And how long will we continue to suffer from our past?
That could be the second part of the question but it’s really the leading point of this blog. Yet another conversation-inspired blog, I have to say that I’ve been pondering the future of Black folks worldwide. If you wanted to write a book on how to destroy a race of people in such a self-perpetuating way, one would only need to look at slavery in America and the rape of Africa throughout history.
Now, I’m no history expert, but I know a thing or two about a thing or two!
Here in the U.S., Blacks have lived in a state of despair and hopelessness for an eternity. There are still a few glass ceilings we have yet to break through. What I find disturbing (as a side note) is how the anti-affirmative action folks are drooling over Obama’s win. “Well,” they say, “a Black person can become the President. Why do we need to keep helping them?” Are you kidding me? We do know that affirmative action benefitted white women more than any other group, right? Anyway, I digress. Back to the ceilings.... While this country managed to elect a non-white man for its highest office in the land, it still harbors some deep-seeded hate. Not only are there people who hate us but there are some of us that hate us (and white folks). Much of that hate is driven by fear. White people, as a whole, are still scared of Black folks on some level. If you enslave a people and do centuries of irreparable mental damage to them, surely you, as the oppressor, should expect some good old retaliation. Yet, we haven’t. Black men don’t attack white men or women because of some hatred of white people. Most of the time, it’s based on some economic struggle: poverty makes people do bad things.
Let’s not stray off topic....
How long will the politics of fear and the culture of hate that lies just beneath the surface of America continue to thrive? I thought once all the people who remembered slavery, the civil rights movement, and how racism overtly showed itself died we’d somehow manage to start with a clean slate. We’d somehow have a population of people who knew nothing about inequality. Ha...how naive of me! Parents pass their hatred on to their kids and it becomes a cycle of hate. Black parents, in an effort to not give their kids a false sense of hope, remind them of “how things used to be.” But again I ask, “how do we move beyond this?
Is there an answer?
Can we teach our kids, black and white, how to look beyond color, fear, ignorance, and history and to embrace the possibility of unity, mutual respect, and universal love. Will you? Will I?
I often have conversations with friends about interracial dating and there are a few that have some serious issues with it. ”It’s about preserving the Black family,“ they say. ”How can we, as a race, move beyond our problems if we don’t have a strong familial base that starts with a Black mother and father?“ I have a few issues with this thinking. It falls along the same line of thought that says two gay people will raise a gay child. Well, most gay folks were raised by two heterosexual people. There have been plenty of bad Black folks that were raised in two-parent single race families. We can’t automatically believe that a black man and a black woman will raise a good black child. Again, this also points to those same issues. We, as black folks, have so many layers of...wait for it...phuckedupedness that it’s hard to simply wrap some ideal like a black female and black male family structure around the problem. It’s beyond that. We need to look within ourselves and address our own issues about race, family, and human identity. (too deep for ya?)
Why are WE here, on this Earth?
I submit that perhaps we need to adopt a global view of things to put our ills in perspective. The rape of Africa was able to happen because of a few factors: tribal wars, a propensity toward trust, and greed. This, just to name a few. The colonization and de-colonization of several African countries certainly didn’t help (shall we talk about Rwanda?) the cause. It’s like we’ve been phucked up on several fronts in several parts of the world. Yet, we manage to still hold out hope. I, too, am led by this blind hope that we may, one day, remove the shackles of the mental bondage that has enslaved us for far longer than any person, group, or country has. We may be, one day, be able to put ourselves in the global context and assert ourselves beyond the confines of our history. How lovely it would be for someone to say, ”oh man, we have a black kid in our class; he’s going to phuck up the curve (by getting a 100 on the exam).“ You know, the kind of shit we say when there’s an Asian kid.
This could go on forever!
I am simply sharing some thoughts. I’d like to have further discussion about this. Perhaps someone will indulge me. Perhaps, I’ll write another part to this because I’m not done! Really, there is so much to say! So...first Miss America (Vanessa Williams), then President (Barack Obama), and then a new world view of people of color that’s positive?!?!?! Hmmmm....
Peace!
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