Universally Speaking
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
If you are being bullied, mistreated, abused, or oppressed and you are unable do anything about it, then you must be patient and pray that the culprit(s) has mercy on you while you plot, plan, and strengthen yourself and your resolve to do something about the oppression.
You are not just waiting and taking the abuse but you are constantly working to study the weaknesses of your oppressor with one goal and one goal only – to prepare yourself for ultimately full relief and full victory. Its Justice or Else.
On the other hand, if you are being bullied, mistreated, abused, or oppressed and you are able to do something about it and you do not, in some weird way you might have been brainwashed to accept this oppressive treatment.
The technical definition of “brainwash” is the method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs by use of torture, drugs, or psychological- stress techniques.
There are several types of brainwashing, which usually involve getting the victim to believe that he/ she deserves the oppression. I will elaborate on three (3) examples of how people may be brainwashed.
We see one type of brainwashing behavior in women who stay in abusive relationships year after year, never running away, never calling the police when they have been physically battered, just not doing anything about it.
Several studies show that many of these women suffer very low self-esteem and equate this abusive behavior with a perverse type of love.
In addition, the abusers have made them think that no one else loves them and their own behavior is the reason for the abuse and, therefore, the abuse is justified.
Usually the abuse continues and many times escalates causing extreme harm and even death to these women.
We are often deeply saddened by these tragedies because we just do not understand why these women did nothing to help themselves when they had numerous opportunities to stop their abuse.
We also see this type of behavior in victims that have been brainwashed by their oppressors and even when they are free to leave, they are unable to because they no longer have their own mind. They have the mind of oppressor.
The renowned case of the Patty Hearst kidnapping placed brainwashing front and center because while supposedly in the custody of her kidnappers, she appeared to participate “willingly” in a number of bank robberies.
While her actions were voluntary and of her own free will, her defense team claimed that she had been brainwashed by her kidnappers.
She no longer had her own independent mind but possessed the mind of her enemies.
Since the early 1950s, prisoners of war have been targeted with extreme levels of torture and mind games, including drugs and hypnotism, for the express purpose of brainwashing.
The technique of brainwashing was the brainchild of Edward Hunter, a newspaperman born in 1902, who had covered the rise of fascism in Europe before joining the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during World War II.
In addition to giving the prisoners of war hallucinogenic drugs over an extended period, tactics like “waterboarding” were utilized to inflict extreme pain causing the victims to repeatedly blackout and placing them at the mercy of their oppressor. Over time, these prisoners of war would become tools for their enemies and technically become brainwashed.
There is also another type of brainwashing that can be observed in the deep level of hopelessness that some might hold if they believe that their circumstances are unchangeable.
Even though they might have the “freedom” to change their conditions and, at least, defend themselves against their oppressor, they accept their plight as fate (accept the oppression) and live their lives in a state of survival.
After generations of acceptance and dysfunction, children that are born into such an environment have no understanding of their circumstances and are unable to make the distinction between “living” and “surviving.” They don’t know what they don’t know.
Justice has been so far removed from them and their surroundings that the majority of the people in their environment don’t even know what justice looks like.
It is one thing for the average person to accept this fate and choose not to do anything about their oppression (it becomes bigger than them) but it is a completely different issue for those who are supposed to know (leaders) and choose not to do anything about it.
For them, not doing anything is unacceptable because it should be an obligation on any leader to help those that have been trapped by the oppression.
Addressing oppression should not be a personal choice, but an obligation.
I know that some leaders are saying, “I did my part.” I gave to the United Negro College Fund or I did this, or I did that.
While they might have done something, it does not matter until justice is achieved and oppression has been remedied.
This isn’t a one time thing. This is a lifetime thing.
I say that you have an obligation because you have more capacity, more resources, and more knowledge than the average Black person does. Therefore, you should consider yourself the lucky ones.
Let me remind you that no matter how much individual success you achieve, you will always be judged with your group. You are connected to your people in spite of your so-called success.
If you don’t have this attitude, then you don’t have your own mind; you have the mind of your oppressor.
