How many generations are you from slavery?

[nsync]

using this model: If your great grand family member was a slave then you are 3 generations from slavery.

1.Great grand <---- slave
2.Grand<---child of slave
3.Direct<---grandchild of slave
YOU <---crack head (j/k lololol) <--representing the 4th generation

Also what affects/effects do you think slavery has had on the African-American experience.

Does that affect you/your peers/ your community today?

Please share as much as you would like. No word count minimum. However, I was once told being succicnt and to the point is the best way to get your message across.

[nsync]

Okay, I am back again. I just left a really intense 2 1/2 hr case review. So please bear with me if I am incoherent or it seems as if I am babbling please forgive me.

Before I point out one of the topics I mentioned I want to make a comment on slavery.

The affects and effects of slavery as they pertain to African-Americans spiritually, physically emotionally, mentally, socially and financially are real. The a/effects remained yesterday, as they do today and will remaind tomorrow unless we as A-A, blacks, however we chose to identify ---acknowledge the importance of our ancestors' history in the Americas.

Also, I hear people, both black and non black state things such: "ya’ll (we) can’t let slavery hold yall(us) back. How long are we (you) going to blame slavery for everything? Or “ other groups of people were enslaved”

All these comments are valid. However, we have to stop playing into the farce that the African-American slave experience has nothing to do with the population’s situation in this day and age.

We must review the process in which the overwhelming majority of Africans got here in the first and what does that mean to the descendents of those people today. As the article mentioned the people were captured and endured a greusome process to make it to the Americas. We also must evaluate in which ways they were transported. Yes other groups have been enslaved. But how many groups have been completely removed from their natural habitat (as the article was suggested that Africans were removed). Yes, groups have been taken from their homelands, but most often then ended up in a similar structure, climate, ecosystem etc similar or quite close to their homes.

Africans were taken 1.by force 2.without reason 3.without prior knowledge of their departure or time to prepare mentally or physically 3.without closure from their loved ones or even their previous self 4. They were mixed among people they did not know nor understand (this included both that looked like them physically and who did not look like them physically 5.and taken to another continent.

Just those facts alone point to a tragic entrace into their new life and this is before we begin to delve into the plight of plantation life .

Whether we like it or not, whether we can handle it or not and whether we have indian, white, spanish whatever in our blood lines...WE MUST ACCEPT that the A-A group, culture and heritage begun with trauma.

And anyone who has studied with the discipline knows that a cultural responses to trauma will continuously be passed down from generation to generation until in is acknowledged, accepted and endures a period of extensive therapy or metal release begins.

The average A-A adult is somewhere between 3-7 generations from slavery. That in itself is deep. One must pause and reflect on how long it takes cultural conditioning to be reversed.

(more to come)

[DamieQue™]

<-o- 4th generation

[LogAKAlly <3'n Keef]

I HAVE ALOT...but I won't flood yall...LOL.

1. Break Down of the Black Family via mental/psychological/ castration of the Black male and the creation of the myth of the "Strong Black Woman."

Black men were humiliated - stripped of the clothing and their ability to provide for and protect their families.

To drive this point home, slave masters would often rape the mothers and daughters of male slaves in front of them. The message was very clear to the black slave woman - the black man is but a child, inept and incapable of providing and protecting you.

Fast forward we have "Baby Boy."

Traditionally, women were viewed as weak - requiring protection.

White women accepted this view because it afforded them certain luxuries. They were viewed as delicate and precious commodities - in fact they'd often faint for ANYTHING.

However, this was a stark contradiction to the way slave women were treated - forcefully/savagely/brutally raped and beaten.

To justify this standard of hypocrisy the claimed that slave women were not "regular" women - in fact they were "just as strong" as a male slave, capable of meeting the same quotas and working in the fields side by side. We were called the "mules of the Earth."

Black women have now taken this pejorative phrase and worn it as a badge of honor.

