One of the biggest challenges we face as black people is the disconnect we have from our true history.
The easiest way to divide a people is to disrupt or break the family structure and once this is done you can teach them whatever you want. We have been programmed to believe that our history starts after slavery and is mostly driven from North American heroes. When I was growing up I was taught in school a few things about black people.
We were slaves and got brought to America, Europe or maybe one of the islands
Martin Luther King stood up against racial injustice
Rosa Parks also stood up against racial injustice
That was pretty much it, so for me as a child in school basically started off by feeling inferior to white children, because they were being told that their history was full of heroes that fought in wars, built countries, invented things. How can you expect a child to not feel insecure if you are telling them that they are less than someone else, and this is in fact what the system is built to do.
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and many many others are and always will be great heroes for black people. They fought against racial injustice for years and stood up against a system that was built to make us feel inferior. This is not in anyway to take anything from that, the purpose of this blog is to point out that we were Kings, We are Kings and we will continue to be Kings.
You see the most impactful thing that has happened is that many of us do not know our actual history, and part of that is because after slavery we were separated, North America, Europe, the Islands and that in itself made us start creating a history from the place we ended up in. It makes sense you are from Trinidad you believe your history starts in Trinidad, you are from the US you believe your history starts in the US and we are educated as such.
Why would someone that enslaved you educate you on the greatness that you are, that wouldn't make any sense.
Did you know:
In 960 B.C., the nation that is now called Ethiopia came back upon the center of the stage of history. Ethiopia was then represented by a queen, who in some books is referred to as “Makeda” or “Belkis.” She is better known to the world as the queen of Sheba. This queen is said to have reigned over Sheba and Arabia as well as Ethiopia. The queen of Sheba’s capital was Debra Makeda, which she built for herself. The story of the queen of Sheba is deeply cherished in Ethiopia, as part of the national heritage. This African queen is mentioned in two holy books, the Bible and the Quran.
Or that
King Hannibal is said to be the greatest military leader and strategist of all time. Hannibal was born in 247 B.C., during the beginning of the decline of Carthage, then a maritime power near present-day Tunis in North Africa. When he was very young, about 8 or 9, Hannibal accompanied his father Hamilclar in a battle against the Romans. Seventeen years later in 221 B.C., he succeeded his brother-in-law Hasdrubal, and became supreme commander of the peninsula.
Our Schools, Hollywood, and the system is obsessed with showcasing black people as slaves, even know there is so much beautiful world history. If King Hannibal was white Hollywood, would have already made a block buster movie about him, but he isn't so what we continue to push in our children's heads is this view that we have come from nothing and that if there is to be a movie or education it needs to be about slavery or some sort of oppression.
If you do not think that this is not done on purpose or that this is not something that mentally impacts black children you are very much mistaken. Research and education is key, if we want to continue to make progress we need to ensure that we are telling our children that they come from the blood of Kings and Queens not slaves.