My Bullet after the Ballots

I stare in the mirror in hopes to find the reason behind the hate. I’m trying to understand what it is about the shade of my skin that makes me less of a man or a more dangerous citizen of society. Does it lie in my history and my heritage or is it some innate urge I will someday have to become rabid and attack? I feel that it is neither but simply because I was born into a nation where I was first identified as 3/5ths of a man and as merely a commodity to be bought, sold, or traded. Before I begin let me first say that I am a proud American that has served this country and understand the beauty in its nostalgia because this is the only place where you can truly come from nothing and become everything. Yet why is it that because I was born a couple shades prouder I was also born several steps back from the starting line of the American dream. Although this is my home because I know no other home I cringe because of the fact that I love a place that has forever hated me. I have not done anything to be hated beyond breathe yet I am reminded that I am a threat simply because of the way I may dress or speak. My vernacular is proximal to the community I reside. It does not make me an enemy of the state but I guess I became that in 1865.

My double consciousness has almost won but it merely evolved into a false complacency of self. Within my double consciousness I always maintained a need to  always look at myself through the eyes of others, while measuring myself by the tape of a world that looks at me with a sense of amusement, contempt, hate and pity. Yet it was within this mind I strove for more because I felt as though I was going to finally going to reach some mark they had set for me to reach to become equal or acceptable. Although the truth is that I would never be equal and to be acceptable would mean for me to be accept the original notion that I am 3/5ths a man. Yet as crazy as it seems I was better off within my double consciousness than within my false complacency of self because I no longer look to run a race but I merely settle for what is and make excuses for what is not. I have allowed the pride that is my black to end and the simply look thrive in the guilt that is a nation that has never cared that I am here at all. So I settle. I settle for not reaching my purpose and blaming it on my lack of potential. Yet my potential is just an excuse to no succeed. My double conscious mind was stronger because it knew hate and understood it. It did not fear it as it does not now but I worked to fit in but eventually realized that instead of fitting in I should become something of substance to myself which within my new mindset I have already become that even though I am claiming victory in the middle of a half run race.

My soul weeps for what it used to long for and my ancestors marched and died for. I see no true freedom upon the horizons because I am a slave to not only a nation that now whispers it’s hate through stereotypes and unjustified justice but also to the community which calls itself my family and gives me a handbook on what is being real and labeled a sellout if I don’t. I am no longer the darker brother. I am no longer the brother of any but merely a refugee within a place that hunts me on both sides and looks to lock me away if I don’t follow the rules that were written when I was not even considered a citizen and labeled half a human. What promise and hope exist for me in a place that labels me a threat when I have done nothing to show that I am one or could be one? I am running in a rat race that have been pre-set for my failure unless I am able to avoid the traps that have been created for me to disappear into the masses instead of standing out among the crowd . If I can catch a ball, run a ball, shoot a ball, run really fast, or jump really high then I can be given a golden ticket to become what many will say is hero because of my physical abilities. The ability to exercise my mind outside of what they say is normal is by many seen as shortfall rather than a gift. We have communities that will celebrate the death of a “homie” or a “homie” coming home from prison before they will celebrate the graduation or. I am no longer the darker brother and no longer to the brother to even those that claim me as their brother because of the fact that I walk through live avoiding the death at the hands of those that hate me because of the color of my skin and deem me a threat and also by those that turn my community into a war zone because of the colors of a brotherhood they swear is the only way. 

My civil disobedience is rooted in my mental unrest for the current situation that plagues my generation. We are too intelligent to just listen and follow yet not intelligent enough to listen and follow. We separate ourselves into groups of individuals with plans that reconstruct the framework that was built on the backs of our ancestors and fertilized with their blood and tears yet we take no steps in the direction which could be our salvation. Our communities stand fractured and broken from the lack of structure which stems from the lack of existence of the modern black family unit. The black family and its existence are essential to the success of any types of plans to restore and rebuild our dying community. The barrier that lies in its way is the existence of the media counterterrorism that is force feed down the throats of our youth. The media that compromises our urban culture currently is brainwashing our youth to give them a false sense of entitlement and success in relation to certain levels and life accomplishments. This lost mindset of the slave is perpetuated within us and can be seen in full manifestation among our youth and there constant self-destruction. We are not completely lost because we are not completely blind, just merely lacking the enlightenment needed to understand the purpose that lies within us because our heritage pushes us beyond just mere potential. Yet in order to understand where we must go we must also understand from which we came so that we do not walk the paths that our ancestors did but blaze a new path from the path had already been laid. Our melanin is that of gold because although we have the blood of slaves we also have the hearts and minds of kings and queens which give us the ability beyond the imagination of any.    

