At this stage in my life I have come to a crossroads. I can no longer continue through life just merely existing day to day, picking corporate cotton, being satisfied with the mundane and the average trinkets society offers me in exchange for the silence of my spirit. I can no longer ignore the directives sent out from my soul to make substantial and real difference in the world. It is for this reason, I have decided to pursue within the unyielding diligence, my dreams. What is my objective you ask? To help educate and enlighten my people and to assist in raising the consciousness and self esteem of black people so that we might unite and demand equality in housing, education, health care, and the justice system.
My experience - 40 years of being black in a society where racism and injustice are no longer overt, but stealth and institutionalized.
My qualifications - my divinely inspired creativity and drive that demand that my talents be exploited for the betterment of conditions for my people.
My references - Every African man woman and child that survived the middle passage to become enslaved and have their freedom, spirits, and individuality robbed from them, every soul that shed their blood so that I might fulfill their dream, and every black child that faces growing up in an environment where he or she is not taught to honor his heritage and culture, but to believe him or herself to be the lazy, ignorant, criminal animal society has deemed him or her to be.
I believe that one of the most important issues facing the black community today are the vestiges of slavery’s bonds that have created hatred that has run rampant in our veins; it threatens are very existence worse than any bullet, virus, or disease could ever threaten our bodies.
Misogyny, appalling levels of crime, drug use, and the “causalization” of sex, complacency within a racist system, the obscene illiteracy and teen pregnancy rates, the disdain for education and glorification of the ghetto lifestyle, emotionally immature men and women willing to exchange their bodies for money, ALL stem from an inability to love oneself.
This self hatred has created millions of fatherless children, legions of black women who put more value into the roundness of their behinds and the length of their fingernails than in educating themselves and innumerous black men slaughtered in the streets before they’re able to reach their full potential or wasting away in prisons, victims of a mindset that tells them to be a black man is to be a criminal.
I see my people suffocating in materialism for clothes, cars, and money, never seeking to lift up their spirits, connect with their divine source, or shed the chains that Massa placed on our necks.
This same self-hatred has all but erased the mentality of “There but for the grace of God go I” in the minds and hearts of the black middle and upper class. No longer do we look to lift up our less advantaged brothers and our sisters, we take pride in tearing them down to raise ourselves up on an imagine pedestal of superiority.
Collectively we as a people are in a struggle
A struggle with the horror of oppression, injustice and inequality, we struggle like beasts of burden heavy-laden with discrimination, degradation, and disdain.
At the very core of my being is the desire to bridge the gap between those who accept with pride and grace their history and greatness, and those who never knew it. I am the child of civil rights leaders, I learned to walk with freedom and equality as my goals, and I was weaned on theories of nonviolence and social reform.
I grew up hearing the stories of the battles my family waged against Jim Crow, the Klan, and for the right to be treated as equals. I learned at a very early age, that to whom much is given, much is expected. I was given a mastery of the written word, an artistic vision, and a well of creativity that never runs dry.
It is for this reason I must work with due diligence to
Create Social Change
Educate and Enlighten
Break the Chains of Mental Slavery
And Lift the consciousness of African Americans
Sincerely,
Scottie Lowe
No comments:
Post a Comment