By Johnny Johnson
“When we hate we only hurt ourselves. Because half of the people we hate don’t know it, the other half don’t care”- Medgar Evers…
Hate and anger are described as strong generalized emotions. Hate is an emotion of detest, that produces active ill-will and malice. Anger is an emotion of passion, excited by injury that generates rage. These two emotions, in combination, seem to exist throughout America’s black society more and more today.
They fester in our hearts and souls as like unto a sickness. This hate and anger keep our advancement as a culture and as a people stagnant and under productive overall as part of society. And justifiably so, some will say.
One cannot dismiss the horrible truths of the past. But hate and anger also obstructs and impedes a healing that is sorely needed within the black community.
Retaining the hate and anger emotions will only eat away at us inside and keep us bitter, defiant and resentful in our relationships and attitudes. We cannot continue to allow our hurt to transition into our hate.
A wise man once said, “to destroy an enemy, make him a friend.” As a people, we are in a downward spiral of existence and being. There can be no good or benefit for anyone, as long as hate and anger exist within the mindset of the African American.
Why hate emotionally inside, the slave owner or lynch-men who are no longer alive? Where is the justice or revenge for us on the Bull Curry’s and George Wallace’s of the civil rights era? Their judgments and consequences will be paid in the realm of the hereafter. As a people, as a nation, it is time for healing. And more important, it is time for recovery and moving on.
The oppression and treatment of blacks in the United States is indeed shameful. The scars of the past will forever be. Be that as it may, it is what it is, and we cannot recover or move forward unless and until we first heal. This is a healing that begins on an individual basis.
Every black must heal within themselves, differently in their own way. Once the inner anguish, that chains and imprisons us emotionally is removed, we need to grant clemency to the past.
Without the hate and anger for the past, we liberate ourselves and our future from the cost of that past. Once we as a people have healed, we will be able to instinctively focus and direct our emotional energies into progressive, positive, and productive attitudes and accomplishments.
The challenges of hate and anger removal will be daunting for sure. For some painful and close to impossible. But it is something that is mandatory and must be done. Keeping in our minds and fore-thoughts that forgiving is not forgetting.
We are obligated, as black people to the ongoing forward movement of the movement. Our pledge should be changing “We shall overcome” into “We have overcome.”
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