Sadly, We’ve Lost Our Moral Compass.
February 20, 2019 by Staff
Filed under News, Politics, Weekly Columns
(Akiit.com) “Neither god, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical that promises success.” Henry Highland Garnet 1865
Africans in America have experienced horrific abuses, desecration, dehumanization and degradation at the hand of Euro-Americans. In the midst of our travails we always had leaders most of whom remain unknown and uncelebrated who urged our people on, exhorted them to keep the faith to resist and struggle for freedom and righteousness. As we commemorate the four hundred years in this hemisphere, let us not consign all our recollections to our debasement and degradation. Let us remember our successes and triumphs despite the overwhelming odds, systemic violence and sanctioned oppression.
In the midst of hellish conditions we always had leaders who stood up and spoke out who sacrificed themselves on our behalf by offering a clear vision of freedom and urging us on by providing a moral compass to guide us. Sadly we have lost touch with that element of leadership within us, somehow we think because legal apartheid has been minimized or because we have more elected officials, more millionaires, more visibility, more celebrity and status, we are free that our struggle is complete.
I am not trying to be a Davey downer or rain on your parade but we are far from free. What is freedom anyway? Is it being able to go in debt to buy a shiny car, engage in conspicuous consumption or deny your core self in order to fit into a society that makes it clear every day that unless you confirm to their standards you are nothing.
Ever since our kidnapped ancestors where brought to this hemisphere, we have been treated as commodities, chattel, subhuman fodder for their wars and capitalist endeavors but now we are viewed as unwanted nuisances.
When the English colonists decided to make slavery racial and permanent, our ancestors resisted. We always had those among us who refused to submit, who refused to give up their souls and their humanity no matter how vile, foul and horrific their circumstances or the situation they experienced.
We always resisted on the personal level we have examples of folks like Nat Turner who led a rebellion, Frederick Douglas who fought and beat his owner to the point his owner never raised his hand to him again and Harriet Tubman who led several hundred enslaved Africans to freedom. We always had men and women who comforted those around them, who helped heal those who had been brutalized or who were in need. This was a common reality that dates back to ancient times and ideas like Ubuntu (I am because we are, we are because I am) and our historic collective spirit and way of living
We always had men and women who spoke up, articulated truth so powerfully they changed the very vibration within their environment providing righteous leadership during horrific times. Many, as I said, are unknown to us today but we can call the names of a few like: Henry Highland Garnet, Fannie Coppin Jackson, Harriet Tubman, Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, Ida B Wells Barnett, Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King Jr. These dynamic leaders sacrificed on behalf of our people and didn’t line their pockets.
In the modern era we sorely lack men and women like them. Today the words sacrifice, struggle, unity and Black Power are no longer in our lexicon! We have lost the moral imperative and leaders willing to provide the moral compass. If we are to improve our condition and status we have to regain our collective moral compass.
Columnist; Junious Ricardo Stanton
Official website; https://fromtheramparts.blogspot.com/
Interesting and intriguing piece. I agree that we’ve lost our moral compass, but with reservations as to how and why. First and foremost we are the only group of people who’ve had our history STOLEN from us. One’s culture, heritage serves as a moral compass, providing us with a path to stay on which is impossible to do if you are suffering from amnesia.
Culture and heritage serve as a compass, that if and whenever we lose our way, we can always fall back on it to regain our senses. Not only have our heritage been STOLEN from us, but it has been replaced by the slave-masters European values which has proven to be to our detriment. Consequently, many of us have fallen victim to mental enslavement despising who we are, being brainwashed to not connect or identified with the Motherland in any shape or form.
However, nonetheless, leaders did manage to arise from within our midst, some of whom who managed to maintain some sense of individuality and manhood. However, it’s no accident that we’ve been leaderless since the days of Malcolm X and MLK, Jr. What has happened since is Integration, which further sealed our doom. Not saying that segregation is preferred, but aggregation as opposed to Integration…as it turns out…should have been our pursuit. The little bit of unity we once had has now been replaced with Individualism leaving us weaken and more vulnerable than ever.