Back To Our Future

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”  These were the words once spoken by Edmund Burke a noted author, orator, political theorist and philosopher in Great Britain.   Those words are ringing so true today in the 21^st century as never before.  The echoes and legacy from America’s past have reemerged and many of us are appalled at what we see happening.

 

A new generation has emerged with a set of values that is reflective of a pervious era.  Even though we have made progress in many ways in our nation, the overarching results still remain the same.  Today, these remix of values with a modern twist continue to pledge the greatest nation in the world.  There are no more slavery ships, trading blocks, branding irons, or whipping posts, and chains, but the tentacles of that era have reached far into this 21^st century.           

 

In her book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Joy DeGruy Leary points out that the ongoing legacy of slavery, it’s the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual traumas that African people endured for hundreds of years.  She further cites that the descendants had to endure on going trauma for another century after the Civil War.  The effects of these long term traumatic experiences of de-humanization and crimes against humanity continue to impart African Americans today.  In defining these experiences she goes on to say that is a condition that exists when a population has experienced multigenerational trauma resulting from centuries of slavery and continue to experience oppression and institutionalized racism.      

 

It seems to me, that in order to move forward in finding some workable solutions to the many problems that exist in African American communities today, there is a need to come to grips with our past, its history, struggles, to talk about it, remember its lessons, a day of atonement… in order words we must learn to “heal our brokenness.” Some have made it out … but the work is far from over… for there are still countless others who are still trapped in a cycle of self-destruction, self-doubt and limited opportunities.  This effort requires all of us to share in helping those who are lost and can’t find their way out.   The time is now… our future awaits.