I am not upset with you because you don’t know. You have received a heavier dose of knowledge and information about the glorification of another people other than yourself. Our degrees are degrees in white supremacy and, by default, Black inferiority. Even with less knowledge, our ancestors did more and helped more and they did not take the approach that many so-called leaders have taken – SILENCE. If our ancestors had taken that approach, many of us would not be in the position that we are in now. But, for the struggles that were waged by our ancestors before many of us were even born, we would still be in shackles.
Our ancestors were freedom fighters and they fought from the time they were captured in Africa until today. Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X were portrayed as enemies of the state.
Resistors are often labeled terrorists and/or criminals and are demonized by the oppressors because their determination is a threat to the established power.
They cannot have this mind-set emulated by the victims of oppression,- what is this??? so they do all they can to destroy any and all resistance in the most violent ways, both physically and physiologically.
Yet, there are some who are severely undermanned but still are willing to fight to defend the dignity of their people and they choose to give their lives for the freedom of their people. We call these individuals FREEDOM FIGHTERS NOT TERRORISTS , and we have hundreds of known and unknown freedom fighters.
We are bombarded with historical examples and other media (i.e. films, sitcoms, plays, etc.) of the resistance movement during the Jewish Holocaust. These individuals are portrayed as freedom fighters and not terrorists, in spite of the human causalities that are inflicted. Why?
Because the pursuit of justice over injustice allows the victim to do whatever is humanly possible to stop the oppression and to seek justice.
We also can point to a number of times when we put it all on the line in defense of our people and to fight against an avowed oppressor.
For example, in 1839, 53 African slaves on board the slave ship the Amistad revolted against their captors, killing all but the ship’s navigator, who sailed them to Long Island, N.Y., instead of their intended destination, Africa. Joseph Cinqué was the group’s leader.
The slaves aboard the ship became unwitting symbols for the antislavery movement in pre-Civil War United States.
Nat Turner, an enslaved Black preacher led the most significant slave uprising in American history.
He and his band of followers launched a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The militia quelled the rebellion, and Turner was eventually hanged.
Knowledge of self is the most critical anti-brainwashing medicine. White supremacy and Black inferiority is everywhere and if you don’t know how to detect it, you will succumb to it.
It is in religion, culture, language, holidays, media, history, etc. It is everywhere.
It is now a part of what we see on a daily basis – in our schools, communities, and in our families.
How else is one, especially our children, supposed to deduce from what they are seeing everywhere (24/7/365) that Black people are not inferior?
How do they separate the “designed” conditions from the people?
Knowledge of self will give us the tools to detect white supremacy and Black inferiority.
Knowledge of self will give us power, Black power and Black consciousness.
Knowledge of self will give us love of self, respect of self, and a strong sense of self-pride.
If knowledge of self was fuel, I wonder how long many of us would last? What do we really know about who we are and where we came from? What do we really know about what happened to us in America?
What do we know about how exploited we were? I am not talking about a “sound bite, I’m talking about details, context, and clear descriptions of every aspect of the American institution of slavery.
We have to, at a minimum, acknowledge that something is missing and once we do, we must each ask the question “how much of my mind belongs to me?”
If you are a Black leader in America and you are not taking the stance “Justice or Else” and are not doing all you can to relieve the oppression of Black people, then you are complicit, and could even be a conspirator, to the crimes that are being committed against Black people.
Huey Newton once said that if you weren’t fighting for the liberation of your people, you can’t call yourself Black, you’re a NEGRO.
Your Blackness is based on how much you help your own people and if you don’t know this, you have already failed the Black test.
You might say that I am getting mine; well, if you were Black and not a Negro, you could do both. You could address your individual concerns and the concerns of your people at the same time.
When our ancestors were fighting for basic human and civil rights, they anticipated that we would enter into American systems not as a continually oppressed Black people, but as liberated Black people.
Today, we have so-called leaders (experts) that are mainstays in America systems that treat us sometimes worse than the openly white racist of the pre-60s ever did.
In spite of the little knowledge that most of us have about the American institution of slavery, we even have less knowledge of the resistance movement undertaken by our ancestors. Our lack of knowledge has severely handicapped our potential as a people. This is also true for our socalled leaders.
