Captured
I want you to imagine being in your neighborhood. Your mom is washing clothes. You are out playing with your sister; dad is out getting the food. Your friends are all having a great time. The suns radiance is shining down on you all. Mothers are gathering to prepare for a festive evening in the community. Suddenly, you hear and unfamiliar sound. Fathers return running frantically, get in the house, get in the house. But you’re confused, this is abnormal. You run, scream, call out your mothers name, and you hear the sound again. It’s foreign, it’s loud, it’s invasive, and then you see father after father, fall to the ground. You are lost, as your village is being overtaken by people who look like you. You don’t know why but they are gathering up your town, toddlers, women, men, children. They put chains around you. They board you on a ship, locked in cages, stacked on top of each other. You are frightened, you are alone. You cry out for your father but it’s muffled by the other cries of women who are calling for their husbands, and husbands who are calling for their wives, and children who are calling for their parents. You see a race of people that are not familiar but your impression of them is evil. What’s happening? Boats is rocking, the stinch of urine and feces is making you regurgitate what you had for lunch. You have to release yourself, you can’t hold it. You don’t want to release on your brothers, your mothers, your sisters, your fathers, your friends, but you do. You hear a language. It’s foreign, it’s invasive, it’s incomprehensible, and you didn’t know at the time, it would scar you and generations to come for centuries.
Enslaved
You are hauled off a ship. Chain around your neck, linked to your hands, and daisy-chained to your feet. A religious figure meets you, showing you a text that is unfamiliar, speaking a language you’ve never heard. They show you pictures of a messiah. The story looks familiar but it’s based on lies, it’s not the Jehovah from your land. This is an imposter. Suddenly, you see your father a far off, you call out to him, he turns and screams your name but he’s met with a rifle to his head. They want to send a message of fear so they shoot him, in front of everyone they captured. Silence, no words, you dare not scream, you are away from home, no sign of hope, an eerie despair overcomes you. What happened? Why me, why us? They put you on a block as men gather arounds, you look at them confused. They are all the same color you’ve only heard about in stories of foreign exploration. You see your sisters breast exposed, you see your brothers genitals, this is ungodly. Who are these people. What devil is this that seeks to destroy us on a far away land.
Forced Labor
Branded by a slave master, you belong in the field. You see your uncle refuse to comply, again. They take him, strip him naked, gathers your people to watch. No whips this time. They string him over a barrel of hay and being to rape him in front of your sisters, your brothers, your children. Force him to comply. All you see is iblis. Possession. Demons. Ravaging his rectum until its released into him that which was never meant to be. The next demon comes, they are not finished. They strike fear in you that you’ve never know. None of you have ever known. This control over you is forced, they laugh. “Same will happen to each a yas if ya don’t do what yas told”. For the next 246 years would be the begging of your pain. You knew since watching that brutal rape, you’d never leave here alive and freedom only comes in death.
The Present
African-American’s live in fear. We’ve been taught to fight each other, steal from one another, kill one another, reign down terror and rage on our children, leave our women, leave our kids, hustle illegally to get by because we knew America has always been devoid of humanity. Your schools that we built were never meant for us, your insurance companies that logged us as property were never meant for us, and the Constitution was never meant for us. Since the day we were carted off our home land onto a ship we experienced Present Traumatic Stress Disorder.
What you are seeing play out is the fruits of racism. It’s embedded in the policies of the Trump Administration. It’s embedded in those whom he emboldens to continue white male dominance of Black and Brown people. It’s present in the Democratic party which would take our vote for granted. It’s so damaging it would set a war between Black and Brown people to destroy each other. This is our Present Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since the assassination of Fred Hampton, the videotaped beating of Rodney King, the videotaped shooting of Oscar Grant we are simply killed killed killed. Law enforcement has a license to kill with little to zero accountability. This is our Present Traumatic Stress Disorder. And when you have PTSD, you don’t process things well. To a point where you destroy your own communities not realizing the damage or understanding the construct of systemic racism and oppression that has caused it to occur. This is our Present Traumatic Stress Disorder.
What we need to know is that we shall rise, we’ve come a long way. Without reparations, without handouts, without proper housing, without proper schools, without proper financing, with discriminatory loans, we have made it and we are growing stronger. With laws against us, with haters against us, with judges against us, we shall rise. Simply put, there’s God in melanated peoples. Why? Because we come from a bloodline of resilience and we strive and function even with PTSD! We will rise because we know there are white brothers and sisters who see our plight and realize that our PTSD is ultimately their PTSD! Then, humanity shall rise in America, together!
Forgive the lack of cohesion, I just had to get somethings out in an abstract manner.
