Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder

OK, there it is! A name. A phrase that can help us to begin to process what happened in the past and why we African Americans can't seem to be able to escape the nightmare of centuries ago. We have all wondered why certain behaviors and ideas continue to permeate within our communities around this nation. In his book, Solutions for Black America, Juwanza Kunjufu stresses that trauma refers to extreme stress that overwhlems. It includes responses to powerful, one-time incidents, natural disasters, crimes, surgeries, child abuse, neglect, combat, urban violence, battering relationships and deprivation. Arguably black people have been through all of that and more as a group.

No need for excuses. I'm not interested in offering any. However, the mainstream media continues to belittle the total impact past racism has had. African Americans have been segregated by law in the past, denied entrance and admission, hosed by police, harrassed by law enforcement agencies, spit on, chased by dogs, raped, beaten, castrated and lynched. And at the end of it there was no 12 step program to help us get over Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder. There were no psychotropic meds dispensed so that we could cope. So we are still traumatized.

The effects of the diabolical process of indoctirnating slaves, as pronouced by the master slave master, Wille Lynch, was supposed to last at least 500 years or better. So while we still suffer from the past, we must be encouraged that in only a mere 145years, we have been able to weave ourselves intricately and inextricably into the very fabric of our nation. We exist in every field of endeavor from law to medicine, to the sciences, engineering, politics and business. We look up and find ourselves under the leadership and guidance of a black president. It seems clear that we ourselves had not realized how far we had, in fact, come. Yet, there is something that keeps us all from truly coming together in full support of our own communities.

Here are some of the lingering effects of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder).
1. Associating being smart with acting White.
2. Beliveing that blacks are better at sports than science, music than math, rap than reading.
3. Niggeritis
4. Lack of Unity
5. Crab in a Barrel Syndrome
6. Defining good hair as straight
7. Defining pretty eyes as anything but dark brown
8. believing the lighter you are the
prettier you are
9. Associating work with slavery
10. Obession with material possessions
11. Non support of black leadership
12. Viewing black males as baby making sperm donors
13. Defining blackness through sports and entertainment.

Any African American will quickly tell you that he or she has encountered these behaviors first hand; if not daily. The question becomes, can we now begin to fully heal ourselves through the realization that it is a condition? This must be addressed if we are to lift ourselves out of this continued state of dispair.
We are in a new time and era, the moment our ancestors toiled for is at hand. If we are going to take advantage of all that we have accomplished, we must address, head on, the issues listed above.