The American Negro as defined in the New York World in 1923, by a published statement of Drs. Clark Wissler and Franz Boaz (the latter a professor of anthropology at Columbia University), affirms that “A Negro is a person of dark complexion or race, who has not accomplished anything and to whom others are not obligated for any useful service.” The American Negro is the longest lasting renewable natural resource within the United States. The American Negro has fueled the establishment, advancement, and still fuels the future of the United States. I am the American Negro. The evolution of the cotton field slave to the prison cell slave is truly remarkable because at one point the idea of liberty and freedom became confused. The dilemma of the United States has always been that of the American Negro and continues to be that due to the fact that without it the structure of the mega-machine that is the United States would fold upon itself. The destruction of the American Negro is not merely a though process but a doctrine that has been rooted within every faction of our lives to teach of self-hate, self-doubt and self-destruction. The tools for self- hate, self-doubt and self-destruction was provided by those that enforce the ideals of the American Negro agenda yet it has been at our hands become these weapons of mass destruction that has grown and been able to take root within our communities to begin the receptacle and perpetual down fall of not only the American Negro but also the foundations that were established through the blood, sweat, and tears of our ancestors. Although now we refer to ourselves as black, Afro-American, African-America, and even some just simply African it is the fact that we are the American Negro that not only sets us apart from any other culture or race of man but also blinds us from the fact that if we acknowledge that point and examined it we will begin to find the path to salvation we once traveled. Admitting the power of the American Negro and understanding its connection to the greatness of our culture and ourselves is just as powerful as its connection to our destruction will place us in a place that we have not been since the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Brother Malcom X. The understanding of our destruction must be examined and conceptualized before the road to our redemption can ever be paved and walked because we have strayed so far from the path that was blazed by our forefathers that we now walk through a desolate land of the lost souls of our current and future generations.  

The destruction of the African-American male and the African-American family as whole lies within the psychological foundation in which the strongest are built and the weakest are bread. The issue that we deal with today of broken African-American families and distorted concepts of what is true strength can be traced back to the teachings of Willie Lynch and his concepts of how to create a slave which also served as the foundation of how to destroy the African-American male, African-American female, and the African-American Family. Although the methods were coined and put into use today they continue to be prominent within our society and have become the defining factors of our society. The basic idea of it all is to destroy the mind but strengthen the body so that we are mentally weak but physically strong leaving us a partially complete person and not fully capable to compete and overcome the obstacles that are placed in our way without the need for a help. We have allowed out self-efficiency to be taken from us putting at a disadvantage in life form not only a communal standpoint but also from a self-development stand point.

The destruction of the African-American male was set into motion with the simple concept of the destruction of the African-American family due to the family being the foundation to the success of any ethnic group. The concepts created by Willie Lynch were diabolical and ingenious at the same time because he used our sense of family against us and even over time has re-created the basic concept put into motion then to destroy the African-American people as a whole. Although the times has changed they have merely handed the weapon to us and we continue to commit racial suicide on a daily basis blinded by the fact that we are pulling the trigger to the gun that is killing us and further destroying the fabric of culture and heritage. Examining the original concept of Willie Lynch’s notion to destroy the African-American family the foundation can be found from him removing the male from the family structure. Through his concept he took two families one with a daughter and a son and took the father away from the structure through work or through death. His idea was that with the mother that had the daughter she would raise her daughter to be mentally strong and independent to not become a victim to the abandonment of a man and to be the hurt of life. The other woman who has a son will raise her son in fear of his life and of hers making him dependent mentally and therefore mentally weak yet physically strong in order to defend his family and himself from threats. This was done to reverse the rolls of the African-American male and female to make the female less dependent on the African-American man and less trusting of his ability to provide and protect creating an overly independent African-American woman who has little to no need for the African-American man who has been present in their lives for one reason or another and less likely to trust and embrace any other African-American man.

The role reversal for the African-American male was to the destruction and weaken of the mind but strengthen of the body. Creating a one-dimensional minded African-American man who thrives physically but has mental flaws to the concept of family and their true position within the African-American family due to the fact that the African-American woman displays less need or want of him and that the family structure is something that he is not family with because of the removal of the father figure within it. This issue still happens today and has been reinforced and perpetuated through modern concepts of removing the African-American male from the family structure. Whether it be done through the mental genocide of today’s hip-hop music which brainwashes our African-American youth to believe that the lyrics of songs are prophecies of life; leading our young African-American women into a life of fast money and self-disrespect teaching them independence but dependency in the same notion to become nothing more than a physical entity that’s greatest asset is her sexuality. Yet the use of her sexuality is creates a confidence level that fuels her independence and mistrust of men, mostly African-American, simply perpetuating the original concepts of Willie Lynch. While our African-American men create families then leave either by ways of self-removal or by becoming a part of the penal system due their lack of knowledge of what it means to be a man because the mental genocide that has been inflicted on them through their intake of hip-hop, media, and environmental factors leaving him mentally weak but physically strong to endure the stressors of life as the foundation to this destruction wanted.   

