Something To Think About

I don’t need to retell the story of what happened to us, we know that since 1619 Black people have been in this land they called “merica” for centuries as indentured servants, slaves, property, 2nd class "citizens", the list goes on.

During slavery, we were taught through examples of violence to downplay our children's accomplishments for fear of calling attention to them and thus making them a target for racial discrimination. For example knowing how to read was shrouded in secrecy, which had validity to some degree and a dramatic effect on self-confidence that we are still paying the price for today.

We have created a form of mental slavery whereby reason is of the abstract. We know slavery was horrible, but we are taught and perpetuate every day in subtle and not so subtle ways the same conditioning. They say segregation has ended, which means the horrors of Black Wall Street, American before Brown v Board of Education, Rosewood and frankly all of our American history never existed because of integration. We seem to have forgotten what Malcolm said, “Anywhere south of Canada was south” and by extension caused a separation of unity within the black community.

Let me be clear, integration was necessary to short circuit the INSTITUTIONALIZED system of “separate but equal” but it diluted the focus on economic independence in our communities. Therefore, the unintended consequence of this was to further separate our people. Cognitive dissonance is the root of all of this, in my opinion. This conflict in reality coupled with what we are taught has caused far-reaching mental and emotional issues that we do not face or deal with as a people. We fight, blame and mistrust each other because of this and do not focus on the true issues.

At the end of the day, regardless of how we choose to identify ourselves, we are not afforded all of the privileges to which we are entitled in this country simply because of our complexion, which is used as the power to divide and compartmentalize people. Therefore, action is required by the person you see in the mirror and understand that it requires responsibility and unity to do what our forefathers did, which was to continue the species.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you are one of the lost souls. Listen to the words delivered in this short video. It is an old speech but the words and message resonates as clearly as the day they were first spoken. “We can change the world but first we must change ourselves.” And that is my Thought Provoking Perspective.