By Kwaku Person-Lynn, Ph.D.
October, 2002
Went to my high school championship football team reunion
and saw people not seen in decades. It was one of those beautiful occasions you
cherish in life. After the event at the school, we went to the after party that
was more intimate allowing for more personal conversations. Talking with one of
the good sisters, she told me about an episode at her child care home business.
One of the mother’s was delivering her son to her childcare home. When he
walked in, he had a toy gun in his hand. The good sister told the mother that he
could not have that with him. His mother took it from him. The little boy fussed
a little saying, “Now, I don’t have my gun.” Then he went in the back with
the other children. Later, the boy’s grandmother called and told the good
sister that she is not teaching her grandson reality. That “you have those
children living in fantasy.”
Received an e-mail, can not recall the specific details, but remember where one
sister was dressing down another, telling her something like, “You’re a
freak. You grew up in a two parent home,” as if that was abnormal.
Finally, saw Serena Williams on the cover of EBONY, wearing bright blond hair,
not realizing or having the consciousness to understand the devastating damage
she is causing. Many young girls of Afrikan descent idolize her and will imitate
her look. There are probably some people of European descent laughing and
saying, “What’s wrong with them?”
Self-hatred is a learned behavior whereby a dominate group takes a natural
attribute of a conquered group, interprets and promotes that natural attribute
as inferior and negative; socializing the conquered group that their physical
type is not adequate and that they should look like the dominate group. This can
ultimately result in rejection of self, their culture heritage, and their
ancestry. They will internalize the values of the dominant group, seeing their
natural self as shameful, not realizing that their natural self was the way the
Creator brought humanity to life.
There are so many more examples that can be cited, which only underscores the
source of the central problem; people of Afrikan descent were made to disavow
all that they were when they were brought to the New World, even their own
homeland. It was depicted as the land of savages, not the origin of
civilization. They had customs, traditions, values, beliefs and practices that
were different and contrary to what they were required to learn and embrace in
western civilization.
The solutions to many problems can only be found in one’s original culture.
The culture of the people from Europe does not contain many of the common
social, cultural, spiritual elements Afrikan people have lived for thousands of
years, prior to any European invasions. Their collective educational and
socialization into life, from the moment of birth, for hundreds of years in the
New World, has emanated from a culture and civilization that was born in Europe,
whose descendents created a New Europe, called America. Ironically, many of the
positive elements of their own culture have been co-opted and corrupted in a
basically moral less way of life. When one does not know who they are, they will
imitate whoever controls the environment they were raised in, with minor
variations that can’t be helped.
People of Afrikan descent, whom originated in Afrika, must study and understand
traditional Afrika. Many things are not going to be useful in this present
culture and time, but there are some basic principles that are vitally important
for self-recovery. Understanding the general Afrikan concept of spirituality is
at the center.
Understanding the concept of ‘collective responsibility,’ and having a value
system built around, “I am because we are. Since we are, therefore I am,”
are the nucleus for people living together. Those are foreign in western
civilization.
Important in the initial investigating and exploring, information must come from
one’s own learned people, not from European culture. Starting within, not
outward, is always a healthy approach.
When one is a young child, there is no more secure and loving feeling than being
in the arms of one’s mother or father. When one truly knows who they are, the
mind, lit by a dull light, transforms as if three suns were shining in it.
Kwaku Person-Lynn is the author of On
My Journey Now - The Narrative And Works Of Dr.
John Henrik Clarke, The Knowledge Revolutionary.
All rights reserved.