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In numerous cultural traditions, frogs symbolize fertility, rebirth, potential, change/transformation, purity, prosperity, good luck, uncleanliness, and liberty.
Interestingly, frogs also have an unfounded reputation based on a popular, but false myth that they will willing go to their demise if placed in water that rises slowly to a boiling point. It is known as the “boiling frog syndrome” and relates that frogs should jump out of water with a rising temperature, but do not and suffer a horrid death.
One can build an argument that Black America reflects frog symbolism. We are a fertile people who continue to help populate the Earth prolifically. We continue to experience cultural and social rebirth, change, and transformation wherever we go or are taken. While we may not enjoy all the prosperity that we so richly deserve, we certainly bring prosperity and good luck to those who appropriate our labor and creative genius. It is true that certain segments of US society view and treat Black America as unclean/untouchable. A frog symbolism that we have not fulfilled to date is liberty.
What does all of this have to do with the price of rice?
Stated succinctly, the evolution of Black America’s condition in the US can be said to parallel that of the “boiling frog syndrome.” Much of Black America has been, and is, in a pot of slowly boiling water. We are headed toward our demise. Yet we refuse to extricate ourselves from an environment filled with chilling realities that may precipitate that demise.
Consider the following selected and non-rank ordered chilling realities that comprise the water headed toward a boiling point:
• We are experiencing violent and systematic murder, but we continue to attempt to function in environments and among people who are pulling triggers—White and Black.
• The nation’s criminal injustice system in egregious, unfair, and unjustifiable fashion, incarcerates Black Americans; denies basic liberties of life; forces the adoption of anti-social mentalities/behaviors that exist in prison environments; and makes too few provisions for incarcerated persons’ return to society. All of this prevents incarcerated persons from a fruitful life and favorable reproduction.
• The society programs us through its media’s repetitious advertising to consume food and drink and to inhale smoke that cause illnesses that kill: Heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, respiratory disease, kidney disease, etc.
• The society programs us through its media’s repetitious advertising to become ill and seek treatment. We use our powerful minds to enable illnesses (we claim them), but the treatment (including vaccinations) can produce deaths due to pharmaceuticals’ side effects (including suicide) or what are called “preventable adverse events” in hospitals and clinics.
• Some of us are programmed to adopt lifestyles and orientations that preclude the opportunity to procreate.
• We do not question deeply enough the reasons given for Black America’s extremely high infant mortality rate and the rate of Black maternity deaths.
• Some of us abort lives that may very well embody our success and liberation.(1)
• The society programs us overtly and subliminally through its media to develop self-hatred and low self-perception, which causes us to confront each other in a blame game and to destroy each other.
• Although we elect political leaders, they often fail to act in our best interest, seek their own interests, and join with other politicians, who view Black Americans as economic competitors, who should be thwarted “by any means necessary” or be used (mind, body, and soul) to advance non-Black agendas.
• The larger nation engages in wars and disproportionately assigns Black Americans to lower ranks that execute missions that result in “killed in action.”
• We permit our posterity to undergo training by those who do not have our best interest at heart and who are bent on ensuring that our youth cannot compete with their youth. The psychological trauma of this “educational” experience and its ancillary effects are key factors in the implosion of the socioeconomic system for many Black Americans, which accelerates our physical demise.
• We continue to accept governance without much opposition that has repeatedly provided lip service to our needs by formulating legislation to seemingly address our needs without allocating funding sufficient to enforce the legislation. Moreover, that government ensures that non-Blacks benefit disproportionately from the operationalization of that legislation and permits non-Blacks to appropriate the benefits of legislation initially intended to address Black America’s needs.
Yes, some may say that this is a complaint list about which Black Americans can take direct action. We can halt homicides in our areas of influence (communities). We can identify and implement methods to avoid contact with police that lead to incarceration. We can disengage from media sources and stop the overt and subliminal programming that causes us to act against our own best interests. We can adopt better health habits. We can take every action to accelerate our reproduction and increase our population growth. We can eschew military service. We can find ways to take back schools in our areas of influence and install teachers and administrators, who operate and educate in Black America’s interest. Finally, we can take every action to end our dependence on the nation’s governments at all levels.
However, to accomplish the foregoing requires adoption of a new mindset and perspective on how we desire to live life in this country, all hands must be on deck, and we need a plan to guide us through a logical and systematic process that will yield desired results.
Such a plan is forthcoming! It is a plan that can be adapted/modified to fit specific needs wherever you are across this nation. Be on the lookout for this plan: A Long-Term Strategic Plan for Black America. Plan to read and discuss it. Plan to adopt it in some form. Plan to work to execute the plan.
If we do not take this action, then we may find that, like the mythical “boiling frog syndrome,” while we could jump to consider and execute an easily accessible plan that can secure our long-lived future, Black America remains in a slowly evolving environment of chilling realities that converge to produce our demise.
B Robinson
042823
1 Nation of Islam Leader, Louis Farrakhan, is noted for promulgating the idea that solutions to human problems come through the womb.