‘Never again’ and ‘We shall overcome’, a tale of two behaviors.

In the inaugural issue of the Parkchester Times, I engaged the readership in the first phase of my analysis on how the Jews and Africans have responded to the crucibles of their common past, i.e both the Jewish and African pasts have claimed millions of lives, yet their responses to the historic horrors of the holocaust and slavery inform how the world views and treats these indispensable players in the drama of global affairs. As I continue with this second article in the series, my further analysis arguably contends that the irony ingrained in the responses in question inform a tale of two behaviors.

Africans are still in slavery and they do not know that they are in slavery. Once they know, behaviors are going to change. Yes, the latter statement is agitating but without agitation, there will be no other way to break the social, economic, cultural and political chains that are currently shackling the black race. Harriet Tubman, an American abolitionist and political activist wrote; “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” Therefore, one is only freed after knowing that slavery is still dictating every ounce of behavior in the black communities around the world and thereby making them more susceptible to becoming the handiwork of corporate America or multinational companies. The most occurring part of black behavior is spending time on the plantation or factory floors blossoming the work of the master while paying little or no attention to the developmental affairs of their own families. On the consequence, the black children have become consumers of idiotic behaviors propagated by today’s technological world both online and offline. It is one thing to have a democratic right to do anything but there are consequences to the right to foolishness. The right to foolishness is arguably promoted by the absence of parents whose circumstantial realism puts the work of building family second to massaging the affluent illusions of their masters in corporate America and multinational companies. This irate behavior will never deconstruct the paradigm of dependency that has made blacks to eat the crumbs from the corporate fray.

However, blacks have the resilience and tenacity that can turn the tables of the crucible past down only if they do not give history another chance to make them subhuman again. Eleanor Roosevelt once said; ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent’. And therefore, to this end, if blacks do not rethink their slave-like behavior, they will continue consenting to being the handiwork of the former master. Slavery is over! And many more can be freed if only they know that they are slaves. The ugly discourse about the state of black people around the world is mainly informed by the slave-like behaviors that in turn feed into this complacent, excusable and idle-laden dictum; We shall overcome

To be continued in the next article…

Spencer Chiimbwe is the Doctoral Candidate in the Law and Policy program at the Northeastern University College of Professional Studies. He can be reached at schiimbwe26@gmail.com