Things you need to stop saying:
The Black family is broken.
XYZ is a threat to the Black family.
The Black community is broken.
Black love is broken.
What you need to say instead, because it’s what’s actually true:
My family is jacked up.
My family is jacked up. My perception of my family is jacked up. I believe that their perception of me is jacked up. I don’t know how to accept and love or love on my own family. I would rather focus on some imagined outside force, lurking in everyone else’s home, than simply talk to the folks in my own. (and/or) I do not feel confident in my ability to affect change or healing in my own family, which has issues.
I don’t do anything supportive around here. (and/or) My neighbors don’t do anything supportive around here, that I can notice. I’m not aware of supportive work being done, haven’t looked for any and/or simply choose to keep my view limited on this, instead of finding out more information.
I’ve been through some stuff and now find it difficult to give or receive love in a healthy way. I also find myself in constant company with other dysfunctional folks.
The Black family is not broken. The Black family is nearly the only thing that has kept us sane in any way, since our kidnap. Black folks family all the time. And there is no boogeyman out here trying to purposely threaten that. There is however, a criminal justice system with implicit bias and racism that splits up families all the time. Feel free to work to impact that.
The Black community is not broken. Black folk are a communal people. We are also very tribal. Always have been. Always will be. So perhaps what you see as dysfunction is simple tribalism. In our current circumstances, you may want us to all be one collective, but that’s a tough sell. It’s like asking folks to stop having families. Otherwise, we build and create community around ourselves, constantly, regardless to whether or not others may find the basis of said community to be in alignment with their principles. And your own tribe may change over time. Our community isn’t broken. We do however, have a lot of socioeconomic realities and trauma that create very unfortunate circumstances and incidents in our community. However, horizontal violence occurs in every community. Any unity you would like to see, you need to create.
Black love is not broken. Black folk love, and heal, and create and celebrate our way through life. There are certainly Black folk who have experienced trauma or even caused trauma in others, making loving labored. There are certainly Black folk who for whatever reasons find it difficult to connect. There is a lot about the trauma we have experienced and continue to be faced with, that gets in the way of our ability to fully express our humanity. Certainly. But Black folk are still loving on each other. It’s the only reason why we’re still here.
We need to give up this constant narrative that we are broken. It is entirely too reminiscent of the predecessor to evangelicalism, in puritan spiritual thought, that we as God’s creations are born into sin and automatically unworthy of God’s grace and love, yet He grants it anyway and we must remain in groveling supplication all our lives. It is entirely too reminiscent of the paternalism fostered by the plantation system, hand in hand with the Great Awakening. It is entirely too reminiscent of “the white man’s burden,” form of indoctrination. That our Black souls were born unfortunate and need to be chastised out of it; a leading justification for enslavement, against abolition.
That is not an identity that our cultural traditions in the motherland taught, though.
This is a bag that we don’t have to keep carrying.
Word to the wise.
The revolution will not be massive and will not involve any leader. There is no Black agenda. Just a mass of Black people trying to live. Everyone has to stir their own pot. Take care of your own house, first. Till your own soil. Take care of yourselves. Take care of your own. Take care of each other. Cast down your bucket where you are (shoutout to Booker T. Washington, iba e).
Own your own.