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)
I will be the first to state that we have many challenges in our community. Most, if not all, are related to our start in this country and tied directly to the American institution of slavery, which too many of us have failed to grasp.. As we acknowledge the end of the American institution of slavery with the celebration of Juneteenth, we must come to understand the impact that this institution has had on every Black person, Black family, and Black community in America. While we are no longer physically captive, we are structurally captive economically and culturally.
We must come to understand that most, if not everything, that we have been taught either directly (formal education process) or indirectly (socialization process) has been geared towards accepting White supremacy and Black inferiority. Our view of the world and our role in it comes from this perspective.
This was the thinking that was prevalent which allowed the barbaric enslavement of our ancestors to take place for more than 300 years and it is absolutely silly to think that this mind-set has changed. The American institution of slavery will go down as the most barbaric, hideous, psychotic, and criminal acts documented against any people in the past 6,000 years of human history and yet we are taught to act as if it did not happen or that was then and this is now.
The enslavement of our people actually happened (this was not a nightmare). Though some have questioned the validity of the Jewish Holocaust, no one can question the fact of our capture and enslavement (all of America was built from it).
What we fail to hear about is that some very bad people did this and this behavior must never be allowed to raise its ugly head again. White racist Americans enslaved our ancestors when America touted itself as a country that promotes freedom and justice for all people, while treating Black people worse than animals (there were more laws on the books to protect horses and dogs than there were to protect Black human life). This is proof positive that the position held by America for Blacks was/is less than being human to justify their ungodly treatment of us.
I can only speak for myself when I say that I find this hypocrisy offensive and it is my belief that all people of goodwill should also be offended. One of the reasons many are not is because it has been secretly removed from American jargon.
We must evaluate the minds that allow this hypocrisy to flourish and attack it at every level, including the residue of that mind that lives today. We have no option but to hold high the Black Holocaust.
Black people have deeply scarred by our experience in America and the remedy and medicine is restoring our identity and our culture. We must revaluate what we have termed to be “holy;” we must revaluate who we have held up as “heroes;” we must reevaluate what we define as “beauty;” we must reevaluate what we define as the “Black family;” we must reevaluate what we define as “Black history” and how we obtain; and lastly we must reevaluate what we believe is “Black leadership.”
Many so-called Black leaders are at the forefront in keeping our culture and our identity hidden from us when they support the idea that our history in this country is irrelevant today and any remembrance is fruitless; dredging up the past can only create tension with our White brothers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, you’re not a leader in my definition if you’re not promoting a reconciliation and reparation of our past in this country and you are not a champion of “we must never forget the Black Holocaust.”
Brothers and sisters, during the Black Holocaust we lost our language, our religion, our culture, and most importantly our identity.
In addition to the physical and emotional torture endured by our ancestors, the trauma and terror would continue in this America mostly through the 1960’s (i.e. Jim Crow, tens of thousands of KKK lynchings and community terror) and now, while much of the trauma is self-inflicted, its cause and root is directly linked to the theft and robbery of our identity. This is the classic self-fulfilling prophecy; you create something offensive and then you stand back and accuse the victim for the behaviors that you created.
Juneteenth should not just be a celebration but an affirmation of renewed commitment to our ongoing struggle for freedom, justice and equality in America, which touts this as its own creed. We can win this fight because this is what America is all about and unless its manifesto has changed, we have the right and the responsibility to hold America accountable for what they did to our ancestors and what they are doing to us now.
Juneteenth was the end of one struggle and the beginning of another and more of us must become students of our struggle. We must avenge the struggle of our ancestors; we must fight for equal opportunity today; and we must prepare future generations of Black children to continue the struggle.
We must be able to identify the inherited trauma from this horrific experience that lives today within our foreign and adopted culture. We have far too many practices, which have become a part of our socialization process, that perpetuate and reinforce Black inferiority within our daily lives. In many ways, it is in our DNA.
One of those characteristics held by some of our “so-called” leaders is the belief that we can do it alone. Black leaders must fundamentally come to understand, given the magnitude of the issues challenging Black people in America, that individual and/or single organizational responses are simply inadequate. Our issues are inter-connected, inter-related and require an organized “multi-faceted” response that no one organization or individual has the capacity to take on. The idea that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” is perfectly aligned with Black culture, identity and leadership. If you are not calling for unity amongst Black people, you are not a Black leader; you are Black leader with a White agenda.
