The Demoralization and Oppression of Black people

By Ameera Ashshakir To fully understand the deterioration of our ancient civilizations, culture, and pride as a people so that we may build upon our mistakes to create new solutions, we must first examine the conditions from which we fell, and the reason behind it all. When did the decline of African civilization start? Also, in asking these questions of ourselves, we should take note of the flaws in our past, so that in the construction of new African nations, the same mistakes will not be made. Before the slave trade, before Christianity ran through Africa, and even before the rise of Islam, this is when our security was first breached, and this is where we will start. It can be said with certainty, with twenty-first century technology, that Africa is the birthplace of man-kind, and therefore we can conclude that civilization and society started there millions of years ago, giving the people of the continent a head-start in the building of society. There is a need to look back upon the Golden ages of the continent, during the time when Africa was growing, and developing sciences, spirituality, culture, and law. Through all of this, we had established a strong value system in the family unit, and its place inside of the community. The Nile River became a great expressway in a sense, and brought many tribes and cultures up out of different parts of Africa. Africa was the forerunner of human progress, and this was eventually attractive to other peoples of the world.

While Ethiopia is said to be the birthplace of civilization, Khemet was the first organized nation around 6000 BC. This was the foundation for medicine, science, knowledge, architectural monuments, spiritual systems, physics, astrology, astronomy, theology, and genius. There is no refuting the beauty, intelligence, and power of these nations, but, I must admit that we compromised our security in some ways with the focus on scholastic achievements. Without the marriage of a security mindset, and a greatly intellectual civilization, our back door is then left open to anyone, with no one to protect all that we have accomplished. This was what happened when the hyksos invasion of Khemet lasted four hundred and twenty years, and was ended by the rise of Khemetian nationalism during the 17th dynasty. The same theme was then repeated again and again in Africa, and most of the cause was our open hearts and doors to strangers who wanted to learn our ways. This innocence is what led to the actual replacement of Black people in our own culture, and the imitation of us by the Persian, and Arab people after security had again become lax. This was the beginning of our holocaust as a people. I think that this is something to note; in the future our great societies and empires must be better protected so that the demoralization that it led to will never again be a problem for our people. If you don't appreciate your culture, someone else will most definitely stand in for you as a practiced understudy; this has been proven. The second series of events that led to the predicament that we find ourselves in today is foreign religion. The main contender was and still is Christianity, though Islam is not totally without blame. African spirituality was mostly based on Earth science, and the relationship of the people with the ancestral forces, and the land that sustained all. These spiritual systems reflected on the value of life in general, and helped us to find the purpose in our lives, and individual actions. We lived in societies were there was always enough to live comfortably, and share with others, thereby establishing a much more peaceful relationship with our people. The Arab and the European came into Africa in a state of awe, they had come from deserts, and lands not quite as plush, so all of the resources that we had lived in peace with, and they simply couldnt get enough of. The role of foreign religions was not given as a tool for enlightenment, but was disguised as that, and instead used to force a collective consciousness on a people so that they can be better exploited.

Islam brought the One God concept to Africa around 500BC, and what it also brought and enforced, was a patriarchal lean to the societies that we had built. This had a huge influence on our cultures, morals, and sacred laws. This was the beginning of a new face for Africa; Islam had spread far and wide, drastically changing the way that we looked at the world. Although we were forced by the blade, in many regions to take Islam as our sole belief system, we took it on as puritans of the religion, and adhered strictly to its religious laws. This started some of the in-fighting between us that left even more doors open to Christianity. So, when European explorers came into Africa at first to take resources, and learn our teachings, and later to spread Christianity, we were at a very vulnerable state. Christianity was forced on us in the worst ways; Europeans came into Africa with a gun, and a bible, their tactics ruthless and destructive. This started the slow deterioration of our morality, and our sacred laws built on honor and nobility. Europeans and their Christianity obliterated the cultural unity that we held dear, and individualized certain groups of Africans to help them in the capturing, and enslavement of other Africans. This was the root of the racism that we see today, and the justification for the murderous actions committed against us as a people.

The justification for this action was the spreading of civilization though you and I know that with the incline of Europeans in Africa came the decline of the most paramount of civilizations. Also, this was a so called humanitarian effort that was supposed to build civilization for the uncivilized, yet it was done in the most inhuman, and uncivilized ways possible. Along with the religion, Europeans used rape, murder, threat, and destruction to get their point across, and all of this was done in the name of their God. As said by the respected John Henrik Clarke, When a people assume that their God approves of their criminal action against another people, they have made God ungodly.

