One of the Biggest Problems Holding Back Africa and its Diaspora Are Psychological

[Nkrumah Was Right]

When I was young and in college, this type of argument really resonated with me. But I grew up with Bob Marley and Chuck D in my ears.

Post school, deep into my career, I can see that there are SIGNIFICANT racial barriers to black people doing anything

• Getting health care even when you have good insurance
• Getting Primary and Secondary Education - even when you live in a white suburb. When black teachers focus their attention on Black Male students, subconsciously "wishing that boy would..."
• Getting College Education - at an Ivy, Elite State, HBCU, community college, or trade school
• Getting that first crucial job - Resume Racism is real
• Getting that second crucial job - You're black, do you really know and trust other people in your industry to help you get the next gig?
• Renting an apartment - too many instances of having great credit and provable income..
• Buying a car - Studies where car salesman of all colors
• Buying a home/Selling a home

No "Knowledge of Self" or years of therapy with an afro-centric/African centered licensed and trained therapist will address the issues above.
A good talking to, a good philosophy, help black people persevere through this stuff - and to that end it's useful.

But meditation and breathing exercises, pouring libations, and honoring elders is not land, capital, finance, homes, hospitals, schools, our own police force and court system, physical security from private racists as well as government sponsored racists.

The things that oppress and degrade black people the world over, are white individuals and white supremacist institutions, and anti Black Individuals and Institutions - formal and informal - that actively work against Black people.

I'm not talking about folks living in the belly of the beast. (since G-Rap started, it seems that a lot of middle class/college educated/daddy make good money as an electrician type black folks, think other Black people are 1 foot out of slavery/living like Dookie on The Wire. )

I'm talking about Typical Tisha and Regular Raheem. She's a nurse and he works at the help desk at the local university. Maybe they're code-switching game isn't PhD level, and they have a very hard road ahead of them. And a lot of times, they don't realize all of the barriers.

And expecting a can-do/positive attitude, when Black Men have to downplay any sort of self-protective behaviors else they be perceived as threatening, and Black Women's "strength" is weaponized by companies and civil service...

It's not the individual raising of consciousness that is needed.
Therapy for a lot of harm done to us would be great - but perfectly adjusted Black people will face the same problems, the same enemies.

I think the "knowledge of self"/"genetic racial trauma" stuff is a poor solution for the real issues Black folks face.

Everyone pushing that type of thing is either 1) broke, or 2) only rich off their followers.

No disrespect to Frantz Fanon n'nem though.

Our problems are MATERIAL, not spiritual, not psychological, not something that can be addressed by a deep understanding of history or years talking to "elders".

On a different note,

We got all these killers, car jackers, and thieves - but Zimmerman and Darren Wilson still out there breathing free air.
They almost killed Rodney King, but a city full of gang bangers never took out any of the officers that assaulted him?
The 2 Black DC Snipers never went shot anyone for the revolution...

A lot of the problems that are inflicted on us by White people and their agents and their institutions - if anything - we should be thinking collectively and organizing collectively.

Obviously not in retaliation of course, never that.

But we should be trying to amass wealth and capital and knowhow on the low.
And then deploying those resources to help our own, on the low.

Thank you for this

 

[Pazzy]

To add on to what i said earlier, look at the mental health thread. Look at the posters in it. Look how what folks post. Its starts with what you feed your mind. Theres plenty of positive shyt about us black people. If you focus on the negatives, you will be stuck in them. No society cant make you believe youre shyt unless you feel that way about yourself. Empower yourself and you can empower others.

 

[Nkrumah Was Right]

To add on to what i said earlier, look at the mental health thread. Look at the posters in it. Look how what folks post. Its starts with what you feed your mind. Theres plenty of positive shyt about us black people. If you focus on the negatives, you will be stuck in them. No society cant make you believe youre shyt unless you feel that way about yourself. Empower yourself and you can empower others.

What helps empower your mind? Share some material for others please

 

[Nkrumah Was Right]

this is a fact. i had to get over a huge psychological hurdle to just start - completely uncharted territory for me no one i knew was involved in it. never mind keep working at my jewelry business, 3 years of a grind barely breaking even then BOOM things changed but it's because it took three years to fully understand the business of jewelry making.

Congrats brother

 

[Nkrumah Was Right]

True, for the most part:

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Add Fanon too


Particularly true of Nigerians:


What do you think?

You support China and Russia tho

 

[Neuromancer]

Yes I agree

And for black Americans a cultural core anchored by lineage and ethnicity, is necessary

I feel like that should draw directly from the Carolinas SC since that is where a lot of enslaved African's held onto their culture.

 

[Neuromancer]

When I was young and in college, this type of argument really resonated with me. But I grew up with Bob Marley and Chuck D in my ears.

Post school, deep into my career, I can see that there are SIGNIFICANT racial barriers to black people doing anything

• Getting health care even when you have good insurance
• Getting Primary and Secondary Education - even when you live in a white suburb. When black teachers focus their attention on Black Male students, subconsciously "wishing that boy would..."
• Getting College Education - at an Ivy, Elite State, HBCU, community college, or trade school
• Getting that first crucial job - Resume Racism is real
• Getting that second crucial job - You're black, do you really know and trust other people in your industry to help you get the next gig?
• Renting an apartment - too many instances of having great credit and provable income..
• Buying a car - Studies where car salesman of all colors
• Buying a home/Selling a home

No "Knowledge of Self" or years of therapy with an afro-centric/African centered licensed and trained therapist will address the issues above.
A good talking to, a good philosophy, help black people persevere through this stuff - and to that end it's useful.