Black people have sustained tremendous psychological damage and none is more obvious than the coping mechanisms that we inherited to endure the treatment that we experienced from the inhumane carnage of the enslavement of our ancestors. These were survival measures that allowed us to be here today. Many of these coping mechanisms continue today imbedded within our socialization process. They do not allow one to fight back; they just allow you to cope and they have become habitual in nature. Creating an even greater challenge for us is that the Black males coping mechanism looks totally different than the Black females and both worked against each other which orchestrated by the slave owners.
Our challenge is so severe and significant because we have a whole population of Black people that really believe that they are doing “their” own thing and are unable to see the bigger picture. This is understandable because most people behave this way. Like all people, we have our own issues as well: We fall in love; fall out of love; stumble on the multitude of addictions (i.e. drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, food, fun, etc.); make mistakes etc. We are human beings and we have all of the flaws of being human. However, our human issues are exacerbated by the fact that we are operating under a “foreign” mind (identify crisis) coupled with a daily fight for economic survival. Both are legacies of slavery.
Sure, we have those that have made progress through self-study and perseverance and have fought against Black inferiority and have never bowed down to White supremacy, but the progress has often come with a hefty price (assimilation). Why? Because Black people were opposing Black people who were trying to help them. Many times their actions sided with the enemy even when we knew better. They did this because their view of any efforts that looked like Black independence was a threat to the White establishment. This is a classic case of identity crisis.
Black people today strive for physical and economic gains just like all other people, but what we do not realize and understand is that we are competing against other groups not with each other.
Our culture and our identity make this very easy to see and help us to compete better. When we really evaluate the economic race in America, we find that most economic gains are inherited and the current generation has the responsibility of maintaining those gains at the very least.
However, the real and most significant goal for those that inherent wealth is to grow the wealth and to advance those economic gains. This is done through education, business, and culture. It is the culture that defines your expectations of yourself and your role within the family structure.
Black culture is competing with White culture but there really is no competition because of the structural advantage that Whites enjoy today (privilege). Everything in America has an “entry” fee. Restated, there is a cost for everything in America and if you do not pay the cost you are at a disadvantage. Very few Black people inherited any level of economic benefit. In fact, most of us inherit debt so we start at a disadvantage structurally which requires a bigger dependency on our identity to think and act as “one.”
The legacy of the American institution of slavery has placed the Black community in an inferior economic position that has translated into not having the ability to becoming full citizens of America. This is a structural issue. Blacks are not the only poor people in America but the majority of our group is poor and this is tied directly to our start in this country. We must also begin to separate poverty with the abnormal social behaviors that poverty creates that is being associated with an entire group of people. This has been the calling card by the American media to define all Black people. Poverty and the residue of poverty continues to undermine all of our efforts because how can you ask a person to do for self; educate themselves; or join a social movement when they lack the very basics (i.e. they are hungry and hardly know where their next meal is coming from).
I am not so naïve to think that all of us will rise up and become the people that we should. I do believe that, with the right instruction and marketing, a critical mass of us can overcome this cultural crisis and assist in restoring the gas back into our cultural gas tank, which is currently near empty. This is why we cannot have enough celebrations of our history and our accomplishments because this is part of the medicine and treatment. These types of ceremonies will push us towards substance and learning.
This is why we cannot have enough movies, films, TV shows etc. about our history and our accomplishments because these types of programs will push us towards substance and learning.
It is almost impossible to defend against the legacy of the American institution of slavery (White supremacy and Black inferiority) without having a knowledge about and ownership of our culture. Once you obtain knowledge about our struggle, you will come to understand and value the greatness that is in us. We hear this a lot and many of us are confused by this statement.
Because of the great work of some of our ancestors, they would never let us forget that we were a great people. We do not truly understand what that means because when we look at life for the Black man in America, it is hard to see greatness if you are coming from a White center versus a Black center. In fact, one might even support Black inferiority. This is why I believe that many of our younger people have adopted “abnormal behavior that, for them, has become normal.”
If we just take a moment of reflection, the math tells us that our identity and culture
has been stolen and no one can give it back to us, we must rebuild and restore it for ourselves. As I have always stated that “ALL” of us have been damaged by the American institution of slavery, some more than others.
Those that are the least damaged must align themselves with others and reconnect to mount this campaign of restoring our identity and culture.
The Black community is out of position because the Black man and the Black woman is out of position and today nearly two thirds of all children are being born in an environment where the traditional male and female relationship is absent.
If this continues to go unchecked, the next 100 years will turn back the entire Black race and permanently prevent our culture and identity to be restored.
