When we hear of imprisonment, our minds automatically envision physical bars of restraint, usually associated with an un-proportionate number of Black males. The word is defined in Webster, however, as “a place or state of confinement or restraints.”
Therefore most of us are victims (or inmates) of self-imposed imprisonment in one form or another. In fact the most insidious and devastating of all prisons is the prison of self that manifests itself in innumerable indistinguishable forms, the greatest of which is the tiniest word – ego that, unlike physical imprisonment, places a more effective chain on the brain. This master of imprisonment manifests itself in endless ways including fear, selfishness, greed, and an illusion of superiority or inferiority due to the color of one’s skin, race, ethnic or national origin, acidic privileges, physical address, religious, political or socio-economic background.
Others have allowed themselves to become “prisoners of love,” but of wrong things – of self, another individual, money or of some detrimental health or mind altering habits. These forms of psychological imprisonment area readily recognized in others but seldom in our own behavior through a state of denial.
Being neither Democrat nor Republican, for through the years I have supported both, I was intrigued years ago when I watched the National Democratic Convention.
It was uncanny to hear Michelle Obama, in her opening address to the convention, directly address one of everyone’s tightly securing prisons – that of fear. I was personally struck by her powerful remark, “We must stop living in fear and start living in faith!”
Former President Bill Clinton once remarked: “We must lead by the power of our example, and not by the example of our power” – which in itself is to intimidate by fear.
Regardless of political persuasion, or of none in particular (as Baha’i must remain, for partisan politics are inevitable too divisive) it was heart-rending to see and hear from so many high-ranking veteran Congressional figures that so passionately compared the present state of the American economy with that of previous ones through which they have personally experienced. Yet it was the final acceptance speech of then Democratic Presidential nominee, Barack Obama himself, who in utmost humility ended with: “What I can’t get you to understand is, it’s not about me – it’s about YOU…”
Putting just that simple thought in perspective especially on the 1963 March on Washington when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his immortal “I have a dream” speech, one should be able to rationalize. This man and his wife are both highly educated people in lucrative professions whose lives, healthcare, welfare and retirement for themselves and their prosperity are all well secure. Yet they have elected to risk their lives to assure that all have the same opportunity to do the same that is becoming less likely as this youthful nation matures – in wealth and power while reverting to spiritual infancy.
The Baha’i Holy Writings clearly state: “America’s peace, prosperity and even her standing in the international community, depend on healing the wounds of racism (this nation’s most fortified prison) and building a society in which people of diverse backgrounds lie as members of one family.”
Investigate!