Now we have a system of Black men viewed as incapable, juvenile, uneccessary trying to coexist/partner with Black women believing we are superhuman, unrequiring and complete.

[ReignMan19]

pretty deep... My view differs a bit... i will return in a few with my take

[nsync]

sigh still at work....

Damie that's REALLY close!

I am 5 generations away from slavery based on my mother's maternal lineage.

Through my father's maternal line I believe I am much closer. Although, there are a few discrepancies, which causes me not to be a 100% sure.

Log, I agree absolutely. I think the more we understand that, the more we can release the frustration from this circumstance and embrace healing and restructuring within our community.

Also, I want to note not all Africans came to the americas the same way. There were a small number of freeman. Some of the managed to stay free their entire time here.
Also, there were some who were tricked into coming, not necessarily captured and forced. We also know about the ones who were sold by other Africans etc.
However these represent a small percentage of the overall initial population.

Part II

The A-A start was traumatic. Does that mean we should throw a pitty part and eventually give up? No! The Africans who went on to populate the plantations of early USA and help build the country were the strongest,smartest, wisest, most physically adept, most versatile and adaptable of the bunch. The cream of the crop so to speak. As the article mentions "survival of the fittest". Therefore we originate from a outstanding group of people, yes indeed.

That is something that really inspires me, especially on days when I don't feel like giving another damn. It should inspire others, too.

However where they could not tame our ancestors' bodies, nor could they break there spirits---they went to what was the most vulnerable: their minds.


Im sure most of you have read the Willie Lynch Letter or heard the bullet points. Therefore you can see where I am going.

Control someone's mind and you will control everything about them. Change how they see themselves, feel about themselves, view themselves, understand themselves...ect and you will ultimately control their destiny.


Ponder this:




Be careful what you think, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful what you say, for your words become your actions.
Be careful what you do, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful what becomes habitual, for your habits become your destiny.

[Bunny Hop]

I'm not really sure. My parents don't seem to know much about anyone past their parents. They just know aunts and uncles. And the family trees I have don't say who was and wasn't a slave. I just know my maternal grandparents were sharecroppers when my mom was young.

[nsync]

Finally to my original comment:

Speaking of how white folks effed us up (I promised I would reply).

I also think there should be more studies on the psychology of the African-American experience in the USA. And not just focusing on slavery in the America's but starting just where this article did from pick up to drop off until present day.

Within the last few weeks I was thinking about this in regards to three topics, concepts of manhood amongst african-american males (and other males of color who are of African descent), standards of beauty as they relate to African-American woman (and other women of color who are of African descent) and my favorite "The black woman's attitude "problem".

One's mental and emotional health has direct bearings on one's self esteem and self worth. The same goes for entire groups of people. Major transitions and traumatic occurances can cause various forms of mental and emotional embalances, furthing this process.

Cultural identity, rites of passages, a feeling of belonging helps to shape a person self-esteem and worth as well.


During slaverly our ancestors (once tribal African's) now captured individuals on foreign soil,were re-traumatized, stripped of their culture and forced to be retained at the emotional and intellectual levels of a childs .
This lasted for what 240 years or so?
That's a long time to be making an "inferior" group of people, don't you think?

Anyhow I chose to discuss the topic of standards of beauty as it relates to AA women, because I believe it has some physical components and relates back to the article a bit.

The aspect os beauty I want to talk about it HAIR.

[nsync]

This is the case with many. Maybe you can ask some older members of your family what they know.

Sometimes when you piece stories together or look through old picture or heirlooms you can find more information than you would ever imagine.

My mother was primarily raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother often spoke of her grandmother who was a slave. That's how we know on that side.

I was privalaged in that sense (so to speak), because my mom was raised by someone two generations above her, who was raised by someone who was two generations above her.

And please believe...those old home down in the delta traditions have been passed directly to me. Some I reject some I find it necessary to keep...and others I struggle to release.

