Keep alive the dream; for as long as a [person] has a dream in [their] heart, [they] cannot lose the significance of living. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
A Dream Deferred
As I shut down my laptop and prepped for my flight to land, I couldn't help but overhear the discussion between the two men sitting in front of me. The man speaking was from Hungary and the conversation went something like this:
Hungarian man: "You have a holiday coming up soon called Thanksgiving correct? What
is this holiday about?"
White man: Well, when the pilgrims first arrived here ...
The friendly white man spoke with confidence and the Hungarian man was genuinely grateful for the explanation. During this time, I was wondering if I could sneeze out the words "Thankstaken, Takesgiving, Thanksgiving Massacre or National Day Of Mourning" to interrupt the misinformation that the Hungarian man would receive. I was so disappointed that he wasn't sitting next to me because I have lived among enough Indigenous People of the land we now call America to have gained historical context that did not make it into my history school books. The timeline of events leading up to Thanksgiving as an official holiday reveal disturbing and cyclical patterns of behavior.
If a [person] is convinced that [they are] safe only as long as [they] use [their] power to give others a sense of insecurity, then the measure of [the security of others] is in [their] hands. If security or insecurity is at the mercy of a single individual or group, then control of behavior becomes routine. All imperialism functions in this way. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
It is only when people live in an environment in which they are not required to exert supreme effort into just keeping alive that they seem to be able to select ends besides those of mere physical survival. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
The Quaternary Science Reviews estimates that 56 million people died between 1492 and 1600, which includes 90% of the New England Indigenous population. Let’s take a moment to honor our ancestors by understanding the numbers. 56 million translates to the killing of more than 518,000 people every year for the first 108 years that white people were in America. What does that kind of behavior do to a people? What does any group of people need so badly that these actions are deemed justifiable? May our ancestors always be remembered and rest in power. May we always stay connected to the truest part of ourselves so that we will learn from our past and become better people. In 1619, the first ship of enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. The first Thanksgiving Day "feast" was said to occur in 1621. Yet in 1675, Pometacomet's (a.k.a. Metacomet's/King Philip's) Rebellion led to a year long war that resulted in his death along with the death, enslavement or forced exodus of over 8,000 Indigenous People in the fight for Massachusetts colony. If we look up the history of Pometacomet, we will find many sources that refer to him as King Philip, the name imposed upon him by the British. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence refers to Indigenous People as "merciless Indian savages." Thanksgiving Day officially became a national holiday in 1870. The Hungarian man represented yet another bright-eyed immigrant who has unknowingly succumbed to our social programming.
Hatred destroys finally the core of the life of the hater. While it lasts, burning in white heat, its effect seems positive and dynamic. But at last it turns to ash, for it guarantees a final isolation from one’s fellows. It blinds the individual to all values of worth, even as they apply to [themselves] and to [their] fellows. Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit. It is blind and nondiscriminating. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
The one mantra that I most regret not understanding from my childhood was, "If you want to know about Indians, Africans, Asians, etc. ask an Indian, African, Asian, etc." I believed false narratives about Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People (BIIP) that were forced on me ad nauseum in school and from the media even though it didn't make logical sense to me, and I had real live BIIP around me who contradicted the social narrative. In early childhood, it was so hard for me to believe the truth over what I saw in the media even though the truth was right in front of me. What would cause me to doubt/bypass my intuition/common sense and validate what was written in a book/projected in the media about my culture?
Social Programming The process by which the ideas, concepts and beliefs of the society in which we live are ingrained into our psyche. The process is usually by authoritative decree or by assimilation. ☥ The ideas, concepts and beliefs of our social environment that become ingrained in our psyche. ☥ ☥ WordSense Dictionary ☥
What is hard-wired into a computer cannot be altered by software because its circuits are permanently connected. In a similar way, hard-wired thoughts or behaviors are extremely difficult to alter because they have become a part of our internal "operating system." Although we have not currently figured out how to use all of our brain's capacity, 85% of what we will utilize is heavily influenced by our early childhood experiences.
