GETTIN' TO THE GOOD WOOD

Imagine, since it has been documented that this process only takes three to four days to emerge as the new psyche of an individual, what irreparable psychological scars were created over generations of slavery in this country. Even though there was Irish slavery in this country, they knew that their experience had a specific ending that they could look toward; Africans did not. Even after their physical emancipation, there was no psychological deprogramming, no debriefing for freed African slaves. Former slaves were left stunned and shocked, to find their own way financially and physically, all the while not understanding that they were far from psychological freedom. There were, instead, new, more sinister forms of slavery generated -- then…and now.

Today, there are so many ways in which we are exposed to, indentured and/or enslaved -- socially, economically, and mentally – that they would be too numerous to identify and detail in one article. I am going to provide a few examples and challenge you to begin to identify others in your own life:

1. Labels. We are a unique group people who allow ourselves to be defined by the labels on our clothes, shoes, purses, cars, etc. We are a unique group of people that spend over Four Billion dollars annually and have little to show for it. We think in the short term, fearing the day when it’s all taken away from us. “If African Americans study their history, they will become more aware of how labels have been used to dehumanize them. It is time for them to collectively become critically conscious of the slave mentality they exercise within their culture. They did not come to this country as “niggers.” They must break this bondage, free themselves, and stand up against evil.” [1]We are enslaved to defining ourselves and each other by the makeup and the model, fearing that who we are as individuals may not measure up. Sameness is more important; staying within the boundaries set for us is much safer. We allow others to define what success looks like for us, from the clothes we wear to the art we purchase. And who profits?

2.       Drugs and all that is drug-related. Drugs are believed to have been introduced into this country as a method of control of the African American communities (See http://www.friendsoffreedom.com/Writings/DupeOfDrugWar.html). Those who have not become a slave to the drug itself, are slaves to the perception of drug sales being the solution to their exit from their plantation of poverty. However, this is pure myth, given that the majority of inmates – 58.6% -- in prison are there on drug-related charges, most of them African American, most with harsher sentencing than their Anglo counterparts. “If the ghetto drug dealers are the young capitalists who could, under better circumstances, become community leaders, the influx of cheap cocaine and the increasing poverty makes these possible ghetto leaders emerge faster as outlaws, the result being that they are eliminated. What better way to undermine your enemies? What better way to fund covert actions? And what better way to grandstand about crime, morality, and values? “[2] Then there are the drug-related homicides, drive-by shootings that generate thought-stopping fear within a neighborhood. Ninety-one percent of those imprisoned for drugs are hooked again and back in the system within a year. And who profits?
3. Recidivism is the return of a person to prison after being released on parole or by serving the full term of his or her sentence. Prisons and the business of incarceration are booming. As a result there is an increase in the business of privatization of prisons, so that they are run outside of the government. Prisons offer a low cost employment base for corporate contracting for anything from farming to inbound call centers. The inmates are paid a practically nothing, while the prison owners reap the primary profits. In addition, laws have been in the works, which would require prisoners to repay the cost of their incarceration. So upon release, a prisoner not only has to battle the task of finding a job that he or she is unlikely to be skilled to attain, there is the stigma of hiring an ex-convict and possibly a bill to repay to the government. An ex-convict is likely to be dumped right back onto the “plantation” from which he was removed, which in itself increases the likelihood of his or her return to prison (see below). The definition of a slave is a person who has no control of him or herself and is completely dominated by something or someone; a property of that which dominates. And who profits?

       Gentrification in basic terms, is how the city government allows your neighborhoods and their properties to become devalued by neighborhood crime, lack of upkeep, and lack of support for aging homeowners who purchased the homes during the “white flight” to the suburbs. This justifies the destruction of broken down public housing, formerly a tool for containing the minority poor in one area, which is torn down and replaced by condos, restaurants and townhomes that welcome the travel-weary suburb dweller back into the city. The minority poor is displaced, some lured into believing that the suburbs is the best place to go, not realizing what it will ultimately cost them financially or through isolation. Across the country, in every major city, business professionals and their families are quietly purchasing Uncle John or Auntie Nina’s old house for a fraction of its worth, fixing it up with low interest loans the city offers from their city revitalization funds and moving back into the city. Your neighbors, meanwhile, are being lured into believing that moving out into the suburbs will somehow offer you a better life, because that was the truth – fifteen years ago, when it was not an option. African Americans are often the target victims of housing fraud, including “flipping”, renovation loans, etc. And who profits?

