We Never Escaped Slavery (Amos Wilson) We never escaped slavery. We still share the slave consciousness of our great-great grandparents. We are of the same mind to a great extent that they were. We have not advanced beyond these people. How can I say that? I generally ask a series of questions. You say that slavery has nothing to do with you, and slavery was back there, and I ask you the question then: What language do you speak? When did you learn that language? Was that the language African people were speaking when we were taken into slavery in America. In other words, the language we speak at this moment is what? A slave language. The language that our slave ancestors were forced to learn. So we have not escaped slavery because we are still using a slave language, and we speak the language of slaves. What kind of food do you eat? You say soul food? Was that the food of African people? Slave food. The food that we find most satisfying, the food that we find that sticks to our ribs, the food that we call down home are food that we learned to eat in the quarters, and yet we dare say that we have escape slavery; that we had nothing to do with those people back there; that that was back there, when our whole very social life and social relationships, our very definition of ourselves as a people, our very attempt to commune with ourselves is mediated by the food of slaves. How can you say you that you exist in a different consciousness from another people? What kind of uniforms are we wearing? What kind of clothes are we wearing? Are these the clothes of African people? What kind of names do we respond to? Yes. What kind of names do we identify with? Why is it that African names sound strange to us now as a people? And yet we dare say that we have a different consciousness from our great slave grandparents. How can we say that? We are still in the same consciousness. And we are still in the same position because we are still servants of the white man, and our reason of being in America is to serve white folk and to generate wealth for them, and there has been no change in terms of our relationship to these people. And then I ask you the question: What kind God do you worship? What’s the name of him? Who taught you to praise him? Is this the God you were praying to before you were brought to these shores? Is this the religion you had before you were brought to these shores? Can you name one African God? How can you then who define yourself, the very essence of yourself, and the very essence of your soul, and organize the every nature of your life here on earth based on a God handed to us by our slave masters, claim that you have no slave consciousness?” Dr. Amos N. Wilson
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 07:54:38 +0000
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