Posted by ~ Sheldon Redditt on 11/1/2014
When the slaves were first brought to America from Africa in 1555 or 1619, whichever date you choose to believe. The first thing the slave master did was to take away any connection to their native land. The slave master took his language, religion, his name and replaced it with his own. The slave master knew that in order to rule over these people, he had to instill fear, mistrust, and hate in the slave against other slaves. In 1712, a slave owner, by the name of Willie Lynch, gave a lecture on how to control a slave for hundreds or even thousands of years. Lynch outlined a sure fire way to control the slave by controlling his and her MIND. His methods were beyond brutal at times. Some slave owners would invite all the slave owners from as far away as 100 miles, to bring all of his slaves to watch, as the slave master would tie a pregnant slave to a tree and cut the baby out of her stomach. He would stomp the baby's head and would beat any slave to near death if they tried to help. Another way of instilling fear was to take the biggest strongest male slave they could find and tie each leg to a horse facing the opposite directions, tar and feather him, set him on fire and beat the horse so that it would run, literally ripping the slave's body in half. To say that they were sick is an under statement. But the end result was the so called, almost perfect slave. Their methods were a success in every way. You have taken his identity and instilled fear in him. Now, you have to teach him how to mistrust, envy and even hate the other slave. So, the slave master would take the light skin slave and let him or her work in the house while the dark skin slave worked in the field. This results in the light skin slave feeling that they are better than the dark skin slave. Which in turn, causes the dark skin slave to become jealous and even hate the light skin slave. At the same time, the slave master divides the men from the women. The slave master would force the men slaves to have sex with as many women as possible in order to produce more future slaves. The men were not allowed to have any interactions with these children, just plant the seed and leave. The women were forced to care for their children, alone. Sounds familiar??? Now you just look at a lot of men today, they are not involved in their kids life. They think it's cool to have as many kids as they can and not be responsible for them. They think that the definition of being a man is to father as many kids as they can without being a daddy. There is a difference!
How does something that happened hundreds of years ago continue to effect us today, you might ask? It still has an effect, like Willie Lynch stated, the best way to control a people is to control their minds. When the slaves were finally set free they still had the same slave mindset. Slavery was all they knew, so if you instill in a people to believe this way, to act this way, for hundreds of years it becomes the norm. Look at the way they beat the slave for instance. A lot of people in my generation were whipped with extension cords, the whip of our time. Their parents whipped them with the same thing, so it was passed down. Some of us are still dealing with the mental scars of being whipped or beaten in this manner. Look at how we are still divided based on color; light skin vs dark skin. In 2014, we are still having this issue. How many rap songs have you heard saying something to the effect of, "I only want a red bone" (light skin women)? The absence of the father in children's lives. It was embedded in them, from slavery, to not be involved in their kids lives, to plant the seed and leave. But, when you know better you do better. We are hundreds of years away from physical slavery but mentally, a lot of us are still there. The disrespect we have for our women, the hate we have for one another. At what point do we break the cycle? We have all the knowledge and tools available to do it. Slavery was a horrible thing that should NEVER be forgotten but we have to stop being enslaved mentally. We have to love and trust each other and stop being divided by skin tone, or the part of town you are from. If we don't make a change as a people, then I guess Willie Lynch was right, you really can control a people for hundreds of years. Let's break the cycle. This is my truth what's yours?
.
No comments:
Post a Comment