Willie Lynch’s notion set many things in motion but it’s ability to continue and resurface has been at our own hands but not continuing the concepts that were taught within the African-American family from the post-Civil War Era throughout the Civil Rights Movement up until crack came to town and the new wave of the Willie Lynch Syndrome was put into motion but this time was given to a new look and place in a method so that we can self –feed the concepts and all unknowingly become victims to it at our own hands. The family structure of the African-American family was one that was stronger than ever during the Civil-Rights Era yet began to loss traction during the 1970’s and 1980’s due to the emergence of major drug usage within the African-American households and the rise in black on black crime. The turning point of it was the emergence of crack in the 1980’s which can be credited with the rise in violence within African-American communities; the decline in African-Americans finishing high school; and the number of African-Americans being imprisoned due to American’s War on Drugs. The destruction of the African-American family is the key to the destruction of the American-American people and the enforcement of the Willie Lynch Syndrome that has become embedded within our society and is slowly becoming our society.

 The war on the black family has been in action for many years and continues to be a focal point of our American culture today. The driving doctrine for this war has been the destruction of the African-American family which was set in motion when Willie Lynch stepped on the banks of the United States and began to teach his methods of absolute control but was also the framework for the destruction and control of the African-American mind. We are not weaker, dumber, slower or lazier than the next man. We are simply frighten mentally to go beyond what we deem safe is. Our ancestors pushed those envelopes to get us beyond the brink of freedom to the dinner table yet somewhere between Martin and Malcolm’s assassination we have accepted our place in line and haven’t tried to further the agenda that was started decades ago. The acceptance of our place in line is not to say that we blame anyone or that anyone is holding us back but to say that we became over happy with the little bit of self-worth we developed and slowly but surely began to settle for what was above the minimum but is now the bare minimum. We have advanced ourselves to the point of regression. We can’t progress because we have allowed our once rich culture to become a mockery of ourselves and the great heritage that we come from. We are no longer the strong, intelligent, and power race we once were. We have fallen to the way side and become the clowns of this nation. Shucking and jiving to get noticed willing to sell out own souls to make that almighty dollar. The time to wake is long overdue and the time to make a change has come and gone. This is not to piss anyone off or the point a figure of blame but to merely shed some light on the mirror that we have so much of an issue looking into and taking on the person who is to blame for many of our issues, ourselves.

Our issues within the African-American community lie within the mind and mental foundation that we establish for ourselves forged through our centuries of torment and ill-treatment. Our failure to obtain the knowledge we need to compete within society can be contributed to our lack of knowledge of ourselves and the lack of positive role models that exist within our communities. Many of our youth have no one to look up and model themselves after which leaves a void within the structure of our society. The disintegration of what was once proud race of people has been occurring for many years now. You can see it from our areas of entertainment all the way through structure of the African-American family and the lack-luster success you see within the academic arena. Many of our youth feel that it is more important to have “street credit” rather than to be a positive role model for the future. The ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, and many others have all but been lost within our assimilation to the culture that is now the foundation for our everyday lives. We are currently living in an age where the political issues are not of interest to our youth and it is more a burden to speak out against injustice rather than a privilege to be able to voice our opinions freely or we use the ability to speak freely to justify the behavior we should deem unacceptable instead of feeling that because of past injustice we can act in a way that is not honorable or gives disrespect to the African-American people. The loss of life of a brother to another brother has now become the norm in many of our communities, with our youth wanting to claims colors and city blocks that belong to the same “man” they swear is holding them back and trying to keep them down. Although many of them have no idea of what the struggle truly is or who the “man” is.

We are no more than 50 years removed from a time where we could not speak our minds, vote for our freedoms, walk freely, and learn freely without the prosecution of another. We have just gotten our freedom yet we throw it away just a quickly not pursuing more than the street corner and wanting to immolate the lives of those who nothing to contribute to our legacy other than a few worlds that rhyme or points on a board. Many of our young African-American men feel that it is a right of passage to get arrested and locked up. The feel as though it is no greater goal to not be seen as the future leader but to be seen as what they refer to as a “Real nigga.” The ability of our youth to recite rap lyrics as though they are Bible verses yet cannot even mumble the first verse to the “Negro National Anthem” is startling to some yet the norm for many. The idea of wanting more other than guns shells and crack sells has all but disappeared and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have fallen victim to a system that was never built for us other than for containment. Our systems of empowerment and growth quickly disappeared with the idea of acceptance into the “American Dream.”           

