Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery

CO-SIGN CO-SIGN Na'Im Akbar's series of essays helps to uncover and delineate the nature and contributing causes of self enslavement experienced by many black Americans in todays social-political setting. Some readers will be surprised by the legacy of enslavement and others will readily recognize the constrainting beliefs and restrictive behavior that get unconsciously passed down to the next generation. The driving emotional trait is one of survival and it inhibits trusting and embracing change and collective support. Unless one intervenes in the domino effect, enslavement continues to plaque the black urban community. It show up in our behaviors and attitudes in learning institutions and carries through many domains, even to how black men disengage in parental responsibilies.

Africa and it's children have had it worse than ANY other race in history, as far as longevity is concerned. Of course they are not the only race, and when you break it all down, at the end of the day, the HUMAN RACE is treated like a scrap of meat by the powers that be, the same powers that knocked down the towers, the same powers that set up the FED then allowed America to go into a great depression, the same powers that have both black, asian, and white youth adicted to a culture of mindless consumption. We are trained to obsess over spin, we are trained to remain a teen mentality until as late as life as possible, we are trained to find a career, get a job, marry, reproduce, raise another consumer/working drone, die. Beyond that we can be ANYTHING we want to be, so long as it conforms to the constraints and limitations of the system... ...that is Empire. I was one of the only "white" people at the Million More March this year, and I've got to say that I felt VERY at home there, and it was hard to leave, but I felt that many had forgetten that the powers that be are after us all! The stereotypical upper-middle class whites and there stereotypical spoiled children have not responded yet simply because they have never experienced things from a repressed point of view, they can't comprehend, just as they can't comprehend how Germany which was supposed to be following the path of Christ, turned into a mass of slayers... ...all the while they blindly vote for one out of 2 slayers every 4 years... Oh the irony. The individual has hope, society is another beast. You can only effect society by changing one individual at a time, just like this book aims to accomplish. P.S. Check out Immortal Technique!

Many researchers write books that just detail past experiences of the African people. The excellent thing about this book is, it just doesn't accomplish that, it shows how all of these colonialization events affected the current living circumstances of the African American. In the book he covers a variety of interesting topics from, the black family, blacks doing anything to be accepted by whites, why the only images that the African American communtiy has are of athletes and entertainers, and the beggining effect, wich is having a diety that has know similarity with your ethnic structure. All beggining readers liberating their mind, white, and black should read this book in an attempt to understand why the things that are happening today, are happening, and what was the root of all these problems.

Dr. Akbar has done a brilliant job of identifying habits in the black community that are literally the result of the residue of slavery. This is a thought provoking book that causes the reader to evaluate their own actions. You may not be as free as you think once you read what Dr. Akbar has to say about the deep psychological damage that has been done to black people over the years. I especially encourage young black males to read this book.