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
I know it is very offensive to be called a slave and I am definitely not trying to offend you.
In fact, I’m trying to do just the opposite. I’m trying to call you into your greatness, your power, and your purpose.
I love my Black people and I believe in the power of Black people.
However, we can no longer live off the accomplishments of previous generations. We must stand on our own accomplishments within our collective struggle.
We have a responsibility to contribute to the ongoing struggle of Black people. We do not have the right nor the luxury to take our foot off the pedal.
The question for us is not whether we are physically free. It is obvious that we are.
The profound question that we are compelled to answer- is whether or not we are mentally, emotionally and psychologically free?
Unfortunately, we have stalled and, in some respects, we have even lost ground in our individual and collective efforts to ensure these freedoms.
We have stymied in building the infrastructure needed to compete as a group, and we have swapped out a culture of struggle for self-determination for a culture of assimilation as a measurement of success.
This detrimental perspective of success as assimilation is magnified when we consider the following:
• Our culture isn’t producing excellence at any level and no real opposition to the social and economic conditions that Blacks face in America exist (there is no mandate coming from the various sectors of the Black community that urges them to continue the fight and struggle for self determination);
• The current generation of Black leaders do not honor the legacy and sacrifices of our ancestors who paved the way for all of us by continuing the struggle of self-determination (our most accomplished Blacks are detached both physically and emotionally from the struggle); and
• As a people, we lack a real “organized” and “collective” voice that speaks to the past and current injustices against Blacks with the unified goal – to hold America accountable for her crimes against our people.
Notably, even when actions are taken, Black leadership implements these actions in isolation and silos with no real coordination and organization.
Everyone is a free agent accountable only to themselves and/or their organization.
Blacks are physically free to do whatever we desire to do; economically free to pool our resources to build our own economic pie; politically free to exercise our political will for the achievement of our own political agenda; free to defend ourselves against those who seek to harm us socially and economically; and free to build our own interpretation of American life.
If we want a new Black experience in America, we must use the freedom we have to build this new experience.
If we are going to establish Black life in America the way we desire it, we must do the work and no one will or can do this for us, but us.
However, in doing so, it is essential that we work together. This unity in bringing about a shared vision of success is where we run into deep-rooted problems and we must again ask ourselves: Are we really free?
Brothers and sisters, we must stop making excuses for what isn’t being done for us by other people. When we are free, what others do for us is irrelevant.
Understandably, if those who are in power are working against us, it requires us to work harder and smarter to defeat them, but when we are free, we don’t have an excuse.
Let’s stop romanticizing about the problem as if somehow this ill-informed romance will exempt us from the real work that must be done to solve the problem.
The real work involves first unifying our people because we have become so grossly divided.
We must eliminate the excuses, stop the B.S and just do it! We must come together as a group someway and somehow.
We must break the curse of Willie Lynch and exercise our freedom to be truly free.
Willie Lynch, a slave owner from the West Indies, came to America to teach the slave-owners how to control their slaves “by unleashing an inhumane level of torture in an attempt to maximize the most out of their slaves.
The American slave owners believed that they could “break” a slave by whipping, beating, burning, branding, and killing them to place the highest level of fear in them, so that when Master said work, they would work and produce and give the slave-owner no trouble whatsoever.
Willie Lynch told the American slave-owners, “I caught a whiff of dead slaves hanging from the trees.
You are not only losing valuable stock (enslaved) by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profits, you suffer fires, your animals are killed.
In my bag, I have a foolproof method for controlling your slaves. I guarantee, if installed correctly, it will control the slave for at least 300 years.
I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. I call this “making a slave.”
Today we’re physically free but we’re divided in so many ways: colorism, skin tone (light vs. dark), intelligence, class, where you live (turf wars over areas we don’t even own); east vs. west, south vs. north, hair (coarse vs. straight or long vs. short), and age (young vs. old); politically (anti-politics vs. pro-politics, Democrat vs. Republican, or progressive vs. conservative); religiously (Christian vs. Muslim); within Christian religion (Baptist vs. Jehovah Witness, COGIC vs. 7th Day Adventist, Methodist vs. Pentecostal); within the Islam Religion (Sunni vs. Nation of Islam, Sallifiyah vs. Ahmadiayyah); and lastly and most deadly, we are divided as a family unit (male vs. female).
These differences are physical differences that point to a bigger, psychological divide around approach and methodology.
The Willie Lynch torture approach was used to ingrain and deeply embed within the psyche of the Black man a high level of distrust, which, if properly manipulated, is stronger than trust.
Envy, if correctly instigated, is stronger than adulation, respect or admiration.
One of the most detrimental and most significant divide was the strategy to pit the Black male against the Black female.
To be successful, the slave-owners taught the Black female that she could not depend on the Black man nor could the Black man trust the Black woman (this attitude is in full operation today).
“If done with fidelity, the female, from a survival perspective, will teach the children to follow suit in perpetuity.”
Today, although we are physically free, we do not fully understand the magnitude of the psychological harm that has been done to us and the degree to which our minds and psyche have been damaged and destroyed. Notwithstanding, we have made individual gains and accomplishments (it really speaks to our greatness and resiliency), but what would those gains and accomplishments look like if we were united?
