These are my thoughts and concerns. With God, all things are possible, regardless of how things look. Americans cannot afford to forget our history.
Slaves were taken from two regions: Senegambia, the area comprising the Senegal and Gambia Rivers and the land between them, or today’s Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali; and west-central Africa, including what is now Angola, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon. The Gambia River, running from the Atlantic into Africa, was a key waterway for the slave trade; at its height, about one out of every six West African enslaved people came from this area. They were chained when they arrived in America. They were chained on the plantations for punishment. They were chained in the fields. They were chained together. As a chained group, they learned to work together, depending on each other to encourage them to inspire and go on. They had to rely on each other to survive.
Some slaveholders were descendants of immigrants and indentured servants from mainly Europe with blanched skin. They fled their homelands, seeking freedom from tyranny, poverty, and unfair treatment. America was then the Promised Land, a place of hope, freedom, and growth. It was for some, hell for others. They arrived by ship and began to claim territory as their own despite the natives already living there. Monarchs wanted the resources that these newly settled people wanted. They set their laws and did their best to subjugate this new population. They rebelled and wrote their laws denouncing tyranny and inequality. Stiff laws became the background of this country, identifying their place and informing other countries that they would fight for their rights to their death. For the first time in a long time, indentured servants, hard-working people, poor people, and the working class had rights and were chosen by their peers to make laws representing them. The laws were created by white people, protecting them from future dangers, foreign and domestic. The laws were written to protect them. Immigrants of different colors had no participation and were not welcome to be here. This is a far contrast from those who fled their countries from tyrants, lack of jobs, and poverty. Though some remained poor, they still had rights and could go wherever they wanted without being questioned or showing any freedom papers.
Over time, they became greedy. Wealth is a standard in a society where people respect what you have, not who you are. The wealthy needed more land to build, plant, and grow things. The Native Americans fought and died for their land. Laws were written and understood by white men so that they could claim and document territories under the guise of expanding the untamed West. Politicians saw undiscovered resources that could make people very wealthy. Politics and money can corrupt those who are weak and seek power.
Our Black ancestors were forced to come to America. They had names that were hard to pronounce by the slaveholders and their people. Many names necessitated intricate movements of the mouth and tongue, requiring flexibility and coordination. Africans had many languages and dialects from village to village. This is another example of the slaveholders’ kind unwillingness to understand the people they own and subjugate. Instead, the Africans received new names that were easy for the white folks to pronounce. Currently, that restriction has not changed for the immigrants today. Foreigners need to speak English to be accepted. Africans had spiritual names given to them by their parents and shamans. Whoever or whatever they worshipped was their decision. They believed in who they believed in. The colonialist invaders forced them to learn Christianity when they invaded Africa. Africans were considered uneducated savages because they lived within the means they were accustomed to. Europeans believed that everything they earned was from their own hands and that the God they worshipped was white, and their histories included only white intellectuals. Even Egyptians will not accept they have black ancestors. It is doubtful that dark-skinned people had anything to do with the pyramids or held prominent historical positions in Egyptian history.
Educating the slaves would give slaves knowledge of the slaveholders’ strategies. They ignorantly thought their slaves were dumb to their plans. In the middle of the night, under candlelight in secluded areas, the Africans taught themselves how to read. Those working in the slaveholders’ homes were learning and passing the information on. Any actions taken that defied the principles upheld by the slaveholders were met with peril, often carrying the grave consequences of life-threatening violence, brutal beatings, or the devastating prospect of being torn away from loved ones and family members. Slaveholders hung the lawbreakers publicly or beat them. It didn’t make any difference if it was a man, woman, or child. Pregnant women were not spared. Some had the child torn out of their womb while being hung. The Africans were considered lower than animals. The Africans faced brutal consequences for the slightest transgressions, such as meeting the gaze of a slaveholder, glancing at their women, or daring to express themselves verbally in what was deemed “talking back.” No matter how minor, such acts could lead to deadly repercussions, serving as chilling lessons to others. The harsh and unforgiving punishments were intended to instill fear and maintain a rigid hierarchy, ensuring everyone understood the severe consequences that awaited anyone who might challenge the status quo.