Again, a foreign belief system was forced on us, and again, it destroyed our social structures. Christianity introduced to us the concept of looking to a White man as God, and believing fully and completely that this God was all seeing, and all knowing. The religion taught us that nothing was outside of the power of God, and that to disobey God was sin of all sins. Coincidentally, the people who enslaved us just so happened to look like the image of God that was given to us. This was the introduction of not just a physical captivity, but a mental captivity as well. This was the door of no return. This genocidal experience was wrongly called the Atlantic slave trade, as to trade means; the exchange of products or services, and there was nothing that could have been bartered that was equal to the amount of lives that we lost in this collective murder. We were subjected to a catastrophic change from the free, interdependent way that we had lived, to a homeless, cultureless, historyless group of captives. There is more deceitfulness, and treachery used to interpret, and account this subject than any subject known to man. One thing that is clear though in this matter, is the dehumanization of the African, and the inhumanity of the European. There were literally methods and techniques used to make the mind of the African weak, and dependant, while the body stayed physically strong. What brought tears of frustration to my eyes was the fact that these very same methods are being used to keep us mentally enslaved today, except now; they are so ingrained in us, that they are unconsciously practiced. The Willie Lynch letter, which can be used for the concept alone, aside from all debates about authenticity stated that it was important to divide us by differences, and make these differences huge, thereby separating us by fear and distrust. I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust, and envy stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become selfrefueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. These strategies were all used to break the will to resist, what touched me was the fact that these Europeans were so thorough in the making of a captive into a slave, that we in turn use their tactics against each other in a comatose condition of self-hate. The moment that we accepted this condition is the moment that we become slaves, instead of captives who were involuntarily brought here. Our genius minds were gradually replaced with the mind of a slave during the 16th to 18th centuries; more and more docile generation by generation. How we got played was the separation of the Black man from the Black woman, and the indoctrination of both. The game was simple; the Black man was taught to be broken mentally, yet physically strong, while the Black woman was exploited for her complimentary nature and used to put the fear of the white man in the hearts of her children, all of this was done in the hope of family preservation yet and still, we were playing right along with the hand that was dealt to us. In the most thorough ways we wereand still are pitched against each other. Light skinned against dark skinned, young against old, even men against women. Christianity still kept us passive years and years after our first encounters with the religion. Staying docile, and

turning the other cheek was all that it taught us to do, instilling the White man as the God image in our minds. Tacked onto this, there was also a well-established media campaign on the inferiority of Blackness in general, and specifically Black people, the texture of African hair, and the color of African skin. Marked sinful simply because of our skin, self-hate was in full affect and we began to look at ourselves and each other through the warped perspective of the European. To again justify slavery, many white men conducted actual studies that were naturally biased and tried to prove that the African was physically inferior to the European. Interestingly enough, the European was always trying to find a way to validate, and rationalize the greatest crime ever committed. These studies were his excuse, and the claim was made that we were hardly more than animals. This equaled, and can only equal the self-hate that we still see now in the twenty-first century. Some of us did rebel, and the influence that we had on the rest of our people was strong but as we can now conclude, it was not strong enough for a mass reawakening of the Black man and Woman. These were only a couple of the angles that we were being attacked from, and as time went on, these methods got more sophisticated, and less obvious. So now that the truth of what has happened in our past is very evident, what do we do to break free from the mental and even physical slavery that we are experiencing? Another of my questions is; how were the methods of oppression evolved to keep attacking us even now in the present? The truth of the matter is that, though the faces change, the techniques, and the oppression stay the same. In a sense, we still have the Willie Lynch programming that keeps it all turning even now in the 21st century. Through the years we have been through the reconstruction of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the brutality of the south, and the harsh realities of the north, the rebuilding of our families, the Back to Africa Marcus Garvey movement, the riots of the 60s, and the shift of the 80s and 90s up until now. Even in 2011, through all of that, we still taught to admire, and love the White image, and yet shun our own image. This brings us to the critical phase of Black genocide. Some of the methodslike Margaret Sangers Planned Parenthood organization started our as an actual eugenics movement against Black people, and was called the American Birth Control league until more subtle techniques were needed. This organization was responsible for the actual sterilization of many black children in the past, and can still be found in our communities offering free services that just so happen to prevent black pregnancies. The unconscious collective condition of our health also plays a huge factor in the mortality rates of our babies. This is another form of genocide, and in 2006, Black babies had 2.4 times the infant mortality rate of non-Hispanic white babies due to the health of the mother.

