Shackled and Enslaved but Never Broken
by Baba Omowale Eng
Baba Omowale Eng
The Power of Values and Ideals has been kept from our consciousness and that of our children through miseducation, misdirection, manipulation, and deception. I believe that this is done to make us believe that power can only be achieved through acquiescence, bowing down, or at a minimum going along to get along with the status quo, at the expense of the people with the hope for a few crumbs from the tables of corruption that abound in this society that you are required to close your eyes to.
Well, in this day and time dangerous and wonderous as it is, that kind of thinking doesn’t work anymore! The proverbial wool that covered our eyes has been lifted and the illusions have been shattered with the blood of martyrs and the dashed hopes of mothers who birth in hope yet grieve in anguish for the lives lost to false promises and reckless hope.
A young Brother, Ibrahim Traore has echoed the reality of Africans throughout the diaspora, that we have been shackled and enslaved but we have never been and are not broken as we rise like phoenixes all over the earth with the spirit of liberation and resistance pulsing through our veins as we fight back against the institutions and people who would keep us in fear, caught up in our own anger and immobilized.
Yes, that spirit of liberation is present and pervasive throughout the world, from our Mother/ Fatherland, through the Caribbean, the Middle East and America!
The people are rising and the spirit that says Our Values from ancient Africa that uphold Truth, establish Order, work for Balance and Harmony, stand up for Propriety, demand Reciprocity and Justice will be ever present in our lives. These are the Truths that are self-evident to Us and are dearer to us than fear. We are learning to channel our anger in ways that lead to resolution because Unity and Self Determination matter to us. Because we know that collective work and Responsibility lead to collective success and Cooperative Economics makes us all have what we need, and we know this because we have adopted this purpose and have The Faith that we will achieve it.
My people, as long as we embrace Values that come from Our Culture and uphold and hold each other to the principles that allowed our Ancestors to achieve and build the greatest Civilizations to ever exist, like most recently Mali and Songhay and Ghana, the reality of oppression and the possibilities of enslavement, more Jim Crow and generational trauma will no longer be a legacy that holds us down but will be a milestone that we count as Our Collective achievement. We have been committed to overcoming all odds and moving on; now we will commit to overcoming those same and even greater odds and bringing it home to our families and communities. We will reframe all the oppressive narratives that have kept us locked in fear and self hatred. I know this seems to ignore the reality of generational, historical, and complex traumas that have been transmitted through our DNA and compounded by our daily experiences. That is a reality that we have been living with and overcoming for generations by struggling and staying engaged.
Now our scholars, scientist and Black Psychologist have developed healing techniques that allow us to come together and release those traumas in collective examination and discussion in safe spaces created by us and for us. Please, family, walk with us as we continue to overcome the racial and cultural dimensions of racial injustice. We need your help in continuing to redirect our righteous anger towards liberating activities and organizing our community to fight back and build the institutions that we need to respond effectively to the police brutality and systemic injustices that we know still prevail and are active in this society despite the increased number of conscious and committed Black police and other officials who come from and are committed to securing and uplifting our communities.
They can’t do it by themselves, and neither can we. We need each other, all of us standing with and for each other seen and unseen. Help us overcome the trajectory of mass incarceration, no matter where the pipeline starts, whether it is school to prison or home to prison we can redirect that trajectory through meaningful education programming and afterschool programs, I am not saying anything new. I am only saying that it takes all of us and all of our collective thinking’s to flesh it out and come o=u with solutions that can be tested and work. My people, Black folk I know this may seem so far out of our reach like we have gone pass the point of no return but that is not true! We only might think that because they have controlled our thinking for so long and we have actually in some cases given that up to them to let them think for us because thinking about this reality can be so painful but People, please now know that we can stop it.
Remember malik El Hajj Shabazz taught us that we are our own liberators. We can organize to overcome the voter suppression that is coming at us right now and all the other systemic inequalities in education, employment and housing etc., that are thrown at us. It takes us beginning the hard conversations. We can do this. Just think: our mourning over loss and harm is good but when our Ancestors got their freedom no one sat them down for group counseling or therapy, they had to keep it moving and do what they needed to do to live, build and leave a future for us, a legacy of liberation not a comfortable inheritance of allowing life to dictate how our living will be. Our legacy gave us dignity and the sovereignty of choice that is only preserved through hard work. The same way our Ancestors did it!
While American and European Institutions continue to promote an ideology of Oppression and exploitation, it is up to us to maintain our freedoms, increase our sovereignty, and demand the dignity of our collective humanity. We are only going do that through struggle. We know that getting woke and staying woke requires work and study. If we can reach the point where we believe that we can break the chains of mass incarceration, the abuse of our women and children, the suppression of our vote and the denial of our human right to liberty and justice then we can achieve our liberation in this lifetime.
When we can defy the lies of White superiority on every level of consciousness and embrace the truth of Black Excellence and the ability to achieve on every level of our being then we will truly be free and know what it means to enjoy our full Humanity.
Your servant, BaBa Omowale Eng