It has taken me some days to figure out the topic for my first writing on this blog, and as I sat contemplating a phone call that just ended moments ago, I realized the theme that is not only on my mind but on the mind of most Americans right now. It is this concept of survival.
African Americans are resilient. The unspoken portion of this countries history has proven that. There are many things that took place during the years of slavery that would lead innocent minds to think that it was just about being a service worker or farmer. The history books have left out many of the harsh realities of what the institution of slavery really looked like. It is only through reading such documents as the Willie Lynch Letters or the Mary Boykin diaries that you even begin to see some of the truths that could not even be contained in the movie series Roots.
I said all of that to point to the fact that many African Americans don’t realize the valuable ability to survive that has been given as a gift from God. It is time that we start telling our children and our neighbors the truth – “ You shall live and not die”. Then we have to go on to help them understand the full extent of these words. It is not just about physical, this includes a well-rounded and balanced concept of every aspect of being.
This model of survival is grounded in the honesty of one’s own strengths. In your strength you find the ability to augment not only your own strengths, but those of others around your. Isolation is not the ideal situation under which to attempt to survive. Human existence is depended on various and multi-dimensional relationships. This is what makes African Americans capable of survival in the midst of situations that are much less than ideal. This is what allows people of African decent to find happiness in the midst of what others could not survive. We are survivors.
Society raises the bar. We just go over the intended expectations, or even abandon the effort to create a working dynamic of our own that suits our taste more directly than what was set in place by the larger portions of society.
I think instead of living in an arrogance of division, humanity must learn to face one another with empathetic eye-sight. In time gone past, this is what inspired neighbors to make sure everyone had food or clothes, or what ever was needed that could be assisted with, simply out of a sense of community that lead to a larger accountability.
That being said, I would like to declare-
----- autonomous individualism is the path to emotional morbidity and next come selfish ambition without human regard for the needs of others. Separation leads to a sense of gloom that challenges one’s self worth. Then there is a challenge to counteract this internal bareness. And finally the pressure becomes to re-invent one’s value through a mode of ambition that requires a disregard for others who face many of the same challenges as the self. There becomes this internal tension that society offers to mend through career and economic accomplishment to the extent of detachment instead of re-attachment. So when it is all said and done, and great accomplishment has been attained via career or economics there is the vacancy of not only the soul but of the lifestyle that cant be named or diagnosed.
One must be careful to stay grounded and maintain the balance in life and lifestyle that leads to a bountiful and abundant life. Yin and Yang? For me this is the foundation to my understanding of what it means to exist in the world as a Christian of both African and American decent.
1 comment:
"There becomes this internal tension that society offers to mend through career and economic accomplishment to the extent of detachment instead of re-attachment. So when it is all said and done, and great accomplishment has been attained via career or economics there is the vacancy of not only the soul but of the lifestyle that cant be named or diagnosed."
These are profound statements. Many people that have attained great wealth and fame have reached these summits and found that they feel just as lonely, unhappy, and unfulfilled as they did when they were in the valley. I believe that our society has made having and doing synonymous with being. But then there comes that time for many when they realize that what they have done and what they have has nothing to do with who they are. It would be helpful for people to just be. That sounds strange in western society because being is so attached to having and/or doing. I often ask people this question, "If you strip yourself of everything you have and have done, then who are you?" Mostly I get blank stares, but the question creates a space between the transitory forms that masquerade as identity and actual identity.
Once true identity, one's true self, has been established, then there can be that re-attchment, so to speak, to others. This is so because once the illusion of the permanence of that which is transitory has dissolved, one understands the connectedness, the oneness, that he or she has with his or her community.
As it pertains to Black people, many of us have attached ourseleves to things and in the process of persuing them, we have disengaged from genuine relationships, genuine community. Relationships are either expedient or they are not. They will serve as a stepping stone to what is desired. As a result, people are taken advantage of, abused, or killed.
I believe that African Americans have survived this long because to some degree we have a basic understanding of this. That the foundation of survival is not the presence of things or achievement. To be sure, these are but signs, byproducts of something far greater.The foudation of the survival that you speak of is the very connectedness that we have even in the absense of the physical manifestations of "success" and effort thereof.
"One must be careful to stay grounded and maintain the balance in life and lifestyle that leads to a bountiful and abundant life. Yin and Yang? For me this is the foundation to my understanding of what it means to exist in the world as a Christian of both African and American decent."
Profound statements, yet again! For me, however, the grounded balance that you speak of, I have found, cannot exist in full with a sense of separateness. You speak of Yin and Yang as balance which is somewhat accurate, but remember that it also is a symbol for continuity. Their is no dark without light and no light without dark. Speaking figuratively, light knows itself only in the presence of a certain amount of darkness. In the same way, darkeness only finds its full identity in the presence of light. Likewise, I am only fully aware of what it means to be African American when I compare and contrast that with the broader experience of living in a nation which is so diverse. In isolation or insulated within a homogeneous people, I am just human. It is only when those whom are different in some way enter my existence, and lables are placed to identify them, do I really have a split identity. To actually survive, I have to transcend lables. To uphold and defend differences has never really been a good thing for humanity. Although, I could be wrong.
Great first post, Cousin!
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