Universally Speaking
The State of Black America
Rahim Islam is a National Speaker and Writer, Convener of Philadelphia Community of Leaders, and President/CEO of Universal Companies, a community development and education management company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Follow Rahim Islam on FaceBook(Rahim Islam) & Twitter (@RahimIslamUC)
Rahim Islam
In order to determine the State of Black America, we must examine the impact of slavery and how it contributed to an American climate and culture of hate and racism that teaches, condones, and embraces the oppression of the Black race.
In the first series of articles, I attempted to articulate that we are truly unable to evaluate the state of Black America today without understanding the damage incurred by the Black Family with nearly 300 years of chattel slavery (Black Holocaust). I call this the American Institution of Slavery. We must keep in mind that the enslaved Blacks were not criminals or prisoners of war, they were victims.These acts were undertaken by the most extreme white supremacists the world had ever seen. I have divided the 300 years of chattel slavery into two distinct periods each lasting approximately 150 years in duration. Each fueled by a culture of white supremacy and the implementation of the ultimate level of racism towards Black people.
I describe white supremacy as the attitudes, ideologies, laws, policies, general belief in blatant and subversive forms of white dominance, privilege and the decisive control over Black people. Unlike any other form of discrimination, based solely on “skin” color, white supremacist would use all of their powers to restrict “full” citizenship to Black people based solely on the physical color of their skins. This form of discrimination is so lethal because its fundamental principle is the differentiation by race emboldened by a series of flawed beliefs.
I describe racism as the process of establishing and rationalizing white privilege and dominance over Black people. This includes the mode of thought that offers “genetic” inferiority as the key factor associated with Blackness. Racism is represented by the hostile and negative feelings of white people towards Black born in the basic belief that whites are a superior race and Blacks are less than human. Within American culture, this racist belief is further cemented with depictions and definitions of Black men as ravenous beasts and/or heathens that seek to rape white woman.
Racism is also explicitly expressed in the practices, institutions, and structures that a sense of deep difference justifies or validates their behavior. They see it as the right thing to do. Racism directly sustains and supports racial order and a permanent white hierarchy that reflects the laws of God. Therefore, racism’s foundation is supported by the religion and/ or the advocates of Christianity.
The magnitude and scale of the American institution of slavery is just too overwhelming to ignore. It happens to be one of the most morbid periods of man’s existence. This complicating phenomenon whose worst aspect of it all was the trauma incurred by the Black Family was never recognized. They were expected to disappear miraculously. Here are some of the sober facts about the human scale of slavery: Between 1525 and 1866, nearly 14 million Africans were violently kidnapped from Africa and they and their offspring were sentenced to a life of brutal and chattel slavery. The transport of these Africans was befitting of cargo and nearly 3 million Africans didn’t survive the Middle Passage along with millions of others suffering from severe diseases and illnesses.
All said, it is estimated that slavery affected tens of millions of Blacks that were enslaved that culminated with nearly nine million enslaved Blacks at the time of emancipation. The impact of slavery on the Black family in America is a colossal one and requires a truthful and purposeful look to accurately assess the state of Black America today.
The first period of the American institution of slavery, I have called “breaking” the slave. During this period, the primary goal of the slave owner was to control their slaves through fear, intimidation and brutality. Slave owners were to force the Blacks, enslaved into complete submission and indebtedness, to the slave-owner – become a willing slave. During this breaking period, every effort was made to dismantle the family, custom, language, and African culture. In spite of the barbaric brutality, and torturous methods (i.e. whippings, killings, lynching’s, etc.) and the complications of being separated, many Blacks refused to accept this positon in life and retaliated in a number of ways (i.e. destroyed property, run away, kill their captives). The response from the slave owners was to inflict more torture, more brutality and more suffering upon those enslaved – fear was the rule.
Over the years, American slavery would evolve with the goal of maximizing profits off the backs of Black people. With the slaves being real human property and a real asset, maiming and/or killing them when they got out of line was poor business and counterproductive to their profit making goals. Like all good businesspersons, the more challenges that were presented, the more solutions were sought and adopted. No problem was like that of the rebellious slave. The slave owners had a real dilemma on their hands in how to make the Africans become willing slaves because this was their business.
Every effort was made to control the slave by any means because the slave owners became increasingly fearful that a day would come that the slaves would retaliate. Owners were constantly looking for the first sign of retribution.