After the Civil War, Reconstruction for freed blacks was short-lived. They might have been legislators, but the racists could not live with former slaves or descendants of slaves making laws for the white man. They were not going to lose their control over the black man. Black cities where blacks lived and progressed in economic success were soon targets of disdain for their hatred. White terrorists destroyed Tulsa, Oklahoma, Black Wall Street, and neighborhoods. No one can give an account of how many innocent black people died and if there were bombs dropped on the area. Massacres of black families, to name a few, occurred in Colfax, Louisiana; Wilmington, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; Elaine, Arkansas; and Rosewood, Florida. These were just a few areas; there was the Orangeburg Students Massacre in South Carolina. In New York City, Chicago, Illinois, Washington, DC, Memphis, Tennessee, and Clinton, Mississippi, white terrorists terrorized and still are terrorizing black people. Making America Great Again by waving the Confederate Flag may be about heritage to some, but it is a nasty and terrible reminder for blacks who were oppressed and murdered.
Our people have lost their identity since the racial breakdown of slavery. Slavery took away our connection to the African countries they were taken away from. We lost our dignity and respect. Slaveholders slept with their slaves, considering them to be at their disposal and leisure while disrespecting the black man as the head of the household and removing the man from making him the leader of his family and his community. Not only that, birthing lighter complexion children separated them from their darker-skin brothers and sisters. This resulted in superior thinking over the inferior within the race when the slaves were still considered inferior by the slaveholders. They perpetuated a brainwashing strategy that is prevalent today. Because of the horrendous acts committed against the black race and the lack of acceptance of black people ever being a part of America, America has written laws to maintain its superiority for generations to come. The insult and irony is that some of those racist lawmakers were raised by black women who were kind and gentle with them.
Black people are still wearing chains, seen and unseen. The chains of oppression and suppression left an eternal mark mentally on their descendants. We added new burdens now. Since the economic playing field has never been level and drugs are being introduced into poorer black communities. Young men and women sought quick or easy money that negatively affected them and others. This kind of exploitation created drug dealers, prostitutes, thieves, scam artists, and hustlers. The black community was being disintegrated from within. People were discriminated against at their jobs, and families had to survive. Black people could barely keep food on the table, so who introduced drugs in the neighborhood? Don’t forget the unethical Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1972 on black men. Did anyone care about how these men were treated? They didn’t have any say in what was being done to them. Once again, the slaveholders’ descendants thought nothing of the black man’s life or family.
Addictions and afflictions are the same. Some we can see, some we can’t. Bigotry we can’t see, but discrimination we see and feel. When will we recognize that we all are slaves of different forms? And that the addictions and afflictions are related to visible and invisible slaveholders. So many of our people are homeless with no help or funding. Their health is failing, and there is no one near that can afford to lend a hand. They are vulnerable to every con artist who will take advantage of them.
Black people will always support the slaveholders for fear of believing that they will retaliate against them. We don't stand together in unity. Some of our people think that we still owe the slaveholders their loyalties. Blacks fought and died in wars for them only to return to discrimination, lower pay, and very little representation in government. Our compensation? Social programs that outweigh the benefits. The black community has been assimilated into a community that does not want them. Integration was forced on the people rather than investing equally in quality education, housing, and employment. Yet, the education process was not a cooperative place for integration. Predominately black schools received second-hand books, many of them outdated. The schools needed repair and maintenance. Roofs leaked, air-conditioned remained broken, and the old desks were damaged while the new schools were built for the whites.
Busing children who would walk to school in their neighborhoods to unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and unwanted schools, unfamiliar uncomfortable and unwanted schools, was stressful for the children and their parents, black and white. Although, most of the busing was taking the black children to the white neighborhoods. Witness white adults throwing rocks and bricks at buses carrying black children to white schools in white neighborhoods. What a shame. Children lived on the border, some a few blocks from their neighborhood school, and still had to be bused to another school because it was the law.
White teachers treated black students as inferior and slow-witted, sending them to special education classes rather than taking the time to know them. This technique contrasted differently before integration when black teachers made it a point to know the students and their families. They wanted the students to succeed. In those days, coaches also taught math, chemistry, science, and other classes where needed. They didn’t receive any extra money for the multiple positions on their paychecks. Before integration, black schools played only other black schools. After, the teams were diverse, but some white coaches didn’t want the blacks on the team, and some were bigots. It was awful living during the Jim Crow days. Slaveholders still haven’t stopped fighting the Civil War. I saw black parents working extra jobs for their children to keep up with clothing, backpacks, and expensive trends the white kids experienced. They weren’t home as much and readily available when the children returned from school. Some kids had to raise themselves and their siblings. Many families didn’t have two-parent households. So many black families struggled to survive and show how much they loved their children that they weren’t aware that the children needed guidance and direction more than keeping up with their white classmates.
