Black Men Be Strong It's A Beautiful Thing

Black History Month Thoughts on the COVID-19 Pandemic

 by Kenny Anderson

To Black men and Black Folks in general the COVID-19 Pandemic has been tragic for us; many premature deaths have occurred and many more will be occurring; too many Black Lives Mattered love ones lives have been lost. This Pandemic has brought out and amplified emotional distress particularly depression and anxiety in us; yes too many of us have become 'uninspired'.

Since this is Black History Month let us take out some serious time for self-reflection to reflect on our enslaved Ancestors who had to daily endure a white supremacy slave pandemic for 246 years; this viral pandemic we are experiencing now is in no way a comparison whatsoever to what our Ancestors faced, don't get it twisted!

What surprises me is that when I talk to some unrealistic Black folks who assume they should have struggle-free lives; that they should not have to be dealing with a virus pandemic. However things haven't been that way for our people since we were forcibly brought here.

Under white supremacy it aint worked that way for us; suffering and struggle has from past to present been our lives in America until we take the collective responsibility and end our oppression!

Indeed this COVID-19 Pandemic has shook many of us to our core, it has shook many of us to insanely deny the virus even exists or is deadly. Though we've been shook by the Pandemic there are lessons from it too:

*Life is unpredictable

*You can't take Life for Granted

*Don't put your Life on hold 'procrastinating'

*Appreciate the people in your Life

*Slowed us down to take a look at 'examine' our Life

*Exposed that we were overlooking our massive bad health

*Our inner weaknesses have been disclosed 'revealed'

*That self-care must become a main priority in our Life

*We have to find our inner Strength and Courage

*Life requires Patience, Endurance, and Resilience

Through the Spirit of 'Sankofa' during this Black History Month let us engage in 'deep reflective time travel' to fetch our past 'tapping into' the inspiration in our DNA memory that kept our enslaved Ancestors inspired through the very dark days of enslavement: immense separation, suffering, trauma, and deaths; who stayed inspired to "make a way out of no way."

During this month and everyday let us also 'conjure up' Ancestral spirits inspiration by invoking their 'Names' by pouring libations for them to be with us as a lofty inspiring 'uplifting' presence through these difficult days.

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Sleeping Through A COVID-19 Ill Health Revolution

 by Kenny Anderson

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle." - Martin Luther King Jr.

I'm writing this post in remembrance and recognition of the great Black social reformer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was born today January 15, 1929.

The topic of this post addresses Black folks avoidance behavior 'ducking and dodging' the obvious need to radically change. My topic is based on a quote drawn from King's speech "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" where he stated:

"There are all too many people who in some great period of social change, fail to achieve the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution."

In writing this post on Black avoidance behavior I could have addressed 'politically' that we have been sleeping through a racist white right-wing backlash revolution that's been ever increasing since the election of the first Black president Barak Obama in 2008.

Indeed we've been avoiding dealing with the entirety of this racist white backlash and don't have a self-determination preparedness response agenda to deal with the full ramifications of it; by default our agenda is liberal dependency and fatalism.

I decided to address that for the most part as Black folks during a great period of change like the current COVID-19 pandemic we've been sleeping 'avoiding' dealing with the ramification of how COVID has tremendously rocked us super-disproportionately both physically, mentally, and in deadliness.

Black avoidance behavior is mental 'psychological' and it has tremendous ramifications that stifles problem-solving and prevents us from addressing our 'physical' massive chronic diseases medical preconditions that COVID has attacked and glaringly exposed.

When I first read King's words "sleeping through a revolution" years ago I immediately thought of sleeping as an avoidance coping mechanism to escape change. And for many-many of problem avoiding Black folks sleep is unfortunately the only freedom that they know.

In assessing Black avoidance coping it is a maladaptive form of coping in which our folks change their behavior to avoid thinking about our bad health conditions and the challenges of doing something to improve it.

Black avoidance coping is a quick fix but becomes more stressful and exacerbates stress making it chronic without helping us deal with the things 'risk factors' that are causing our bad health stress. Thus stress only piles up becoming problematic 'overwhelming' causing depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and over-religiosity.

Moreover Black avoidance coping causes a behavior of procrastination of constantly delaying to address our critical health issues that perpetuates stress. Regarding procrastination King said essentially waiting means you'll never do what's necessary 'required'; in other words Black folks we get sicker and die in our waiting-game.

