Deep Culture Of Resilience
“Culture, a people's way of life, can be described as existing on at least two levels, that of the cultural surface structure, including language, diet, dress, customs and so on, and that of the cultural deep structure, the philosophical assumptions undergirding the cultural world-view. Unlike other cultural groups, Africans in America were forbidden access to their indigenous cultural surface structures when enslaved by the Europeans and brought to this country. However, the deep structures of culture were less readily accessible to the European enslavers because deep structure is by nature more permanent than surface culture, these deep structures remained with the captured Africans as the very fabric of their lives well into the era of desegregation and assimilation. It is that worldview that has allowed Africans in America to survive. Deep culture continues to influence the behavior of Africans away from home. Africans the world over are continuing to seek their ancestral roots and be engaged in re-naming, clothing, hair, spirituality, Sankofa and other facets of life that represent a return to cultural surface practices as well as seeking knowledge of self and deeper cultural practices.” (2)More About The Nature of Resilience
“The experience of the vast majority of African people in the Americas, particularly during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, is unique in human history by virtue of the nature of the brutal, inhumane socio-political economic system of chattel slavery practiced and sanctioned by the prevailing “moral” codes of conduct and legal system of persons of European descent in the United States. Never before had the level and extent of such dehumanizing practices of physical violence and brutality disallowed access to normal family bonds, denied practice of indigenous language, religious rites and rituals, and engulfed the humanity of a people, their minds and culture with a subordinating color caste system which continues to reign for over three hundred years. These African people and their progeny are the collective from which the Black community emerges connected to oppressed and colonized people all over the world. “The multi-level and multi-generational psychological trauma of this unique experience has had an impact, not only on those acknowledging African descent in America, but all of humanity. Thus, to understand mental health within the context of society, concepts such as cultural dislocation, assimilation, and relocation as they influence the nature and functioning of the psyche of oppressed people must be examined. In addition, it is required we pay particularly close attention to the factors fostering survival, resistance, resilience, and triumph in the face of the worst forms of this extended oppression. African Americans have remarkably managed to play an integral role in all levels of this nation’s development from economics, science and cultural arts to moral leadership. As a subjugated people, Africans in America have spent almost 40% of their time in this nation since its founding without any human rights at all, another 45% of the period fighting for equality under the law, and the last 15% reputedly having achieved equal protection under the law (although the current mass incarceration of Black people belies that reality). This nation granted the descendents of enslaved African people in America the right to vote and made discrimination against them by virtue of their race illegal just forty years ago. By exploring and analyzing the interdependence of the various institutions within the society (e.g., educational, legal, religious, and political), we can see how the status quo is maintained, social realities are fostered, and the development of potential for human growth is negatively influenced.” (3)Something Inside So Strong
What we Africans must recognize is that the problem with African culture, religion, traditions is not that there's something wrong with them, it's that there something strong with them. Get back to African culture and those who come up against us will run and hide because they know, what's next. We can build per-neters on top of per-neters if we so choose. I know this is possible because my ancestral mind has conceived it. The rest of what is possible will come to past because African people worldwide have conceived it.We must no longer allow fools to try to shame us for what we have not recently achieved. It's not true. Of course, we could do better. We shall not grade ourselves on a curve with others, that would lower our score. Our achievements prior to the last 500 years are enough to outweigh the sum of all others and this will always be so. Why? Because the accomplishments of others are either stolen from us and are built upon our accomplishments, so take away what Africans have done and no people will be nowhere near where they are today, which, compared to where we are positioned, and what we have in the genetic Ancestral stores in every cell of our bodies, all other groups of people are within reach. This they know because of what we've done before, have done despite it all and because of our resilience. It's enough to make them always act out of desperate fear because the end of their reign is always near. Atum-Khepera has called these meanings into being.(1) Myers, Linda James, Ph.D. & Speight, Suzette L., Ph.D., "Reframing Mental Health and Psychological Well-Being Among Persons of African Descent: Africana/Black Psychology Meeting the Challenges of Fractured Social and Cultural Realities,"The Journal of Pan African Studies, (2010, June), vol.3, no.8, p. 70.
(2) Quoted and paraphrased from Myers, Linda James; Montgomery, Derek; Fine, Mark; Reese, Roy, (1992), "Belief Systems Analysis Scale And Belief And Behavior Awareness Scale Development: Measuring An Optimal, Afrocentric World-view, In R. Jones (Ed.), "Handbook Of Tests And Measurements For Black Populations, (2 vols), Hampton, VA: Cobb & Henry Publishers, p. 20
(3) Myers, p. 68.
