This will not be a pretty post. Herein, we discuss very serious mental issues that are the direct result of what we have come to call Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder in Black conscious circles.
Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder is the sum total of the emotional and psychological impact of our abduction and separation from Africa, slavery, Jim Crow, the crushing of the Black American Revolution (starting with the deportation of Marcus Garvey and ending with the destruction of the Black Panther Party), the Black indoctrination in a system of white values, beliefs and supremacy, and the establishment of an economic caste system.
These experiences have all created deep, intense feelings of fear, anger, and self-hatred amongst African-Americans, resulting in self destructive psychosis.
The suicidal, self-destructive nature that many Africans and African-Americans suffer from can be impossible to diagnose. Resistance and denial create within us powerful psychological barriers that block our ability to honestly assess our thinking errors. As you read this, ask yourself if you indeed are resisting truths that lay at your core. It is perfectly normal to resist looking within the dark shadows of your subconscious, but this must be done if we are to heal our collective self esteem and break the psychological chains that have been forged for us, and that keel us in bondage today.
Until we do so, all the gun programs, AIDS walks, Black conscious lectures, mass movements, and Stop The Violence concerts in the world will have a minimal effect.
Until we truly examine the causes and effects of PTSD, we as a community – and you as an individual – may be subconsciously programmed for racial, financial, physical, cultural, and psycho-sexual forms of self destruction.
Racial Self-Destruction
Being a non-white in a white controlled society (cause) can lead to feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and low self-esteem. These suppressed feelings leads victims to side with their controller, assimilate him or herself into their culture, and develop a preference for all things white – including their religions, history, and sex partners.
I am in the middle of re-reading Soul on Ice, an autobiographical collection of essays, letters, and prose penned by Eldridge Cleaver – former Black Panther Party Minister of Information and candidate for the Presidency of the United States on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. While I have my many, many disagreements with the philosophies of Eldridge Cleaver, I believe he was precocious in his diagnosis of the self-destructive nature that African-Americans have been subconsciously programmed with.
Self-hatred can take on many forms; sometimes, it can be detected by no one, not the keenest observer, not the self-hater himself. But in American Negroes, this ethnic self-hatred often takes the bizarre form of a racial death-wish…Ironically, it provides much of the impetus behind the motivations of integration. The attempt to suppress or deny such drives in ones psyche leads many American Negroes to become ostentatious separatists, Black Muslims, and back-t0-Africa advocates.
The myth of the creation of the white race, called “Yacubs History”, is an inversion of the racial death-wish of American Negroes. Yacubs plan is still being followed by many Negroes today. Quite simply, many Negroes believe, as the principle of assimilation into white America implies, that the race problem in America cannot be settled until all traces of the Black race are eliminated. Toward this end, many Negroes loathe the very idea of two very dark Negroes mating. The children, they say, will come out ugly. What they mean is that the children are sure to be Black, and this is not desireable.
What has been happening for the past 400 years is that the white man, through his access to Black women, has been pumping his blood and genes into Blacks, has been diluting the blood and genes of the Blacks – i.e. has been fulfilling Yacubs plan and accelerating the Negroes racial death wish.
If we are willing to use the story of Yacobs History as an allegory, we can see the parallels in the story to the behavior of African-Americans today. For those of you who havent read The Autobiography of Malcolm X (shame on you – BUY IT HERE, RIGHT NOW), the story reads as follows:
About sixty-six hundred years ago, there was born a “Mr. Yacub”, known as “the big-head scientist.” Among many other things, he had learned how to breed races scientifically.
This big-head scientist, Mr. Yacub, began preaching in the streets of Mecca, making such hosts of converts that the authorities, increasingly concerned, finally exiled him with 59,999 followers to the island of Patmos — described in the Bible as the island where John received the message contained in Revelations in the New Testament.
Though he was a black man, Mr. Yacub, embittered toward Allah now, decided, as revenge, to create upon the earth a devil race — a bleached-out, white race of people.
From his studies, the big-head scientist knew that black men contained two germs (genes), black and brown. He knew that the brown germ (gene) stayed dormant as, being the lighter of the two germs, it was the weaker. Mr. Yacub, to upset the law of nature, conceived the idea of employing what we today know as the recessive genes structure, to separate from each other the two germs, black and brown, and then grafting the brown germ to progressively lighter, weaker stages. The humans resulting, he knew, would be, as they became lighter, and weaker, progressively also more susceptible to wickedness and evil. And in this way finally he would achieve the intended bleached-out white race of devils.
Mr. Yacub began his work by setting up a eugenics law on the island of Patmos.
Among Mr. Yacub’s 59,999 all-black followers, every third or so child that was born would show some trace of brown. As these became adult, only brown and brown, or black and brown, were permitted to marry. As their children were born, Mr. Yacub’s law dictated that, if a black child, the attending nurse, or midwife, should stick a needle into its brain and give the body to cremators. The mothers were told it had been an “angel baby,” which had gone to heaven, to prepare a place for her.
