A Manual for the African American Family
Book Excerpt
When African Americans
identify women of our heritage in a vernacular that is derogatory, we know there
is a problem that needs addressing, because there is widespread knowledge of
these issues. It seems not many of us want to step to the plate and concentrate
efforts to work toward a solution because the belief is that someone else is
going to do the work needed in their lives.
So, we laugh it off, while those who are involved in these types of lifestyles
are hurting, using their bodies as tools to get money, by abusing drugs and
alcohol to mask their hurting and broken spirits and hearts.
African American women that are identified in rap music videos, that have been
abused through rape, sexual perversion, and abortions while many have had their
purity and self-esteem taken from them.
Underlining all of this pain is the African American anger, and the anger that
engulfs us is deeply rooted. It is root to many of the issues we have as African
Americans.
The root of the anger and bitterness we have experienced as African Americans
began when we were taken from our native homeland and bought to American soil
against our will.
It was the African men who
were brought over to America, who were separated from their families, and the
women and children were left to fend for themselves. I believe this is where the
anger we have had its beginning.
Uprooting African American anger must include forgiveness, and we must connect
to our ancestral roots, because we must open the past for healing, by preserving
our royal heritage through forgiveness, so the future of our heritage continues.
When gazing into the eyes of many European Americans, there is still a residual
guilt that still exists from how their ancestors treated our heritage. Many of
which were raised to treat African Americans coldly, with the mindset from the
Lynch letter still in place. I believe there is an issue that European Americans
must address as well.
American society has played a major part in the history of African Americans,
and is a major part of the anger that is felt by African Americans, and we
should understand they are hurting too, and as I believe we are royalty, we have
the strength to draw them in, and together find the place of God’s forgiveness.
We can’t overcome the anger issues we have without allowing God access into our
heart, because we need Him to be at the center of our hurt and bitterness. Why
we blame God for our hurt is nonsense, for we must understand God is not the
blame here, because the essence of God is never to hurt His creation, only to
love us because we are His people. I would venture to say many African American
people are justified in their anger.
Nevertheless, the time has come where it is time for us to move on, justified or
not, and forgive those who oppressed us and time to release ourselves and our
oppressors from captivity.
When we release our oppressors, we ourselves are released, and can experience
newfound freedoms to live and work without any bitterness resident in our
hearts.
When anger and bitterness comes in to our lives, and takes a seat in your heart,
it has a tendency to take control of us, and when we are controlled in this
manner; our decisions are based on the emotions of hurt that can spread from one
person to another.
As I have attempted to position myself in the situation our ancestors had to
face, during the time of slavery, understanding the feeling and the climate of
the time that our ancestors had to endure.
If you allow yourself to feel what it is like to have someone come into your
homeland, beat you and your women, then shackle you, and take you to another
country, where the people there spoke languages that was unfamiliar to you, how
would that make you feel?
Deep within my soul, I feel the pain of those who were bought over to America
during our flight from Africa, and I also feel the pain of those who were
separated from their families and abandoned.
Can we understand the tears that were shed, both in Africa, and in America? Can
we see those who were lynched and murdered for no probable cause except for
being African? The disconnection of not knowing if you would ever see your loved
ones again is an indescribable hurt.
Yet, many of us have tried to forget what happened during slavery, yet these
issues are still affecting us today. We cannot sweep these issues of pain under
the carpet any longer, we need to address them, and remember what our ancestors
went through in shedding their blood, how our women were abused on many levels,
and our babies and children molested and killed.
The realization of generational slavery has been more effective today, and we
are killing our heritage in ways that are more destructive than our ancestors
endured during our time of slavery. We are killing each other with words, with
looks of hate, with backbiting and character assassination, and what this has
done is kill the spirit, the mind, and the soul of African American heritage.
The seriousness of the current generational slave mindset, that has been
deployed within our heritage is evident, and as anger, bitterness, hatred,
drugs, gangs, are the issues that are visible, these have long-standing effects
that African American people have not been able to overcome.
When you kill the spirit of a man, and although he is alive, you kill the man
and any vision, which has been given to him by God. Only God has the capacity to
restore divine vision and direction to those who have been hurt by life, through
His divine forgiveness and grace.
As we are to be the royalty that I believe each African American is and can
become, then we have the power within our hearts to forgive, no matter the
challenges that come against us.