The Spiritual Ramifications of Systematic Oppression June 2, 2020
The entire world has cried out over the chaos that is the United States of America. The daily road bumps of systematic oppression have exploded lately, and people have had enough. One thing that is not mentioned a lot is the damage that is accrued on the other side.
Let’s start with the West Coast of Africa. This is where hurricanes are created. The Atlantic Ocean then serves as the catalyst and next thing you know, islands and a large part of the US are facing a natural disaster. Many people will say that it is no coincidence that this natural occurrence follows the same steps as the Atlantic slave trade. How very interesting. It’s as if an entire continent serves a permanent reminder of what was stolen from her.
Plantations. The atrocities that took place in such an environment are too many to list. Rape and violent beatings are simply a few. We are still discovering some of the explicit suffering that our ancestors endured. Slaves often died at the hands of tyrannical slave masters that cared only about the free labor. What ever happened to the suffering of those spirits? Did they receive a proper burial? Was prayer even allowed? How many became earth bound?
Let us move into the era of Jim Crow. Blazing crosses. Rampant lynchings. Bombings. Racial violence. Fire hoses. Attack dogs. Crying black mothers. Grieving families. Broken communities. All of that pain and suffering did not just vanish with the death of our people.
It could very well be that we are seeing those same spirits come back in the lives of Eric, Breonna, Have you seen the meme of Emmett Till next to Trayvon Martin? Does that not send a chill down your spine? Right now, is George Floyd standing over his deceased body confused? Have the candlelight vigils earth bounded him?
I keep waking up at 3am. Night after night. I’ve had to do several floor washes and probably need a rogacion. Others within our various faiths have similar complaints. We are convinced that the ancestors are quite present. If we can’t effect change now with so many upset people coming together, then we can’t do it.
There is an entire society of black mothers that have lost their children to racial violence. Is that sorrow going to become inter generational trauma? What are we doing as a collective to prevent that from showing up again in a few decades if not the next generation?
At the very least, all of us can agree that we have a very important role to play. There are some of us on the front lines protesting and going to jail because of it. I have seen lawyers offering free legal representation and chefs cooking to make sure that everyone is fed as they fight the power. New aspects of my role have taken shape in a short period of time which I feel the need to pursue.
Imagine that all of this took place in the middle of a pandemic and as hurricane season began. By the same token, imagine that this did not take place in the middle of a pandemic and as hurricane season began. It would have been yet another name on a very long list of a lot of black people that have died for nothing other than the color of their skin.