[They] recognized with authentic realism that anyone who permits another to determine the quality of [their] inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to [their] destiny. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
You have been seduced out of the depths of who you are onto just the surface level of life. ☥ ☥ Eckhart Tolle ☥
The Mountains That Thwart And Limit Our Journey To The MANIFESTATION Of The Dream
Our inability to recognize the social programs influencing our thoughts and behaviors creates the mountains that stand between us and the fruition of our dreams. I invite you to journey with me through a few examples of social programming. As we move through each example, observe your visceral responses to what you read. If you feel uncomfortable, breathe slowly ☥ deeply ☥ sit with the discomfort until you are able to make a decision about the concepts that are based on the truest part of yourself instead of emotional reactions or social constructs. Why don't our dreams come true? Are we being lofty or unrealistic?
Our dreams do not come true because we don't realize that the dream is only the beginning. Our dreams are a message from SPIRIT to listen to our innate wisdom for guidance on specific actions to take that will help us to heal ☥ self-correct ☥ remove the obstacles that thwart and limit the manifestation of the dream. If we pay attention, SPIRIT will guide our steps, shorten our journey and delight us with miraculous moments along the way.
This is the heart ☥ soul work that prepares us to enjoy ☥ make the most of the dream once it has become a reality. More importantly, it gives us the strength ☥ stamina to elevate in consciousness.
This elevation is important because if we were at an elevated state of consciousness, what we are dreaming about would have already happened.
This can be a humbling reality to accept, but it is a necessary part of the journey. It is not a judgment of our character. We can't tell a baby that a grenade is not a toy because they haven't had enough life experience to understand the concept of a grenade or the damage that it can cause. So, we have no choice but to take it away from the baby. The baby will cry and be angry for a time, and we'll lovingly support the baby as they work through the emotions. However, giving the child a grenade is not an option. This doesn't make the child stupid or unworthy. When the time is right and with the proper training, the child can have access to the grenade if, after they realize what it is, they still want it. In a similar way, we need to understand that there is a process we must undergo in order to manifest our dreams. Instead of resisting or complaining, we can direct our attention inward so that our innate intelligence can lead us to the knowledge ☥ experiences that will make our dreams a reality. It's time to stretch our muscles, check our backpacks to make sure we have plenty of water ☥ healthy snacks, the proper clothing and hiking boots. We are about to go on a journey together. You are not alone. I am with you climbing the same mountains on the journey to the dream.
Once manias die down, most people pretend they never believed these things to begin with. Having contracted COVID five or six times post-vaccination, multiply boosted mRNA fanatics aren’t prone to advertise their vicious denunciation of the unvaccinated only two or three years ago — any more than recovered memory patients are inclined to advertise that they destroyed their relationship with their parents over an erroneous psychiatric fad. We like to think that we’re 'modern' ... and that we base our beliefs on fact. But we’re just as prey to mass delusions as we ever were. Accordingly, how’s this for mania number five. It isn’t a mania; it’s just the truth: check. It’s suddenly all anyone in the media seems to talk about, and they use all the same language: check. It’s powered by emotion: check. It brooks no dissent, refuses to acknowledge there’s even a debate to be had, and doghouses all skeptics as evil 'deniers' who will bring about the end of world: check. It’s malign, getting increasingly extreme, and is driven by the very best of intentions: check, check, check … ☥ From: 'How to Spot the Next Mania: Each New Panic Follows the Same Playbook'
Patience ☥ Discipline Mountains
Bruce Lee once said "I don't fear the [one] who practices 10,000 kicks, I fear the [one] who practices one kick 10,000 times." This is the wisdom of patience ☥ discipline. Do we have a strategy that helps us push past boredom until we can do something over and over again with absolute presence of mind? When we watch a Bruce Lee film, we must watch each fight scene at least twice. The first time we enjoy the fight. The second time, we watch the fight in slow motion, and we realize that Bruce can move faster than the eyes can see. What we thought was just a punch, was a punch and two kicks. How? When he trains, he sees the value in ☥ purpose of the repetition. It is not something that he gets through so that he can move on to something else.