But a brown child’s mother was told to take very good care of it.
Others, assistants, were trained by Mr. Yacub to continue his objective. Mr. Yacub, when he died on the island at the age of one hundred and fifty-two, had left laws, and rules, for them to follow. Mr. Yacub, except in his mind, never saw the bleached-out devil race that his procedures and laws and rules created.
A two-hundred-year span was needed to eliminate on the island of Patmos all of the black people — until only brown people remained. The next two hundred years were needed to create from the brown race the red race — with no more browns left on the island. In another two hundred years, from the red race was created the yellow race.
Two hundred years later — the white race had at last been created.
Yacub would be proud of the behavior of the Black man and woman today. Interracial dating threatens to permanently change the face of Black America, as was done with the indigenous peoples of Argentina and other genetically integrated and assimilated countries. Even as I type this article in the middle of a coffee shop, I can look around and see multiple interracial couples. You might not have noticed this trend, but as you go about your business, start making mental notes of how many interracial couples you see. Make a note of how it makes you feel to see this trend.
The Black preference for a white member of the opposite sex should not be minimalized; its not just a matter of “different strokes for different folks”. A careful, honest, and courageous self-assessment will reveal that your preference is determined by culture – a culture that encourages you to shun all things Black.
Negroes will defend their self-hatred by giving you a long list of reasons why white mates are preferred. They will brag about how much easier it is to deal with a white partner. They will dismiss members of their own race as being too difficult, too high maintenance, financially insecure, under-educated, or otherwise unavailable. Thats bullshit – minimizations and justifications designed to protect the one fact that no one wants to acknowledge: a belief in their own racial inferiority.
But acknowledge it you must. For the first step in moving from VICTIM to VICTOR is a willingness to confront your deepest, darkest beliefs. Malcolm X confronted the source of his white preference on his path to becoming a conscious Black man, as did Eldridge Cleaver. You must do the same if you will break the psychological chains of PTSD .
Financial Self-Destruction
Experiencing the shame and frustration of being locked in poverty (cause) can lead to an unhealthy material obsession (money, clothes, shoes, cars) . Typically, these victims are not equipped with the knowledge to successfully manage what little money they have, and so they quickly find themselves trapped in a perpetual cycle of spend-broke-hustle-spend. Due to the psychological effects of poverty on the victim, the result is financial self-destruction.
Source: The percentage of people in deep poverty was 13.5 percent of all Blacks and 10.9 percent of all Hispanics, compared to 5.8 percent of Asians and 4.3 percent of Whites. While non-Hispanic Whites still constitute the largest single group of Americans living in poverty, ethnic minority groups are overrepresented (27.4 percent African American; 28.4 percent American Indian and Alaskan Native; 26.6 percent Hispanic, and 12.1 percent Asian and Pacific Islander compared with 9.9 percent non-Hispanic White).
These disparities are associated with the historical marginalization of ethnic minority groups and entrenched barriers to good education and jobs. – American Psychological Association and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012 Study
Physical Self-Destruction
The inability to cope with life in a white supremacist society, the shock of witnessing extreme acts of violence, or the loss a loved one to a preventable illness (causes) can all lead to anger, depression, suicide, violence, and substance, physical, and mental abuse.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, a Black man or woman in America commits suicide every 4 hours (suicide is now the third leading cause of death among black men between the ages of 15 and 24.)
Psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, M.D. of the Harvard Medical School and author of the book, Lay My Burden Down, writes ”You can’t prevent illness or suicide if you don’t talk about it and gain some knowledge about it.”
- Irritability
- Changes in appetite
- Changes in sleep habits
- Headaches, stomach aches, pain all over
- Chronic fatigue – not wanting to get up in the morning
- Sadness that continues for up to a month – spontaneous crying
- Social withdrawal – a loss of interest in activities and things once considered enjoyable
Another example of physical self-destruction: According to a study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011 there were 279,384 black murder victims, which means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks, resulting in the 94 percent figure. Even though blacks make-up only 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims.
Cancer, lung disease, AIDS, diabetes, stroke, and heart disease are all very preventable illnesses. And yet, Black men and women continue to destroy themselves with poisoned foods and lack of exercise. While access to nutrition indeed plays a factor, ones eating habits are particularly influenced by ones mental condition. Indeed, many Black men and women eat because they are unhappy, and they are unhappy because they eat.
We smoke, we get high, we get drunk, we fight, and we kill ourselves and each other. This behavior is just a symptom of the root illness: being Black and vulnerable in a society that devalues Black life, denies Blacks justice, and pollutes Black communities with cancer causing foods, poisonous air and water - all while feeding them mental images of the good life that lies just across the racial divide.
Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder is both complicated, pervasive, and prominent in the African American community. Books have been written on the subject that I suggest you read. Understanding the subconscious psychological effects of this disorder is the key to the mental (and ultimately the physical, cultural, and political) liberation of Black people the world over.
Peace!
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