2.       Intracultural Separatism. During slavery this was a strength that allowed the slaves to survive emotionally. “Enslaved African Americans also resisted by forming community within the plantation setting. This was a tremendous undertaking for people whose lives were ruled by domination and forced labor. Slaves married, had children, and worked hard to keep their families together. In their quarters they were able to let down the masks they had to wear for whites. There, black men, women, and children developed an underground culture through which they affirmed their humanity. They gathered in the evenings to tell stories, sing, and make secret plans. House servants would come down from the "big house" and give news of the master and mistress, or keep people laughing with their imitations of the whites. It was in their quarters that many enslaved people developed and passed down skills which allowed them to supplement their poor diet and inadequate medical care with hunting, fishing, gathering wild food, and herbal medicines. There, the adults taught their children how to hide their feelings to escape punishment and to be skeptical of anything a white person said. “[1] Today, that strength has become a weakness. We have allowed ourselves to believe that using our culture to segregate ourselves in an ever-shrinking global community is of benefit. Further, what we pass on and among ourselves is what is dictated to us as our labels. Note, for example how in the entertainment industry, when dollars are waved in front of us, we are again the puppets of the masters; we embrace the given perception that we are a group of violent, oversexed people (see music videos). Women are willing to bump and grind in front of the cameras – doing what most would never consider doing if the stage were instead a topless bar. Then there are the comedic roles, the only place where we are allowed to be the majority of primary characters, where we again fall into the stereotypical traps that have been defined for us. Some of us believe that we should embrace our cultural differences by showing that we are “down with the people” but are we really down with the people – ourselves – or with the labels that are provided and we have chosen to embrace? I remember vividly an experience when I passed a group of men on the street and one of them spoke and I responded. He became enraged, because my response wasn’t “black enough” for him. But who made the rule that correct English is “speaking white”? I really don’t believe that it was us. Why? Because I have found that those I deal with in corporations and organizations, who feel compelled to tell me that I am so “articulate,” (their code for “speaking white”) as though it was a rarity among people of color, and at the same time view me as an enemy that had somehow infiltrated the ranks. I believe we should embrace that within our culture which truly defines us as a race, and learn to discern between what is cultural and what is the stereotype by which others wish to define us. One more thing, when it comes to what is cultural and what is stereotypical: what’s in a name? A lot. We have chosen to make up names – especially for our daughters – in the name of culturalism. What we have done is create a new stereotype, with which our children are defined. As one gentleman from Nigeria told me “ you Americans make up names that don’t mean anything. In Africa our names are taken quite seriously. It is what we pass along from generation to generation.” While waiting to board a plane when I was on a business trip, three drunken males came by and made the mistake of commenting on my braids by attempting to fit me into their stereotype, inclusive of giving me a non-meaning name as a defining label of who I was. Without further detail of subsequent events, my point is that many choose to define and stereotype by name. When you call your child by a name that means nothing, what does that say about how we define ourselves and others define us? “During the past decade, there has been a continuous battle within the African American community to eliminate internal racism. It is going to take the power of Almighty God and the consciousness of all of us, together and individually, to change the course of our future into a brighter one, especially for our children. Let us become conscious of the evil around us in order to make the strides we need. Let’s understand that we have a better history than what is told of it. We have a motherland, we are human, and we are God’s children. These reasons are why it is so important to step outside of racism, totally disregard it, and abolish it from our souls and lives forever.

1.       Intraracism. The enemy lies within and the enemy is us. In the days of conscious physical slavery in this country, there were the house slaves and the field slaves – a deliberate psychological class distinction. House slaves were programmed to believe that their loyalty included the betrayal of any exhibiting the potential of having an original thought or might potentially create a “problem”. Ask yourself why – even today – Anglos get nervous, even angry when three or more of their minority counterparts are talking together and they don’t know what they are talking about. They want to know what’s going on. If you are asked about the conversation and don’t disclose the subject matter, they become offended. You become the enemy. We are selfish about our piece of the corporate, social or economic pie, afraid to share because we think that there might not be enough, not realizing that we have the power to bake a whole new pie. So we “shuffle and grin” at the “massah”, and sell our own down the river in fear that we will somehow be reclaimed and sent back to the plantation. We ignore the screams of those who realize they have been caught and turn up the volume on Marvin Gaye’s CD. We allow them to eat our young by allowing them to set the standards for how we are treated, rather than setting the standards for ourselves. We are afraid of losing all that we have gained by reaching back over the wall to help others over. We sit and wait expectantly for “them” to come and solve our problems, not understanding that we must control our own destiny and need not wait for permission to do so. We still wait for the forty acres and a mule. And who profits?