The repetition is a part of his spiritual training as much as it is a part of his physical training.
When we watch Bruce Lee, we learn a few things about his character:
☥ He doesn't fight to kill. When he knows that death is imminent, he attempts to stop the
person from allowing themselves to be killed. Generally, the person's ego causes them
to keep fighting to the death.
☥ During his fights, he attempts to keep his composure and self-corrects so that he can
be focused/regain focus in body ☥ mind ☥ spirit. This allows him to see split-second
opportunities which gives him the advantage during the fight.
☥ His style of fighting is not a style ... it is "an honest expression of who [he] is in
the moment."
Our lack of patience ☥ discipline represents a grand mountain because it reflects our unwillingness to understand our dream: Why do we have this dream? Are we willing to do whatever it takes while simultaneously holding the highest level of thought ☥ action? When we are faced with the reality that we must grow in thought ☥ word ☥ deed, will we run and hide or will we develop our will and cross the boundaries of our comfort zone? What will we do once it manifests?
If a [person] knows precisely what [they] can do to you or what epithet [they] can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then [they] can always keep you under subjection. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
Advertising Mountains
As a child, I remember hamburgers being portrayed as fresh food on TV fast food commercials. The lettuce, tomato, onions, etc. would be highlighted as crispy and presented as the proof of the hamburger's freshness. However, when I got the actual hamburger, the lettuce and tomato would be mushy, and the burger didn't taste the way I thought it would. The produce never matched the freshness in the commercial. I felt weird not being excited about hamburgers because the people in the commercials and everyone around me seemed to love them. Even though I preferred Italian/Indian/Caribbean/African food, I convinced myself to love hamburgers like everyone else. Based on the amount of TV that I watched as a child (and data from groups such as the Action for Children's Television), I have seen over 700,000 fast food commercials in early childhood alone. Many of these commercials used emotion to convey an idea of belonging to something special (a tactic that affects our emotional hardwiring in early childhood). Of the 700,000 fast food commercials that I've seen, less than 5% represented Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People. The social programming had the quadruple effect of making me feel like I want to belong where I clearly am not welcomed, conditioning me to eating foods that I didn't prefer, making me feel embarrassed or isolated for liking alternative foods and covertly reinforcing the idea that not wanting it is un-American.
Black ☥ Indigenous Mountains
I was watching a documentary about the Hadza who are a modern day hunter-gatherer tribe living in the northern part of Tanzania. At one point, they did a dancing ritual for rain, and I was blown away to see that the ankle bells that they wore were almost identical to the ones worn by Aztec dancers. I've seen African styles of dancing, music, chanting and facial ☥ body painting at Indigenous Pow Wows and other gatherings. We cannot deny the hair braiding similarities, burning of sage or the tipi's pyramid shape. The connection between Black and Indigenous People runs so deep that it sometimes feels weird for me to separate the two. Indigenous People have been a refuge for enslaved Africans by participating in the Underground Railroad and welcoming them to coexist in the rain forests of South America. Even when forced, Black People have resisted the many attempts of colonizers to fight Indigenous People and have joined together in the fight for civil rights. Colonization has strategically endeavored to pit Black and Indigenous People against each other in so many ways including:
☥ Buffalo Soldiers who were recruited and then forced to do the colonizer dirty work of
fighting Indigenous People
☥ Enslaved Africans who were brought in to Mexico, Central and South America to work
the land after the Spanish/Portuguese killed off large populations of Indigenous People
☥ Christian boarding schools that were designed to convert Indigenous People into
white people by forcing them to drop their culture/language
☥ Community organizations that are forced to compete with each other for money to
serve their communities
Although we were occasionally fooled by the propaganda, Black and Indigenous People have deep connections to each other through a shared struggle that we still endeavor to overcome. There are no words to describe the tragedy of African People who made the horrific trip to America with no way to return home. And then to fight for their humanity and the right to live free in a land that they didn’t know belonged to an entirely different group of people. When I was I child, I didn’t make the connection that the land we now call America belonged to Indigenous Indians. The social narrative left out a lot of facts so that we would believe that the land was uninhabited, that europeans worked hard to cultivate the land and were protecting themselves from Indians who were violent warriors who seemingly came from nowhere and scalped people for sport. It sounds ridiculous as I type it, but
it took a while for me to wake up and realize that what was happening in Africa was happening in America, just in different ways.
