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Since the early 1900s, Black and white scholars have
written much on the Black family. When one examines the card catalog of
any library in America they will find volumes of books, articles and
newspaper clippings discussing some aspect of Black family life.
What we need in the African .American community is a framework to
examine and solve the problems of Black family life on our own terms.
The capturing of African people, who were placed in chattel slavery in
North America, has left some devastating scars on the most basic unit
or any group - the family.
There is no question that the family has been that unit that provides
the basic foundation for any group of people to survive and develop.
Families constitute grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers,
brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and in-laws. Sometimes families extend
beyond blood relatives to those persons we bring into our families for
whatever reason.
Families function in the context of their racial and ethnic identity.
This identity is shaped by the historical and external forces of a
given society.
Although the problems of the Black family appear to be very complex on the one hand, on the other, the problem is very simple.
First of all, African people who were captured and introduced into the
western hemisphere as property and commodities were removed from their
land and institutional arrangements of African life.
Second, this process of white takeover of Black life, through the most
brutal form of oppression - the slave trade and the eventual
enslavement of African people on the plantations of North America, has
been a back breaking experience for our people.
Even through our survival techniques have been superior, in the face of
brutal psychological and physical violence against us, we are now at
the crossroads.
We face the challenge of preserving some of the traditions of the Black
family, developed by our ancestors, who fought so hard against racism
and white supremacy in this country.
This must be done, in
part, through the continuing African Centered Education Movement. As
our renowned ancestor and deep thinker Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers
explained, African Centered Education should focus on the following:
- Advocates that
restoring the historical truth about Africa is the priority for African
thinkers (including Africans in the Diaspora).
- Holds that there is a
distinct universal African World View which should be the foundation for
all African intellectual development.
- Involves the massive
education or rather re-education of the African people of the world
from an African perspective in the interest of African people and
directed by African thinkers. It is a necessary pre-condition for
the freedom of the African mind and subsequently African liberation.
We
must not abandon family life. It is the basis for
our survival and development. It is the
strategy of the white supremacy system to place so much pressure on
us that we give up our fight for
independence and freedom.
When the family unit begins to wither away, we must rise to the
occasion and fight to keep its basic elements alive in our communities.
It is the duty of all Black people to understand that we are faced with
a genocidal set of circumstances in America. Look around our
communities and what do we /you see?
We witness the absence of that fighting family spirit among us that has been so much a part of Black family life.
The family is the support mechanism for all that we do and it is a
sacred institution that we must preserve and protect on our own terms. |
