The Human Psyche

   Since the age of thirteen I have been fascinated with psychology and sociology. As a result, my senior year in high school I took a psychology class. One day in class the teacher asked me if I think people are products of their environments. After answering his question yes, a young lady in the class yelled out, “no, we are what we chose to be regardless of where we grow up”. What she did not realize is that we are a sum total of our life experiences and we rationalize life based on our experiences. It is ones environment that teaches them how to respond to the occurrences they face in life. Many children believe when they grow up they will be nothing like their parents, only to find as adults that they are just like them. We are all products of our family units and the environments in which we dwell. Humans decide to either embraces or disassociate with something based on their perception of that things. Information is gathered from what we see or hear from others. When information is internalized an option is formed accordingly. Once a person identifies them selves with an idea or group of people they adjust their diction, manners, and costume accordingly. I say costume because we are identified according to the way we present ourselves. It is important to note that, unless you design your own clothing you are only wearing some one else’s vision of you. There are those who attempt to live outside of conventional society. In an effort to escape life in the herd some people try to disassociate themselves with the social structure, not realizing that in so doing they have only joined a social sub-group. Even the unstructured sub-groups have rules on how not to follow the rules. The truth is no one on the planet is unique. Every thought you have some one else has thought. The appearance of being different from every one else is an illusion. Once you analyze your self and those around you, you find that it is the human ego that deceives us. One’s ego can help them acquire all of their goals, or destroy every thing they touch. Left unchecked the ego is mankind’s most destructive weapon. A person’s ego can give them the straight to cure diseases or run for Head of State. On the other hand ones ego can also lead them to ravish and annihilate a whole country. Martin L. King Jr, John F. Kennedy, and Mohandas Gandhi were all exceptional people. What made them special was not their ideas alone but the charismatic way they were able to present their messages. People were moved by their speeches because they had the same idea. Speeches don’t change people ideas do, and if people don’t have the same ideas then they have no reason to fight together. These three great men were able to harness the power of their egos and excel above others. For one to believe they can accomplish something others cannot they must have a big ego. If we analyzed a person’s life we would see that there are specific events that take place that shape that person into who they are. The person we will become is determined by the person we were. To get a better comprehension of this, look at one’s time reference.  By looking at one’s life from their birth until they become a teenager, then from their early teens until they become a young adult, and finally from there until they become fully mature, one can see that there were key events that shaped that person into who they are. Few people can narrate a day by day dictation of their life to you, but every on can give you specific events that sparked an ideology in them. Some times these occurrences make us better and often times people become tortured by them. One cannot always control what goes on around them. Every action a person takes good or bad affects some one else, directly or indirectly. The movie The Lion King got it right, “we are all apart of the circle of life.”

Reading a Book vs. Watching a Movie

     In today’s technologically driven world, the way people relax, learn, and entertain themselves has changed.  The days of snuggling up in the bed or on the sofa with a good book has been replaced with the television and remote controller.  Very few people value the act of turning pages, or the smell of a new book. The craving for mental stimulation has given way to the igniting of peoples combined senses of sight and sound at once.   Movies provide a faster incursion of information than the process of reading a book. One of the problems we face today is that reading, and the comprehension of what has been read, is becoming a dying art.

    I can remember when basic television went off at twelve o’clock midnight, and only privilege people could afford a satellite. People read stories to their children and themselves for amusement. The water cooler discussion was about books, not what happen the night before on Modern Family. Most people’s idea of relaxing was to lay on the bed wrapped up in a blanket with a good book. For some people a bubble bath, a glass of wine, and a good book was the perfect escape from a tough day.  Those days have been replaced with the use of Directv, Blockbuster, and Netflix. Now families entertain themselves with food and movies.  Books have taken the back seat to the movie of the week. What people used to learn from reading can most often be viewed in a movie. High Definition television and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound has defeated the calming pages of the book.

    The rough feel of the remote controller has eclipsed the soft fill of book pages. Pressing a button to change the channel on the television has become more invigorating than turning the page of a book.  The need to read the next page is no longer as gratifying as the need to see what is on the next channel. With television the senses of sight and hearing are inflamed. Books tap into the reader’s sense of sight and smell. The aroma of a new book fills the nostrils and becomes therapeutic in the tranquil influence of the reading experience. The sound of the television excites the senses and will not allow the mind to calm it’s self. If one were to hold a dollar bill and a coin in front of a young child the child would instinctively reach for the shinny coin. Television is that shiny thing with its hypnotizing colors and its audience is the baby reaching for the remote controller.  

