“We are not Americans, we are Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa” MALCOLM X
I’d already been thinking about writing this topic. Then, someone requested that I write about it, and THEN, a few celebrities decided to open their mouths and unsurprisingly let something stupid come out!
It’s very hard to comprehend how and why people hate themselves. This is specifically dedicated to African Americans/Black Americans. My perception is that it comes from hundreds of years of being told that your melanin filled skin is ugly and/or unnatural. The darker you are, the more shame you’re supposed to have. Your thick, kinky, coiled or wavy texture of hair is bad! In return, we do things to change the way we look because it has been imprinted indelibly in our brains that everything about us is wrong or some sort of sin!
The slaves were stripped of their culture and native tongue. We had to create our own culture of some sort and design our own broken English in order to communicate! That sounds pretty darn intelligent to me! Not to mention so many others mimic our culture in forms of style of dress, hair styles, and my personal favorite- the constant stealing of music.
You come from people who had to fight to get the basic freedoms of life! Even though things are still not perfect now, people lost their lives so that you could have a portion of the opportunity that you have today. How can you honestly look yourself in the mirror and deny your heritage?! How can you be ashamed to be African American/Black? Why do you say things like “I can’t stand being around Black people, I love White people.”? You don’t love yourself, so how can you honestly love anyone else? It’s not okay to turn your back on your roots, your culture, or your ethnicity- no matter the circumstance. It’s not okay to dismiss everyone in African American history that had a role in whatever position you may hold in your career (manager, singer, actress, ballet dancer, lawyer, doctor, etc).
What these self hating African American/Black individuals seem to miss is that this train of thought just separates us as a people. Hating yourself and not identifying yourself as an African American/Black American doesn’t mean that you aren’t African American/Black. You are identified by the rest of the world as such. As far as ethnicity and skin color goes, of course it would be nice to live in a world where labels didn’t exist. However, that’s not the world or country we live in. It wasn’t too long ago that we were labeled as savages! Be appreciative that, that’s no longer our label! And just an FYI: there is no such thing as “The new Black”. You can’t even accept your roots that made this country in which you live, yet you’re trying to recreate nothingness and calling it “The New Black.”
There is nothing new about being Black! In fact, your homeland gave birth to the World! Is that new? Love and respect yourself and your people. Embrace your history. Acknowledge your pain and experiences. Not embracing it makes it easy for the man to try and erase it. Talk to your children about slavery, about their ancestors so they are aware and never forget who they are and what amazing people they come from. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You should be proud! Where is Lawrence Fishburn with that alarm clock?!
WAKE UPPPPPPPPPPPPP!
“Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you?”
MALCOLM X
There is so much that could be said about this topic. Too much. In my personal experience, I don’t know any other type of people that to through the whole, I’m not White, Asian, Latino/Hispanic thing, so why are we so quick to disassociate ourselves with being Black or African? Furthermore, talk to your kids about all the stuff that Africans/Blacks did before slavery. I think part of the problem is we keep starting the narrative at slavery.
Kini that’s a good point that we continue to start the conversation about our history before slavery.
When you are in. 3 Dimensional, low level, low vibrational system you will always assume what is dominant is great! Logic would say : White is right cause they have everything, own everything, run every thing BUT when you raise your consciousness, Born a New, Study your history and have self knowledge there is no damn way you’d try to be white. Nothing about being white would attract you and you would see yourself as cosmic and phenominal…. #5D #Negus #Neteru