Its all about you. All of this is about YOU.. Lauryn Hill said it best-
"There is a war going on for the territory of the mind"
The point of this war that has been waged against us is to take our individual power over self away.
Who controls your mind???
Does sex control your mind?
Does food control your mind?
Does television control your mind?
We are in a place where everything controls our mind except us.
As black people, we think about freedom often. That is because we are the most oppressed people on the planet. One of the biggest problems that we have is that we want to make this a PHYSICAL freedom movement. We are still trying to combat PHYSICAL chains but this is the least of our worries. The struggle has changed.
In the beginning, the slave owners shackle your body but he is only shackling your body to get to your mind. The quickest way to get to a persons body is through their mind. After a while the slave owner can unshackle the slave because he has cultivated MENTALLY. This has been happening for an extremely long time. Harriet Tubman said,
"If only I could have convinced them that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
If she couldn't convince people with shackles on their wrists and chains on their feet that they were slaves, how can we convince people with diamond bracelets on their wrists and Jordans on thier feet that they are slaves today?
What is controlling our minds? Im glad you asked. I will expound upon other factors in later posts but for this one we will concentrate on MATERIALISM
MATERIALISM IS DESTROYING THE INTELLIGENT MINDS OF BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA
Materialism in Black Women
Before I offend, I don't mean ALL black women are driven by capitalism and materialism. Some black women are stimulated by intelligence books, learning, or driven by other passions like traveling, cooking, or maintaining physical fit, etc.
Black women (including myself at times) place an exponentially high emphasis on MONEY and THINGS. Its as the labels on our purses gives us everlasting life or superhuman powers. This kind of mindset is damaging to your self-esteem, it causes you to gauge your worth according to what you have. We value our men by the make and model of the car they drive and what they can provide for us. Can the clothes on a mans back tell you the intricacies of his soul? Can it tell you his intentions? Is someone being able to buy you all the unnecessary garbage that you want all that matters? Black women need to look WITHIN a man in order to find someone that will educate the future generations of the Black race. Healthy self-esteem is developed when our sense of self-worth is mirrored all around us, like a relationship where the other person is pleased to be with you simply because of what is in your soul and not what you are wearing on your back. Believing that a label on your clothes makes you somebody creates an environment IN YOUR OWN MIND where humanity has no value. But you forced this false reality upon yourself. When money is the most important thing in your life, you will do anything to get it. Many black women will humiliate themselves and pass out sex like Chiclets in order to get their "hair and nails did". There is nothing wrong with wanting nice things but if you judge yourself and you brothers and sisters strictly by what they have, you are betraying your heritage. While you are out there chasing rims and cars like a STRAY DOG, try to remember who you are.
Materialism in Black Men
The coonist minstrel show that is called hip-hop is hollow, it is empty. These rap artists do their best to distract you from their own emptiness with shiny toys. Cars, clothes, jewelry and drugs. They try to distract you from the trash coming out of their mouths by cramming them with cheap laboratory gold. This kind of materialism fuels much of the violence that we suffer in our communities from North to South, East to West. The idea that black lives are worth a few dollars or a car stereo underlies all of the bloody and INEXCUSABLE violence committed by these murderous young men in the name of THUGLIFE is reprehensible. Because black women value on a man based on his possessions, the man in turn places this same value on himself. Men want women, and women want things. Men seem to lack the ambition and energy that it takes to find a low-maintenance woman. Or maybe they are attracted to the glitter, some men are attracted to the new clothes, 3 inch stilettos in every color, colorful acrylic nails, $300 weave, and full face of Mac make-up so many women have. Men know these Barbies value material things based solely on the way they present themselves and they are certainly right to believe that. So men become flashy as well to attract said female and become a flashy, glittery, well-dressed, attractive couple. I am immediately turned off by a man that spends money recklessly.. a nice car with rims does not get my panties wet. Instead of investing his money in his future and the future of his family, he spends every dime on meaningless items that are meant to be seen. To me, there is an inverse relationship between a mans IQ and the amount of money he spends on material things. The emphasis on material success has a limited value. A man that has happiness and fulfillment without obsessing over having things is definitely a man worth having. If your whole purpose and goal in life is to get money.. what happens when you finally get it? You set a new goal to make even more money? Will it ever be enough? No, never... you will never have enough material things to satisfy your fleshly being if that is where you place your value.
So, materialism plays a huge part in the control over your mind. Remember that these shackles are imaginary but stronger than ever. They want your money, and they want to distract you from whats going on around you by by pumping materialism into our culture.
Like I said, this is only one of the factors, over they course of the next few days or weeks, I will expound more on this subject. As always, thank you so much for reading loves.
