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The Origin of Defining Blacks |
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Perhaps the greatest character problem in struggling Black Americans today is in not knowing who they are. The problem started when Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves and their sacred African names were replaced with slave names.
The switch stopped them from knowing who they were at the deepest psychic level. Out of a resultant state of confusion, the vulnerable ones were easily led into believing who they were not. This renaming frenzy of Europeans originated several thousands years ago from the belief that to "rename it opens the door for me to control it and to possess it."
Renaming was the beginning of slaves no longer seeing who they were; the beginning of slave women defining themselves in terms other than the terms African males had defined them or the terms they had used to define themselves; and the beginning of slave males defining themselves in terms other than the terms African females had used to define them or the terms they had used to define themselves. This American "re-defining" chaos was further magnified by specific measures designed by the captors.
Some of these measures have been addressed by the Black playwright August Wilson ("A Casebook," M. Elkins) -- measures which Black Americans of my boyhood days refused to talk about because it stirred up so much pain. What I like most about Wilson is his courage regarding putting in the face of Blacks some of the causes of their festering wounds, including the most sensitive subject of how Christianity has failed to serve African Americans (p. 86).
Students of African American slavery are aware that White missionaries (see Chancellor Williams, "The Destruction of Black Civilization") and Euro-Americans ministers to the slaves presented wrong Biblical interpretations of White superiority so as to control the slaves.
The objective was for the slave to question their own African spirituality, to "chop up" the African roots of fellowship, and to place Whites as the only authorities who "know" God's word (p. 92). By contrast, African religions did not believe something was good because someone said God approves of it but rather that God approved of what is good.
To be able to control the God of Black people was to be able to control and define them at their most fundamental level. Wilson tells Black people (p. 86) that "your God should resemble you. When you look in the mirror you should see your God. If you don't then you have the wrong god."
The objective of the captors in controlling the slaves' god, said Wilson (p. 55), was to convert the slaves into automatons (i.e. robot-like "ideal" slaves) designed to live out the fate Whites had designed for them -- to exist because they lacked the imagination or the will to take charge of their lives. Once an automaton mindset was reached -- called an "ideal" Enslaved Mind -- the slave's memories and imaginations were captured -- and forever.
Besides renaming and controlling the slaves' religion (which was fortunately incomplete), a third measure was to control slave mothers in order for them to create "ideal" slave children. This was laid out by the slaveowner Willie Lynch in his 1712 Letter (see Jablifeskills.com). Fourth, the slave mother was overworked outside her home to ensure she had no time to provide the proper guidance for her children.
In this way, the slaveowner could define the slave children and also fashion them into automatons. Fifth, all thinking skills and self-reliance practices were taken away from the slaves so as to cause them to be completely dependent upon "being about what White folks wanted them to be about" (p.43).
To keep the slaves ignorant (not allowing them to read, write, count, handle money, or solve problems), to ensure hopelessness; and to shower them with false messages of their sub-humanness and inferiority were effective ways for being able to define and control them. Over the 250 years of slavery, these practices designed to make the slaves automatons became habits -- habits that were culturally transmitted -- habits that can be seen in most of today's struggling Black youth.
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D
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