    The act of reading allows the reader to exercise their brain. To read one must think, focus, comprehend, and interpret what they are reading. For many, this is asking too much.  Most contemporary people are impulsive, impatient, and lack the ability to concentrate on a single task. Movies give the audience immediate gratification. Movies are starting to lose the imagination they once had, as directors are remaking old movies for new audiences. The little changes made to these old movies leave them predictable. Books permit the reader to envision life through the writer’s eyes. While reading, one can get lost in their book or journey to a new world.  Not knowing what will happen next in a book makes the reader visualize a possible out come. This encourages one to use their brain to think, there by causing healthy brain activity. 

    All around us bookstores are closing. No longer do we see people sitting outside of coffee shops reading. Now, everywhere you go there is some one watching a movie. People watch movies in their cars, on their phones, on their laptop computers, tablets, and sometimes at their jobs. Soccer moms used to form book clubs but now they discuses the latest Life Time Movie.   Growing up I was taught, “Reading is fundamental”; meaning reading is a necessity to function in society. Most children today are more concern with having the latest gadgets than they are with their education. I believe we are at a breaking point in our society. There is a war that is being fought over our children and future generations. Technology has changed the way we write, speak, and interpret information. Being able to spell is no longer a concern. The new language is texting, and one is only required to know a few letters in a word to do this. The basic right to read that women and minorities fought for is being freely given away. People use to view books and the information in them as freedom. Books are now becoming a thing of the past soon to be housed in museums with dinosaurs and mummies.  

              

In His Name

    The cable station TLC has a new reality show called, “All-American Muslims”. Recently Anderson Cooper had the cast and a lady who oppose this reality show on his talk show. The lady that opposes the show has a web site that is boycotting this reality show. She argued that Islam is not a true religion and that an Americanize version of it will be televised. When asked if she had read the Qur’an or the Bible she said she had read neither from cover to cover. She further argued that because many terrorist, that happen to be Muslims say, “Allahu Akbar” before they kill, that makes the religion violent. She made the claim that no Christian has ever yelled, “Jesus” before committing a terrorist act. It is clear that this individual knows nothing about religion and American history.  Committing murder in the name of ones religious beliefs does not less the brutality of the act because they did not yell to their God first. The first settlers of the Americas believed that the Natives of this land needed to be vanquished because they were not Christians. The south justified slavery with their distorted interpretation of the Bible. Just like the lady on the Anderson Cooper show they had not read the Bible cover to cover either. Solomon was favored by God yet he was black, Song of Solomon 1:5. Job was favored and true to God and he was black, Job 30:30. Jeremiah was also black, Jeremiah 8:21. In Acts 13:1 Barnabas the half brother of Jesus is called a Niger.  According to The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible, in the Greek New Testament Dictionary on page sixty, Niger is of Latin origins and means black.  Lastly, in the book of Revelations 1:14, The Apostle John describes Jesus as having hair like wool and feet the color of fine brass that had burned in a furnace (visualize that). There is no race of people on the face of the planet earth that has wooly hair, except Black people. The point to this is that if one is a delusional fanatic that is how that person should be viewed. If a person is a charismatic delusional fanatic who preys on the poor and suffering, then they are crazy and dangerous. This is the character of the people that recruit others to commit these atrocious crimes, often against the very people they claim they are fighting for. It is racist and just as dangerous and delusional to view any one group of people as being all the same. In the 1800’s the term Manifest Destiny was coined. Most Americans believed it was their divine right given to them by God to spread westward to the cost of California. If was believed that the current occupants of that land needed their guidance, for they lived in darkness. Many people were tortured and murder so America could become the great country that it is now, under the premise that it was God’s will. All Muslims are not radicals, just as all Christians are not self-righteous.  It is a lot easier to spread love then it is to spread hate.

