It goes without saying but I'm a black woman, born well after the real struggles my predecessors faced. I wasn't around when slavery was outlawed, when indentured servitude (peonage) ended, when schools and public transportation were integrated. I never felt in any way like I was less capable or less worthy than any other race, though if I tell the truth, for a long time I thought all Asians knew karate and were smarter than I was. Still, with all the stereotypes that were passed down, all the pain of inequality, I had white people in my life that loved me and that I loved. So, I became a problem on several levels to my brothers and sisters of color. One, I allowed my ears to dull to their cries because I had opportunities and I pushed through barriers without feeling that my color limited me. Two, I began to detest my own kind because I felt they were either weak, lazy or for those who did make it, stuck up and cruel. Three, I associated my family dysfunction with my race. Now, it took some time but finally, my eyes did come open and I thank God for it. Stay with me here.
There are many ways of dividing people, many paths of conquering what has been divided. I remember when I first read the Willie Lynch letter and saw that the man was obviously a genius, diabolical though he was. But everything he said would happen, happened. How could he know? Because he understood DNA memory and programming. You see, scientist are still trying to figure it out, but life can change the very code of our DNA structure. Black women being taken from their men, willingly and sometimes unwillingly, seeing the men disrespected and rendered impotent, changed the structure of the family. Women were somewhat elevated as slaves while men were oppressed ferociously. Well in that same vein, inequality anywhere spreads to inequality everywhere. Before the black/white phenomenon, this country was inhabited and expected to be built by white slaves, those who owed money. They were taxed well beyond reason and killed without much provocation. Then during the times of slavery here in America, whites fought to control blacks and enjoy good living for a change using the same tyranny they were once subjected to. At that same time, men sought to keep control over women. Women sought freedom from men because rape and abuse were so common, it was legal almost everywhere. Police didn't come when a husband blacked his wife's eye. In fact, men were not only allowed but also encouraged to discipline their wives. Kids were raised with this false sense of "breeding" that made them somehow superior in an effort to keep them from falling into subjection by whatever the next generation would bring. We're talking about coding DNA with lies.
The biggest lie that was ever told and that continues to plague us ALL is the lie of separation. And the place where we must all unite is in the blood that flows and the air we must breathe. We are human beings. But we've been told this world isn't big enough for all of us to make it. We've been told that her happiness will be our misery. His success will mean our failure. We've been programmed to fight, even when there is nothing to fight about. And at the center of this massive ball of deception is not the "Man" or even people anymore. It is energy, negative energy charged with multiplied generations of inequity, injustice and anger. So when I want to see my own race come out of base living, I have to understand how they got there... how there are more liquor stores and abortion clinics in black communities. I have to see how once vulgarity was considered inappropriate but they loved to see the black man and woman "entertain" without having enough foresight to see the pain it would bring right back to their own home when their daughters brought home mixed babies. It isn't a conspiracy theory that drugs were once planted in strong black communities to tear it down. Fast forward to today, you have by far more white drug addicts than blacks. That boomerang comes back with a helluva kick. But you won't hear it because no one really wants deal with that. I have to understand the DNA coding that led us here. But to reverse that, you have to see that those who seek to oppress are also themselves oppressed. And if they do not heal, and we do not heal, then nothing will ever change. Apart, we can point fingers all day, those people did it. They in turn point fingers and say those other people did it. But IF we unite, it doesn't matter who did what anymore. There will be no room to point fingers. Only room to hold on to one another. Only room to build one another. Only room to love one another.
I would never make any of my white friends carry the weight of their grandparents and great grands and great great grands. That burden should not rest on them. And by that SAME token, I will not allow any white person, Hispanic person or another black person make me carry the limitations of my grandparents and great grandparents and so on. You have been told you have limits all your life, and particularly if you are black, but the last battlefield is riddled with blood and gore. That battlefield is your mind. You don't have to accept it though. You don't have to let dead men's bones lay around in your mind pumping fear and limitations into you. You don't have to conform. Conformity was created to keep cowards happy, to keep them unchallenged, or as a survival mechanism. There are every race and nationality of cowards. But greatness comes from deciding to throw the conventional ideas to the wind in favor of freedom--- not to be vulgar and distasteful, or even hateful. There is no real freedom in that. This freedom is to become amazing, alive and unlimited beings of love as always intended.