the demoralization and oppression of black people

7/31/2019 The Demoralization and Oppression of Black People

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The Demoralization and Oppression of Black people

By Ameera Ashshakir

To fully understand the deterioration of our ancient civilizations, culture, and pride as a

people so that we may build upon our mistakes to create new solutions, we must first

examine the conditions from which we fell, and the reason behind it all. When did the

decline of African civilization start? Also, in asking these questions of ourselves, we

should take note of the flaws in our past, so that in the construction of new African nations,the same mistakes will not be made. Before the slave trade, before Christianity ran

through Africa, and even before the rise of Islam, this is when our security was firstbreached, and this is where we will start.

It can be said with certainty, with twenty-first century technology, that Africa is the

birthplace of man-kind, and therefore we can conclude that civilization and society started

there millions of years ago, giving the people of the continent a head-start in the building of

society. There is a need to look back upon the Golden ages of the continent, during the timewhen Africa was growing, and developing sciences, spirituality, culture, and law. Through

all of this, we had established a strong value system in the family unit, and its place insideof the community. The Nile River became a great expressway in a sense, and brought manytribes and cultures up out of different parts of Africa. Africa was the forerunner of human

progress, and this was eventually attractive to other peoples of the world.


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While Ethiopia is said to be the birthplace of civilization, Khemet was the first organized

nation around 6000 BC. This was the foundation for medicine, science, knowledge,architectural monuments, spiritual systems, physics, astrology, astronomy, theology, and

genius. There is no refuting the beauty, intelligence, and power of these nations, but, I must

admit that we compromised our security in some ways with the focus on scholasticachievements. Without the marriage of a security mindset, and a greatly intellectualcivilization, our back door is then left open to anyone, with no one to protect all that we

have accomplished.

This was what happened when the hyksos invasion of Khemet lasted four hundred and

twenty years, and was ended by the rise of Khemetian nationalism during the 17th dynasty.

The same theme was then repeated again and again in Africa, and most of the cause wasour open hearts and doors to strangers who wanted to learn our ways. This innocence is

what led to the actual replacement of Black people in our own culture, and the imitation

of us by the Persian, and Arab people after security had again become lax. This was the

beginning of our holocaust as a people. I think that this is something to note; in the futureour great societies and empires must be better protected so that the demoralization that it

led to will never again be a problem for our people. If you don't appreciate your culture,

someone else will most definitely stand in for you as a practiced understudy; this has beenproven.

The second series of events that led to the predicament that we find ourselves in today isforeign religion. The main contender was and still is Christianity, though Islam is not

totally without blame. African spirituality was mostly based on Earth science, and the

relationship of the people with the ancestral forces, and the land that sustained all. Thesespiritual systems reflected on the value of life in general, and helped us to find the purpose

in our lives, and individual actions. We lived in societies were there was always enough tolive comfortably, and share with others, thereby establishing a much more peaceful

relationship with our people. The Arab and the European came into Africa in a state ofawe, they had come from deserts, and lands not quite as plush, so all of the resources that

we had lived in peace with, and they simply couldnt get enough of. The role of foreign

religions was not given as a tool for enlightenment, but was disguised as that, and insteadused to force a collective consciousness on a people so that they can be better exploited.


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Islam brought the One God concept to Africa around 500BC, and what it also brought

and enforced, was a patriarchal lean to the societies that we had built. This had a hugeinfluence on our cultures, morals, and sacred laws. This was the beginning of a new face

for Africa; Islam had spread far and wide, drastically changing the way that we looked at

the world. Although we were forced by the blade, in many regions to take Islam as our solebelief system, we took it on as puritans of the religion, and adhered strictly to its religious

laws. This started some of the in-fighting between us that left even more doors open to

Christianity. So, when European explorers came into Africa at first to take resources, andlearn our teachings, and later to spread Christianity, we were at a very vulnerable state.

Christianity was forced on us in the worst ways; Europeans came into Africa with a gun,and a bible, their tactics ruthless and destructive. This started the slow deterioration of our

morality, and our sacred laws built on honor and nobility. Europeans and their Christianity

obliterated the cultural unity that we held dear, and individualized certain groups of

Africans to help them in the capturing, and enslavement of other Africans. This was theroot of the racism that we see today, and the justification for the murderous actions

committed against us as a people.

The justification for this action was the spreading of civilization though you and I know

that with the incline of Europeans in Africa came the decline of the most paramount of

civilizations. Also, this was a so called humanitarian effort that was supposed to buildcivilization for the uncivilized, yet it was done in the most inhuman, and uncivilized ways

possible. Along with the religion, Europeans used rape, murder, threat, and destruction to

get their point across, and all of this was done in the name of their God. As said by the

respected John Henrik Clarke, When a people assume that their God approves of theircriminal action against another people, they have made God ungodly.