Given the level of competition and the significant place we find ourselves in, you would think that this realization would be universally acknowledged.
Many of us realize that we are behind, but we don’t really comprehend and fully appreciate how far behind we are as a group.
This can be confusing for many of us. Emancipation was not a starting line for us because, even though we were freed, we did not have the capacity to compete fairly and we have yet to achieve that capacity.
Therefore, I would argue that we are not only at zero; we are way below zero in the deep negatives (i.e. negative 500 years).
Let me try to explain further. If you are in the negative and you move closer to zero (starting place), this is progress, unless you believe that you are at zero and therefore you do not appear to progress.
Black people have been fooled into believing that the starting place is zero when our competition (those that we will compete against) already owns it all.
They own all of the resources; they control all of the institutions; they control every level of government; and they control the propaganda and the media that communicates to everyone this imbalance is fair.
The problem is that Black people, not knowing our own history and how it has affected us, believe that our start (zero) is at emancipation.
So if you do the math, we’re 500 years behind the children of the slave owners and because of the damage of slavery, we have been “made” to act like slaves even though we are were physically free. Significantly, we have been “made” to serve others always, even at the expense of our own.
I’m here to say that no one individual will accomplish anything of real significance.
Our real strength is in our unity, in our collective. Our ancestors weren’t talkers; they were doers.
Sure, we have some major challenges, but our ancestors had even tougher obstacles that they had to overcome.
Their lives were on the line every day for the span of their entire life.
It’s one thing that the oppression takes the form of structural pathways and avenues of denial that trap hundreds of thousands of our people into a sub-life and sub-culture (today’s oppression).
However, it’s a totally different phenomenon when the oppression physically kills, maims, terrorizes and/ or tortures us (this was the context for our ancestors).
With freedom comes responsibility and to our detriment, we spend too much time talking about what others are doing to us.
I always say, it’s not what they are doing to us anymore “it’s more what we are not doing- and what we are not doing is leveraging our collective strengths.
What we are not doing is working together at any meaningful level. We are more divided now than ever.
Aren’t we supposed to be more accomplished; more sophisticated; more astute; more savvy; more educated; more resourced; and more experienced than our ancestors were?
Then, what’s is going on with these contradictions and why can’t we accomplish more than they did?
Why can’t we place our survival in our unity and begin to work together? Are we truly free?
When we don’t work together to address our challenges, it equates to self-destructive behavior. Maybe this behavior would be acceptable IF BLACKS WERE NOT THE LOWEST PERFORMERS AND AT THE LOWEST LEVEL ON THE ECONOMIC STRATA OR DID NOT EXPERIENCE SUCH ALARMING DISPARITIES THAT IT WILL REQUIRE THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE TO ALLOW THE WORK TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL GENERATIONS JUST TO THWART THE DISPARITIES, LET ALONE BRIDGE THEM.
When I speak about self-destructive behavior, I’m not just talking about those with the least means and education and what we see happening in our urban core (i.e. teen pregnancy, Black on Black murder, tattoos and vulgar music, etc.), With limited access to quality education, unstable family life, and the inheritance of social pathologies, which all contribute to self-destruction, in many cases, this group cannot interrupt this behavior without help, guidance, and tangible support.
Importantly, when I speak about self-destructive behavior, I am also talking about the self destructive behavior of our most accomplished and most influential (leaders).
This leadership includes those Blacks who have the capacity, knowledge, and resources and are not a part of the struggle in fighting for justice for Black people.
In many respects, our behavior is much worse and more damaging to the Black cause because we represent a tangible solution that goes unfulfilled.
We represent the highest level of talent and capacity that has the best chance to provide leadership and solutions to the problems that the Black community face.
In many respects, we are the help, guidance, and the tangible support that Black people who are trapped educationally, economically, and socially need. If we are not providing this assistance to our people and we are free to do so, the incomprehensible question we must ask yourself is -Why?
Is it because we are not truly free? Unfortunately, too many of us are so impressed with our credentials, pedigrees, and appointments that the white establishment has anointed us with that we have fallen deeper in love with our oppression “even to having the distinction of becoming an honorary white person.
Instead of using our skills and talents to advance the Black agenda, we are too busy trying to prove how assimilated we can be.
Think about it. I’m not saying that this applies to everyone, but it has affected enough of us so that nothing remotely organized is coming from this group.
For too many of us, our whole existence is about seeking the pleasure of those who seek to do us harm and really don’t want anything to do with us.
However, our self-loathing is overwhelming and we are too “in love” to see the reality of our oppression.
In fact, this behavior is exactly what Willie Lynch said would happen if the slave-owners would institute “making a slave”, the psychological science of mind control” restated differently “brainwashing.”
Again, this admonishment is directed at those who have resources and capacity not those who are struggling just to make ends meet.
I want you to ask yourself, what are you doing to help our people? What are we actually doing of substance and meaning? True freedom is the ability to help not only ourselves, but the ability to help our people as well.
This is the most powerful use of our freedom. I recall the intentions we expressed when we were children.
