The Graduates

News clip after news clip, police arrest after police arrest — all telling of negative conditions surrounding black youths. Are black youth in trouble in America? What is to become of them? These questions warrant tough answers. As a black youth, I do believe we have a fighting chance to realize our full potential as contributing men and women of value to present and future society.

The larger question is whether we, the society as a whole, will come to realize why black youths tend to think and act the way they do. In order to manifest the “fighting chance” I speak of, we must arrive at the root of the problem.

It should not be a mystery that slavery severely damaged the psychological oneness of the Afrikan-American. No other people in history have more fully experienced the harshest form of slavery, the most violently insane and most wretched holocaust ever committed upon one group of people by another. Today, oppression continues to bear witness to the heinous acts of slave traders, slave holders, and slave masters whose barbaric antics caused the murders of more than 600 million Afrikans.

There can never be a finite or detailed summation of the effects of slavery upon the Afrikan psyche because much of the innumerable damage remains locked in the inner confines of the Afrikan mind and spirit. Yet, we must consider the psychological dysfunctions and sociological violations caused by slavery because they are at the root of the challenges to black youth.

To begin with, this “peculiar” institution created seemingly irreversible disorder and disunity in our once traditional “kin-based” societies. As described by Dr. Dona Marimba Richards in Let the Circle Be Unbroken (Richards, 1980), slavery ripped families apart and distributed relatives according to the selfish and materialistic needs of slave masters. Attempts by enslaved Afrikans to pass on meaningful values and customs to their offspring were effectively and brutally disassembled if detected. By destroying ancient communal structures, ancestral contacts, and family and friendship ties, slavery not only demolished our love of self but further decapitated the Afrikan belief in a spiritually ordered Universe expressed here by a 1960s griot:

I came into being from unformed matter, as Khepera, I

grew in the form of plants, I am

hidden in the Tortoise,

I am of the atoms of God every . . . I have come, I am

crowned, I am glorious, I am mighty . . . I am strong among the gods.

I am Khensu repulsing all.

Though a major part of our pain was physical, most of our suffering has been psychological, stemming from an utter and deep hatred of Self. One form of the reinforcement of this self hate has been and is the role of playing societal clowns. Narrating Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed, a video documentary, Dr. Bill Cosby asserts that Hollywood added to our plight by depicting blacks in films as “lazy, stupid, or afraid of everything, with their eyes popping out of their sockets, and always stealing and shooting a game of craps.”

Using the disguises of slick-talking vibes, feeblemindedness, and subtle racial jokes, many (though not all) black comedians have perpetrated mental slavery. Just as a joker or court jester entertains his king with laughter to avoid anger from him, the miseducated comedian grins, pats his head, and rubs his stomach to please the HOIC (Head Oppressor In Charge).

Even today, as black comedians make jokes about prejudice and injustices, they are essentially unable to resolve the dilemma because their work and its airing is at the mercy of a corporate America that continues to bathe in and prosper from our downfalls.

We use laughter and “ho-hopping” antics to disguise the truth of how we feel and as substitutes for a true and justifiable anger. We fall victim to the stereotypes and to weak and slave-like forms of expression. With our backsides out, our breasts exposed, our genitals held, and our sparkling teeth showing, comedy is used to cloud a true expression of self-worth. These comical forms of human humiliation continue to damage the psyche of Afrikan Americans, creating a sense of inferiority and disrespect for social morals and damaging the possibility of fostering a positive mind in today’s youth.

Out of the turbulent history, “mysterious trees” (black parents) have brought forth “bitter fruit” (black children) mutated by environmental stress, psychological fear, and dietary abuse. In 1978 writer Haki Madhubuti described how, as conditions deepened and darkened, so did consequences for the ex-slave:

We, black people, continue to die like roaches underfoot in white sugar traps. This is a new death and unlike the obvious death, attacks the control center of one’s body, the brain. . . . This is the ultimate deed, to kill the Black people, if not bodily, most certainly mentally and to do it as painlessly and antiseptically as possible so as not to interrupt the blank faces on the six o’clock news.

 

Now, in the 1990s, Afrikan-American youth face a mental and spiritual dilemma. In provoked frustration and blind envy, we commit acts of violence and crime. We attack our own because we hate ourselves for not living up to values established by others. Between our birth and early death, we are not being properly taught to deal with those who seek to manipulate our desires emotionally. Too many times, Afrikan-American families pacify their children by catering to their material desires. Too often, everyone, including our strong grandmother figures, fail to enable us to purposefully choose right over wrong. When not quenched early, this material urge proliferates into a “narcotic” mental fit.

Today’s black youth are locked into a web of paradoxes. We are encouraged to be strong, to endure, to stand up. Yet we are also encouraged to retreat for our very lives if our enemy ambushes. We have become the object of scorn and false propaganda calculated to identify, isolate, and annihilate us. Each of us possesses within ourselves forces so powerfully positive if but used for the righteous benefits of ourselves and others. We also possess forces so demonically destructive if manipulated on the basis of naked emotions.