In my opinion, the health of Black people in general is caused by the choices that we are offered inside of our communities. This though, is no excuse, and needs to be radically shifted so that we actually want for better choices, and have a reason to drop the bad health habits that we have acquired. Just because the only stores in our communities are sometimes corner stores, and liquor outlets does not mean that this should comprise our diet. We need to take control of our own health by making the option of a healthier choice. We cannot afford to wait on other Arab, and White businesses to come into our communities and make our condition better for us, the time is now to build on what we have to make what we need. With minimum exaggeration, it would take all year for me to explain to you the different facets and angles from which we are being hit. But, as I am not here to enumerate your problems, I will go quickly into my interpretation of a solution. Now, keep in mind that many have given us solutions in taking back our freedom, culture and future as a people, and yet we are still in the same boat practically as we were fifty years agoif not worst. My opinion is based solely on methods that I have seen work, and that are based on actual action. Our future is where the most work needs to be done because that is where we are getting perpetually targeted. We need to put into action a plan that replaces the negative images that we have of Black people to make a conscious change in what our children see as beautiful. Where have we gone wrong in the past that are children are falling in love with Drake, Justin Beiber and the like? We are fed these images of an Independent Black female, a Money hungry Black Man, and an accepted, and all-powerful White male. The media has the minds of our children; point blank. To succeed in taking back our children, I think that we would have to first succeed in the removal of the white and non-black faces in their influences. We can only do this by completely surrounding them with community, and replacing those images with another, true image of beauty. They I think that one of the things that is keeping us from reaching our full potential as a people is the excessive study and analysis of our past potential as a people. Now, to make myself more clear, I must add that I endorse the knowledge of our African history, but, this will only free us from one aspect of mental slavery, and that is our background in America as a

history-less people. Knowing our history should be what gives us pride in what we have already accomplished, but, it does not replace the actual fundamental and revolutionary movement that we as a people need to make. We have always tried to come up with another solution to the problems that we have as a race. Whether that be sending our brightest and best into white colleges to be indoctrinated in American culture and give nothing back to the community from which they came, or using research as a crutch to avoid physical action, our last available option is to fight. There are seven things that I believe need to put into action to finally bring about mental, physical, and economic freedom from this wicked American society. First, there needs to be a realization among us that there is no reforming this reckless White elitist government. Our only choice is to completely separate and create a totally new constitution, and code of conduct that is followed by sincere Africans across the globe. Second, independence is the key to changing our life-style back to interdependency; all that we have to do is pool together our resources and create a system where all of the commodities that we need inside of the Black community are produced, managed, and distributed inside of the Black community. Third, as of 2011 this American media has the minds of our children; to take back our future, and the reinforcements of our struggle we need to have a completely Black owned and operated media to change the image of value, beauty, wealth, and power in the minds of our children. Fourth, we can clearly see that the introduction of foreign religion was the introduction of slavery for our people; I propose the reverence of Black Gods and Black Gods only to maintain freedom even in the arena of spiritual enlightenment. Fifth, Blackness is the highest form of supremacy, we can only move forward after changing our collective views from the borrowed and corrupted perception of this twisted White society. Sixth, our children deserve an educational system that actually teaches them what they need to know in life; we need a Black educational system that teaches our children not only about their ancestors but also what they can do to be the physical equivalent of our past greatness. Lastly, I think that the most imperative step towards creating and maintaining freedom is never forgetting the atrocious and vicious deeds performed by the White man and other non-Africans against our people. If we are ever to again rise to a future Golden Age for African people, we can never again let down our guard and forget; we are our ancestors keepers. We need to make a drastic change from the way that we are living now. Its time for us as a people to start making some improvements, lets change the way we eat, lets change the way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other. We can clearly see that the old way of non-violence, and Christian-like passivity is hardly working, frankly, it is up to us

to do what we need to do to survive. Violence is the last available option; personally, I am fully ready to endure all that I must in the name of freedom. Hopefully our people will one day catch on to the message and be the masses that help to implement our freedomfor now though, we must do all that we can. As it was so eloquently said by the Marcus Garvey, Destiny leads us to liberty, to freedom: that freedom that Victoria of England never
gave: that freedom, that liberty, that Lincoln never meant: that freedom, that liberty, that will see us as men among men, that will make us a great and powerful people.