But meditation and breathing exercises, pouring libations, and honoring elders is not land, capital, finance, homes, hospitals, schools, our own police force and court system, physical security from private racists as well as government sponsored racists.

The things that oppress and degrade black people the world over, are white individuals and white supremacist institutions, and anti Black Individuals and Institutions - formal and informal - that actively work against Black people.

I'm not talking about folks living in the belly of the beast. (since G-Rap started, it seems that a lot of middle class/college educated/daddy make good money as an electrician type black folks, think other Black people are 1 foot out of slavery/living like Dookie on The Wire. )

I'm talking about Typical Tisha and Regular Raheem. She's a nurse and he works at the help desk at the local university. Maybe they're code-switching game isn't PhD level, and they have a very hard road ahead of them. And a lot of times, they don't realize all of the barriers.

And expecting a can-do/positive attitude, when Black Men have to downplay any sort of self-protective behaviors else they be perceived as threatening, and Black Women's "strength" is weaponized by companies and civil service...

It's not the individual raising of consciousness that is needed.
Therapy for a lot of harm done to us would be great - but perfectly adjusted Black people will face the same problems, the same enemies.

I think the "knowledge of self"/"genetic racial trauma" stuff is a poor solution for the real issues Black folks face.

Everyone pushing that type of thing is either 1) broke, or 2) only rich off their followers.

No disrespect to Frantz Fanon n'nem though.

Our problems are MATERIAL, not spiritual, not psychological, not something that can be addressed by a deep understanding of history or years talking to "elders".

On a different note,

We got all these killers, car jackers, and thieves - but Zimmerman and Darren Wilson still out there breathing free air.
They almost killed Rodney King, but a city full of gang bangers never took out any of the officers that assaulted him?
The 2 Black DC Snipers never went shot anyone for the revolution...

A lot of the problems that are inflicted on us by White people and their agents and their institutions - if anything - we should be thinking collectively and organizing collectively.

Obviously not in retaliation of course, never that.

But we should be trying to amass wealth and capital and knowhow on the low.
And then deploying those resources to help our own, on the low.

This is a great idea. Why do you think we don't do these things though?

 

[Dr. Acula]

Agreed. Not just Africans I've seen, black Americans deal with it too. But Im not trying to insult Nigerian brehs and I'm only repeating what another Nigerian dude told me. He told me, in Nigeria, that the schools instill a sense of inferiority at an early age. Other races in general are put on a pedestal and there is either directly or indirectly this attitude that Africans are inferior to the rest of the world that permeate even the education and just the way teachers and adults talk about Africans relative to the rest of the world. The white man's ice water is colder type of thinking. This was his explanation for why some folks might be out here c00ning.

I dont know if this dude was telling the truth or just misguided in what he was saying. Perhaps, some Nigerian brehs can either corroborate or call bullshyt.

Like I said, not picking on Nigerians with this because I think black Americans have some issues as it relates to self-esteem about ourselves and it's impact on success. Black people as a whole need to work on this imo.

 

[DEANBIGBROTHERALLMIGHTY18]

we’re not as colonized in our thinking, more militant in how we situate ourselves among whites. as a whole, black americans are the only group in the diaspora fighting against the system of white supremacy.

we’re more creative. when i read that we’re “incurious,” i ask myself, “can an incurious people command the cultural output of the most powerful empire in the history of mankind?”

arts, fashion, sports - our dominance is unquestioned. what we lack is the economic base to wrest control from the people who take the products of that creativity and profit from it.

Financial capital is the only that really separates us from Ashkenazi Jews in the world from being a strong tribe that dominates in many sectors. Once we have that we will be unstoppable. Black Americans an essentially great people who forged a strong identity in the face of prolonged centuries of psychological warfare targeting our psyche. We

 

[WIA20XX]

This is a great idea. Why do you think we don't do these things though?

"We" don't think of ourselves as a collective, so we don't engage in collective action.

This is a standard answer to the question.

What NGO's/Non Profits and political movements do, is try to raise awareness.

And who does that primarily attract? Them.

That's a dead end, imo.

 

[SNG]

What helps empower your mind? Share some material for others please

Having Faith and believing in a higher power.

Meditation - helpful to calming the mind and providing clarity to your life


Reading Self Improvement books - Every feeling that you feel there’s is a book on it.

A therapist or Psychiatrist - if you have the money and you can find a good one. I would prefer to find a black man since they understand a bit better. Not saying a black woman would be bad but some may have biases.

 

[RedCloakBlackWraithe]

Nkrumah was right. only way forward is industrializing and cooperating in free trade with other african nations. there needs to be a way to weed out (read bombaye) the bad foreign and domestic actors in every African nation.

 

[African Peasant]

White people never created the disorganization of black people. They found a people who were already disorganized and took advantage.

The establishment fought against any form of black organization.

Before whites it was Arabs. What was the excuse then?

Arabs/Arabized took many L's against west african Empires.

Once again, we don't read.

 

[Rasille]

We have to first see each other as the same. Even if we’re from different parts of the diaspora. Put aside petty differences when an issue affects us as a collective. The problem is we do not have resources collectively. Black people in Africa should be running things with the resources they have over there, in the US black people should be on the level with the Jews or close to it, so we’d be able to have power and trade amongst each other.