Liberation Of A Legacy

Should anyone ever be called a slave?

I understand that people have been enslaved by other people, but there is a vast difference between being a slave and being enslaved. There is a real difference between being a smoker and being a cigarette.

I will need a volunteer to fully illustrate my point....You. Yes. You there, eating oatmeal and scratching yourself, you'll do...

If you would be so kind, please follow the simple rules below:


1. Paint yourself green

2. Jump up and down

3.Go live in a lily pond (with your entire family)

4. Only eat flies

5. Only say "Ribbit"


If this list seems difficult, don't worry, there will be "assistants" to help you every step of the way. If you don't paint yourself green fast enough, you will be whipped. If you don't jump up and down often enough, you will be whipped. If you try to leave the lily pond, you will be beaten within an inch of your life, raped, and then whipped ( not necessarily in that order). If you try to eat something other than a fly, one or more members of your family will be moved to another lily pond (or sent to live in a pet shop).

Most importantly, should you dare to utter ANYTHING other than "Ribbit", your tongue will be cut out.

After the first week an assistant will ask you "Are you a frog?"

You will say "No."

You will then be immediately punished for breaking the 5th rule. Remember, from now on you are only allowed to say "Ribbit." Weeks will pass, then months.


After 365 days in the lily pond you will again be asked "Are you a frog?"

You will say "Ribbit."

The assistant will smile and agree " Yes...Good frog."


You will go on to live out the the rest of your life in the lily pond. Your descendants will continue to live there for 400 years....

Now I ask you, were you ever truly an amphibian? Are your children now, the descendants of frogs?


I assert that it is as impossible to make a human being a frog as it is to make one a slave.

All living beings are sovreign. I maintain that regardless of how brutally any group may have tried to dehumanize another, not once has any group ever achieved this misguided goal. No matter how many people call a man a slave, whether or not he was born into the circumstance of captivity, his fundamental humanity and sovreignty remain unchanged. He has always been a man even if he, himself, was forced to forget it .

A basic premise of both math and philosophy is that A=A. Identity is also defined as sameness, or an unchanging characteristic. How can the variable nature of circumstance define the constant of identity? If we look beyond the way we are percieved by others in society, beyond the way that we perceive ourselves, there is a far more enduring reality, one that is beyond words, and mere human perception.

Trees for example, existed before human beings called them trees. Even within our species we have countless languages with many different words and sounds describing the same thing. But the identity of a tree does not change because it is called an "arbol" in Spanish. After humans cease to call trees anything, these organisms will continue to exist in the vast universe with the same identity they have always had, one that has always been beyond verbal expression and unknown to humankind. A human-centric perspective tells us that because we name it, we know it. This perspective is tragically false.

The word slave is an outdated remnant of a collective delusion. The continued use of the term "slave" fails to acknowledge the humanity of the enslaved. The terms "slave owner" and "slave trade" are also entirely deluded. Obviously "trade" and "owner" are words to be used in regard to things and not people. These terms ,although still used at the "highest" levels of academia around the world, describe a widely accepted myth and not, by any means, a fact. That myth being that one human can actually own another.

The eyesight of all humanity cannot impair the vision of a single star. The whole world accepting something as fact is not enough to make it true, if it was, we would all live on a planet as flat as it was once believed to be by its inhabitants.

Those who kidnapped, raped,tortured and murdered so many for profit are often referred to as colonists, masters, traders, and owners. They did not have the power to withdraw and/or distribute the humanity of another being. By continuing to accept their subjective,ego-maniacal perception as unalterable fact, we also accept their self-proclaimed authority over our ancestors and over our ability to be a self-determined people in the present day.

Without an accurate depiction of their origin, future generations of Africans, like so many before them, will continue to be psychologically bound by a false and debilitating legacy. A legacy that inhibits the development of an empowered cultural identity and stifles the overall development of those who would rely on that culture to develop a healthy sense of self.

What is the difference between being enslaved and being a slave? Enslavement is a circumstance, an experience that can come to an end. The identity of "slave" perpetuates the circumstance of enslavement as it designates a being as inherently inferior and therefore indefinitely deserving of inferior treatment, both at the hands of oneself and at the hands of others.

The acceptance of an identity formulated by one's oppressor is spiritual suicide. Many who have taken a stand for freedom in the face of certain death did so because they would rather die than be defined by those who would dishonor them.


If we do not regard our ancestors as human beings, if we do not speak of them, in this time, with the basic respect commonly given to all humankind,the basic respect that so many of them were denied as they walked the Earth, then we and our descendants will continue to be held by chains that are as restricting as they are invisible.

To call someone a slave is to psychologically attack their humanity. We continue the attack when we continue to use the term to describe our fellow human beings, be they in the past, the present or the future.





************************
Acknowledgements: This work is dedicated to the characteristic of the universe Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance ( Zhen-Shan-Ren), to all my ancestors known to me and unknown to me , to all of my family and friends known to me and unknown to me, to my descendants known to me and unknown to me, to my father Jethro Walker, to my brother John, for allowing me the luxury of uninterrupted time and a place to write, to my fellow builders, Mom, James, Elizabeth, Sarah, Jessica (everyone and anyone else who engaged me in dialogue around this subject) ,to Femi for giving my internal dialogue momentum and to Ally for refusing to surrender.