Religion; the Black Plague
When did the course of the black community take a turn for the worse?
Some would argue that it happened during enslavement; black men being ripped from their families and put on display like cattle.
But some would also argue that as the new era of gangsta rap was ushered in, so was the era of mental and physical degradation by modern day African American men; projected towards mothers, sisters, daughters and wives.
Unfortunately, both would be right.
The propensity for promiscuity, violence and fathering children with multiple women, is a trait our men inherited from slavery. Black men were literally stripped from the arms of their loving wives and forced to have sex with other black women, in efforts to breed the perfect slave. The more muscular the slave, the more likely they were to breed many times over.
But who can ignore the popular 90’s group ‘2 Live Crew’ whose albums include ‘Pop That Pussy’ and Hoochie Mama’? Black women danced on as lyrics like “Shake what yo mama gave ya” and “she’s a hoe” played on our cassette players and boom boxes, never stopping to think about the emotional and mental scars black men were inflicting on our character.
There was an era in which black men treated their Nubian queens with the same amount of respect that they gave their mothers. Daughters looked to their fathers as an example for how a man should treat a woman, and the black man cared very deeply about how he was perceived in his community and in his home.
Things have now become quite the opposite. The United States Child Support System is overwhelmed with thousands of new cases daily. Black women from the ages of 13-40, pleading with the court to force the father of their children to (at the very least) help meet the financial needs of the child. That very same system is also exploited by many women as well, who use it as leverage against ex-boyfriends or past sexual partners, as a way to extort money.
It’s not hard to see that both sides of the isle are nursing mental wounds, while continuing to get cut in this nasty battle of the black sexes.
The question is: how can we begin to heal, settle our differences once and for all and finally work together to make a better future for our children?
The affect music has on self image:
A young beautiful dark skinned girl listens on as Lil Wayne says: “I need a long hair, thick red-bone”.
A skinny girl listens on as 2 Chainz says: “All I need for my birthday is a big booty hoe”.
What happens to how they see themselves, already suffering from inadequacies as teenage girls often do? She lives in a community that idolizes men who are specific about the kind of women they find physically attractive. And there is a very small margin for error. You must be a specific color, size and height, with a specific hair length and style.
Black women come in many different shades and sizes, so most of us fall outside this very specific spectrum of beauty. So in efforts to achieve acceptance, some women have gone through the drastic measures of bleaching their skin and risking their lives to undergo some very dangerous procedures.
All of this is brought on by a society that frowns upon black women wearing their hair the way it grows out of their head and loving the bodies that they have (either through childbirth or genetics) been bestowed. It’s almost as if the overall objective is to be as close in appearance to the women on the covers of magazines and on video screens.
This kind of verbally abusive music doesn’t only affect black women; it also greatly affects black men. How much music do we hear on the radio that makes getting an education and falling in love, look half as desirable as selling drugs and objectifying women?
Almost every genre of black music has been hit with men and women buying into an overall stereotype. One that has for too long made us seem worth little more than the crack our men cook up in kitchens and the babies our women pop out left and right.
This young black boy grows up admiring the black men in his community that have the flashiest cars and the most women. They represent achievement and that is who he aspires to be. The thought of going to college, or even finishing high school is unachievable for boys like him. In some cases the family has immediate needs that have to be met, so in the absence of his father, he goes out to do what he knows will bring in fast money.
All the while his mind is filled with visions of expensive cars, fancy houses and exotic women.
But what most entertainers/musicians will never admit to, is that hardly any of the money used to finance their luxurious lifestyle, was made in the manner that is often depicted in their videos and music. It is an image that is sold to our community via the people who market these artists to the mainstream public.
Furthermore, most of the luxury cars seen in these videos don’t actually belong to the artist. Most of the exotic women are ‘rented’ too; the kind of women who wouldn’t be caught dead with black men, if it weren’t for the paycheck. But still they put on the clown act, and we try to mimic the deceptive images fed to us on the TV screen and in the magazines.
