My Thoughts on the Question “Where Do We Go From Here?”
By Deborah M. Cofer (AKA Mama C)
Let’s begin with a brief reality check. For far too long we the descendants of African people, who were enslaved and brought to America in chains and cruelly cast into a life of misery, suffering, lack, longing, and total submission to the White dictates and way of life… no human being should ever have to endure, have finally had enough. The continued hatred, inequality, White privilege, and inhumane treatment has left African people, since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, continuously clawing, crawling, and crying our way through years of emotional and physical abuse, unyielding doubt, and the fear of imminent danger and even death. Now… in 2020 we are determined to grow completely out of the bowels of injustice’s grip and inhumanity’s degrading and debilitating agenda. We now choose to stand strong and united in our conviction and determination to live our lives with a sense of empowerment that supports and enhances life as we desire and deserve to live it.
As of May 25, 2020, which marks the senseless and inhumane killing of George Floyd we, Black, White, Red, and Yellow, alike… who value humanity and consciously choose to live by its’ terms of equality and justice for all, declare the price we have all paid and tolerated, for far too long, is too high a price to continue paying. We will no longer continue to live with fear guiding our every step, injustice pressing on our necks, and discrimination that continues to feed and breed inequality and inhumanity. And we will no longer live beneath those invisible psychological glass ceilings that block our ability to rise and soar to new heights of amazing and awesome. White America… you can have your “glass ceilings,” we choose life!
We will no longer allow racism that has formed the foundation upon which we have struggled to live and passive forgiveness that enables our oppressors, without accountability, to continue their acts of inhumanity to be the game plan by which we are forced to bore our way through and into the quality of life every human being deserves. The fear of not being accepted or allowed to live our “best lives” and the passive forgiveness of those who feed our fears with more fears cannot and must not continue. We will no longer sit idly by and quietly accept the injustices we have endured since 1619. We will no longer continue to passively submit to “turning the other cheek” while praying and hoping things will suddenly and miraculously change for the better. Nor will we continue to collectively sing “We shall overcome” as we, one-by-one, succumb to the growing inhumanity of the White supremist mentality. There is 400 years of, in-your-face history, that proves that passive inaction and negative mental conditioning does not and will not support the positive growth of human life, humanity as a whole or a country that has been built on the bloodshed and bullying of any people.
Continuing to remain silent while we and our loved ones are inhumanely slaughtered like animals and denied basic human rights is not just a strike against humanity, it is a violation of human life that stagnates and stops positive individual and inclusive growth for all members of the human family. We have already peacefully walked our way through the Civil Rights Movement, participated in Boycotts in an effort to achieve equal rights, rode along with our parents in the Freedom Rides through the perilous South in pursuit of justice and liberty during the 1960s, talked freedom, justice, and equality till we are blue in the face and have cried till we can cry no more!
The time has long been overdue for us to develop and implement a feasible action plan that enables us to manifest permanent positive change for the better. And that “better” must begin with the deprogramming from destructive psychological conditioning that supports the negative outcomes we, White and Black, alike have been eXperiencing and laboring under for hundreds of years. This plan is where, those of us who have now had enough of the talking, walking, crying, shucking, jiving and procrastinating, believe is our next steps in the evolution and enhancement of Black people in America. As displaced members of the African race, we have already engaged in all of the aforementioned strategies. And of those, boycotting proved to be the most effective. It is not our desire to bankrupt America… but if this is the only way to gain the equality we deserve, so be it! However, a restructuring of our beliefs and behaviors would be a lot less painful for everyone.
It’s now time to incorporate the process of positive self-transformation, personal responsibility and collective action beginning with the development and implementation of mental health programs designed and implemented to deprogram our minds and beliefs from centuries of conditioned stinkin’ thinkin’ to logical and intelligent thinking. This step will, with practice and time, begin to produce rational, realistic, responsible and rewarding outcomes that, in turn, will support positive and powerful change as well as monumental growth for every American regardless of color, culture, creed or credentials.
As we work to grow forward, united in our convictions to transform our mindset, lives and our country into the “land of the free and home of the brave,” it has for years falsely promoted, we must also be cautious not to allow ourselves to fall into the trap of flipping the script on our oppressors… or we will only end up manifesting outcomes that, one day, will once again work to our disadvantage. History bears witness that repeating dysfunctional behaviors of the past will only produce a recycling of mundane thinking and inhumane behaviors that support violent outcomes rather than lives that are filled with victorious rewards. We must no longer be willing to repeat old, destructive cycles of history.
Ultimately, the caliber of change we need must begin with each of us consciously choosing and committing to becoming better human beings and members of the human family. If we all took personal responsibility for making this change, the change we seek and need would become not just an American victory, but eventually a global phenomenon. When every member of the human family begins to live authentic, peaceful, happy, creative, productive, and financially stable lives we will be able to manifest magical moments that produce awe-inspiring outcomes for ourselves and each other. These essential changes would enable us all to stand strong, unified, and satisfied once equality and true humanity eXists for every man, woman, and child. Until then, and only then, will we be able to proudly call the human family the most advanced and intelligent species on the planet… rather than remaining nothing more than a bunch of cut-throat, dog-eat-dog, back-stabbing capitalistic animals.
