Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery (2054 hits)
"Our is not, the captivity of Europeans, nor the guiltless domination of them, but liberation from mental slavery demands that accurate information about the Black reality and experience be transmitted as broadly and intensely as possible"
"Information about the Black reality and experience must be transmitted as broadly and as intensely as possible. Black singers must sing about it, Black researchers must identify it, Black actors must act it, Black scholars must conceptualize it, Black teachers must teach it, and Black preachers must preach it. From the cradle to the grave, we must submerge ourselves; from books, pictures and whatever source that will bring messages to our minds. Each bit of information helps to mold the keys which will open the chains that remain on our minds'
“Those who fail to recognize that the past is a shaper of the present, and the hand of yesterday continues to write on the slate of today, leave themselves vulnerable by not realizing the impact of influences which do serve to shape their lives.”
“Cleanliness and personal effectiveness are fairly essential in the maintenance of self-respect.”
“Human beings are unable to be about the serious business of living and building societies if they feel compelled to always clown or entertain others. People do not take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously. A sense of humor brings necessary balance to an organized life, but a life of humor blinds one to life.”
“We must honor and exalt our own heroes, and those heroes must be the people who have done the most to dignify us as a people.”
“One of the things that helps us correct our problems naturally, is an understanding that though we have great strength, we also have real limitations. One of the things that lets human beings come back to balance, is a realization that there are things that naturally limit them. If you go too long, if you run too hard, you get tired and come back to rest. If you eat too much you get stomachaches, and you know you should not eat so much. If you watch TV too long, you get a headache, and you know you should not watch so much of it. But once a person gets an inflated idea of who he is and what he is, then he does not have the capacity to naturally correct himself. He begins to do things that ultimately destroy himself.”
“When young Black boys learn that there are no limits to our possibilities on the basketball courts, we create the athletic genius of Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson and in their genius, they recreate the game of basketball. When our young people know that there are no limits to their potential in the world of manufacturing, communication, physics, chemistry or the science of the human mind, then those same young Black minds who create dances on the dance floor or compose music on their bodies with the ‘hand jive’ will recreate these fields of human endeavor with the same incomparability.” ~ Na'im Akbar - Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery
