“Napoleon, banished to St. Helena a decade later, regretted having invaded Haiti. To his secretary, Emanuel Las Cases, said, ‘My greatest mistake was to try to subdue Haiti by force of arms. I should have let Toussaint-Louverture rule it.‘ ”
(Above link goes to the heart of this post.)
I was 37 years old before I realized that self-righteous indignation just doesn’t work.
I also became aware that if I want the cracks in the sidewalk fixed, I’m just going to have to buy some Quikrete and fix it myself.
“Power is the ability to define a person’s reality and have that person accept that definition as if it were their own.” ~ Michael Foucualt
“…power is the ability to define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner.”
~ Dr. Phil Valentine
The only thing that troubles me about many Afrocentric historians and educators, is that most of them talk from a defensive reaction still mired in the Old Testament when it comes to sexuality… therefore missing the point greatly. I believe it comes from insecurity, Traditional acculturation, and wanting to be loved by their audience. (We’ll stop it there….) While its UTTERLY IMPORTANT to hold shades of gray and the rightness of opposites in our minds when evaluating
But I continue to learn greatly from many of them. The worst being people like Umar Johnson (… a classic narcissistic PIMP straight out of the pages of, “Con man turned Baptist preacher.” ) We have the universe at our fingertips. Explore. Don’t be so quick to allow Ego to grab hold of the trap of being a victim. There’s no power in it.
In 1980, I began–to my amazement– witnessing television and movies– reversing the narratives of the powerful 1960s.
“He who doesn’t engineer his destiny, shall have his destiny engineered for him.” ~ Henry J. Kaiser
Not only are negative statements about our ability to accomplish great things an insult to our GREAT contributions to the WORLD… it is an ignorance that becomes a sickness that 
destroys the individual from within. Black intellectuals stand–at least– head and shoulders with the the greatest thinkers the world has to offer. Our art is constantly copied and our music is the foundation of all popular modern music. BUT…. if the media … and the sell-out churches and temples can get you stuck in being a powerless “Victim” –someone things happen to– then you will become their pawn and never CREATE your own Empowered life.
- Depression... leading to mental illness and mood disorders
- Nihilism …. which can lead to Nihilistic delusions
- Rejection of spiritual and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless… skepticism, negativity, cynicism, and pessimism
- Addictions! As Dr. Gabor Mate explains, “Addiction is about pain. Pain is about something loss. What’s loss is a part of yourself. RECOVERY is recovering that lost part of yourself... and then moving forward with your life.
- Behavior and sexual traumas. (NOTE: Rape is not an act of passion. Rape is an act of AGGRESSION … anger, and rage done by Cowards who pick vulnerable, people to act out on… instead of challenging themselves to reach higher goals of accomplishment and empowerment.)
- Physical and Mental Health. Negative emotions get stuck in the body, causing disease. Look up Borderline Personality Disorder. All this … “EMOTIONALISM” that gets people shot. If you KNOW the Gestapo is not your friend… and you should know that… then WHY start waving arms and yelling at them??? Other results of negativity in the Black community are high blood pressure, obesity (eating emotions and selecting high sugar/high starch foods), heart disease and illnesses that come from bad lifestyle choices like cancer, liver disease, etc…
Hang with the wrong crowd, going the wrong way, and you wind up going in the wrong, devastating direction. Too, your motivation in life should not be based on resentment, hatred, jealousy, and rage.
- Allies. Everyone needs allies in life. Negative thinking also causes people to miss out on powerful opportunities.
- COOPERATION. Charles Darwin only said, “The strongest survive,” and “survival of the fittest” a few times and those phrases were taken out of context. (All that, “Manifest Destiny” the European ENGINEERED their pirate consciousness around.) BUT…. 82 times he wrote about the cultures and species that survive the best.. and go on to FLOURISH, are those that cooperate together!
- Life Imitates Art. So if you have drop-outs who never even finished High School, “Rapping” and Hip-Hoppin’ a MYTHOLOGY that celebrates criminality, adolescent IGNUT violence, prison, and the dehumanization of women… or men… then you have MILLIONS of black people you can’t cooperate with!
- Don’t look in the gutter for your life. LOOK UP. Read stories about POWERFUL black men and women. Experience their thoughts rather than drunk-azz Too Short’s. Here… this article not only illustrates why Napoléon Bonaparte vowed to, “forever stop the march of blacks in the world.” One man…. Toussaint-Louverture.
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2003/novemberdecember/feature/the-soul-free-man
Black Traveler 
I think it’s hard to shed a victim mentality when the victimization doesn’t end, but that doesn’t mean bowing down to it. Perhaps it’s because I’m both persistent and determined, I went from street kid to juvenile institution to early marriage but wound up with a bachelor’s, a programming degree, speaking 6 languages, having a red belt in mixed martial arts and a decent retirement. My #MeToo experiences began at age 4 and got more brutal in subsequent incidents. I was abused into severe, combat-type PTSD. The abuse didn’t end until I was 62 years old — in one form or another. People would tell me to just get over it but it’s harder when it’s bloody well ongoing. On the other hand, if people tried to cast me as weak or pathetic or limit me or expect me to limit myself because of the cruelty and oppression of others, they discovered that while I am civil and controlled, it does not do to rile me by deciding my limits for me. So far, I have had a lot fewer than they’d have me think I do.
Part of my disagreement with Christianity and people of color is that it is the religion of the oppressor and it’s designed to keep oppressed people docile and manageable. No. Be wild horses, heading in the direction we want to go, decided by and for ourselves and in aid of the greater good. The greatness is inherent — the deliberate part is allowing it to unfurl untrammeled by the limits and stupidities of those who cannot begin to understand it.
LikeLike