people will deal with you based on those perceptions.
• The Bees: The strategy to reduce the "threat" is to breed "gentle" qualities into these bees until they are hard-working and strong, but no longer defensive or aggressive.
• You: I'm sure you've had about enough of this madness.