A black woman on the train. Homeless by her account ans asking for spare change. She gives her “testimony” about how God has brought her through trials and tribulations. She reminds riders willing to listen that with their belief in God, they will prosper, even though at this present time her narrative of prosperity does not appear to be holding up for her. Then again, her faith may be emboldening her to get up everyday and get on the train to do what she has to do and ask for a little help from strangers.
But is the “keep on, keeping on” narrative sufficient enough to lift the entire black collective living in the United States?
The religiosity-driven “keep on, keeping on” narrative has been expressed since Africans were brought to the western hemisphere over 500 years ago as part of the slave trade. While the black man has been free from slavery in America for over 150 years, his mental and emotional state has not elevated to a state of awareness necessary for nationhood. The black man is still immersed in pain and suffering.
The self-correcting necessary to move black people away from the “keep on, keeping on” will require a deep analysis as to its root causes, but hopefully when we conduct the analysis we will not spend too much time such that we create another institution or think tank within which professors labor over multiple approaches for discussing the problem. We are stagnant enough as it is.
Black people also have to ensure that during our self-analysis that we are not using analytical approaches steeped in Eurasian philosophy. There are too many Ivy League wannabe-educated black PhD s inserting Euro-poison into the analysis of black political issues. Blacks need an analytical framework that is non-linear; can break down and identify the connecting dots between black pain and suffering; can identify the factors that cause blacks to view policy through pain and suffering, and; can convert the hurt narrative into a conqueror’s narrative.
Unlike the choruses of defeatism uttered by the homeless woman on the train, blacks need to start writing choruses of victory. Staying in the kumbaya mindset will not help us.