When Africans were first brought to America, they were taken to plantations to work the fields so they wouldn’t have seen Indians. How many generations of Africans were brought to America before they figured out that the land had been gentrified? Perhaps those who escaped into the woods and came across Indigenous People there? I still don’t quite know how to process that, but I do know that buried underneath and with the millions of Black bones that fought and died for this country are millions of Indigenous bones. I started looking for the names of the Indigenous tribes who once lived on the land where I reside before the europeans showed up so that I may keep the name of their tribes alive. On the journey up the Black ☥ Indigenous Mountains to the dream, it is important for us to investigate any feelings of angst between us because if we follow that feeling back to its root cause, we will find a colonizer.
Accepting Our Ignorance Mountains
These could be the most difficult mountains to transcend because we have to look within ourselves, critique our thoughts and behaviors and self-correct based on what we learn - even though we may need to release a belief that we’re emotionally addicted to and that we’ve held all of our lives, while also resisting herd mentality. When we look at the trend of colonization, we see that a relatively small group of people with more powerful weapons were able to take continents that were more than five times the size of their own. How? Weapons are a big issue, but their real power is in deception and manipulation of the mind.
It is never to be forgotten that one of the ways by which [people] measure their own significance is to be found in the amount of power and energy other [people] must use in order to crush them or hold them back … It is a grievous blunder to assume that understanding is always sympathetic. Very often we use the phrase 'I understand’ to mean something kindly, warm, and gracious. But there is an understanding that is hard, cold, minute, and deadly. It is the kind of understanding that one gives to the enemy, or that is derived from an accurate knowledge of another’s power to injure ... It is a simple fact of psychology that if a [person] calls a lie the truth, [they] tamper dangerously with [their] value judgments … if a [person] continues to call a good thing bad, [they] will eventually lose [their] sense of moral distinctions. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
When europeans showed up in America, the Indigenous People offered trust based on the Indigenous concept of trust instead of recognizing the european mindset. Had Indigenous People put europeans through the test of trust and required that they consistently demonstrate it, Indigenous People would have been able to see through the deception. Our African ancestors fell prey to the same sort of deception which included heavy doses of psychological warfare that tricked them into bypassing their innate wisdom. We cannot understand people based on our concept of what a person is, needs to be or is supposed to behave. Although the wisdom of our innate intelligence can appear to contradict what we see with our physical eyes, we must accept and trust its guidance because its foundation is the ultimate truth.
This is a huge growth area for Black People as well as we see how easy it is for Black People to turn on each other and not realize that the root cause of the angst is social programming.
The greatest weapon that the colonial powers have used in the past against our people has always been divide-and-conquer. She plays one Negro leader against the other. She plays one Negro organization against the other. She makes us think we have different objectives, different goals. As soon as one Negro says something, she runs to that Negro and asks him, 'What do you think about what he said?' ☥ ☥ Malcolm X ☥
For example, a Black Person may accuse another Black Person of not being “Black enough” believing that the accusation makes them “more authentically Black.” Let’s dive into this a bit because we have caused so much pain based on this concept without realizing that it is a byproduct of slavery. As I mentioned in my Cross-Cultural Healing Haven blog,
Africa is 11.7 million square miles. As a point of comparison, the surface of our moon is 14 million square miles.
