FEAR

[Gibran]

Nothing is more intimately related to the  emotional welfare of the black male than the sum of his fears. From the start, it would be rather amiss of me if I didn’t relate that what I have discovered about fear is that fear can be either a life experience or a  life sentence dependent upon the torque and velocity of that particular fear. For example, my fear of fire has prevented me from foolishly thrusting my hand into an open flame, and it is precisely fear of this nature that has proven to be a life-affirming experience. Then you have, on the other hand, those fears that are so mind-numbing they are a “emotional” life sentence.

 

Despite the fact that I possessed other fears, such as the universal childhood fear of walking through a dark alley, or the more ethnically black fear of snakes, the one fear that was constantly being imposed upon me consciously, unconsciously, and subconsciously  was the fear of the white man. Notwithstanding the fact that at that time in my young life, I had had zero experience with while folks, I got the message. Without even understanding the nature of the threat the white man posed to me, I was subliminally seduced into knowing, without any shred of doubt, that he, indeed, was a major threat. One evening while me and the crew were assembled in the coal shed in my backyard, the subject came up, and one of my “play” cousins schooled us. He said that it wasn’t so much the fear of the white man that counted. What did count, however, was the fear of “what the white man could do to you.”

 

Given that scenario, it would be relatively easy for a young brotha of that era to entertain the notion that yes, the white man, could put “his black ass in jail” since all the police were white, as evidently were all the lawyers, not to mention the prosecutors and judges. Yeah, no doubt, the white man could rock a nigga’s world, but what about the other extreme such as the fear of needing the white man?

 

In the same tradition as all the police were white, so were all the fire men. If your house caught on fire, you couldn’t expect any help from brothas, so what if the white men–the firemen–didn’t come? How would you eat if the white grocers removed their stores from your block? What about if you got sick, or needed to catch a taxi?

The fear of needing the white man became an acquired taste that prematurely gave birth to the notion of the white man as a “savior!” which black women instantly embraced. For the baby girl, it’s Santa. To the sista on the block, it’s Uncle Sam with his welfare check, and to the sista in the church, it’s Jesus.

 

It’s funny now, but when I was young, mannish boys didn’t get threatened with the bogeyman. We were told, instead, about the white man getting us. I sadly recall being told that by my Moms although she wasn’t talking directly to me. What had happened was that I was coming down pretty hard on my sister for wearing one of  my jackets without my permission. My Mom ended the argument by telling my sister that she wouldn’t have to worry about me much longer “because the white people were going to get me” . I had been twelve. By no stretch of the imagination, did I, for one second, think that she meant that the white man was coming to rescue me as a savior. Nope, that wasn’t the intended message at all.

 

Let me tell you about another incident that happened to me when I was twelve that so aptly demonstrates how the magic of “white superiority” is so subtle that once it manifests itself in any form whatever, the results are so powerful that it is almost irrefutable. Now, this is my story about how I was unconsciously, and perhaps subconsciously, victimized by the fear and awe of the white man that begins to color the social perspective of black men from the moment of inception.

 

We were living in the projects by now, and for the very first time in my life, lived in a house with hot running water! Prior to this, in order to take a hot bath, we had to heat water up in a foot-tub by placing it on the pot-bellied stove. Having hot water was cool, but the feature of the house that fascinated me most was that I could cut the lights on and off with a flick of a switch on the wall rather that pulling a string attached to the light. Man, that was progress in 1964 for a brotha coming from First Ward.

Okay, the story is this. It was a wonderfully, pleasant fall evening, and I was simply roaming the neighborhood, having nothing better to do. For some reason, I stopped at the house of a family friend. Anyway, the Potts family were upstairs doing something which left me alone to watch TV. The nightly news was on, and when the news was on, it was on all three channels so there was no escape from the news. As it turned out, this was when they were getting ready to commence daylights saving time. I was visibly impressed, albeit a wee bit silly. You can laugh if you so choose, but I somehow thought that the white man was going to get into one of his rocket-ships, fly into space, and then to manually rotate the earth on its axis to alter time by one hour. Quite assuredly, if I would have stuck around for the rest of the broadcast, I would surely have learned that despite my fanciful version of DST, all that was required was that you merely reset your clocks. But I didn’t stick around. Why should I? How could I? After hearing this, I had first-hand knowledge of the white man’s absolute power. Damn, the white man was a bad man.

 

In a fit of stupid euphoria, I stumbled out of Miss Charlie Mae’s house, out into her front yard., and stood there, staring in the skies, transfixed. “The white man was going to turn back time.” You didn’t get any more powerful than that. At that moment, this was real. This, for me, was no fantasy, and I needed no more convincing: The white man was the shit.

 

Needless to say, it probably didn’t help matters much that one of the biggest programs of that era had been Superman, and there was this one scene, in particular, where I vividly recall Superman all up in space, twisting around one of the planets, probably earth to save it from I don’t know what. Emotionally, I equated the white man with Superman. And how could I forget that other bastion of white maleness, Tarzan. When I was younger, still living  on 6th Street, I was cheering Tarzan on as he fucked up a whole tribe of brothas. My Mama got angry with me and told me that no white man could beat up that many ‘colored’ men.

 

There is perhaps a sizable number of black men from that era who absorbed lessons of this sort, “mythifying” the white man. After all, how can you defy a man which you had mythified and mystified. Good for most of us that we outgrow the myths and legends about Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, The Good Tooth Fairy, but sadly, many of us don't outgrow or outlive the myth of white superiority. 

 

BREAK DA CHAINS!

 

 

[Chevdove]

WOW! Just yesterday, I listed to an old song that I heard in a Black Church and I loved it. But I decided to do something I rarely do and also looked at the video while the song was playing. I usually like to listen songs without looking videos because I feel like my imagination can be controlled by someone else's version of what they imagine. Anyway, the song was performed by a Black man. I was loving the song but towards the very end of the video--GUESS WHAT!? An image of 'WHITE JESUS' was depicted!!! . . . So, I was shocked. I immediately stopped listening and never will play that song again. I just don't understand why Black people can't see how we have been conditioned to view the White man as the beginning of our being Black African. But yes, I do agree about Black women in the church, etc. Most of the women in my family will not accept anything but a White Jesus and become furious with me when I try to suggest otherwise.

 

 

Oh yes, I forgot to share the actual song;

It called "I Give Myself Away" by William McDowell.

 

 

 

[Pioneer1]

Gibran
 

My Mama got angry with me and told me that no white man could beat up that many ‘colored’ men.
 

LOL...you know she was right.

And another show that we loved as Black boys growing up was DUKES OF HAZZARD.
We used to play it as children chasing eachother arouns playing Roscoe and Boss Hog.
And ofcourse everyone wanted to drive the "General Lee" car with the Confederate Flag on it and older Black people couldn't figure out why.
But many of our people were being programed into White Supremacy through these television shows at a young age.




As it turned out, this was when they were getting ready to commence daylights saving time. I was visibly impressed, albeit a wee bit silly. You can laugh if you so choose, but I somehow thought that the white man was going to get into one of his rocket-ships, fly into space, and then to manually rotate the earth on its axis to alter time by one hour.

This reminds me of Daniel 7: 25

"And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time."

This could refer to the Caucasian trying to change and alter time to CONFUSE the masses of our people and ATTEMPT extend his time of rulership on the planet by switching around the dates and times.

B.C.....A.D....add 30...take away 33...lo.

Listen to the first 10 or 15 minutes of this old clip of the Late and Great Dr. Khalid Muhammad breaking down how they switched up the dates and times to confuse you:

Dr. Khalid Muhammad....Caucasians Changing The Time Any Damn Time They Get Ready