Let us remember Black folks that Dr. King was against avoidance coping, King was a proponent of 'direct action' active-behavioral coping addressing problems directly! Yes Black folks regarding our health crisis avoidance coping is extremely 'irresponsible' contributing to enormous self-diseasing and self-mortality.

For sure Black folks our massive health problems require direct action now! We can no longer afford to be sleeping through this current pandemic exposing ill health revolution, lets us wake up and go to work now to heal and save ourselves!

Comrad George Jackson Addressing the Black Insecure Sensitive Ego

*Comrad George stated:

“It is always a job getting along with our friends and relatives. Establishing lasting and mutually rewarding relationships always calls for delicacy, sensitivity, and mainly suppression of the ego. One simply cannot say the first thing that comes to mind with no regard for the next person's ego problem. If I constantly say or do things that make the next person feel as if I am challenging his person, his capacity to reason, his standing as an individual, how can I ever hope to relate to him.

People the world over are not the same but those that we meet here in the U.S. are generally of a single type. By and large they are all fools, intellectual non-persons, emotional half-wits; status symbols, supervisory positions, and petty power motivate their every act. Personal, individual, financial success at any price is their social ethic, the only real standard upon which their conduct is built.

For us Blacks in particular this is a nightmare proposition. When this standard, this criterion for the measurement of individual merit and worth in this society is applied to us, measured against our standing or holdings, we cannot help but come out with a very low opinion of ourselves. From the womb to the tomb this plays in our minds. We are not worth more than the amount of capital we can raise. That is why you see Blacks pretending to be doing all right. That is why a Black man will buy a new car (status symbol) before he will buy food for his child or clothes for his wife.

And again with Blacks this whole thing goes even deeper. No man or group of men have been more denuded of their self-respect, none in history have been more terrorized, suppressed, repressed, and denied male expression than the U.S. Black.”

Black Men: I’m My Own Man?

 by Kenny Anderson

Recently I watched an interview with Freeway Ricky Ross a key point person ‘major Black drug dealer’ in the CIA geo-political drug trafficking operation of massive 'crack' cocaine profits funding arms to the Nicaraguan Contras ‘Iran-Contra Affair’.

During the interview Ross was asked when he was in prison what was the difference between Black and Mexican gangs? Ross said Black gangs were a lot less effective than Mexican gangs. Ross said that Black gangs were loosely organized, no real structure or leadership; that most gang members were individualists ‘I’m my own man’.

In contrast Ross said Mexican gangs were highly organized with a leadership structure; they operated as a unit of we are Mexican men! While I was listening to the interview with Ross, I reflected back on my experience providing Male Responsibility Development service to school-age Black boys (K-12) and to Black men in prison.

From elementary to the penitentiary I often heard “nigga you aint my daddy.” From my perspective this sentiment of “You aint my daddy” I raised myself results in “I’m my own man” that’s based in part on the tremendous numbers of Black boys who’ve grown-up decades fatherless resulting in feelings of insecurity, bitterness, and resentment towards older Black males ‘father figures’ that remain as ‘child within issues’ in adulthood.

The Fatherless Resentment Syndrome (FRS) coupled with significant socialized Black-on-Black male distrust undermines Black men’s objective need to be organized as a super-oppressed gender in America. These undermining ‘disorganizing’ factors is why ‘organized’ Arab, Asians, and East Indian men dominate Black communities economically.

Black Men, if we keep it 1000 we are limited of what we can do ‘accomplish’ just being only I’m my own man in the face of organized non-Black male oppressors and exploiters. Facing organized odds alone saying I’m my own man sounds confident, however underneath these words a sense of incapability and insecurity is there.

Black men when its all said and done 'bottom-line' the individualist notion I'm my own man is bullshit socioeconomically in the fact that as a race of men we lack the power in this country to control our own lives; we don't control 'provisions' and 'protections'!!

As long as we continue to be our own be all-end all individual ‘I’m my own man’ we will continue to be a bunch of disorganized individuals ‘I’m my own man’ who will remain oppressed and exploited by non-Black male organized groups.

Indeed, until we as Black men mature to a sense of group Black manhood, just being individually I’m my own man only ‘do me’ is why we will keep ‘getting done in’ collectively.