Marc Xavier takes a cold look at the history and state of black culture at Very Small Doses. A lot of people may not like some of what he has to say though.

In the turbid sojourn that weÂ’ve made in the past 400 or so, African Americans have endured a historical experience unlike any other ethnicity in this country. When my ancestors were brought over here from Africa, they were spread across the New World with little regard to family ties or tribal affiliation. It was in this process that we originally lost our culture.

Our customs, our ideas and our worldviews were gradually smothered in a manner not dissimilar to what the Babylonians tried to do to the Jews during the Captivity. By breaking up our family units and moving us around to the highest bidder, our ability to pass on the building blocks of our culture to the next generation was lost. ItÂ’s like what the good Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said: "The Negro is an American, we know nothing of Africa."

Time passed, we lost even our languages and we learned to speak English. The succeeding generations of slaves born in captivity increasingly had no recollection of the Old World we came from. ItÂ’s a horrible thing to be robbed of oneÂ’s identity like that, but even more so because we had no way of even knowing what we had lost of ourselves. But itÂ’s a testament to my ancestors that they nonetheless persevered, even building a new culture.

most young black men see themselves in an intractable socio-economic quagmire and needlessly carry the weight of generations of past wrongs on their shoulders. It appears to me that many African Americans feel emasculated about these wrongs of the past, and in order to prove ourselves our culture demands that we act in a manner to show that we are a force to be reckoned with. Though lacking the calm self-assuredness of one who truly knows our history, we overcompensate by behaving hyper-masculine, or “hard” as the term is used. Violence is the inevitable result.

I have to agree with him; though many folks will find other reasons to work with. Many people refuse to deal with taking personal responsibility for their actions, instead pointing to some sort of "generational post-traumatic" disorder or some other such gobbly-de-gook.

Is there an easy answer? No; but with time, effort, energy and introspection, progress can be made. There's no reason not to.

Posted by: mhking at 04:15 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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