Oct 27, 2008 16:11:31 GMT -5 Bunny Hop said:

I'm not really sure. My parents don't seem to know much about anyone past their parents. They just know aunts and uncles. And the family trees I have don't say who was and wasn't a slave. I just know my maternal grandparents were sharecroppers when my mom was young.

[LogAKAlly <3'n Keef]

Oct 27, 2008 16:18:59 GMT -5 @nsync said:

Finally to my original comment:

Speaking of how white folks effed us up (I promised I would reply).

I also think there should be more studies on the psychology of the African-American experience in the USA. And not just focusing on slavery in the America's but starting just where this article did from pick up to drop off until present day.

Within the last few weeks I was thinking about this in regards to three topics, concepts of manhood amongst african-american males (and other males of color who are of African descent), standards of beauty as they relate to African-American woman (and other women of color who are of African descent) and my favorite "The black woman's attitude "problem".

One's mental and emotional health has direct bearings on one's self esteem and self worth. The same goes for entire groups of people. Major transitions and traumatic occurances can cause various forms of mental and emotional embalances, furthing this process.

Cultural identity, rites of passages, a feeling of belonging helps to shape a person self-esteem and worth as well.


During slaverly our ancestors (once tribal African's) now captured individuals on foreign soil,were re-traumatized, stripped of their culture and forced to be retained at the emotional and intellectual levels of a childs .
This lasted for what 240 years or so?
That's a long time to be making an "inferior" group of people, don't you think?

Anyhow I chose to discuss the topic of standards of beauty as it relates to AA women, because I believe it has some physical components and relates back to the article a bit.

The aspect os beauty I want to talk about it HAIR.

<~~Starting to wonder if I am loggin off and loggin on as Nsync LOL!

Slaves were not only victims of physical abuse; they were subjugated to psychological warfare for the purpose of “breaking” them. They relied on several coping methods to survive and Suzanne Lipsky suggest that we can still see remnants of those methods if we examine modern day internalized racist behavior in African Americans.

Internalization of Stereotypes
Patterns of internalized racism have caused us to accept many of the stereotypes of blacks created by the oppressive majority society. We have been taught to be angry at, ashamed of, anything that differs too much from a mythical ideal of the middle class of the majority culture - skin that is "too dark," hair that is "too kinky," dress, talk, and music that is "too loud."

Survival
Internalized oppression is a major factor in the perpetuation of so-called "getting by" or "survival" behaviors. Some of these behaviors were developed in the slavery era of our oppression as a necessary response to acute problems of survival in that situation. Learning to silently withstand humiliation by practicing on one another is an example - e.g., playing "the dozens." The development of "happy" or "clowning" or "shuffling" or "ignorant" patterns are other examples. In order to "survive" we have learned also not to show or share our feelings ("cool" patterns) or to disguise them ("tough" patterns) - particularly feelings of tenderness, love, and zest.

Individual Relations
Because we have been the victims of attack, humiliation, and exploitation, the restimulated. Patterns of internalized oppression cause us to dramatize our feelings of rage, fear, indignation, frustration, and powerlessness at each other - at other black people - often those closest to us.

Our Children
We invalidate our children with fierce criticism and fault-finding, intending to "straighten them out" but, in the process, destroying their self-confidence.

Group Effort
Patterns of internalized racism cause us adults to find fault, criticize, and invalidate each other. This invariably happens when we come together in a group to address some important problem or undertake some liberation project. What follows is divisiveness and disunity leading to despair and abandonment of the effort.

Leadership
Patterns of internalized oppression cause us to attack, criticize, or have unrealistic expectations of any one of us who has the courage to step forward and take on leadership responsibilities. This leads to a lack of the support that is absolutely necessary for effective leadership to emerge and group strength to grow. It also leads directly to the "burn out" phenomenon we have all witnessed in, or experienced as, effective black leaders.

