Some people go through a stage in life when their poor choices or circumstances determine their station in life.Sometimes people become drug addicts, alcoholics, impoverished or worse.
For some, this station becomes more than a passing phase - for some, this station becomes a choice, a way of life - this station becomes their identity.
Some people are from the ghetto - others are just ghetto.
Even when one acquires the resources to remove themselves from their situation - their mentality dictates that they live the lifestyle of the ghetto (With all it's limitations).
I've never been a slave.I've never picked a ball of cotton, been whipped by a master nor prevented from making the most of my innate talents.
To me, Slavery was just a very small portion of my identity as an Black man in America.
For me, Slavery was just a passing phase from which I could learn.
For me, the few hundred years of slavery pales in comparison to the thousands of earlier years of freedom and innovation.
For me, Slavery was just the foundation from which later success could be built.
IMOHO - Too many people still choose to only identify with the worst of their past.
Too many hold on to the mentality of settling for the scraps, the subjugation by others and the position of inferiority.
I think too many people still see themselves as slaves and act accordingly.
Too many cannot see Slavery as being similar to a horrible childhood of poverty and oppression but an adult life of freedom, wealth and opportunity.
Too many people act like slaves because they still see themselves as being slaves.
Are you saying that it's like the old saying, "You can take the boy out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the boy"?
ReplyDeleteIf that saying is true, one has to wonder what gets a person out of a passing phase (poverty, slavery, oppression) and what prevents that person from (involuntarily) returning to such a situation.
Well hey it's a scar and scars are permanent reminders of a rough time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you mostly that people think they're past determines their future more than seeing like a phase they went through. Shit I used to steal from the liquor stores, break into cars, set fires to fields and general mayhem along with ganglife. I remember it because it's kind of crazy but I am mature enough to know it was a extreme adolescence.
The real issue is people are afraid to move onto a life they don't know and wonder if they can fit in. I mean I don't have the same stories as most of the people I run into. I take threats way more seriously than others and I take money way more seriously than others. I think the past is part of me as I had to threaten a guy to get my money back in business just yesterday. It's hard to throw away all that you know and embrace a new life no matter how much you know you should. Shit I got a knife under my bed a gun in my car, a gun at my business and another in my house and I don't live anything close to that right now. I don't even talk to too many people period.
I bet you it's their fear to walk away from all that they knew. It took me a while to stop saying irrelevant stuff or use some kind of tact in most situations. It's another learning experience altogehter and I don't think most people want to truly take on the challenge of correcting theirselves.
We know what we are taught. In my experience those wo are unusual, have unusual experience, or are just remarkable people, oft have trouble not expecting everyone else to be above average or remarkable as well.
ReplyDeleteIt is not reasonable to expect someone to know of a life no one has ever shown them, attain attitudes no one has instilled in them, or function at a level no one has ever brought them to.
It would seam this is the fundamental diff between those who pass through phases and those who are stuck. Those who pass through rough times are acting out or suffering consequences while those who saty are doing what they know.
I never gave slavery a thought as it related to my distant family history. No, it's more of the remnants of the effects Jim Crow that I could see in my father.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised when Fox news and the haters dragged that slave shit out of the closet like it was a stigma on Obama as a Presidential nominee, then they moved on to his wife when he didn't have that in his family history.
Personally, I don't see a problem with anyone being a descendant of a slave. It's the barbarians who kidnapped free people and chained and abused Africans who should be embarrassed.
This is true, nice post.
ReplyDelete