Altering The Conversation

From even before our nation’s founding, the issue of Race has been and now continues to be one of the critical factors at the heart of the inexplicable divisions in our great nation.

But what is Race, really?

At its core, at its basic essential level, consider that Race is What We Say It Is?

Consider that Race is what we say it is, over and over again now, for over 400 years. Like a story we tell over and over and over, or like a story we hear, and then repeat, over and over.

The Story of Race in America is a long history of more and more people saying practically the same things over and over again, so much that a person in Nebraska who has never seen a Black Person before in their entire lives, could actually say they “know how Black People are” because they had heard "the story" about them from someone they knew.

And, of course, the local and national news in print, radio and TV, or now online, in each era often magnified the story, and expanded it until even internationally, there are millions of people who had never even visited the United States before, yet they had heard that same story, OVER AND OVER AGAIN and took it as true.

In marketing, these phenomena are called “the bandwagon effect”, or “The Rule of 7”!

You hear something so often, in the same way, over and over again, from different people, like from someone you hold as an authority, or you hold as wiser than you, or that you otherwise admire or trust in some way, that you begin to surrender your right to choose for yourself, you start to give in, you begin to yield to this flood of repetition, you begin to ponder, to decide “everyone else is saying this”, or “everyone else is doing this”, therefore, this MUST BE THE TRUTH, and so, you jump on “the bandwagon”! YOU TOTALLY SURRENDER YOUR RIGHT TO THINK OR CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF!

Even if what you hear is not true at all, it’s actually false, it’s even proven false from multiple trusted media sources – some that you might even be aware of – and yet, you still choose to trust the messenger!

After all, “everybody knows it”!

Even the people accused of doing it know it’s true, according to the messenger!

Welcome to “Altering The Conversation”!

An invitation to wake up to the stories we are ALL trapped in about “How Black People Are”, “How People of Color Are”, “How White People Are” - YES, basically “How Anyone Is That Is Not Like Me Are” through the sharing of real stories, real words, real thoughts of the people we have all trapped in our repetitive stories masquerading as “the TRUTH”. With a touch of a Black man’s perspective, perhaps we’ll even find some room to look at ourselves in the mirror without taking ourselves so seriously, and maybe we’ll even manage to laugh and have some fun along the way, as well!

Perhaps we’ll even have our own “Significant Emotional Event (SEE)”?

Dr Morris Massey defines a “Significant Emotional Event” as:

“an experience that is so mentally arresting that it becomes a catalyst for you to consider, examine, and possibly change your initial values or value system.”

So, here is this week’s invitation and opportunity to take a fresh look for ourselves:

Ice Skating!

Now why in the world would any Black Person in their right mind want to put some silly looking boots on with , like, a millimeter to stand on, then wrap up like a damn snowman, go dance around in freezing cold weather on ice and call that a sport?

Now, we all know us Black People hate cold weather! Ice Skating is something White people do! Hell, sure, I used to watch it on TV with my Mom when the Olympics were on! But that was only because the US was competing in it! You never see any Black people out there dancing around freezing their asses off!

Now does that story sound familiar to us? Does that sound like “the truth” to us? Have you heard variations of that story from other people you know – Black or Otherwise?

Remember, the story is not bad or wrong, but when enough of us begin to relate to it like “the truth”, our AGREEMENT gives the story substance, a false reality that we begin to relate to like “this is how Life really is”. And that AGREEMENT REALITY starts to limit what’s possible for groups of people and individuals within that group.

Until something invites us, or makes us think twice, to begin to question, to wonder and to be willing to take a second look. Like “Things That Make You Go, Hmmmmmm?”!

So, please take a look at this:

As always, I welcome your thoughts, feedback, comments - all of it - as a contribution to us "Altering The Conversation" together!

Photo by Janine Robinson on Unsplash