Isolation From Other Blacks
Patterns of internalized racism have caused us to be deeply hurt by our brothers and sisters. We often develop defensive patterns of fear, mistrust, withdrawal, and isolation from other blacks. On top of this we sometimes feel ashamed of our fear of our own people.
The isolation which results from internalized oppression can become so severe that a black person may feel safer with and more trustful of white people than of blacks. This is an illusion, a confusion, created by the pattern, but an individual may accept living inside this pattern because it feels "comfortable" and therefore "workable." Clear thinking tells us, however, that this is not a good enough solution. No black person's re-emergence will be achieved unless he or she faces and dissolves the isolation from her or his own people.

In Traits Due To Victimization, Gordon W. Allport and Addison Wesley also recognized similar patterns of behavior such as:
-Denial of Membership
-Withdrawal and Passivity
-Clowning
-Identification With The Dominant Group: Self Hate and
-Aggression Against Own Group

In, Scenes from the Color Complex: (My Own), Marita Golden, provides personal examples of identifying with the dominant group and self hate as a child:

I am ten, standing before the gilt framed mirror over the mahogany cabinet where the silver and good china are stored. It is seven thirty and my mother my father and I have finished dinner. I have washed the dishes. My parents are upstairs in their bedroom. I stand before the mirror as I do almost every night when I have the dining room to myself . My head is draped in four long silk scarves that belong to my mother. Scarves held in place with a bobby pin at the top of my head. Scarves that are a seductive color drenched kaleidoscope whose fabric kisses my brown cheeks as I imagine a White girl's hair must brush her skin- with the most awesome feeling of affirmation, beauty and power. Standing before that mirror I am Snow White. I am Cinderella. My short, has-to-be-straightened-with-a- hot-comb- hair has disappeared. My hands, like hungry butterflies, are lost in the silky tendrils that I see with a contented, dangerous strangers eyes. With those eyes I imagine and convince myself that I can actually see the metamorphosis of the scarves into shoulder-length and even sometimes blonde tendrils that frame my chubby brown face and that at last, make me real.

The sad and ironic truth is that, internalized racism holds no prejudice. This plague can and often infects the mental and emotional health of all oppressed minorities that have been infiltrated by the European standard of beauty.

[nsync]

Um...I am in this thread too much. LOL And really trying to type this out very quickly is doing the topic no justice, but it is so hard to walk away from this type of discussion.

To hair:

So, we must acknowledge that there are all different textures and types of hair amongst african-american women. Also we must acknowledge that there is certain type of hair that we associate with our african heritage.

This is typically tightly curly or zigzaggy hair that has been known as naps before the neo-black is beautiful revolution.

My speculation , and I sure it will be met with great distain, is that African-american women through out the generations have been taught to subconsciously hate the African part of their hair. NOW, does this mean every black woman hates ther natural hair? No. This means that culturally the more African one's hair was the more of a social no-no they were. Enter the perm.

I am not anti perm or anti straight. My hair is currently straight. But I can no longer continue to deny that hair especially long flowy hair is linked to womanhood in most cultures including the culture that rules the society I live in.
And this one things has been used to slowly but steadily tap on the AA woman's psyche to the point where we believed that perms, weaves, extenstions and straightening our hair was the way to go. It became the norm instead of the exception.

Many black women will argue that this is a choice and not something forced upon them. Many will argue that other women groups of women struggle with this too. But very few will be able to articulate why the black hair care business is a multi-billion dollar industry. Very few will be able to explain how they would never just wake up flip their hair over and walk out the door. Many can not comprehend why in 2008 they still use the term good hair and bad hair to differentiate between hair types and textures. None will admit how this effects their self-esteem and self worth. None will admit that their constant frying , dying, flippin, strippin is in fact related albeit directly or indirectly to forms of self-hatred that was taught to our ancestor hundreds of years ago and passed right on down to us.

Culturally we have been taught that what is natural to us, what is true to us, what is beautifully unique about us is wrong, bad, socially unacceptable..etc. We have been raised to meet cultural standards that have nothing to do with our original heritage, but someone elses.

