Minds Behind Bars

Do you think slavery is restricted to metal chains and iron bars that restrict physical movement, and people in tattered clothes who are bone starved? Methinks there’s a more precarious one, very deadly, that renders a person almost useless- mental slavery. Have you ever wondered what ran through the minds of people like Einstein, Bach, Mozart or even Jobs, perhaps? Can we challenge ourselves to dream, to create, to design, to become?

I had an upsetting holiday, when I interacted with some young people (that’s not to mean I’m an octogenarian, though). My disquiet was because they couldn’t dream, and didn’t think they could amount to much, because they thought as blacks, they couldn’t become anything special, or do anything to change the world. I almost strangled them that moment (I’d have been putting this post up from jail, then). In my more lucid moment, I began to wonder if the color of a person’s skin could influence a person’s brain, his capacities and abilities.What do you think?

Is your skin so charred that you can’t look beyond it to achieve some sort of greatness?  What makes my stomach churn is when people begin to use gender as an excuse for failure. For crying out loud, as if your ability to think had to do with your sex organs.

We under utilize our capabilities and wallow knee-deep in mediocrity, not even daring to believe we are capable of reaching the top. And then, unashamed, we have the effrontery to blame it on the continent in which we were born.

And then it dawned on me that their environments had largely contributed to their mindsets. Children are being raised where assertiveness is considered rudeness, where they can’t agree or disagree with a subject, simply because they don’t have any personal opinion. They accept whatever is given- hook, line and sinker. What’s the future going to be like for Africa, if we can’t have people who are willing to think, willing to challenge the status quo, willing to be different, but rather schools teeming with timid young people? It doesn’t seem like slavery ended with independence, for mental emancipation seems to have eluded scores of people. These have been my musings the past holiday, and I’m still upset as I write this.

Please don’t stay locked up in whatever cell society may want to lock you in. Be mindful of others, but decide for yourself. You’re your own prison warden. The keys to freedom are in your mind. Choose to be great, choose to think, choose to stand out.

Perhaps, today’s post is not just some diary you can easily slip into your breast-pocket, but rather, the diary of a mad black woman.