America’s greatest crime against the descendants of slaves was not slavery, per se, even when we include lynchings and other acts of brutal violence. The greatest crime was the relentless and remorseless assault against our humanity after Emancipation that induced us to inculcate feelings of self-victimization, self-hate, Internecine-hatred, and, as a consequence, to harm ourselves and each other.
During and after formal slavery, African Americans were impelled to characterize ourselves as those who had the deepest necessity to despise us had defined us, e.g., sub-human. This factor tended to dictate the attitudes we formed about ourselves, our people and other Americans. The unrelenting duplicitous assertions and miseducation have been so effective that too many victims are unaware of the deception. Thus, believing the fallaciousness about them and us, the effectively deceived trust and defend the oppressors while making enemies of those who are trying to educate and free us.
Jefferson Davis understood the educational aspect of slavery: The Slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline, and thus made unfit for slavery. And as soon as he becomes unfit for slavery, (e.g., properly educated) the master will no longer desire to hold him as a slave.
America’s founding documents and even white Christians’ Bible defined our humanness. Jefferson summarized it thusly: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate (the Bible) than that these people (slaves) are to be free.”
Hypocrisy: The gap between contentions and reality.
It is so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices because integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. –Hannah Arendt
Hypocrisy, even when consciously chosen, is corrosive to the human spirit. But what happens to the human beings who are forced to live as hypocrites through no fault of their own?
Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses. – James Baldwin
It is here where we find our greatest contentions-reality gap.
Du Bois raised this question: “Why did God make me a stranger in my own land?”
Americans who inculcated principles about human values, liberty and justice and rights suffer moral agony when violations against their humanity occur, particularly when they conclude that they are helpless to remedy the abusive circumstances. They are apt to suffer from intense feelings of unworthiness, low self-esteem, and depression; thus, they may try to deny or avoid Truth.
It is the circumstances, the contradictions — not people’s character — that
produce the initial struggle. – Viktor Frankl
On the lynching trees, our ancestors changed our future. Some 6,500 of our forebears were lynched physically – some 2,000 during “Reconstruction.” However, their families and communities were lynched metaphorically – in effect, told to stay in their places! or suffer a worse fate. But our forebears’ courage and perseverance against extreme obstacles paved the way for the success of the third generation and beyond. They enabled a multitude of us to escape the traps white supremacists set for us, at a rate that has been both unique and unpredictable.
Beware, however, of the assumed efficacy of denial and avoidance by the descendants of slaves who think they have no connection to the first and second generations, post-slavery, especially to the forebears who were the subjects of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit; and, consequently, owe no debt to current generations.
Denial/avoidance is a weak and unreliable defense for abuses against our humanity. Truth always threatens to break through the walls built to protect our internal dimension. It takes Herculean effort to keep Truth from eroding people’s mental strength and stability, sucking the life-essence from them, preventing them from living full and healthy lives, and destroying relationships, particularly in families, neighborhoods and local communities. Just because the descendants who are stuck in low economic levels are out of physical sight of the deniers/avoiders does not mean that they are always out of their minds. We the fortunate escapees are forever culturally connected with them.
The utility of denial/avoidance as spiritual protection has become even more daunting as Donald Trump — the leader of the Radical Right Extremist/Fascist movement — his despicable cabinet members, and his DC-fectas have shown clearly that their values are linked directly with the philosophy of the Confederate leaders as relate specifically to the descendants of African slaves. If the Confederate leaders were in power today, they would put the descendants of slaves back into slavery, if not physically, at least mentally and spiritually.
It is extremely dangerous and futile to assume that denial/avoidance and keeping silent, or speaking without working, will keep us, those we love, and America safe from Fascism.