If ever there were a people who were multidimensional, it would be people of the African diaspora. To put any Black person into a box and slap a label on them because they don’t fit into our concept of “Black enough,” when most of us can’t even provide a definition for “Black enough,” reflects a smoke screen that we need to remove in order to dismantle sneaky inceptions that cause us to be passive aggressive with and fight each other. In other words, Black People display personality traits that reflect every kind of intelligent, funny, corny, resourceful, and every other adjective that we can think of - as well as those we can’t think of. Why would we ever want to limit how we show up in the world? Some of us are drag queens, some of us are farmers, some of us are scientists, some of us are opera singers, but no matter how we show up in the world, we are of the Pan African diaspora. Would a person who knows who we are and all that we have to give ever say that someone is not “Black enough?” We often react this way because:
☥ We are intimidated by or jealous of the person’s success so we’re trying to cut them
down a notch.
☥ We don’t know our history ☥ culture and are running on automatic based on social
programming passed down from slavery that used plantation tactics to keep us apart
such as light skin/dark skin issues.
☥ We have been trained to hurt each other. During slavery, the slave master would get an
enslaved person to deliver the punishment to another enslaved person. When Fannie
Lou Hamer was in prison, a police officer brought Black male prisoners in to beat her
with a blackjack while the officer pulled up her dress.
☥ We desperately want to trust each other, but we don’t know how to cultivate trust so
we tear each other down to see who puts up with us and adopts our preferences as a
test of loyalty and to render a person “Black enough.”
Because colonizers want to control us, they want us to only adopt behaviors that are comfortable to them. So anytime we find in our culture that we are limiting ourselves (only worship God this way, only behave that way, etc.) we can be sure that social programming has snuck its way into our minds. These limitations are self-sabotaging for colonizers as well because it puts them in a mindset that they have to continually deceive themselves and others to maintain. We need to take a breath and look at our own programmed and learned ignorance without judgement - but it is a complicated path to healing. To get angry with a person who accuses us of not being “Black enough” is like getting angry with a child who has been molested.
On one hand, we have to see how deeply the engrained social programming may be functioning on a subconscious level within the person. On the other hand, we cannot allow the person to continue the substandard behavior.
As an example, I had just completed a presentation for a large group of Black male leaders. I rushed in to get lunch so that I could eat before they arrived and could have time to chat with everyone. Two very light skinned leaders came to my table, and we had a great discussion. About 40 minutes later, one of the dark-skinned leaders walked over to my table and said, “Hey Dr. Phyl, I can’t believe you’re sitting at the light-skinned table.” Up until this point, I didn’t even realize that everyone at my table was light-skinned except for me. What this brother didn’t know is that my grandmother was lighter skinned than many white people, and because we had so many skin color issues in our family, she worked hard to squash colorism in the minds of her grandchildren.
So, I responded in the most friendly way possible, Why don’t you go back to where you were, take a deep breath, think about what you just said, and then come back and greet us again? Everyone was in shock, including me because I didn’t intend to be so bold. The dark skinned leader replied “Oh, oh doc, I was just playing around, I didn’t mean to offend anyone.” I replied, It’s a bad habit that you don’t realize has been passed down from slavery, but it’s time for us to let it go. We have too many other issues in our community to solve, and we don’t have the time, energy or resources to waste. I love all of you, regardless of the skin tone, and I need for us to make a conscious effort to heal our pain and love each other so that we can get this work done in our communities. I of course forgive you and think the world of you, but I want you to breathe and pause before speaking so that you can catch yourself before saying something based on a social program instead of the truest part of yourself. Yes, it was uncomfortable for everyone for a minute, but then we moved forward and cultivated a deeper level of intimacy with each other. Colonizers bank on the fact that we will default to our social programming, but we must pull up our will and resist the temptation to nip at other people in order to feel better about ourselves. Every time we succumb to that temptation we inadvertently “Jump Jim Crow.” Colonization has some sneaky social programs running in the background that we must dismantle. Once we have accepted our ignorance, we’ll be able to identify and drop subconscious substandard behaviors and this mountain will vaporize right before our eyes.
