#8 African Love Vol. 1: Healing The Family

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healing the family playlist

1. Danielle Brooks - Black Women

2. B.F. Nkrumah - Apologizing Is A Start

3. Tarrus Riley - Pick Up The Pieces

4. April Parker Jones - Healing The Family

5. John Legend - I Love, You Love

6. Angel IKYG - A Black Man

7. India Arie - He Heals Me

8. Bayyinah Bello - LOVE

9. Rah Digga - Turn Against One Another

10. Jaheim & Ledisi - Stay Together

11. Yejide Orunmila - Heal Through Revolution

12. Bob Marley - No Women No Cry

13. Neiel Israel - When A Black Man Walks

14. Jill Scott - Sweet Justice

15. Najah Muhammad - Open Letter Apology

16. JOHNNYSWIM - Take The World

17. Ledisi - Lose Control

18. Luke James - These Arms

19.  Dr. Honey Trap - Love Black Men

20.  Kirk Whalum - Anytime

21.  Maitho - Colonial Violence

Colonial violence has damaged our family structure

I did a search online for Black Men who Love Black women and a host of videos popped up with the exact opposite message. Videos filled with pain, slander, and abandonment. It was a painful reminder of the many ways colonial violence has damaged our family structure. And when I say colonial violence, I'm not just speaking physically, as in slavery or the daily brutality by the State police. I'm also talking institutional violence, educational violence, cultural violence, political and economic violence.

What we really hate is what we've become

One could argue that it is this colonial and capitalist system that has caused us to "hate" one another. Yes, BUT, not exactly. What we really hate is what we've become. The gangbanger, the pimp, the prostitute, the drug addict, the drug dealer, the womanizer, the gold digger, the absent father, the self hating uncle tom. We hate to see this in ourselves. Wounded and subjugated, unable to stand as a self-determined nation. So we turn from one another in an effort to escape the pain.

 Family, though we may be justified in rejecting the backwardness of our condition, we must understand that these self-destructive behaviors are but symptoms, manifestations' of colonial violence. It's not truly who we are…and most definitely not all that we have been.

Symptoms are merely manifestations of a virus

Capitalism, founded on theft and genocide, sustained through colonial oppression and exploitation, and safe guarded with barriers to entry, regulates the colonized masses to an underground economy, where imposed ignorance, poverty and desperation terrorize the people. Under these circumstances, the masses recognize few options other than to abuse and exploit one another in an effort to survive.

Again, we should remind ourselves that symptoms are merely manifestations of a virus; once you identify and kill the virus, the symptoms go away. If it's not yet clear, our virus has been colonial subjugation and economic exploitation. It is not the breakdown of our families that has caused our dysfunction, but rather the dysfunction of the colonial system that has caused more and more of our families to breakdown.

Liberation and Black Power. In our lifetime!

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