Saving Ourselves Blog

A Step 2 post, Free Ourselves from Mental Slavery

World Afro Day*…Really?

I found out that some well-meaning person or organization declared September 17^th  “World Afro Day”*.  Really, did we need that? Apparently so.  When sexism, racism, capitalism and preoccupation with external appearances converge, we get “World Afro Day.”  To the millions who have been sporting their natural hair all along, who have fearlessly and unapologetically resisted pressure to assimilate, to conform to someone else’s ideal of beauty, I say, “Strut on with your bad self!” 

But let’s dissect this matter a bit more.

 The topic of hair for Black women is fraught with emotion, anxiety and sometimes even shame.  Or so I was reminded in the article that brought this observance to my awareness.  A large number of us have been miseducated, indoctrinated and coerced into believing that we are not feminine, professional or desirable unless we look like the majority culture’s vision of female beauty.  If our hair is naturally curly, kinky, or sparce, we will not win in this world unless we wear a weave or hairpiece or wig or whatever other artificial hair accoutrement mainstream Western culture dictates.  We cannot relax and just be.  We cannot just wake up,  wash up, our brush our heads and go.  We must DO SOMETHING with our hair before we can leave the house.  We cannot swim or sweat too much.  We cannot be intimate with abandon or enjoy playful physicality with our partners.  That might upset our coif.  We cannot go through life mostly unaware of our hair, just relaxing and living and engaging with the world in an unselfconscious fashion.  We must always carry the weight of self-awareness, go outside our nature and spend money we do not have to look like we were never meant to look.

 So, when did this Law take effect?  And what happens if we all break it at once, not just on World Afro Day, but all year long?   All of us, everyone!  Take the plunge!  Literally, let’s just go under, fully submerge for a while and come up ready to be ourselves.  If we all did this at once, would all our men leave?  All our bosses fire us?  Our friends and family disown us? Will we hate looking in the mirror?

Or, maybe we would slowly rid ourselves of people and perceptions that oppress and devalue us.  Maybe we might just relax and have time and energy and money to focus on more meaningful endeavors. Maybe we would begin to feel more carefree and unburdened, creative and strong, resilient and sassy.  Maybe we would just love ourselves, our natural selves.  And our daughters and sons will love themselves.  And in time, maybe the laws of Black Hair Oppression/Black ‘hairpression’ will become null and void and we, with a bow to our forgiving and humorous nature, will  consider designating a ‘World Weave Day’.

*https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/gallery/natural-hair-movement-what-happened.  

Control How Much We Consume…Remember, They’re Trying to Kill Us

In our search for wellbeing, balance and joy we must remain discerning.  We all want beauty and levity, feel-good entertainment and Lord knows we need to laugh.  There is so much to consume and if it’s ‘trash’ you want, it is unlimited and easily accessible.  We all love a little trash now and then.  Nothing soothes the frayed edges of our psyche like mindless content on social media or cable television.  I confess to watching more than enough on HGTV, even stuff I know took no time or talent to produce.  Pure trash!  But after watching too much news, it allows me to sleep better, and so I rationalize it.  I bet you can relate.

What we must all be mindful of is that in our search for relaxation and entertainment, we can be manipulated.  Advertisers take advantage of our vulnerable states: our fatigue, our loneliness, our thirst for entertainment and our desperate unconscious search for meaning in a world filled with frustrations and catastrophes. Subliminal messages and sometime shameless promotion in the media lead us to eat unhealthy foods, drink alcohol to excess, or to engage in unhealthy, unsafe personal behaviors.  Look at the commercials, analyze them.  If you’ve never done this, you will be amazed at how few ads encourage moderation in lifestyle, or encourage altruism and kindness.  In recent years there are inspiring public service announcements.  But the majority of commercial ads and reality television promote living to excess, going to extremes:  buying, eating and buying some more.  More, more, more.  It’s all about me and what I have or can get, and by any means necessary.

If  you stop to consider, who benefits from us spending more, eating more, drinking more, buying more, frantically competing with each other to have more things, more, more, more, more?  Who benefits from our spending money we work hard to earn, or even money we don’t actually have?

So, when you watch too much reality TV or indulge in too much mindless social media ‘trash’, all  sponsored by Them, remember,  “they are trying to kill us”.  They ‘kill us’ by stealing our time for self-development, depleting our economic power, reducing our quality time with our children and loved ones, and by filling our minds with a value system that does not enrich our communities.  The entertaining ‘trash’ is not serving our needs.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t indulge in TV or social media from time to time, but we must control it and not allow it to control us.  Be aware.  Be discerning. Pay attention to what we are being fed, and control how much of it we let in our lives. 

Practice setting a time limit in advance and sticking to it.  Say to yourself, “Powerful Mind, I want you to be productive and self-determining.  You get 30 minutes (or whatever you feel is reasonable) of this nonsense and then we get back to Freedom Fighting.”

You will be amazed at how empowering it is to enjoy popular entertainment on your own terms for a few minutes, and then hear the click and feel the surge of power when you press “Power Off”.

Been Too Busy to Write…Just want to thank the Young’uns!

The infrequency of these posts would lead one to think there is not much to say on the topic of Saving Ourselves.  Of course, it’s quite the contrary.  There is just too much to say, too much to do, so many ways to be constructively engaged, that writing about our situation seems secondary; an academic exercise that we don’t really have time for.  And so months go by.

In 2022, I have been sustained by watching the valiant efforts of so many African American journalists, community activists, politicians and others who are waging war on our behalf.  I am so proud and so very inspired by the young’uns who are really stepping up to promote what is in the interest of all people: truth, justice, fairness, honesty, accountability and so forth.  They are fighting against the Big Lie, against a system that would have us feel we are imagining our persecution, the violence, the inequalities and the absent opportunities.  I am so grateful to your youthful energy, brilliance and passion!  I am so very proud of you:  Joy Reid, Elie Mystal, Stacey Adams, Fani Willis…

God bless you all!