“A paradigm is a system of belief or a way of viewing the world…To become a Free Sovereign Individual and do justice to yourself, you need to find out who you are. Most of us, including many who yearn for freedom, suffer from what might be called ‘slave mentality.’ Our personal philosophy and psychology, in important respects, may be that of a slave rather than that of a free sovereign. To get a better understanding of the sovereign individual paradigm, compare the free-wild horse to the broken-domesticated horse. A horse is born free and wild. Try and ride a free-wild horse and it will do its utmost to throw you off. A free-wild horse doesn't like to be broken - enslaved - ridden by a master. Once the cowboy has broken the free-wild horse, it becomes a broken-domesticated-obedient horse. Now the cowboy is the master of the horse. Once a horse has been broken it timidly accepts being saddled and bridled. The saddle is placed on the horse's back and held in place by a strong strap around the horse's body. Attached to the saddle are stirrups for the rider's feet. The rider's boots may have spurs used to inflict pain on the horse in order to make it run faster. The rider may also use a horsewhip. Around the head of the horse a bridle is strapped. Part of the bridle is a metal bit that passes horizontally through the horse's mouth. The reins are attached to the ends of the bit and are used to steer the horse and make it slow down and stop. Pain can be inflicted on the horse by yanking the reins or pulling on them with a seesaw motion. The above paraphernalia are used to make it easy for a rider to control his or her horse - difficult for the horse to disobey its rider. The horse is the slave of the cowboy. The cowboy rides the horse. The horse works for the cowboy. The cowboy owns the horse. The horse obeys the cowboy. Disobedience may be punished. The horse that fights tooth and hoof to prevent you from putting on bridle and saddle may be sold as horsemeat. Horses are born free and wild. Horses are inherently free. They are naturally free. But they can be broken, domesticated, enslaved…One Afrikaans word for native Africans is "naturel" ("native"); another is "skepsel" ("creature"). The most derogatory is "kaffer" ("infidel"). These words are no longer acceptable. My grandfather was a Senator and Chairman of the "Naturelle-Sake Kommissie" ("Native Affairs Commission"). That is the equivalent of the Chairman of a Congressional Committee that oversees the "Bureau of Indian Affairs.” My grandfather was considered very wise and knew exactly what had to be done about the "Swart Gevaar" ("Black Danger"). My grandmother taught black children the three Rs and religion in her own farm school. Her mission was to "civilize the savages.” One day a black maid licked one of my grandmother's spoons. My grandmother gave the maid a tongue lashing for "contaminating a white spoon" - then gave the spoon to the maid to keep, because it was "no longer fit for white use!” When I was about seventeen I got engaged in a conversation with a black man. Suddenly, as if hit by a sledgehammer, I realized that I was talking to a Human Being! Up to that time I had unconsciously assumed that blacks were "inferior creatures" - kind of sub-human…

Steve Biko was the founder of the "Black Consciousness" Movement in South Africa. Biko recognized that the biggest problem was that blacks in their own consciousness regarded themselves as "inferior creatures." The culture we grew up in - the language we used - planted the notion in the minds of whites that they were "superior beings," and in the minds of blacks that they were "inferior creatures.” Practically all whites and blacks were subconsciously enculturated in this manner. Biko recognized this phenomenon and advocated that blacks had to free their consciousness from the "inferior-creature" shackles. Biko became world-famous and was visited by people like Bobby Kennedy. Biko was also the greatest threat to white government in South Africa. The police effectively murdered him. The murder was "whitewashed." A few years before Biko's death I started reading books about freedom, books critical of government, books alleging

that inflation was something done by government, books about secret conspiracies that were the real government behind the scene. One such book was How I Found Freedom in an Unfroze World by Harry Browne. It had a profound effect on my consciousness. This and other books - particularly The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane - eventually led me to discover that I was a free and sovereign individual. Steve Biko was also a major inspiration in the development of my consciousness. Soon after Biko's murder, I left South Africa. Since then I have lived as a free sovereign individual in several countries. In Brussels, Belgium I came across The Cinderella Complex: Women's Fear of Independence by Collette Dowling. Her theme is that in their consciousness women tend to regard themselves as "inferior slave creatures" (compared to men). This inferiority is mostly subconscious and culturally imposed. According to Dowling, men tend to regard themselves as "superior master beings" (compared to women).”[1]

In the presentation I attended, the Holocaust and the Jews were being used as the significant example, these were specific points also attributed to the syndrome and just as easily associated to African Americans, who – like the Jews -- have historically managed to survive:

·         The captive (slave) fears those trying to help more than the captors themselves. We have finally figured out how to stop the captor from hitting us so often, and besides he throws us a crumb every now and then. Why would we want you to come and mess things up?