We have the minds of gods,

the bodies of

warriors and the passion of exploding nuclear bombs.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is a torchlight at the end of the tunnel of despair, a secret escape plan, so to speak. Despite a 400-plus year and a 9,000-mile separation from the Afrikan continent, Afrikans in America have maintained cultural and spiritual ties with Afrika, or as some explain, a retention of the Afrikan Spirit, nyama nommo.

Evidence of retention can be found in the remnants of Afrikan traditions heard, seen, and felt in the conscious and improvised music, drama, and dance of black America. We, the youth, as much and perhaps more than any Afrikan-American generation, reflect these traditions. They can be heard in the deep, hard bass line and hypnotic rhythms in our music. The rapid hip-jerking and gyrating movements of our contemporary hip-hop dances echo Afrikan ritual dances. In our rap music and “street” poetry, we improvise with new words. We compensate for the lack of spiritual, poetic, and emotional substance in the English language and deepen the meaning and expression of our songs to match our needs.

The bold and aggressive attitude of Afrikan American youth today shows the retention of the Afrikan spirit and culture. As generations of Afrikan-Americans have drawn upon it for survival, we also draw upon it for strength. If properly utilized and applied, it can represent the secret escape plan for us, the youth, to redirect our plight.

My intent is to fuel interest in the plight of black youths. Though we are passed off as ignorant, criminal, and “invisible,” society cannot continue to curse the fruit and ignore the tree from which it came. We must look to the root of the problem. We, black youth, must realize that we are what we take into our bodies and minds. We must be permitted our “fighting chance” and we must be prepared to seize our opportunities, to seize them with the minds of gods, in the Spirit of nyama nommo, and in the name of Almighty God.

 

“My Age Was No Handicap . . .”

By Jo Dale Mistilis

Jo Dale Mistilis writes a weekly column for The Oxford Eagle in Oxford, Mississippi, and contributes to other magazines as a freelancer.

 

Ida Bland always wished for a high school diploma. Now 82 and known by family and friends as Granny, she earned her Graduate Equivalent Diploma just last year.

Born the 10th of 11 children, she dropped out of high school in her junior year. “Back then,” she recalls, “education didn’t seem so important for girls. Getting this diploma was something I thought about several times a week for 66 years.”

For three months Bland attended classes and studied for her GED. “I enjoyed every minute of it, and I probably learned a great deal that I wouldn’t have learned in an ordinary classroom situation. My age was no handicap, and the other students were a joy.” Her daughter and son-in-law, Ellen and Jack Ferrell, encouraged and helped her, and her teacher, Beverly Dannahy, “was so supportive and inspiring.”

She now wants to be an advocate for the GED, advising high school dropouts to “go to classes for the GED, study hard, and get that diploma. It will increase your self-confidence and have a positive impact on your life.”

Earning a GED is unusual for someone her age, but Bland has never been exactly like everyone else. As a child she felt different from her siblings. “This was a time when fair skin was in vogue here in the South, and women wore gloves and hats to protect themselves from the sun. I had naturally dark skin, so I thought I was ugly. My brothers and sisters were good at hoeing cotton, but I wasn’t. So I knew I had to make my mark at something else.”

Bland did make her mark — as a professional seamstress. She created patterns from pictures in the Sears catalog and measurements of her customers. In her hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, she is now well-known as the co-owner of The Fabric Center, which she and daughter Ellen opened 29 years ago on the town square.

Starting the business, she says, made her nervous and apprehensive. “My husband wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about me borrowing money. When I went to the bank for a loan, I was told that a fabric store would never be successful here. All the business experts discouraged me, but I borrowed the money anyway and opened the store. From the beginning the store has thrived. Sewing and running the store never seemed like a real job to me. It was more like playing and having fun.”

Eight years ago, The Fabric Center moved to a larger building and increased inventory. When the staff isn’t busy selling sewing supplies, they make costumes for the University of Mississippi theater department, special clothes for sororities and fraternities, pageant dresses, wedding dresses, and clothing for people in the area.

“The store is where my heart is,” Bland says, “so I still try to visit there a few hours every day. The customers became my friends, and I really enjoy seeing them.”

Bland remembers learning to sew when she was small and sitting on a wooden box making doll clothes. “For as long as I can remember I’ve been a perfectionist, thinking no one else could do it right.”

She now sews for her 10 great-grandchildren, making everything from tiny pageant dresses to machine washable quilts. At Christmas time, she made 250 elegant beaded icicles.

Last October, Bland and her husband John, a retired farmer, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Their formula for a long and happy marriage: “Well,” Bland says, “both of us are Christians who try to live as God wants us to live, and church is a significant part of our lives. We both had caring families who got along well with their in-laws, and that certainly helped. And John has been the most wonderful husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.”

When she was in her 70s, Bland began painting lessons and still paints occasionally in oils. Recently she took up china painting. Health problems never slowed Bland, who remains cheerful and maintains her quest for knowledge. “I’m determined to learn something new every day,” she says.