I know it has been said before, but I still continue to think that entertainers do bare some of the responsibility. They must understand that every time they release a song that objectifies a woman or places the value of certain women above others, it causes damage to the women and men that listen to it.
Even if they don’t know they are being damaged at the time. In some cases darker toned women develop a nasty dislike for their lighter toned black sisters, an emotion that was also birthed in the midst of slavery and carried down through the years. The same can be said of the lighter toned women, treating their darker toned black sisters as if they are beneath them or is not equal to them in worth.
Our music will either begin to break these stigmas down or it will continue to uphold these harmful ideologies for the purpose of making money.
While I do agree that the artist and entertainers do have some responsibility, I feel that most of the responsibility lies in the hands of the parents. I realize that our children come to an age where trying to redirect their attention from the many influences that exist, is nearly impossible. I think that waiting until your child is entering their teenage years to take action is too late. Avoiding music that is degrading to any group of people should be taught at an early age. But often times the women who are raising young boys in this day and age don’t see anything wrong with letting them listen to T.I, Rick Ross and Kirko Bangz. Don’t get me wrong, these are all very good artist, when playing to an age appropriate group.
A history of violence
This is a debate that has been had time and time again. In the wake of one of our nations most horrifying tragedies, where 20 innocent children fell victim to a mentally ill young man with a high powered assault rifle, we are still trying to put the pieces together.
How and why did this happen?
For years and years we have been losing one black child after the other to gang violence, police brutality, turf wars and black on black crime.
Cities like Detroit and Chicago face these issues on a daily basis. The time to act on gun violence was years ago, and I am saddened that it took for our nation to arrive upon such a senseless tragedy, in order for those higher up to see the extent of a problem that has plagued the black community for sometime now.
Detroit’s murder rate has jumped 5.2 percent from 2011 to 2012, after a string of homicides had left 20 people dead in 10 days.
A Detroit Police Department report stated 261 homicides have been counted in the city since the beginning of the 2012 year, compared to 250 during the same time period in 2011. In the same period, 863 non-fatal shootings occurred, 23 fewer than in 2011. But on the day the report was published, two more fatal shootings took place, bringing the murder tally up to 263 since January 2012.
I know that each individual city dealing with these kind of homicide numbers, have developed special task force specifically to deal with this ongoing cycle of black on black violence. But the truth is; it has never reached the ears of such high up officials as the Newtown tragedy. This is in large part due to the communities that these types of crimes take place in.
The fight for safer schools and safer sidewalks has often times fallen on deaf ears on Capital Hill, so it has caused for most to become accustom to living in these conditions. A failure to act promptly on behalf of the victims and their families has perpetuated a cycle of acceptance amongst those who live and work in these communities. A no-snitching rule was even birthed into existence in order to protect those who commit these kinds of crimes, from being arrested. What good is a task force, when no one will talk, when no one is willing to stand up on behalf of their community and say enough is enough?
But even worse; who are the ones providing protection for these violent black men?
The black women of the community are often the ones that refuse to talk to the police; we lie in interrogation rooms and obstruct evidence in murder investigations. We have traded our sense of what’s right, in order to protect the very ones that have no value for human life. And we live side by side with the families of those who have buried their loved ones. All because of a distorted sense of loyalty to our black men, the same ones that put our lives in danger everyday to keep up an image amongst the other black men in the community. It’s a never ending cycle of communal abuse.
So what is the root of this ongoing and worsening problem?
Surface problem: The breakdown of the black family structure, due to years of being poorly educated.
The root problem: Religious indoctrination
Before we can deal with the surface problem, the root problem must be fixed. After all, it is the root problem that causes the overall problem.
The dangers of Black indoctrination
“None have been taught to follow so blindly,
As those who were taught to follow”
The one thing that is distinctly different between our culture and white culture is the propensity that our white brothers and sisters have for exploration and discovery. Two things that are needed in order to develop the healthy skepticism it takes to break these kinds of cycles.