Who Are We

    As a so-called African American male, I have always struggled with how I fit into the American concept. I was born in America and have always lived here but I don’t fill like I am accepted for what I am, or do I not accept myself for what I am not? If you find an African American woman that lets her hair grow naturally, she will not be able to get a job in corporate American. Even more she will be seen as a revolutionary and a troublemaker. Why does our blackness scare America? We are the only people on the planet with wooly hair, is it a gift or a curse (Revelation 1:14)?  There have been times when I felt disconnected from myself. I mean Italian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Mexican Americans are all just that. Their identity is implied and expressed in the name. They have their homeland, culture, language and foods intertwined with Americanism. As displaced Africans born in American we have no homeland to visit, no language to speak, no culture to honor, and no cultural foods that identify us. I was born in the 70’s and grow up with hip-hop music and I enjoy it, but it is not African. I have and some times still speak slang or Ebonics, but that’s not African. I grow up watching my grandmother in the kitchen cooking that delicious soul food, but it is not authentically African. Africa is a huge country with many tribes from which do we belong? If we are African American were is the African in us, or does it stop with the color of our skin. Truly we African Americans suffer with identity crises in this country. We as a people have made up a culture to substitute for the one we lost, no matter how degrading some aspects of it may be to ourselves.  There are those who look at us in scorn asking why don’t we pull ourselves up like all other immigrants have done in this country. Often people speak without thinking. African Americans were not immigrants in America, our focus to today is not on slavery but on the affect it has on our psyche. It is a true statement that states, “you must know where you come from to know where you are going”.  If you don’t know where you come from you can still travel the road of life, but the road will be very jagged. My story does not start with slavery, and I will not be defined by it. I took a DNA test to find out what tribe in Africa my family descended from, and we are Fulani. Since I gained this information two years ago I have found comfort in knowing truly where I come from. Now when I say I am an African American I can mean it. Hopefully all sons and daughters of African born in America will one day find their own truth and complete the puzzle of their lives.

The Foundation Of America

       On Thursday the question was posed to me, “Why did the settlers come to America”. My answer was what most Americans would say for religious freedom and to escape the tyranny they suffered at the hands of the British; I stated with a strong conviction. After all, religious freedom is a selling point that Americans use around the world to show the greatness of this country. My history professor told my class that the settlers came to this country in search of the Three G’s which are God, Gold, and Glory. Being born and raised in Virginia and having learnt the states history, this was new to me. I have been to Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg several times as a child. I have watched their historical reenactments and listened to many lectures regarding the early settlers. I’ve never heard the theory of the 3 G’s before, but it does make sense. Until the recent recession that we appear to be in, America was seen around the world as the land of milk and honey; the land where all your dreams can come true. Until recently other countries have looked at America as the country to obtain riches and fame.  I wonder if only one percent of the first Americans obtained the 3 G’s, as it seems to be the case today. In America today the majority of our citizens have all the God they can ever want. There are places of worship built right across the street from one another, but very few people have any gold or glory. I wonder if all of the settlers knew that they were coming here for gold, and glory as well as god, or did only a select few have that thought in mind.  If we could go back in time, would we see that the majority of the early settlers where focused on god and their survival. While a select few were more concern with gold and glory. The steps that we took yesterday determined the path we are journeying down today. Nine out of the first thirteen colonies were established with a religion that had to be followed in order to live there. This means that this country was not started with the concept of religious freedom for all of her citizens. We have been misled because only Christians have true religious freedom in this country and the idea of separation of church and state is not a reality. All of the elected officials in America are sworn into office with one hand on the Bible as a ritual. You never see the use of any other religious text such as El’s Torah, or Al Qur’an. If you are not a Christian from one of the excepted denominations, you will be mocked and humiliated by news reporters and the American public. Mitt Romney comes to mind as he has been criticized for being a member of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).  Most Americans think ill of Mormons as a branch of Christianity and as a result initially Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate spent more time defending his religion views than he did defending his political views. In a land where the Constitution is suppose to form a separation of church and state, a candidate’s religious preference should not be used to either help or hurt them in their quest to serve this country. There are many Americans that have a problem with our current President Barack Obama simply because they believe that he is a Muslim. The justification for their bigotry is the fact that America is at war with a Muslim country. The crusades are over; America is not at war with Islam but with terrorist that happen to be Muslims. If you put any organization or religion under a microscope you will find several lunatics within it. Do we allow the evil ranting of the few to over shadow the hand of peace from the majority? Why should the Islamic world be condemned completely for her lost adherers? Christianity and Judaism aren’t ostracized for their followers’ involvement in the murder and enslavement of African people. The first Europeans nearly wiped the Native Americans off of the planet but no one blames Christianity. A true eye of justice judges all things equally and doesn’t allow their personal preferences to weigh the scale.