The noble and necessary intentions that if we were ever to be successful, we would help our families and our community. Again, why did we develop apathy or amnesia in advancing the agenda of our people? What happened? Many of us forgot about these intentions and they are now distant memories. Again, when I speak about self-destructive behaviors, the innocence of these intentions has been contaminated by an unrelenting dose of white supremacy and Black inferiority through the miseducation process. Presently, we have acquired a deeper love for someone other than ourselves. So today, if we are not a part of the Black movement, the Black struggle, then we have become a sympathizer when we should be a direct participant.
I know what some of your responses might be: “I give to the Urban League, NACCP (or some other Black organization); I sit on this or that Black board. I do my part because I volunteer at the neighborhood YMCA, etc.”
This is all good, but this won‘t change our conditions. You’ve heard the term “a drop in the bucket? Well, this is less.
The question that we must really ask ourselves is, are we using our influence, resources, and capacity to ally with others in the Black community to create a power base? If we are not doing this, we are not really helping.
We are not really leveraging our capacity.
We can’t mail in our support; we can’t proxy our support; our support has to be hands-on.
As Gil Scott Heron said, “The revolution will be televised The revolution will be live.”
If we are truly successful, we must break the curse of Willie Lynch and not accept just our physical freedom but what true freedom allows “ self-determination.
We are going to have to break the curse of divisiveness and self-hate because to be divided in a time of definite need is the manifestation of self hatred.
It is the responsibility of every Black person, especially our most accomplished, to understand the tragedy inflicted on our people and to develop the tools and the capacity needed to detect the scientific techniques used to divide and conquer our community. It is the responsibility of every Black person to understand the sheer determination of those who sought to utterly destroy us both physically and psychologically. If we haven’t been taught about or if we haven’t studied our history from an unbiased perspective, the likelihood that we would agree with this perspective is slim; however, you cannot disagree with the outcomes. The outcomes are empirically clear: Black people are physically free, but the Black community is completely misaligned, the Black community has botched its own survival.
If I were a foreigner who visited America and knew about the social-economic conditions of the Black community, I would wonder why this group couldn’t lift itself up– especially in cities where they were a majority (in fact, this belief is held by white people as well).
Those who are the most recent immigrants to the United States have all used the Black community as a stepping-stone towards economic independence. In fact, many of them, because of the propaganda perpetuated by the American media, are perplexed by our dilemma and many of them treat Blacks like second-class citizens.
In my lifetime, I have watch a number of immigrants come to America and succeed (i.e. Russians, Koreans, Chinese, Latinos, Indian, Pakistanis, Arabs, etc.). How do we explain this phenomenon?
We might be physically free, but we must recognize, that we are psychologically enslaved because something is paralyzing our abilities to do what all free people do, which is to fight oppression and chart a course of self-determination.
Yes, we are physically free but mentally enslaved. How else do we explain our inability to mount any real defense on behalf of Black people?
I am an outcome-driven person and no explanation would suffice that will ever justify our action or inaction given that we are in a war that we are losing and the casualties (our children and our future) are mounting.
The sad reality is that we are not losing because we are fighting these battles and coming up short. No, we are losing the war because we haven’t even engaged ourselves.
We have not shown up ready to fight (it’s almost as if the Black community is asleep).
Na’im Akbar wrote “The 300-year captivity of Africans in America is an indisputable fact which too many have sought to deny as relevant to anything more than event of the past.”
The demise of our Black cultural institutions has severely impacted our ability to “tell our story” and to keep our past in front of us.
Couple this with the implosion of the Black family and lack of knowledge of Black traditions and history.
Too many of today’s Black population do not have basic information and have relegated the enslavement of our people as some past event that has absolutely no bearing on today.
In fact, it is just the opposite, our past harrowing experience in America has everything to do with today.
The Honorable Marcus Garvey once said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
When we don’t truly understand our history in this country, there is no way we can understand why we are not making progress– when progress for other communities is happening all around us.
When we don’t understand our history, we are unable to understand the psychological damage that has been purposely done to us.
When we don’t understand our history, we cannot understand the depths of the trauma placed on our people.
When we don’t understand our history, we don’t understand the mental torture that has been meted upon us.
When we don’t understand our history, we truly don’t appreciate how our culture and our love of self has been replaced by the love of our oppressors (we just do not believe this is possible).
When we don’t truly understand our own history, we will never understand the slave-master trying to “break” the slave and developing the science around “making” a slave.
The difference is that breaking a slave is short lived and making a slave is permanent (it will continue even when physical freedom has been achieved).
Brother and sisters, what has happened to us was no event and to treat it like an event is an absolute travesty. Slavery was not an event that took place at a point in time.
Instead, we must acknowledge the brutality of slavery an American institution (i.e. historic reference). Slavery was a horrific experience that maimed millions of Black people in the process with no reconciliation or reparation.
The architects, slaveowners, and the benefactors all participated in an orchestrated attack against Black people, which ultimately would threaten our total existence.
This result is an unrelenting injustice. This was no accident. This was an assault designed to destroy Black people.
Today, we must now answer the profound question: ”ARE WE REALLY FREE?”