If you are a Black leader and you are not fighting for justice for Black people, then you are a conspirator in the oppression of Black people and you should either stop calling yourself a leader or you should be brought up on charges against the Black community for your crime of aiding and abetting the oppression of your own people. Knowledge of self would have Black leaders defending the voiceless Black community.
Knowledge of self would have the Black leaders picketing, marching, boycotting, strategizing, and aggregating our resources and our capacities to defend the Black community.
There would be no need for a movement entitled “Black Lives Matter” because Black leaders would prove that Black lives matter.
There would be no question as to today’s agenda– it is the same as it has been for nearly 500 years for Black people – justice.
It is crystal clear that we have a Black leadership problem because if we didn’t, there would be no question about whether we fight for JUSTICE OR ELSE?
The lack of protest by our most successful is proof positive that we have many leaders who “think they know” but they don’t have a clue.
This article is not Rahim’s diatribe. This article is Rahim looking at the outcomes and the outcomes are very troubling.
I do not see anything brewing from the four corners of Black America – from the inner cities, from government, from the religious community or from the grassroots activists.
Nor do I see any encouragement or guidance from the politicians or from the business community that represents the type of “strategic” response equal to or greater than the oppression that the Black family is enduring in America.
Let me give you just a snippet of what justice should look like – because we’re supposed to know and we should care. Both are detrimental to the Black family.
Blacks represent 13 percent of the nation’s population and should own 13 percent of the good demographics (i.e. wealth, income, businesses, etc.) and 13 percent of the bad demographics (i.e. academic failures, incarceration, unemployment, health, etc.).
The sad reality is that Blacks are nearly invisible in the good demographics and dominate the bad demographics (the disparities can range between 15 and 60 points).
For example, if justice was achieved Blacks would own 13 percent of the nation’s $110 trillion not one-half of one percent (.05%). This disparity is equates to a $14 trillion differential. This disparity is lethal and influences every aspect of Black American life.
As I have tried to state in the previous two parts of this article, there is no higher and lofty objective in life (it’s the natural order of creation) than to seek human justice.
It is the energy that makes the world go around. We cannot have it both ways.
The last time that I checked, we are a free people and that freedom allows us to defend ourselves and to make wrongs right; stop any/all oppression; and seek and secure justice for Black people.
Sure Blacks continue to be at a serious disadvantage, which has its origins in where we started in this country (over 300 years of chattel slavery).
Upon our emancipation, nearly 150 years ago, Blacks did not have the luxury of strategic thinking and instructions that would look at the human and physical casualties of the American institution of slavery and all of its tentacles.
We were pretty much thrust into an American life that had already been developed and owned by our oppressors (the train had already left the station).
If slavery was not enough, upon emancipation, every American systems (i.e. judicial, education, financial, corporate and business, health, etc.) literally denied Blacks any meaningful participation for the next 75 years.
Blacks were at a serious disadvantage because while we had a few organizations here and there that were waging these massive fights on our behalf, for the most part they were under-resourced and overwhelmed and “strategic” approach only grew – it never subsided.
Blacks would remain on the defense, fighting against a well-armed and already established system that purposely denied Blacks participation either by having standards for participation that were unachievable based on “Catch 22s” (i.e. can’t get the job without experience and can’t get the experience without getting the job, etc.) or there was outright discrimination and Blacks were denied participation just because of the color of their skin (i.e. Jim Crow, segregation, redline, etc.).
Considering all of these challenges, Blacks should see their strengths and it should push them to do more and understand that the fight for justice is theirs and being enslaved created a whole host of challenges that prevented us from righting these wrongs, (pray) but once we were no longer enslaved and were free, we should and must FIGHT FOR JUSTICE.
THIS IS NOT A DESTINATION; THIS IS AN ATTITUDE THAT MUST BE A PART OF THE BLACK CULTURE.
As I stated earlier, if you are being bullied, mistreated, abused, or oppressed and you are able to do something about it, and you don’t, you have been brainwashed to accept this oppressive treatment. You must asked yourself what it will take for the Black family in America to be relieved of oppression and injustice.
If you are not fighting back, you are brainwashed and you don’t have your own mind, but instead, you have the mind of your oppressor.
This is the story of Willie Lynch, which will be discussed in the next article.
