Rahim Islam
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)
In the previous parts of this article, I’ve tried to articulate that the impact of slavery is directly linked to the struggles of the Black man in America (targeted). I continue to argue that the American institution of slavery has had a much bigger impact on our people than we’ve been taught to fully appreciate’ unlike other groups, their group struggles are memorialized through ceremony, pageantry, religion, and culture (the Black holocaust, considered the worst, is not even mentioned). I’ve tried to articulate that our boys are at a serious and real disadvantage, which continues throughout their lives as the result of post-traumatic slavery syndrome and the on-going socialization process of our boys.
I was born to a father who was just three to four generations removed from the American institution of slavery, 350 years coupled with nearly 70 years of Jim Crow and KKK terrorism) that was inflicted against our ancestors.
I consider this period one of the most barbaric periods over the past 4,000 years of mankind’s history mainly because of the length of the persecution (300 years) and the brutality of the persecution. I contend that our people, specifically Black men, while undiagnosed, suffer from extreme levels of low self-esteem, depression, and poverty as a result of slavery.
For those who think that I’m smoking something, let’s do the math; unlike what they try to portray, we are closer than we tend to believe.
I was born in 1957 and considered the fourth generation since the Emancipation Proclamation (1863). My father was born in 1932, three generations from slavery; my grandfather was born in 1905, two generations from slavery; and my great-grandfather (I didn’t know) was born in 1885 is only 20 years removed from slavery. We are closer than we realize.
While most of my article has focused on the psychological effects of slavery, equally as damaging is the generational inheritance of poverty, which social experts link directly to every social and emotional ill facing our community today.
Stated differently, if poverty is not a direct cause of many social ills we face, it, at least, exacerbates our condition. Being born into poverty is an extremely difficult thing to overcome. I ask you to consider the collective wealth of our ancestors at the time they were freed from slavery in 1863, and reported that, prior to the emancipation of our ancestors, free Blacks (representing approximately three to five percent of our population) owned approximately one half of one percent of the nation’s wealth and today, with 100% freedom, we still only own one-half of one percent of the nation’s wealth. Why? Just like wealth, poverty is inherited as well.
The wealth disparity between whites and Blacks isn’t a gap but the “grand canyon” and while not often discussed, it as massive today as it was in 1864.
Our ancestors were freed into acute and abject poverty while, at the same time, the slave masters where the owners of America’s massive wealth, industry, and global economic position as the direct result of the bondage of our ancestors.
Today, some estimate America’s wealth at nearly $60 trillion with nearly 85 percent being transferred generationally (the majority can be traced back to slavery).
Let’s try to unpack what this means to our argument. It means that where you start matters. Our start has to begin when we were freed. Today, the white community and some in the black community will have you believe that we’re all equal and we all should be viewed as equal.
This is a preposterous position and is only used to obscure the real truth about the massive disadvantage that our ancestors and their children have inherited).
For the most part, we have inherited poverty and coupled with structured racism, as a group, we aren’t better off economically since slavery. This has had damming impact on the Black man.
I want to dispel the misconception that all white people benefited economically from slavery. Nothing can be further from the truth.
This is why there is so much hostility amongst many whites when the discussion shifts to affirmative action-efforts to attempt to repair the economic wrong perpetuated against our ancestors.
Today, most, if not all affirmative action efforts have been silenced or reversed and the debt owed to our ancestors remains unpaid.
Slavery did produce massive and extreme levels of wealth for a select number of white families.
However, there is an imbalance in the distribution of wealth even amongst white people as well. Today we find a movement growing that seeks a better distribution of wealth called “the 99 Percenters” (based on the fact that 40 percent of wealth in America is held by 1% of the population).
Even with this news, whites are doing far better than Blacks economically. Generally speaking, all white people benefited indirectly (white privilege) from slavery by controlling not only the wealth and what that wealth could produce, but by being in control of each and every American system and industry that systematically locked out our ancestors significantly impairing their abilities to compete (i.e. Jim Crow Laws, racism, discrimination, etc.).
