What happened to the slave in America is an interesting thing because it was a different kind of slavery. It was not for the purpose of domestic slavery as most slaves historically had been. This was for the development of a market economy. So the slave had to face other things in America that were unique to slavery in the world as we know it. One of those things was the absolute destruction of your own self and your relationship to your history and yourself. I always tell people: Where is my song? Where is my dance? Where is my country? Where is my flag? Where is my language? Where is my religion? Where is my clothing? Where is my cuisine? All of it erased. Period. And nothing to replace it because the institution of slavery as it grew up in America became an institution in which the slave didn’t have a relationship to the community in which the slave found himself. That’s an incredible statement when you think about it because it means not only are you not an African, this generic “African”, but you’re not anything else. You’re a piece of property. What does that do to you? What kind of wounds does that do to you ontologically? What kind of wounds does that do to you psychologically? Well, it has a tremendous effect. So when people talk about the break down of the black family today, I say you got a lot of nerve. I’ll tell you when the black family got broken down, it was the 1600s, 1700s. When mothers and fathers were being sold away from each other and given new names, new identities and nothing else in return except a lifetime of labor, free labor. Elaine Brown, from UC Santa Barbara talk New Age Racism -Elaine Brown youtu.be/8oYtzBf3z6g
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 21:57:34 +0000
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