Full disclosure. Any grammar or punctuation errors, no need to point it out because I didn't go to journalism school. Sorry for the rambling, just trying to give a different perspective.
First off, you guys know that black people didnt just wake up one day and say "you know what, we're going to start killing each other." For those that think slavery and segregation isn't the root cause, you're dead wrong. I'll focus on the mental side of slavery first and show the trickle down effect.
I talk alot about respect and personally holding others accountable all the time. Well, this is where slavery comes into play. As a slave, they were treated as less than a person. Slaves were disrespected, whipped, forced to live in horrible conditions, eat the slops and any other demeaning act you could think of. They weren't respected and if there was any pushback they paid for it with their lives. That's the root of all this pushback you still see today. When blacks started to be freed, the anger and frustration, the lack of respect and violence against them never disappeared in their minds. So while folks thought blacks should be happy their were free, blacks were mentally fukced up from the ordeal. We couldn't fight back when slavery was around, so now that we can fight, we can't stop. That's the fundamental core issue that dates back to slavery. They had to take that shit and whatever came with it back then. So when it was over and you could pushback without dying, that mentality stuck with them and was passed down to us. Don't let nobody mistreat you and if somebody put their hands on you, you beat their but. That's been ingrained in our head since we were kids.
Now we get to the violence. Imagine a thousand lions in a forest with one lake and a thousand deer. Everything seems all good at first. But, what happens when the lions start killing the deer to eat and drinking the water from the lake? As the years goes by reproduction of the deer is much slower than the appetite of the lion . The lake is starting to dry up, deer aren't reproducing and desperation starts to set in. They absolutely gotta eat to survive and now it's about survival. It's either eat or die, and all civility is thrown out the window. It's a war everyday just to get a piece of a deer. They're killing and stealing from other lions and then after a few generations of this going on, all of a sudden they scoop up half the lions and put them in another forest with a million deer. The half they leave there, are supplied with a million deer as well. So everything should be good right, since they solved the root problem? Well this lion over here, still mad because the lion over there bit a chunk of his leg off. This other lion over there, can't stop thinking about the lion with the lazy eye because he killed his friend. In the far right area, you have a group of lions who were constantly getting their kills taken by bigger lions, so they're mad, too. Then on the far left, you have your group that's just going about their business trying to stay out of the way. This is going on in both places, by the way. The forestry people gave them more deer in this forest and even changed the environment for the others, yet they're still killing each other. They can't figure out what the problem is now.
The problem is they never tried to change their mentality. Their mentality stayed the same because they didn't know any better. They didn't teach them how to adjust to having that many deer around or changing the others environment. Sure, the vast majority will end up figuring it out eventually. But those that don't, will continue causing hell and perpetuating it until the end. That's what you call the residual effects from past generations, that folks don't seem to get.
First off, you guys know that black people didnt just wake up one day and say "you know what, we're going to start killing each other." For those that think slavery and segregation isn't the root cause, you're dead wrong. I'll focus on the mental side of slavery first and show the trickle down effect.
I talk alot about respect and personally holding others accountable all the time. Well, this is where slavery comes into play. As a slave, they were treated as less than a person. Slaves were disrespected, whipped, forced to live in horrible conditions, eat the slops and any other demeaning act you could think of. They weren't respected and if there was any pushback they paid for it with their lives. That's the root of all this pushback you still see today. When blacks started to be freed, the anger and frustration, the lack of respect and violence against them never disappeared in their minds. So while folks thought blacks should be happy their were free, blacks were mentally fukced up from the ordeal. We couldn't fight back when slavery was around, so now that we can fight, we can't stop. That's the fundamental core issue that dates back to slavery. They had to take that shit and whatever came with it back then. So when it was over and you could pushback without dying, that mentality stuck with them and was passed down to us. Don't let nobody mistreat you and if somebody put their hands on you, you beat their but. That's been ingrained in our head since we were kids.
Now we get to the violence. Imagine a thousand lions in a forest with one lake and a thousand deer. Everything seems all good at first. But, what happens when the lions start killing the deer to eat and drinking the water from the lake? As the years goes by reproduction of the deer is much slower than the appetite of the lion . The lake is starting to dry up, deer aren't reproducing and desperation starts to set in. They absolutely gotta eat to survive and now it's about survival. It's either eat or die, and all civility is thrown out the window. It's a war everyday just to get a piece of a deer. They're killing and stealing from other lions and then after a few generations of this going on, all of a sudden they scoop up half the lions and put them in another forest with a million deer. The half they leave there, are supplied with a million deer as well. So everything should be good right, since they solved the root problem? Well this lion over here, still mad because the lion over there bit a chunk of his leg off. This other lion over there, can't stop thinking about the lion with the lazy eye because he killed his friend. In the far right area, you have a group of lions who were constantly getting their kills taken by bigger lions, so they're mad, too. Then on the far left, you have your group that's just going about their business trying to stay out of the way. This is going on in both places, by the way. The forestry people gave them more deer in this forest and even changed the environment for the others, yet they're still killing each other. They can't figure out what the problem is now.
The problem is they never tried to change their mentality. Their mentality stayed the same because they didn't know any better. They didn't teach them how to adjust to having that many deer around or changing the others environment. Sure, the vast majority will end up figuring it out eventually. But those that don't, will continue causing hell and perpetuating it until the end. That's what you call the residual effects from past generations, that folks don't seem to get.
