I often hear people make the claim that Blacks (African Americans) were better off when they were slaves. I myself have been known to say such things when people piss me off and respond out of ignorance to a posting or article. My reason for making such an argument is if Black Americans are not going to stop living in the past and blaming other for their problems, we will never move forward as a people. To maintain a belief that you are owed something and entitled to things when you are doing nothing to help yourself is absurd. To stay ignorant as a lifestyle choice and have others (the government) take care of you and tell you what to do is exactly what the slaves did, and some continued to do even after they were freed. Now, none of us today are slaves. Chattel slavery was begun in America by the first Europeans. Importation of new slaves was outlawed in 1808, and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1865 declared the slaves in the Confederacy were free (a bit of a stretch because at the time he was not president of the states in which he outlawed slavery). However, person such as my Great Grandmother whose father and grandfather were slaves have a Slavery Mentality because they were raised by slaves and their opinions and beliefs were passed down as such. Today our Black American community suffers from a different “syndrome” and that is called the Entitlement Mentality, which to me has many attributes of the Slavery Mentality, but adds ignorance, laziness, and arrogance to the picture and is much more dangerous. First, what is a Slave Mentality? Moreover, what is an Entitlement Mentality? A slave mentality is when a person (definition is not bound by race): Is one of feeling inferior or of feeling lost without hope, a feeling that we do not have the power to significantly alter our own circumstances. Another sad symptom of having a slave mentality is believing that White people are superior, have all the answers, and are empowered by GOD. Or A person conditioned to quietly, and without objection, accept harmful circumstances for themselves as the natural order of things. They’re also conditioned to accept their master’s view and beliefs, about themselves, and strive to get others, within their group, to accept the master’s view. An Entitlement Mentality is (also not bound by race): A state of mind in which the prevailing mentality of a society is that of entitlement to receive from the government or state what is apparently due to them or owed. This mentality may be held by gainfully employed workers who really do deserve more money/higher salaries etc or the unemployed who feel that it is the state’s responsibility to put bread in their bellies or beer in their empty mugs. In essence, this social disease is born/spawned from an unwillingness to accept personal responsibility for yourself as an individual in all aspects of your life. In today’s society, we as Black Americans have so many more opportunities open to us. We are able to get an education, we are able to get good jobs, and we are able to live freely doing what we want to do in life if you’re willing to do what needs to be done to get there. To say there is racism today isn’t really a topic that I myself like to focus on because I’ve only felt it from my fellow Black Americans. I have never been called a nigger from a white person yet I have been called an Nigga because of my political views, Now I ask you, who are the racists?????
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 22:56:02 +0000
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