Reports show that 1 in 3 African-American males with go to prison within their lifetime. That is a statistic that shows that the value of the African-American man has not only decrease but also has gone almost into none existence because we allow ourselves to become products of a system we have created that has become the destruction of ourselves. The idea of being a “Nigga” was once one of the worst things that we as African-American people could imagine yet now that phrase and persona aligned with other words has become some type of achievement. For example to be considered a Real “Nigga” one has to have “street credit” or be recognized in the hood, which would then classify them as a Real Hood “Nigga,” and that is something that gives the young African-American male status among his friends yet obscurity in every other aspect of life. The value of the status of “Hood Nigga,” “Street Nigga,” or “Real Nigga” tends to hold a lot of weight within our black communities in today’s day and age and has become a social status that within many circle can mean success yet has contributed admirably to the destruction of the African-American persona, both for the male and female. The ideas and concepts that have come to govern this generation of young people has taken them on a downward spiral past the ideas and dreams of our ancestors who fought for our freedom and had visions of our people rising to the levels that our descendants had come from when they ruled the kingdoms of Africa. The ideas that our current generation of young African-Americans has led to statistics that are eye popping. According to sources within the United States with a total population of 2.3 million incarcerated African-American males account for 1 million of those incarcerated. In many states the although African-Americans account for the minority of the population the majority them are the majority within state prison system, for example within Mississippi they account for 95% of the prison population. We have allowed ourselves to become our own new slave drivers as we have unknowingly begun living in the new Jim Crow Era.

Although we constantly scream outrage when situations such as the shooting death of Michael Brown occurs we are silent when it comes to our youth having some of the lowest test scores in the nation as well as the lowest graduation rate. We speak out in those instances of injustices that are made mainstream media yet are deadly silent with the other issues that have been a major issue for years but because they are not made mainstream issues they are not noted as a problem. There has been too many times within this country in which we abandon our values and have allowed for ourselves to become shells of our ancestors as we only march for injustice when it’s made national news. We are losing the battle and do not realize there is a war. The war that is brewing is not against the “White Man” as many of us would like to think but against ourselves. We live in a world where our culture no longer stands for distinction and strives to become the elite. We are lost as people and lost within ourselves. No longer does those that want us back in the cotton fields where hooded faces but one’s with a smile and a nice suit. We are living in a New Era of Jim Crow yet we haven’t realized where we are and what is going. Although we are told we are free we are no longer are equal; we are living in an era of disparity that can be seen on every level from educationally to financially and especially within the bounds of criminal justice. The foundation of the African-American cultures can be traced back centuries yet the level that we are currently on falls short of the level of those that fought before us.

We are coming off the close of an 8 year presidency term of this country’s first African-American President. A term that has been plagued with more ridicule that many can say was more than any president has faced during their term as president ever. Many looked at President Barack Obama’s election as a sign of hope of growth from the dismal past that existed within this country. A past that was plagued with segregation, racism, murder, rape and the overall ill-treatment of the entire black race within this country; a past in which a person of darker skin color was treated as though they were an animal and less than human. Although the election of President Barack Obama strived to bring hope to a people’s past that was plagued with ill-memories that many say should not be dwelled on and forgotten it has simply not. It has given the people of this race a sense of privilege and right of something that did not exist and many did not want to put forth the effort to earn. These delusional thoughts has sent the black people into a spiraling down fall that has put us at one of lowest points from an intellectual and leadership stand point in my opinion. As you examine things from the point at which we stood following the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the end of the bloody years of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 through 1968 to the point we are at now where the right to vote is disregarded and we constantly blame a system in which we barely do anything to influence or change but merely become a part of the problem we haven’t made it anywhere. The hope that should have been inspired by the election of Barack Obama has only lead to false thoughts of privilege and the separation of not only a nation but the black race itself.