To the captive (slave), the captors position becomes justified, and that the captive (slave) has no choices. The captor has gotten you to believe that there is no hope, even when you seem to have escaped. Example (true and recent story): Woman hooked on drugs, upon release from jail, takes her baby son and leaves Chicago so that she is away from the lure of drugs; she buys a one-way ticket to Seattle, Washington. Works and scrapes so that son develops a good life with a future; he has good grades, friends and a college scholarship. One obsessed Anglo female lodges a charge of rape -- without proof. Son is arrested on hearsay – does not even know the girl, except that she asked him to go out with her once and he refused. Son loses girlfriend, friends and scholarship – plus spends three weeks in jail – a place he had never even visited -- and mother’s life savings before it is determined that the Anglo female lied and is a virgin. Even today the son is made to feel that he must be guilty of something, something must have happened. Mother sends son back to Chicago in fear that the police will want to come get him again. They still haven’t sued the girl for damages or the police for false

·         arrest. One of the definitions of rape is an outrageous violation, despoiling, by force. Who was raped after all?

·         Recovery can best be achieved when the captive (slave) is away from the captor. It is a proven fact, yet no one has tested this fact on any significant level. If you take someone permanently out of the environment that has generated the position of slavery to drugs, crime, or gang – he or she has a better chance of beating the enslaved addiction.

So now what? I have no instant solution to such a complex problem since the Stockholm Syndrome has very individualized effects and one solution definitely does not fit all. What you can and must do is think, really think, about your life, your self. Are you enslaved psychologically? Do you exhibit the behavior of one who suffers from the Stockholm Syndrome or are you affected by its manifestation in others? Becoming conscious of its existence and how it manifests itself in your life is the first step. The next step is to understand your past and that of your ancestors; you will never know where you are going until you understand where you’ve been. There are now resources that provide more historical fact than fantasy, such as A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki and sources on the Internet, such as Africans in America. Finally, it becomes your individual challenge, even your responsibility to take the remaining steps toward reclaiming yourself, recovery, and giving yourself the power to leave the mental plantation -- moving on to true freedom.

[1] Essay by Frederick Mann, 1993
Footnote and graphic detail available upon request. Copyright 2001.

Every moment you allow him to
Define you.

E. JOYCE MOORE
BIO

A self-taught artist, E. Joyce Moore, whose artistic name is JEMI, has had a passion for art from childhood. Her first choice as a career was in the field of fashion design. She continued to pursue that dream, majoring in Home Economics while attending Ambassador University in Texas. "I didn't take a single cooking class. I attended both Ambassador and Kilgore College concurrently and full-time, so that I could take courses in Fashion Merchandising and still get my degree. Although I took twenty-four hours a semester, I had fun because I had a passion for what I was pursuing." After college, her road toward design took a detour, as family responsibilities took priority. Joyce attended Northwestern University in the evenings, pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Advertising, but decided that it would not fulfill her creative goals. She spent her business career with AT&T in various positions from diversity workshop facilitator to national account manager. In 1998, she founded a grassroots organization to support the education of and about artists of color and African descent, Alliance of African American Artists Foundation, Inc., www.artists4a.org.
Joyce also exhibits her creative talents in another medium: writing. She is a poet and a writer of numerous articles that have been published by Black Suburban Journal newspaper, American Vision magazine, and Newslink, a professional development publication, including an on-going column "From the Stoop" that she is working to self-syndicate. Her writing experiences include interviews of public figures such as Kwesi Mfume, Ed Gordon, and Slide Hampton and the Hampton family. She has completed writing her first non-fiction book, “Gettin’ to the Good Wood” and her first collection of poetry “ She Also Rises.” Her writings will be included in the Bestfriends Anthology scheduled for publication in December 2003 and is currently contracted for her submission to Chicken Soup for the African American Soul -- a collection of essays scheduled to be published in February 2004. She has also expressed her creativity on film, directing a cable television show in Indiana back in 1984, creating an infomercial for AT&T products in 1988 and producing a video introducing various emerging artists for the 2000 National Black Fine Arts Show. Joyce has two television concepts she is currently developing for a hosted show and television series. She can be reached for presentations, lectures and panel discussions via e-mail at jemiltd@aol.com.

History vs. Technique