Straight flowy hair is not a West African (where most of our ancestors came from) trait ( I am sure there are exceptions to both parts of that statement). The average black woman does not have naturally straight hair or wavy hair for that mater. The average black woman has some variation of curly hair.

To try to fit into another cultures standards of beauty with little or none of the physical capabilities is very harmful to the self esteem and essentially harmful to the mind.

So I represent the underlying question of the artical. We have learned to adapt, but under what consequence?

[glow=red,2,300]
GOOOOOOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol[/glow]

[nsync]

<~~Starting to wonder if I am loggin off and loggin on as Nsync LOL!

RIGHT???!!!! I get an eerie feeling, while reading your post, like is that...............me? LOL

I see you posted some good stuff. I am so late leaving so I will have to read it later.

peace for now!

[LogAKAlly <3'n Keef]

The European standard of beauty is like a international whore that has been pimped around the world - but she got pregnant and had babies in the U.S.


To think that you can exist - being born and raised - in America and be unaffected by it is like saying you can stand in a closet throwing a ball and not get hit.

EVEN African Americans that are actively rejecting the ESofB - via growing dreadlocks (not just for trend) - are acknowledging it exists and the power of it.

It started when we began to accept our prescribed inferiority ~~> glorification of whiteness ~~~> wanting to become superior again ~~~> identifying with whiteness ~~~>rejecting all things akin to inferiority ~~~~> self hatred ~~~~> internal conflict and confusion ~~~> WANTIN TO BE THE HELL OUTTA YT!!!

And they say education makes folks less racist!
SHID!!

[frozenmenace]

I am 4th generation removed from slavery. My great, great, great grandfather was the son of the Master and a slave woman. It is believed that he was used as a "Breeding" slave because he had 18 children by 3 slave women. Due to the hard work and research of a cousin, we have found out that my Great Grandmother six times removed was a French Princess who disguised herself as a man and snuck out of France to come to America for religious freedom.

As for the effects/affects of slavery, I think there were many but I also think that we as Black people often use slavery as a crutch. It's just too easy to blame all of our ills on slavery and the white man.

[LogAKAlly <3'n Keef]

Oct 27, 2008 17:24:26 GMT -5 @frozenmenace said:

As for the effects/affects of slavery, I think there were many but I also think that we as Black people often use slavery as a crutch. It's just too easy to blame all of our ills on slavery and the white man.

I agree Froze, there are things we have to accept as individuals.

But please know...the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he DIDN'T exist - and the day we truly believe slavery don't matter to us TODAY - is the day we REALLY been HOODWINKED and BAMBOOZLED.

It would be different if slavery ended and so did ALL FORMS of oppression.

I could get over slavery if I didn't have to deal with ANYTHING that pertains to it.

I'd forget slavery if THEY forget...but they don't and they won't let us. They use EVERY opportunity to try and convince us we are STILL inferior to them.

I'd give up my stance, if all those who benefitted from it, give up what they profited from it.

But you and I know...THAT AIN'T GONE NEVA EVA EVVVVVVA happen.

[LejaOMG]

It's so hard to say. My grandmother had her grandparents alive with her neither they nor their parents/grandparents were slaves. *shrugs* Slavery did end earlier in the Caribbean than in the U.S., though. As far back as the 1830s, our family has traced when our ancestors came to Trinidad, but they came from another part of the Caribbean, not Africa/India/Syria, so again, iono.

[Highly Favored]

Oct 27, 2008 16:11:31 GMT -5 Bunny Hop said:

I'm not really sure. My parents don't seem to know much about anyone past their parents. They just know aunts and uncles. And the family trees I have don't say who was and wasn't a slave. I just know my maternal grandparents were sharecroppers when my mom was young.

Same here.

Very interesting thread.

[davidlevack]

This is a bit of a late reply, Sadly this is still a topic that doesn't get it's fair attention.

I'd like to urge everyone to pick up a copy of Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell. It's a great book. Very enlightening.