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Again, a foreign belief system was forced on us, and again, it destroyed our social

structures. Christianity introduced to us the concept of looking to a White man as God, and

believing fully and completely that this God was all seeing, and all knowing. The religiontaught us that nothing was outside of the power of God, and that to disobey God was sin of

all sins. Coincidentally, the people who enslaved us just so happened to look like the image

of God that was given to us. This was the introduction of not just a physical captivity, but amental captivity as well. This was the door of no return.

This genocidal experience was wrongly called the Atlantic slave trade, as to trade means;

the exchange of products or services, and there was nothing that could have been bartered

that was equal to the amount of lives that we lost in this collective murder. We were

subjected to a catastrophic change from the free, interdependent way that we had lived, to ahomeless, cultureless, historyless group of captives. There is more deceitfulness, and

treachery used to interpret, and account this subject than any subject known to man. One

thing that is clear though in this matter, is the dehumanization of the African, and the

inhumanity of the European.

There were literally methods and techniques used to make the mind of the African weak,

and dependant, while the body stayed physically strong. What brought tears of frustration

to my eyes was the fact that these very same methods are being used to keep us mentallyenslaved today, except now; they are so ingrained in us, that they are unconsciously

practiced. The Willie Lynch letter, which can be used for the concept alone, aside from all

debates about authenticity stated that it was important to divide us by differences, and

make these differences huge, thereby separating us by fear and distrust. I shall assure youthat distrust is stronger than trust, and envy stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration.

The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-

refueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.

These strategies were all used to break the will to resist, what touched me was the factthat these Europeans were so thorough in the making of a captive into a slave, that we in

turn use their tactics against each other in a comatose condition of self-hate. The moment

that we accepted this condition is the moment that we become slaves, instead of captives

who were involuntarily brought here. Our genius minds were gradually replaced with themind of a slave during the 16th to 18th centuries; more and more docile generation by

generation. How we got played was the separation of the Black man from the Black

woman, and the indoctrination of both. The game was simple; the Black man was taught tobe broken mentally, yet physically strong, while the Black woman was exploited for her

complimentary nature and used to put the fear of the white man in the hearts of her

children, all of this was done in the hope of family preservation yet and still, we wereplaying right along with the hand that was dealt to us.

In the most thorough ways we wereand still are pitched against each other. Light skinned

against dark skinned, young against old, even men against women. Christianity still kept us

passive years and years after our first encounters with the religion. Staying docile, and


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turning the other cheek was all that it taught us to do, instilling the White man as the God

image in our minds. Tacked onto this, there was also a well-established media campaign on

the inferiority of Blackness in general, and specifically Black people, the texture of Africanhair, and the color of African skin. Marked sinful simply because of our skin, self-hate was

in full affect and we began to look at ourselves and each other through the warped

perspective of the European. To again justify slavery, many white men conducted actualstudies that were naturally biased and tried to prove that the African was physically

inferior to the European. Interestingly enough, the European was always trying to find a

way to validate, and rationalize the greatest crime ever committed. These studies were hisexcuse, and the claim was made that we were hardly more than animals. This equaled, and

can only equal the self-hate that we still see now in the twenty-first century. Some of us did

rebel, and the influence that we had on the rest of our people was strong but as we can now

conclude, it was not strong enough for a mass reawakening of the Black man and Woman.

These were only a couple of the angles that we were being attacked from, and as time went

on, these methods got more sophisticated, and less obvious. So now that the truth of what

has happened in our past is very evident, what do we do to break free from the mental andeven physical slavery that we are experiencing? Another of my questions is; how were the

methods of oppression evolved to keep attacking us even now in the present?

The truth of the matter is that, though the faces change, the techniques, and the oppressionstay the same. In a sense, we still have the Willie Lynch programming that keeps it all

turning even now in the 21st century. Through the years we have been through the

reconstruction of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the brutality of the south, and the harsh

realities of the north, the rebuilding of our families, the Back to Africa Marcus Garveymovement, the riots of the 60s, and the shift of the 80s and 90s up until now. Even in

2011, through all of that, we still taught to admire, and love the White image, and yet shun

our own image.

This brings us to the critical phase of Black genocide. Some of the methodslike Margaret

Sangers Planned Parenthood organization started our as an actual eugenics movementagainst Black people, and was called the American Birth Control league until more subtle

techniques were needed. This organization was responsible for the actual sterilization of

many black children in the past, and can still be found in our communities offering free

services that just so happen to prevent black pregnancies. The unconscious collectivecondition of our health also plays a huge factor in the mortality rates of our babies. This is

another form of genocide, and in 2006, Black babies had 2.4 times the infant mortality rate

of non-Hispanic white babies due to the health of the mother.