Following the American Civil War we were made citizens by the 14th Amendment and freed from slavery with the 13th Amendment yet we are still slaves and have yet to understand that although we are citizens we are sometimes still viewed as second class citizens. The slavery in which we live now is one that dwells within our minds and perpetuated by our culture. Our younger generation tends to look for handouts and fail to see the big picture of what that really does. Our youth looks at the world as if they are owed something and deserve to have the best without any hard work being done for it at all. This mindset has enslaved our future and holds it hostage because of the lack of leadership that lies within the family. The initial destruction of the African-American family can be contributed to slavery and how family were separated and torn apart yet the continuation of this ideal can only contributed to the black male. The lack of leadership by us as black males to be the role models within our families and communities has led to our little black boys looking for an imagine of leadership from those on the radio, television, movie screen, and the streets. The image of the African-American male diminishes each and every day with every passing year and the only person the blame is ourselves because we have done nothing to strength the future through knowledge of the past because we are too busy living in today where we our lost to ourselves. The image of the African-American male has been soiled and broken into images of our prior self. We have regressed into the stage of being merely the American Negro instead of being the black man that our ancestors strived so hard for us to be. The development of our minds lack the substance needed to become more than what we are. We have fallen into the slums of society accepting the ghetto as our home and falsely claiming it to be our kingdoms when it is actually our caskets. The African-American male has lost his way and will continue to be lost until it figures out how to look within himself and find the round to redemption from the years of damnation we have been infecting our past, present, and future with.

The chains that our ancestors once wore on their wrist and ankles we now have them placed around our minds. We act as though we are dogs locked within a single kennel fighting for survival by killing our fellow brothers rather than finding a way to work together to figure out. We have failed to find our way to true freedom and continue to be lost because of incarcerated mindsets that lead us on a road of self-destruction. The times in which we live in is currently dark and we as a people have to realize a need to stand up and stand together to make a difference. The need for leadership among our people is something that we are in dire need of because how our youth are rapidly leading themselves into paths of destruction with little to no disregard. Carter G. Woodson once said “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” The history and traditions of race is becoming but a memory to our younger generations. It’s becoming that way through us failing to teach or not caring how it is taught. Allowing the mental capacity in which we think to become attacked on a constant basis. Walking around with the mindset of maniac and rejoicing in the fact that our intellectual stock is no longer considered being a blue chipper due to the fact that we allow our youth to be labeled as young children and passed along through a system that is created to brainwash and control, rather than to enlighten and motivate in most cases. The diminishment of our rich culture further reinforces the fact that we are a lost people to ourselves and our history wondering through society and blaming everyone besides the person in the mirror.

The mass incarceration of African-Americans is something that can’t be ignored but we are incarcerated within our mind which only feeds into a system that has targeted us threats and classified us full-fledged criminals. Our younger generations of black men are targets of a system in which they do not understand nor are being taught to understand. The ability to know and understand what laws are what and how they are being enforce empowers them to be able to not only avoid wrongful prosecution but also defeat it. Within our culture we have allowed the original foundations of our forefathers and mothers to disappear and become replaced with new age doctrines that have led to little if any advancement at all.   We have allowed hate to transform from southern rope into cultural dope. There are too many brothers and sisters pushing the dope of the cultural poison that perpetuates and initiates the confusion that is plaguing our communities. Instead of pushing knowledge into our minds we inject confusion and misguided doctrines of unearned paths to wealth and self-hate that leave us in a waste land of our own people. The destruction of Black Christian church was the beginning chapter of the destruction of an entity that has served as pillar of hope and guidance within our communities during the Post –Slavery era and through the civil rights era. The Black Christian Church served as the grooming of phases for many our young people. It was within the church that many of African-Americans gain essential traits such as public speaking, public etiquette, confidence within themselves, as well as a sense of self pride for themselves and their race. The discrediting of the Christian Black Church is an agenda that further separates us as well and leaves the guidance of our young African-Americans left in the hands of individuals who are many times lost themselves.

The United States of America were built upon the backs of our race and fueled through our blood. This nation is just as much as ours as it is any others if not more. The American Dilemma is that of race and will remain that for as long as it exists. The American Negro issue is that of unrealized potential and misplaced blamed and no strategic plan of how to advance. The destruction of the American Negro is the destruction of the Black man and women as well as the destruction of African-African family. It is an agenda set into motion by the teaching of Willie Lynch and perpetuated through the lack of solidarity within the African-American communities. The separation of beliefs will always create the rift needed that allows us to continue to be dogs chasing our tails. Understanding the history of our destruction and the ability to take that understanding and turn it into a strategic plan to lead us into a new era is the only way overcome the current situation that plagues us and continue to plague us. Until we can operate as a fist and not individual fingers will continue to just poke at the problems of the black community. The American Negro will always be the same as the black man or woman and an African-American until we make the necessary changes that will allow them to transcend the definition of it and the history of it.