The Gantt Report
I
f you want to know what is killing the love in African American communities you only have to look as far as the Black family drama!
Our community today is filled with hate, suspicion, selfishness, intolerance, doubt and lies.
And, in many cases, the disfunctionality begins in the Black household!
Many of us are living in homes and dealing with family members that oftentimes hold us back instead of helping us move forward.
If you’re looking for reasons to hate your parents, your siblings, your children or your other relatives you won’t have very far to look because no one is perfect.
All of us have made mistakes, made bad choices or slipped or slid the wrong way a time or two.
This idea that one should focus on the bad that people have done and ignore the good done by the same people is ridiculous!
If we can’t respect our own how can we expect others to respect us? If we don’t love each other, why should others love us? And, if we don’t honor and praise our parents, grandparents and other community elders like the Bible says we should what will become of us?
Do you ever wonder why there hasn’t been a twenty first century Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Rosa Parks or Ida Wells rise up in the Black community and lead our people to progress and more self determination?
Who is the Black statewide leader in Florida, in Georgia, in New York or in California? Hell, who is the new nationwide Black community leader that the masses of African Americans will march with, protest with, fight with or ride and die with?
Well, there is none that I know. If someone tried to ascend to that type of position that person will be hated more than followed and supported!
If we can’t get a leader in the house that everyone can love and respect, we may never find a person in the street that will get our blessings.
When we greet our friends we might say hello “brother” or how are you “sister” because our ancestors from Africa believed the whole village was family. In my youth, if a neighbor saw me acting up when my parents weren’t home the neighbor would spank me and tell my parents and I’d get another whipping when Mom and Dad got home. Nowadays, you had better not touch your neighbor’s child.
Historically, Black people loved Black people. Ask grandmama, we loved to feed hungry people, we invited strangers to the house party, we’d give a ride to hitch hikers.
Don’t try any of that now. Many Black people only love themselves. Parents are hated, siblings are hated, uncles, aunts and other family members sometimes feel the need to be “strapped” at the family reunion because one family member might slap the other one. I’ve even seen relatives fight at funerals.
How did we get like this? Well, a lot of our behavior was picked up during slavery days and was never stopped.
Slave masters hated their Black children. They disrespected, mistreated and abused their Black slave women. Slave masters encouraged family mistrust, family fighting and family disfunction.
Four hundred years later and we still can’t come together as families, either immediate or extended families.
We need to try to bring back the love, the respect, the rhythm, the harmony, the concern and the care for each other.
We can start that process by eliminating the Black family hate! We don’t have to worry about the racist neighborhood watch man because there might be people in our own house that want to kill our progress, end our unity and murder our dreams before we ever leave out the door!