To address these concerns and fears, some of the slave owners began to study human nature. With the help of people like Willie Lynch, they adopted new psychological techniques in their pursuit of total domination of the Black man. They adopted strategies that sought to perfect the master/slave relationship without the heavy use of violence against the slave…their property. Thus, the second period of the American institution began, the “making of the slave.” During this period, the slave owners went from “breaking” a slave to an even more sinister approach of “making” a slave. In addition to the ongoing physical torture, an extreme form of mental and psychological torture was introduced.
The “making of a slave” involved merging within the attitudes, values, beliefs, and traditions of the enslaved by the doctrine of white supremacy and black inferiority. The slave owners needed a bigger and better system in order to make those enslaved embrace slavery. Whereas nature provides all humans with the natural capacity to take care of their offspring, making a slave involves breaking this natural phenomenon and replacing it with a dependency status given completely over to the slave owner.
To achieve this, the approach utilized every effort to divide and conquer Black people by taking every difference and making them much bigger. They were fueled by fear, distrust, and envy (i.e. age, skin color, size, sex, status, etc.).
Their goal was to turn every aspect of the slave against each other making the slave an internal enemy of himself with minimal rewards. This would make only the slave owner the one to be trusted and depended upon.
Critical to achieving the objective of this massive indoctrination, the process centered on breaking the mother. This would ensure that her offspring would be broken early and naturally with the children wholeheartedly accepting slavery and the superiority of white people as a natural occurrence. Through intimidation and fear of the death of her children, which were threatened daily, she would use her “God-given” instincts to shield and protect her siblings from torture in exchange for the total submission of the child.
This was done when she would teach her child in the early years of development to be completely dependent upon the slave owner and that submitting to slavery was natural and appropriate.
The mother did this to save her child from the persecution of the slave owner and at the appropriate time, when the child was old enough to work, the mother would deliver the child to the slave owner as completely dependent.
Under Willie Lynch’s approach of making a slave, the slave-owner had to employ specific strategies on how to hook the female slave.
“Take the female and run a series of tests on her to see if she will submit to your desires willingly. Test her in every way, because she is the most important factor for good economics.
If she shows any sign of resistance in submitting completely to your will, do not hesitate to use the bullwhip on her to extract last bit of resistance out of her. Take care not to kill her, for in doing so, you spoil good economics. When in complete submission, she will train her off springs in the early years to submit to labor when they become of age”. The female knew she was completely unprotected and like any other mother would do whatever was needed to save her child.
Because the mother was left alone and unprotected, the Black male image was completely destroyed The approach and strategy would ultimately cause her to move from a psychologically dependent state to a frozen “independent” state where she will raise her sons and daughters in reverse roles.
She will raise her sons to fear and accept white supremacy by making him mentally weak and she will raise her daughters to be psychologically independent of the Black man. The impact being the Black woman believing she doesn’t need a Black man. The role reversals would lead to the Black woman being out front and the Black man behind and afraid.
Also within this indoctrination, every aspect of the family and the marriage unit was intentionally destroyed. More emphasis was placed on breeding of Black men and women for economic gain only.
Women that could deliver numerous babies were preferred as well as men that could impregnate them. This process created threatening attitudes about not only the role of the man and woman, but also about the reproductive process. Years of this behavior would void the love and the loving relationship natural to the reproductive process of humans and, in many respects, over time, even animals would be more protective of this process than Black men and women.
Both periods of the American institution of slavery represented different but extreme and lethal tactics that attacked the validity of the Black man as a leader and Black woman as a vessel of love.
This damage is evident even today. The damage to the Black community was far more than the physical and emotional trauma experienced by the slave.
This trauma has been passed on through the socialization process as exhibited in the behavior of many Black people today. How else can you explain the alarming levels of negative anti-social behavior? The socialization process teaches each of us the basics of how we should act and what we can expect out of life. It promotes and sustains one’s norms and one’s culture. The socialization of slavery is real and alive.
Social scientists tell us that all human beings are born without any culture and no one is born racist; racism is learned. For it to survive and thrive, racism must be embedded within ones culture, which is then taught by each generation starting at birth.
The society’s culture and norms are transmitted to the children by their parents, teachers, and others of influence (i.e. politicians, clergy, etc.).
The American culture and norms taught that Blacks were no more than adept animals and tools for profit and because they controlled every aspect of the slave’s life, including the female, dependency to the slave owner was what we learned during the socialization process.
During this socialization process, Blacks learned the language of a white supremacist culture as well as the roles they were born to play. Next week we will discuss culture, racism and white supremacy.
Until then…………Your Brother in the struggle, Rahim.
