Topic: Confronting the Modern Crisis in Inhumane Morality Entry 4

Title: Cataloguing the Hostile Forces Which Struck us in this Second Post Reconstruction Era Part 2

Video Inspired By: Preparations for Afrikan and New Afrikan Identity Part 2 (Episode #009)
(LINK) https://youtu.be/oAJvOjLYFdE

To know the truth you have to be the truth! Dr. T’Shaka often cites this idiom as a link between Afrikan continental thinking and its existence in us up to this very day. He does so because this statement which can be traced back to the Anu and Twa; is one we heard as children, though not always as so stated. In my instance, my parents would say his actions don’t match his words; undoubtedly you can recall something similar being said to you during your formative years. I start off this second part in this series because the most stomach-turning impact the hostile forces that have struck our community has had on our community is the blatant disregard for this sacred and ancient truth. On a recent Karent Hunter is Awesome podcast, famed sportscaster Stephen A Smith, chided Ms. Hunter for being “addicted to authenticity” when no one else was. This statement, said without a smile on his face was intended to be a teachable moment for the host; one I believe she understood. In commentary made after the moment on her Sirius FM show, she demonstrated she understood completely what he was communicating and she showcased our legendary empathy in addressing his comment telling the audience that “he thought he was winning” a sentiment he should believe because he had garnered a $100 million dollar contract from an industry stingy with its money (watch the clip to see what I’m referring to). I defer to her knowledge of this industry since she has worked in it and I have not. In hearing Mr. Smith’s comment I didn’t hear what she heard though, I heard a gamer talking about the world as if it were some plaything on a screen they could detach from once they took his goggles off or set the controller down, I heard a person who forgot that actions or statements made on television have real life consequences, I heard a person who does not understand nor care to understand his role as a leading sports commentator turned celebrity and recognizable face for America’s Sports Brand Inc. within Black Spaces not associated with the pristine white dominated spaces he exists in – I heard all these things then realize these are common problems far too many Black celebrities are having today.

Why this is occurring, Dr. T’Shaka gave us the answer to in his book “Integration Trap, Generation Gap: The Choice Between two Cultures”; it is the subtitle that answers the question posed above, Stephen A. Smith and the Black celebrities from his ilk can make such comments as the one he made above because they have been lullabied into thinking like those they are most around, not by those who exist in their Ancestry. This aforementioned choice between two cultures; one individualistic, self-centered, material driven and anti-communal, the other communalistic, socially-centered, spiritually driven and anti-exploitative; results in people contorting themselves to fit into both cultures at one time. Obviously one cannot maintain such a unnatural posture rendering the easiest path as their likely destination, if their formative years were deeply grounded in cultural practices that affirmed the latter culture and there wasn’t a break in their psyche preventing those practices from shaping them thoroughly, then their walk and talk would match, if this process was broken or interrupted then the former culture could be their destiny. I do not know if Stephen A. Smith personified the latter or the former culture, but I do know the latter culture demands authenticity – it’s not an addiction brought about by abusing some hallucinogen or mind altering substance refusing to let the light of truth in lest the demon prompting the addiction be expelled. No! Demanding authenticity is for this culture, a demand for real self-expression not deceptive self-expression, it is a demand for the masks that obscure the faces holding bedeviling smiles and hiding the minds conjuring grotesque plots for human deprivement, to reveal themselves – as my grandmother might say – before the light of God. It is a demand for those who claim residence among the latter culture’s Ancestry, to take off their civil, economic and political garments before they enter the Temple of Reverence, revealing who they are to those they come to pay their respects to. These are the demands that have been set aside upon the choosing of the former’s culture.

Since hearing Stephen A. Smith’s initial comment and Karen Hunter’s commentary explaining the thinking behind her response to him, I have wondered what hostile force could account for his comments and the only answer I could come up with was Miseducation. Going from, “To know the Truth you have to Be the Truth” to “Their talk doesn’t match Their walk”; denotes a decrease in our people’s capacity to identify ourselves as our Ancestors.This decrease is the result, I believe, in us not knowing who our Ancestry really is, what they have done to get us to this place in time and how we can utilize what they did in the past to help rebuild, build or innovate what we need in the present. Being able to reconstruct ourselves, our environment and our inner world after them, is vital to raising up authenticity in our culture, our community and our family structures which’ll in turn raise authenticity in ourselves. Imagine living in a world were authenticity was demanded? This world once existed but one culture couldn’t abide by its mandates so it stopped trying to, than it went about reordering the world so authenticity became as common as hail storms in the dead of summer. We now live with the negative consequences from that reordering. I suppose I should thank Stephen A. Smith, because he truly opened us up to a conversation that we wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t said what he had said. Now we should wonder, what might a world demanding authenticity from its human being inhabitants, look like?

While I cannot answer that question, what I can say is this. I believe we have entered a period in time when we are being prepared, rather we are ready or not, for our identity to switch from one where our country markings took precedent thus the trauma we amassed throughout the Maafa remained at our subconscious mind’s forefront to one where our Ancient markings will over write and cause to evaporate those markings thus allowing our true divine selves to shine through. This is why the choice between two cultures and identifying the hostile forces hastening this choice for us, is so important.