There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
Of course, there are Black People who are not evolved, are opportunists and are not interested in the elevation of consciousness. But these people are still of the Pan African diaspora. People who cause harm do so because they have unresolved trauma. Problems in our community don’t go away because we banish/avoid them. We have to deal with these people. We have to accept all of who we are, which includes those of us who need to heal ☥ self-correct. There is a protocol to follow which includes not allowing any of them into our inner circle, setting and enforcing healthy boundaries, specifically stating how they violate our benchmarks for trust and making it clear that they will remain outside of our boundaries until they heal ☥ self-correct ☥ demonstrate honesty ☥ integrity ☥ benevolence ☥ competence (which we may have to define for them). This will offer a pathway for them to heal.
People want to be a part of a community, so offering specific feedback and then enforcing the boundary will most often trigger an awakening in the person.
If they decide not to grow, then we need to look at alternate ways of healing our communities and making them accountable for their behaviors (through restorative practices which, if implemented early enough, will prevent us from having to resort to punitive actions). This makes our community stronger because we are addressing the issue instead of avoiding it by banishing them. I was a latch key child and practically raised myself. It is only by the grace of God that I didn’t become one of these people. I didn’t get the type of mentorship I needed. My reality is true of many people of the Pan African diaspora. While my actions are consciously driven by a desire to heal unresolved trauma, their actions are subconsciously driven by their unresolved trauma because no one gave them feedback on how to live with integrity or how to heal. Unresolved trauma is definitely a Black issue, so these people are more than Black enough. Will we throw them in the trash or offer a pathway to healing?
Even if we consciously know that our behaviors or actions are in conflict with our true desires or could harm ourselves and others, we will find it difficult to change without:
☥ Disciplining ourselves to recognize and release emotional addictions
☥ Consistently questioning/examining our thoughts and actions
☥ Tapping into our inner wisdom in order to consistently make decisions that serve our
highest good in moments of stress, discomfort, without the need for approval/outside
support, etc.
Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come uninvited and often unanticipated. Destiny is what a [person] does with these raw materials. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
To love is to make of one’s heart a swinging door. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
Language Mountains
I was organizing a photo shoot with a Navajo family who volunteered to allow me to teach them how to do infant massage on camera. I was speaking with the "aunt" of the baby about logistics when she said, "Oh we don't do it the white way. In the Navajo tradition, my sister's child is my Grandchild." Until she said this, I had not recognized the social programming. I thought about how some of my cousins are more like siblings to me, and that I never liked the terms "half-sister" or "step-father." Yet, I felt bound to use these terms even though they didn't feel right to me. As it turns out, the current categorization of family members was a european device for determining ownership/distribution of property (i.e., upon the death of a family member, marriage, etc.).
In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
[Those] who fear [are] literally delivered to destruction. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
Church Mountains
I was born as a Seventh Day Adventist, but after my parents divorced, I spent the majority of my childhood attending Methodist, Pentecostal and Non-Denominational churches. Though the hellfire and brimstone sermons terrified me into submission, I struggled with a number of contradictions that I couldn't solve and would get shushed or made to feel like I was evil whenever I asked questions. It would be decades later before I would find teachers who were doing evolutionary work within the church. But during my youth, it bothered me that no one wanted to help me find clarity. When I was old enough to study the bible with lexicons, concordances, etc. I started making connections that created an inner tension between the emerging truth and the sermons I heard. I didn't want to leave, but I came to realize that the church I attended focused more on the devil than cultivating a deeper connection with God. Fearful that I might be the one who was evil, I wrote a long letter to my pastor hoping for clarity and direction with my Bible studies. I felt especially pressured into believing that the religions of other cultures did not offer a pathway to God - even though nature and scripture offers overwhelming evidence of God's love of variety. I also needed to understand why ego games/racism/competition, etc. was tolerated in the church. After he received my letter, my pastor avoided me and the topics I raised in the letter. When I attended a temple in Kamit (Egypt), I saw the evidence of the destruction caused by the Christians. They chopped off the noses of some statues and the heads of other statues to erase the African facial features of the Gods, Goddesses, Pharaohs, etc. Imagine how white people would respond if Indigenous People carved Indian feather headdresses into Mount Rushmore to make the presidents look more Indian. They would be outraged even though the mountain originally belonged to Indigenous People.