The fact remains that blacks are last in every positive economic statistic and are still the last hired and the first fired, with our Black men taking the brunt of this inequity and injustice.
Black families live in poverty and too many of our children continue to be born disproportionately into poverty, more than any group.
Poverty continues to cripple and undermine the self-determination of the Black community and has wreaked havoc on the Black man.
The sad economic reality for many Black men can be seen in the high level of underemployment and unemployment for the most needed and employable segment (ages 18 -35).
While the national unemployment levels hovers around six to seven percent, traditionally, our black men experience unemployment levels at nearly 50 percent.
This is absolutely crippling to our community and especially our men.
The nation’s economic crisis has deeply affected the Black man.
Skyrocketing foreclosures, homelessness, job layoffs, economic disinvestment, failed education system, and shrinking tax base has pulled the rug out from under many Black families, particularly those Blacks living in low-income communities, which represents the majority of Black people.
Even our so-called middle class ranks at the bottom of the group and isn’t a true representation of private or public sector employment.
The majority of the Black middle class is employed in the public and non-profit sectors (i.e. government, education, civic groups, etc.), which impedes economic self-determination of Black people.
This is important because no one can inherit a government job. EVERYONE I KNOW, including myself and my family, was born into low or very low income families (poverty or near poverty).
What is the current and long-term impact of this type of poverty? What are the psychological ramifications when a man is unable to provide for his family? What does he communicate to his children especially his sons?
It’s called trauma and it represents the worst form of trauma because its kills ones spirit.
Many of our men who have been under-employed long-term and the unemployed have been labeled lazy and unwilling to work.
I cannot count how many times I’ve heard ‘just pull up your bootstraps.” The stereotype is that our men are just lazy. If all we have to do is work hard this would suggest that there are jobs in our community that we just won’t take (B.S.).
I liken our condition to the experiment that a social scientist conducted nearly fifty years ago to show the power of “illusion.”
The experiment had a mouse that was allowed to see and smell the perfect yellow cheese only to have it snatched away when the mouse was allowed to gain access.
After several tries at going after the cheese with the same result (snatching away), when the mouse was set free and able to get the cheese, it refused to go after the cheese anymore even though it could see the cheese and could smell it too.
For too many Black men in America, economic participation has become an illusion and many of our men no longer seek to participate and for that they are labeled as lazy and criminal.
This economic reality (poverty) has had significant ramifications for our children with many of our children going to bed hungry and/or malnourished.
Also, things have been bad for so long, the trauma that it produces in our men has resulted in anxiety and become a foundation for drug and alcohol addiction and/or negative social behavior.
Poverty has and continues to undermine the Black man.
In addition to the obvious legacy of poverty that is all encompassing (to this date, this issue hasn’t been, not only rectified and/or repaired, but not even addressed); I maintain that our people sustained serious psychological harm that continues to impede our progress today.
How? Poverty alone can create havoc on a family and community especially when it’s compared to the economic prosperity one can see right across the street (tale of two cities).
If poverty was all that Black people had to contend with, though monumental, it wouldn’t be as crippling as it is now.
I ask you: How was our people supposed to overcome this massive emotional, physiological, and economic disadvantage, or do you foolishly believe that it’s a non-issue? When was the healing to take place??
Due to the lack of treatment and/or acknowledgement of the abuse that was perpetuated against our ancestors we, as a group, developed some very harmful behaviors that continue today.
While there remain numerous scars from slavery, none runs deeper than the emasculation of the Black man and his leadership role as a provider and protector of his family and community along with emotional trauma that we project onto our boys; poverty is directly linked to this trauma.
Our children are exposed to the highest level of instabilities (i.e. poor work ethics and values, criminal behavior, incarceration, hopelessness, alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic abuse, emotional abandonment, etc.) and what do weexpect?!?
Do we expect that all of a sudden, the sons of these men, will spread their wings and fly, like magic? This type of trauma is mentally and socially crippling and children, especially boys, are a reflection of their fathers.
If their fathers feel hopeless, they will feel the same hopelessness. If their fathers are addicted it’s a good chance they too will become addicted.
