I believe that the greatest hope for a brighter future for inner city youth and ending gang violence is for our leaders to first acknowledge, and then take steps to remove, the psychological chains of slavery. It’s time to call a spade a spade. It is self-hatred that has given rise to self-destruction and dysfunctional behavior in the inner cities of America. That self-hatred has its roots in the psychological trauma of slavery. As evidenced by significant population of successful African Americans, the psychological chains of slavery have been broken for most. For others, not so much.
For many, the pain and humiliation of indentured servitude, along with the separation of families during slavery, has left a lasting and ongoing legacy that has for far too long, been overlooked. In most cases, a defining legacy that has seldom been openly addressed. Therefore, without realizing it we have passed down from generation after generation, a legacy of inferiority and self-hatred.
Young people who hate themselves don’t have a problem hating others , or killing someone. They hate themselves because subconsciously, they believe in their minds, that in the eyes of society they aren’t good enough, that they aren’t equal. They don’t feel empowered to determine their own destiny. Therefore to them life has very little meaning. It’s kill or be killed.
We need to find ways to empower our youth. We need leadership that will subscribe to that fact. We need an army of courageous leaders to not only identify viable solutions to this problem, but also to lead a mentally enslaved peopled to the Promised Land, where self-hatred, hopelessness and fear are non-existent.
But where can we find such leadership? It seems that our most introspective and talented leaders have fled to a safe haven in the plush surroundings of suburbia, leaving behind so many who so desperately need to bear personal witness to the successful achievements of people who look like them. It is selfish not to acknowledge where you came from, and it is insensitive not to be willing to lead to freedom those you have left behind. Yet I understand all too well your reluctance to look back. You have little or no desire to return from whence you came, especially when your most vivid memories are rooted in desperation and hopelessness. You somehow beat the odds, you played by the rules and made it to suburbia vowing to never return to the bowels of that slave ship from which you so desperately fled.
For many, the pain and humiliation of indentured servitude, along with the separation of families during slavery, has left a lasting and ongoing legacy that has for far too long, been overlooked. In most cases, a defining legacy that has seldom been openly addressed. Therefore, without realizing it we have passed down from generation after generation, a legacy of inferiority and self-hatred.
Young people who hate themselves don’t have a problem hating others , or killing someone. They hate themselves because subconsciously, they believe in their minds, that in the eyes of society they aren’t good enough, that they aren’t equal. They don’t feel empowered to determine their own destiny. Therefore to them life has very little meaning. It’s kill or be killed.
We need to find ways to empower our youth. We need leadership that will subscribe to that fact. We need an army of courageous leaders to not only identify viable solutions to this problem, but also to lead a mentally enslaved peopled to the Promised Land, where self-hatred, hopelessness and fear are non-existent.
But where can we find such leadership? It seems that our most introspective and talented leaders have fled to a safe haven in the plush surroundings of suburbia, leaving behind so many who so desperately need to bear personal witness to the successful achievements of people who look like them. It is selfish not to acknowledge where you came from, and it is insensitive not to be willing to lead to freedom those you have left behind. Yet I understand all too well your reluctance to look back. You have little or no desire to return from whence you came, especially when your most vivid memories are rooted in desperation and hopelessness. You somehow beat the odds, you played by the rules and made it to suburbia vowing to never return to the bowels of that slave ship from which you so desperately fled.
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