The Gods ☥ Goddesses of Kamit (Ancient Egypt) were manifestations of Spirit intended
to teach us self-correction ☥ awareness ☥ lifestyle strategies ☥ pathways to Spiritual
evolution, yet there is ample evidence of Christianity's selective adoption of what
aspects of Kamitian Spiritual practices it appropriated into its doctrine. After the
Christians attempted to remove the African facial features from the statues, they
painted their white faces on the temple wall to imply that statues were of white people
and that they were responsible for the creation of the grand architecture and art within the temple. It was a barbaric display of cultural appropriation, but it also proved that
those Christians didn't believe the religious rhetoric that they forced our ancestors to
practice. Though their doctrine required unilateral conformity, they were in such awe of
Kamitian Spirituality that to this day, most Christian prayers end by calling the name of
the Kamitian God Amun (whom they renamed Amen). The churches I attended never
mentioned Amun or the origins of "Amen," but Kamitians (Egyptians) were portrayed as
the oppressor.
The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication, they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong and the powerful and against the weak and oppressed-this, despite the gospel. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
Five years before the 13th Amendment was passed, Christian boarding schools
were established in North America to reprogram Indigenous Indians in the US and
Canada. These boarding schools killed thousands of Indigenous children and
physically/sexually abused many thousands more. Christian boarding schools were
an attempt to assimilate the remaining Indigenous population into the general public
because, with the proper social programming, their skin was light enough to make or
rape them until they become "white." Indigenous children were given English names,
forced to cut their braids, wear uniforms, speak only English and convert to
Christianity. If Indigenous families did not send their children to these schools, the
police would forcibly take the children away from their parents. However, Indigenous
People valued their culture/God/sovereignty/self-determination over the chance to be
assimilated into white culture. Though we have withstood hundreds of years of
terrorism, racism and oppression, Black ☥ Indigenous Peoples' struggle for freedom
and resistance to/rejection of conformity caused us to be frustrating projects for
european colonizers.
It has long been a matter of serious moment that for decades we have studied the various peoples of the world and those who live as our neighbors as objects of missionary endeavor and enterprise without being at all willing to treat them either as [family] or as human beings. ☥ ☥ Howard Thurman ☥
Christian missionaries are one of the most important contributors to the social programming of the past several hundred years including:
☥ Enforcing competition as status quo behavior in communities where it didn't
previously exist. For example, when African children would play sports, they would let
each team win. The missionaries would stress the importance that there must be one
winner and one loser. This also causes people to adopt a zero sum game philosophy in
many aspects of life which lowers the quality of or sabotages personal and
professional relationships
☥ Spreading propaganda to prevent native inhabitants from utilizing resources that the
missionaries wanted to hoard
☥ Presenting God as all-loving and loving all, but then demonizing cultural practices and
religious beliefs of Indigenous People
☥ Promoting the suburbs as safer places to live and then creating and perpetuating self-
hatred in suburbian communities
☥ Vilifying graffiti but then destroying/defacing art/historic artifacts in the name of God
☥ Preventing Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People from obtaining positions of power
within the church
☥ Not granting gospel music awards to Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People, even if
their music outperformed their white counterparts in popularity and sales
Journey To The Dream ☥ Part II begins with an empowering, healing journey up the sex mountains. We'll also navigate up the numbing, truth, multimedia, data, money, perceptions, legal systems, social norms and reframing history mountains and explore one man's courage to stand his ground.
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
Copy/Paste Version Of A Full Citation Example:
Hubbard, P. S. (2020, September 27). Journey To The Dream ☥ Part I. PHYLLISHUBBARD.COM. <https://www.phyllishubbard.com/post/journey-to-the-dream>
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