I clearly remember my father taking me to the bar and making me drink straight gin.
I remember that it burned so bad that I threw up and was sick for the whole day.
I believe this and other factors contributed to me drinking and smoking marijuana at the early age of 10 and by age 12 I was smoking marijuana every day.
Needless to say, I didn’t compete with the other children in school. By age 18, I, like many of my peers, was a functional addict, addicted to smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine (I also dabbled in snorting heroin and freebasing cocaine).
I say functional, my father, in the beginning, was a weekend alcoholic, until he started doing heroin, which ultimately destroyed his entire life.
Two of his brothers overdosed and, during this period of time, my oldest brother and sister ran away from home with no consequence or even discussion (I didn’t know what happened to them, I would later learn that they found my mother and moved in with her).
This left my brother and me to live with my father in a heroin shooting gallery for nearly 3 years with no heat, electricity, or water (I WAS ADAMANT THAT I WOULD NOT ABANDON MY FATHER).
During my twenties, I was extremely fortunate that my brother and I acknowledged that we were on the path that we vowed we would not travel (become a junkie like our father) and when I turned 30, I went cold turkey and have not put an intoxicant in my body since (nearly 30 years sober). I now can be all I can be and owe much to my father and his life, struggles, and even his early death.
I was significantly impacted negatively and severely traumatized by my childhood and the sad reality is that most of our children are trapped in this vicious cyclone.
There is an old saying that children will not listen to what you say but what you do. So if our parents are telling us to do the right thing and they aren’t doing themselves, our children will follow the bad behavior that we try to dissuade them from. After my father divorced my mother (I was around 5), he attempted to raise me and my three siblings by himself.
Much of the dysfunction around male/female relationships that I learned, I learned from my father. He used to tell me that I should treat my sister with kid gloves but his behavior was, in many instances, hateful to women.
It seems like every other month, I had a new stepmother (some were actual repeats).
These women weren’t just bed partners for my father, but they lived with us (here today and gone tomorrow). Many were homeless and drug addicts themselves, so I didn’t see the best role model for women.
What did I learn about women, how to treat a woman, how to support a woman, and most importantly how does the relationship of man and woman happen? Ultimately, what I learned is that the relationship wasn’t to be . It meant nothing to me.
Like all children in a divorce, I was traumatized by the breakup of my parents. Broken families create broken children no matter what the income level or the age of the children.
Not only did I blame my mother for the breakup of our family (for years I resented her) but I also could never trust a woman for fear that she would abandon me like my mother (this dysfunction has followed me even till today).
I was extremely fortunate to bury years of pain that was held against my mother.
I used to ask myself, how does a mother leave her children? I spent so many nights crying for my mother and she was nowhere to provide her son (I was a baby) the warm hug that only a mother can give her child.
For years I just didn’t understand women (I guess I still don’t, but getting better).
How could I with the socialization process that I was born into?
There was no healthy modelling between a man and woman in my house and I adopted many of these pathologies (socialization).
Later when I became a teenager I went to live with my mother who had two additional children with two different fathers and I can tell you that I was unable or unwilling to navigate and manage all of the drama (my drama and my mother’s) this presented.
Not only did I despise the man she was with but I also found it difficult to love her children (my brothers). In her later years, prior to her death, she explained to me that she had only one option to leave because of the violence that my father exhibited (I wrote in my last article that the only memory that I have of my mother and father being together was seeing my father whip my mother with a belt) and I know that she loved me more than any other adult in my life.
I was able to bury both my mother and father with the peace and the understanding that going forward I would spend the rest of my life living up to the hope and strength of their struggles which were directly linked to their growing up.
I share my personal story and it makes my heart swell up as I write.
I cry because the pain is still there and I’ve learned how to bury these feelings (I will pass this dysfunction to my children if I don’t become aware of the hurt).
I also write and share my personal story because I know that I’m not much different from so many of our people.
This is an epidemic in our community and we will not heal unless we come to know that we have been hurt and the Black man is a targeted group.