This moment marked a significant turning point, illustrating how the Black community's rich traditions and cultural legacies increasingly failed to be transmitted from one generation to the next. With the mounting pressures of economic survival, families found themselves stretched thin as parents juggled multiple jobs to make ends meet. This left little time for meaningful connections, storytelling, or sharing cultural practices that once defined their heritage.
As a result, children were often left to navigate their formative years mainly on their own. With excessive free time and inadequate guidance, many gravitated towards misguided activities, seeking a sense of belonging or excitement in unhealthy ways. The sobering reality was that young individuals were becoming parents themselves at increasingly early ages, creating a cycle where the responsibilities of adulthood fell on those who were still adolescents.
In this shifting landscape, it became common to see grandmothers in their 30s while mothers often found themselves in their teenage years, perpetuating a generational gap filled with confusion and upheaval. Meanwhile, the older generation was caught in a relentless cycle of hard work, striving to gain acceptance and establish a foothold in a rapidly changing society. The pressure to conform and succeed in this new context often overshadowed the richness of their cultural heritage, leaving many feeling disconnected from their roots.
Those Blacks who have jobs in the corporate world usually have different standards for speech, behavior, and social norms. They want to have something in common. Our culture is acceptable and flexible. Others don’t have to be or need to prove anything to anyone. They maintain their pride.
We use the name African Americans but question if it’s acceptable. We aren’t too proud of being African descendants. Ask the Chinese, Jewish, Japanese, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Spanish Americans if they are proud of their culture. We use statements that we were in America. Therefore, we are Americans. I know some Nigerians and Gambians who are proud to be African but don’t see much in common with Afro-Americans. What happened to us as a people? Our ancestors helped make many white American families rich. We worked their fields manually, picking cotton, tobacco, and vegetables and working their farms for them. We presented them with machines, instruments, designs, and parts to make the slaveholders’ lives easier. They bought the patents, claimed their ideas, and gave our ancestors more grief. Now, America wants that kind of history kept from their children. Is it for safety or embarrassment that they don’t want their children to know? Tell the truth. America is ashamed of its history. You might not be responsible for what happened during slavery and the Native American lands, but as descendants, America is still reaping the benefits. You don’t want the generations to come feeling guilty.
This past election should be an example of how the slaveholders view us. What better way to make us believe they support us than to think they understand our plight and betray us in the voting stall? Not all are racist, but they are afraid of losing entitlements and privileges. Who wouldn't give away a good thing? No need to shout white power when you already have it? There will still be a problem with American churches if they still accept God as being White and that their God is on their side and mistreating their citizens. We will never come together as a united country. God is a Spirit of light and love. There is no color in a bright light. America is driven by money. Hypocrites continue stamping “In God We Trust on” on US currency. Yet, we put trust money first and God later. We must be careful. Like an open wound that is not treated, bacteria and other parasitic diseases will enter the body and destroy it. America’s vulnerability is laid open for foreign and domestic parasites to do the same.
Social media, including the internet, networks, radio, and all things on the airwaves, are spreading their interests for the sake of the dollar. One can get very rich through controversy, especially with lies and misinformation. A member of YouTube and TikTok can make millions instantly if they get the right followers. The algorithms and analytics must be in line for a big payday. The media is depressing, and it drives some of its followers to stress and anxiety. It’s owned by powerful slaveholders who dictate and push their self-interests via the airwaves. The media’s job is to get those self-interests to the masses, convincing them that wrong is correct. The sponsors want that support because they get richer when more people buy their products. They will go with the flow even if they know the lies. No one believes that there is a heaven or hell. And if there is, we’ll go to the right one. If you don’t know what to think, who will you believe?
The black community is experiencing an identity crisis. We still haven’t figured out who we are and what we want to be. We have concerns respecting each other and are jealous of others’ successes. We can’t seem to get rid of the slaveholders’ chains. Therefore, who will carry the torch to face these challenges? Who will take the risks? Who will be the person or persons that recognize this incredible power we hold in unity?
