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Zombie Habits and Customs |
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Long ago in Dahomean (Benin) Africa, "black magic" sorcerers supposedly possessed the power to remove a human's "animal spirit" so as to transform him into a robot slave. Conceivably, such "zombies", who would subsequently go through life as if asleep, can be created by administering to the skin of victims the poison tetradotoxin, extracted from the puffer fish.
Although one's spirit is removed, one's physical "shell" remains active. This same concept can be applied to those Slave Survival habits whose mental causes have been forgotten. Because of outrage from being enslaved, (field) slaves habitually fought back in masked and concealed ways. Such SLAVE RESISTANCE was generated by AVENGEMENT (partially righting wrongs imposed on the slaves) for the purpose of SELFHOOD ARMOR (preserving some degree of self-esteem by taking a passive aggressive stand against White people to convey: "you can't completely dominate me"). Both were most commonly displayed as "taking" (called "stealing" by Whites) to indicate they were merely transferring the slave owners' property from one place to another (e.g. food for strength to work). Other examples included aggravating the master; sabotaging the master's property (e.g. carelessness, breaking tools, or misplacing key items); and disrupting the captors work routine (e.g. "selective forgetting," procrastination).
These deliberate anti-slave master practices became a way of life for the slaves. Children of ex-slaves carried on the slave habits in the form of customs. Gradually, the reasons originally fashioning these habits in the slaves faded away from the ex-slaves' memory, leaving only the "ghost" of the causative memory inside the habit. This is like removing the "animal spirit" of a human so that only a "ghost" of the spirit remains in the zombie's physical "shell" body. This human zombie scenario is borrowed into the concept of "Zombie customs"--customs incorporated into the ex-slaves' community socialization practices to thereby design new Black American traditions. A culture's socialization means that its customs are of a "SECOND NATURE" (i.e. an acquired fixed pattern). Whatever is "second nature" becomes a blueprint for thoughts, emotions, expressions and behaviors in daily activities. CUSTOMS ("habitual practice"; "that which is one's own") imply that group members settle into set actions or routines â€" all doing similar practices (unvarying procedures) under similar circumstances. Despite Slave Resistance having worked well for the slaves, following slavery "zombie customs" took on a life of their own and became self-defeating and Black Community defeating habits.
Because Blacks are more tolerant of "people differences" than Whites, these bad habits (e.g. procrastination) became more significant outside than inside the Black community. Meanwhile, so much bad habit "in-breeding" occurred as to make them seem normal. Nevertheless, Zombie customs persist by preventing progress in today's struggling Blacks; by slowing progress in Mainstream Blacks; and by stopping many Omnibus and Elite Blacks from reaching their full potential. These aspects are similar to the "ball and chain" applied to convicts working outside prison doors. "Ball and chain" zombie habits hamper financial, social, mental, and creative achievements. Furthermore, they are "rubber stamps" (i.e. almost identical practices within a given subgroup) in Black Americans because "slave resistance" measures were engaged in by practically all (field) slaves; because the same "ideal slave science" was applied to each slave; and because the slaves on their plantations as well as the ex-slaves were herded into ghettoes. These ghettoes remained intact until World War IIâ€"and, to a lesser degree, even to this day. Only after bad habits are acknowledged and the restraints and constraints they create are seen as unacceptable, is there a chance for replacing them with beneficial habits.
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.
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