A tragedy has happened in the “national” Black community. The current generation of Black youth neither understand nor profit by authentic Black power. Consequently, massive numbers of them have suffered disproportionately during America’s slide into Fascism.
“Where’s the indignation for what African-Americans do to themselves?” – Leonard Pitts
If an ethnic group, e.g., Black people, has ceased to teach, both formally and informally, their core values, cultural tenets, and historical truths — thus neglecting their ancestors’ assignment — then we will have to conclude that that ethnic group no longer wishes to survive, thrive and maintain self-determination, or freedom as a whole people.
Several decades ago, I visited Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal, known as the “Door of No Return,” and where the great majority of Africans were kept before being shipped to America for enslavement.
The place had been restored for historical and tourist purposes. On my first day there, I spent time in those tiny cells where our more intractable ancestors were kept, where they could neither stand up nor lie down, but only remain in a crouch. I hung as long as I could from the ropes where they hung obstinate captives. I touched the other items that were used to break the spirits of our captured ancestors. I stood on the cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean where our dead, ill, or unmanageable forebears were thrown to sharks.
Some Blacks around me were so overwhelmed with emotional pain that they actually passed out. But I thought more intensely than ever about our forebears, slavery, racism, and my achievements. I experienced an unprecedented feeling of pride, of wonderment, that my ancestors had survived at all. I became certain that it was not an accident that I was born; that it was not fate that those Africans from whom I descended biologically did not force their captors to kill them on Goree Island; that they did not commit suicide, as many did; that they did not suffocate on the slave ships during the Middle Passage; and that they did not die in the hot sun in southern cotton fields. They chose to live!
Baldwin’s stranger to this planet might find the fact that there are Black people still alive in America something to write home about; but I am not surprised at all.
Our ancestors survived Goree Island; 361 years of legal slavery; 6,500 lynchings; unrelenting mind-searing physical and psychological abuse; betrayal by white pseudo liberals and conservative closet-racists; and the deceit of false prophets – white and Black — who advanced the distortion of Holy Scriptures that sanctioned weaponized white religion to keep freed slaves’ focus on the hereafter instead of on abuses by White Supremacists on this earthly plane.
This new nation, while ostensibly dedicated to the proposition that all human beings are created equal, nevertheless, enslaved us first on plantations. After “legal” slavery was abolished, America’s White Supremacists intended that we remain deficient intellectually, psychologically, and spiritually so that the purposes of slavery extended into the post-Emancipation era. They, including by our three levels of government, took extreme measure to accomplish that end. Freed slaves were not expected to aspire to excellence, but rather to accept our alleged genetic defects and become our own reasons for failure. Fortunately, they did not have their spiritual power destroyed by brutal racism during the first three generations after slavery.
Did my father know that he was transferring that ancestral empowerment to me when we worked together on the white side of Roanoke, VA, and he ignored racial slurs that attempted to get us to demean ourselves? Of course not! The transfer was, in essence, inevitable osmosis. He did not know the specifics of enablement any more than my K through sixthgrade teachers knew they were equipping me to excel in white universities and workplaces, as well as in the military.
On Goree Island, I finally fully understood the source of the faculty that conditioned my effectiveness in the American mainstream. I had an assignment that was set before I was born. My ancestors had a purpose and that purpose was to produce me. Although it took my first 17 years of life, I eventually fathomed the capacities I had, that I was not here to achieve success and freedom for myself alone, and that I owed a debt, which I am still paying.
Awareness of and pride in one’s ancestors constitute a most powerful enabler. DuBois was right: our success experiences after slavery should have been used as the model for the enlightenment, motivation and uplift of all Americans, not just Black Americans. The model remains valid for success even in today’s “Pre-Fascist” America.
In the long run, there is not much discrimination against superior talent and hard work. – Carter G. Woodson