Although religious indoctrination is usually the same across the board, access to accurate information about earth, evolution and world religion, is not.
I have met a host of different theists, representative of a host of different faiths and beliefs, but the one thing that most black believers have in common is their ignorance of nature, science and evolution. This is why their argument for god is typically no more than “Take a look around you and you will see the proof that god is real”. I must admit that this particular ideology is by far the most ignorant position one can take as it relates to the belief in god. Not to mention that the undertone is one of intellectual laziness and a completely blind faith.
It was comedian Chris Rock that said “If you are a black Christian, you must have a real short memory”. This is because it seems as if blacks have forgotten when and how we were taught about the bible and the Christian god. It’s as if we forget that the very ones who enslaved our people, raped and killed our women and lynched our men, were also the ones that stripped us of our native ritual (honoring our grandfathers) and in turn replaced it with the belief in a white son of god, who died for our sins on a cross.
This was not done in efforts to empower our ancestors; it was done to instill fear and ignorance. “Slaves obey your masters”. This is the message that was intended for us, and it is a message we have been abiding by since it was beaten into us years ago.
Willy Lynch and others like him are proof of this. His address to the white slave owners at that time was very clear.
How to make a slave:
Separate the family by removing the male
Turn them against one another
Dark against light
Young against old
Male against female
Strip them from their native tongue and replace it with your language
Strip them of their culture and African rituals and replace it with yours
Rape their women and render their men helpless
All these efforts combined will create the division needed in order to make a subservient mind. The shackles can come off but the mind will remain enslaved. The woman will no longer trust the man to protect her. The women will instill fear into her children; teach them to submit to the slave owner.
And why should they not?
He gave them their Jesus.
We have a Short memory indeed.
This is certainly where the break down of the black family began. We became exactly what they intended us to, a divided group of individuals who handed over the sacred keys of our unified homes to men in suits, carrying bibles.
Our condition at the time made us more susceptible to the lies that we were told. The suffering we were made to endure day after day landed us in a place where the hope of a better life ‘after we died’ was the only hope we had.
It felt good to know that even though we weren’t seen as being human in the world around us, there was a god abroad that cared for us deeply, even if he’s a god that loves us so little he did absolutely nothing to protect us against what was unjustly happening to our people. We justified our circumstance by saying “God works in mysterious ways” and “everything works out for the good of those who love the lord”.
We were taught never to question, never to challenge, never to show any signs of disbelief in a god who obviously favored the slave owners and not the slaves themselves. What kind of damage over time has this caused our community; our thinking? What kind of toxic behavior arose from being taught to rely not on your own understanding? After years of embracing our inferiority, how has it weighed on our self perception?
You can still see the debris that slavery has left behind.
Beautiful Black women are fighting one another over the pigmentation of our collectively gorgeous skin. Strong Black men failing to uphold the respect and honor their foremothers died defending, so that they could even consider themselves “free”. All of this is because we have been taught to conform.
We treat those outside of the community with the utmost respect and treat those inside it with little to none.
Our black brothers have been taught to view white women as a reward; an affirmation of acceptance into the ‘superior’ tribe. At the same time he has been taught to view the black woman as his subordinate and substantially lower in quality when compared to the ‘hands off’ women he adores so greatly.
This is not to say that I am against black men dating outside the community or the black women who do the same. I’m just pointing out some of the toxic positions and beliefs held within the black community; positions that are ripping our younger generation apart at the schemes.
Each of us has a responsibility to help them bridge the gap that was created out of fear and ignorance. By doing this, we are making certain that our youth have a positive outlook on themselves and their futures.
As time progresses, we learn to adapt to the current condition we are in. The world around us is in a steadily increasing mode of progression.
Most of the top paying jobs are science based.