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In my opinion, the health of Black people in general is caused by the choices that we are

offered inside of our communities. This though, is no excuse, and needs to be radically

shifted so that we actually want for better choices, and have a reason to drop the bad healthhabits that we have acquired. Just because the only stores in our communities are

sometimes corner stores, and liquor outlets does not mean that this should comprise our

diet. We need to take control of our own health by making the option of a healthier choice.We cannot afford to wait on other Arab, and White businesses to come into our

communities and make our condition better for us, the time is now to build on what we

have to make what we need.

With minimum exaggeration, it would take all year for me to explain to you the different

facets and angles from which we are being hit. But, as I am not here to enumerate your

problems, I will go quickly into my interpretation of a solution. Now, keep in mind thatmany have given us solutions in taking back our freedom, culture and future as a people,

and yet we are still in the same boat practically as we were fifty years agoif not worst.

My opinion is based solely on methods that I have seen work, and that are based on actualaction.

Our future is where the most work needs to be done because that is where we are gettingperpetually targeted. We need to put into action a plan that replaces the negative images

that we have of Black people to make a conscious change in what our children see as

beautiful. Where have we gone wrong in the past that are children are falling in love with

Drake, Justin Beiber and the like? We are fed these images of an Independent Blackfemale, a Money hungry Black Man, and an accepted, and all-powerful White male. The

media has the minds of our children; point blank. To succeed in taking back our children, I

think that we would have to first succeed in the removal of the white and non-black facesin their influences. We can only do this by completely surrounding them with community,

and replacing those images with another, true image of beauty. They

I think that one of the things that is keeping us from reaching our full potential as a people

is the excessive study and analysis of our past potential as a people. Now, to make myself

more clear, I must add that I endorse the knowledge of our African history, but, this willonly free us from one aspect of mental slavery, and that is our background in America as a


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history-less people. Knowing our history should be what gives us pride in what we have

already accomplished, but, it does not replace the actual fundamental and revolutionary

movement that we as a people need to make. We have always tried to come up withanother solution to the problems that we have as a race. Whether that be sending our

brightest and best into white colleges to be indoctrinated in American culture and give

nothing back to the community from which they came, or using research as a crutch toavoid physical action, our last available option is to fight.

There are seven things that I believe need to put into action to finally bring about mental,physical, and economic freedom from this wicked American society. First, there needs to

be a realization among us that there is no reforming this reckless White elitist government.

Our only choice is to completely separate and create a totally new constitution, and code of

conduct that is followed by sincere Africans across the globe.

Second, independence is the key to changing our life-style back to interdependency; all that

we have to do is pool together our resources and create a system where all of the

commodities that we need inside of the Black community are produced, managed, anddistributed inside of the Black community.

Third, as of 2011 this American media has the minds of our children; to take back our

future, and the reinforcements of our struggle we need to have a completely Black owned

and operated media to change the image of value, beauty, wealth, and power in the mindsof our children.

Fourth, we can clearly see that the introduction of foreign religion was the introduction of

slavery for our people; I propose the reverence of Black Gods and Black Gods only tomaintain freedom even in the arena of spiritual enlightenment.

Fifth, Blackness is the highest form of supremacy, we can only move forward after

changing our collective views from the borrowed and corrupted perception of this twistedWhite society.

Sixth, our children deserve an educational system that actually teaches them what they

need to know in life; we need a Black educational system that teaches our children not

only about their ancestors but also what they can do to be the physical equivalent of our

past greatness.

Lastly, I think that the most imperative step towards creating and maintaining freedom is

never forgetting the atrocious and vicious deeds performed by the White man and other

non-Africans against our people. If we are ever to again rise to a future Golden Age forAfrican people, we can never again let down our guard and forget; we are our ancestors

keepers.

We need to make a drastic change from the way that we are living now. Its time for us as a

people to start making some improvements, lets change the way we eat, lets change the

way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other. We can clearly see that the old

way of non-violence, and Christian-like passivity is hardly working, frankly, it is up to us


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to do what we need to do to survive. Violence is the last available option; personally, I am

fully ready to endure all that I must in the name of freedom. Hopefully our people will one

day catch on to the message and be the masses that help to implement our freedomfornow though, we must do all that we can. As it was so eloquently said by the Marcus

Garvey, Destiny leads us to liberty, to freedom: that freedom that Victoria of England never

gave: that freedom, that liberty, that Lincoln never meant: that freedom, that liberty, that willsee us as men among men, that will make us a great and powerful people.

the demoralization and oppression of black people

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