Environmental Scientist
Hydrologist
Geoscientist
Medical Scientist
Biochemist/Biophysicist
Atmospheric Scientist
Material Scientist
Physicist
Biological Scientist
Astronomers
Consider this;
The U.S produces nearly one third of all science and engineering Ph.D.s in the world annually. (Source: Science and Engineering indicators, National Science Foundation)
Blacks represent 11 percent of the U.S workforce, but only 1.1 percent of physical science doctorate; 1.3 percent engineering doctorates; and 1.4 percent of computer/mathematical science doctorates. (Source: National Science Foundation)
We have failed to create the necessary environment for black scientists to thrive. We have sewn them into a seed of superstition and folklore. They go to church and learn about a 6 thousand year old flat earth; dinosaurs frolicking with humans around the Garden of Eden; talking snakes and best of all, virgin births.
They return to a home that teaches much of the same. School should be the one place that our black youth can go to learn things that have evidence, things upon which they can always rely. Not myths passed down through generations of superstitions birthed out of ignorance and fear.
It truly saddens me every time I cross paths with an individual that does not know the difference in a theory and a scientific theory. It infuriates me to think about the horrible ways in which we go about educating the children within our community.
This alone is the reason why they don’t go into scientific fields of study. It goes against everything they are taught; everything they think they know; everything that they were sold.
Also consider this;
If the nation continues to progress in the areas of science and technology, and we are on the precipice of issuing in that new era; where does that leave the future of the black community? How much longer will we accept crosses in exchange for unquestioning faith?
Even unto our death?
In order to sustain our place in history we need to lay aside the dogmatic ideology and equip our children with all the tools they need to succeed in this new science driven era.
If we assess the 1.4 percent of black scientists in this country, I have little doubt that all of them will most likely have one thing in common; they were all afforded a healthy learning atmosphere and more than likely had teachers that were fluent in science and mathematics; the kind of teachers that don’t push their religious beliefs on their students, as some often do.
African Americans are the most religiously devout racial group in the nation when it comes to attending church services, praying and believing that god exists, according to a recent profile.
Compared to the rest of the U.S population, which is generally considered highly religious, blacks engage in religious activities more frequently and express higher levels of religious belief (Source: Pew Research Center’s Forum on religion and Public Life)
The center’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 on more than 35,000 People, found that 79 percent of African Americans say religion is very important in their lives, while only 56 percent of all other U.S. adults said the same. Even among African Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular faith, 45 percent of them say religion is very important compared to only 16 percent of the religiously unaffiliated population overall.
Among the various racial and ethnic groups, African Americans are the most likely to say they belong to a formal religious affiliation. An overwhelming 87 percent of African Americans say they identify with a religious group. (Source: Pew Research Center’s Forum on religion and Public Life)
The reason we are being left behind is clear with numbers like these. If there were ever an area that we were dominating in, it is here. We make up a painstakingly large amount of the evangelical churches that have hell-fire ministers as their head; Preaching that science is the devils playground, thereby discouraging anyone from wanting to know anything outside of their bible.
In conclusion
Organized religion is one of our community’s greatest downfalls and as a afro-Cuban atheist, I can truly say that it has caused more damage than it ever has good. Religion is not needed to believe in god anyhow, all it does is keep blinders strapped tightly to our faces, so we don’t see the world outside our windows, passing us by. It encourages us to not accept others within our community; it teaches our men that black women are not their equal, rather their possession. It makes allowances for those who commit crime in our community. It causes us to bow our heads for a word of prayer, when we should be grabbing our coats and headed out for a day of helping. It makes us consider ourselves ‘favored’ in the eyes of god. All the while we ignore the constant suffering whence come from our ancestors bosom. The thousands of Africans who die everyday, that the bible also claims “Jesus loves”.
Religion is the disease that plagues us, and from it all other illnesses grow.
By: D. Patton
Follow me on TWITTER!
@ThinkingBeauty_
Notes: Thanks to the Detroit and Chicago Urban youth project for helping me gain information about the current conditions of both communities.
Thanks also goes to the countless people who help to educate and assist in crisis prevention everyday within these communities, daily.
My Darkest Hour 