I was in the store earlier and picked up a copy of Alvin Marrow's book "Breaking the curse of Willie Lynch". If you have not read this book, I strongly encourage you to read this wonderful scholarly work.
Unfortunately many of my contemporaries are not familiar with who Willie Lynch is, so before I continue, allow me to introduce you to Willie Lynch. Willie Lynch was an individual who delivered a speech to North American Slave Owners on the banks of the James River in 1712. The aim of Mr. Lynch's speech was to inform slave owners of how to get and maintain control over the African American slaves. Although Caucasians had successfully brought black from Africa to America, they were having trouble controlling them, so Willie Lynch and his psychologists came up with an extremely successful way of controlling black slaves. With much hardness of heart, I regret to inform you this Willie Lynch's approach was highly successful, and the effects of his successful approach linger even today although we are no longer enslaved physically.
Willie Lynch understood the power of division. As a matter of fact, in speech his he said this:
I Have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work through out the South. Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them. On top of my list is "age" but it is there only because it starts with "A"; the second is "color" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantations, attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on the hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action- but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust, and envy is stronger than adulation, respect or admiration.
The black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self- refueling and self governing for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands.
It saddens me to know and understand that Mr. Lynch was correct. Even after we as a people have been freed from physical slavery, Mr. Lynch and those of his kind still have us enslaved mentally. Our spirit of divisiveness, haughtiness, envy, spite and jealousy continues to perpetuate the need to wallow in the pit of self hatred, much like a crack-head needs crack. In fact, we attack at the first sign of a progressive thinker suggesting anything different from the norm. We attack at the first sign of change on the horizon. We attack those who we perceived to be better than we, Willie Lynch has done an awesome job at dividing us.
Furthermore, we have witnessed the effects of this doctrine within our families even today. If you see a husband and wife within the same home, often times it is contentious. There are constant arguments, constant battles. Unfortunately, many of us have assimilated into our minds that "marriage is just hard". Which may be true, however, I would vow to say that marriage has become as hard because of the faulty but yet perfectly planned system of mental oppression. You have witnessed Willie Lynch at work within out neighborhoods that are increasing at a depressingly rapid pace of violence.
pt. 2
For those of you who did not get a chance to read part one of this note, please do read it so that you will be able to comprehend the vantage point of which this particular note was written.
Not only has Mr. Lynch and his idealogy of "divide and conquer" been highly successful but if the truth were to be told, Mr. Lynch stole this idea from the pages of inspiration, the Holy Bible. In fact, the apostle Paul understood that a divisive Spirit could destroy a group of people, which is why he penned in 1 Corinthians 1:10, "let there be no divisions among you". But unfortunately, the masterful plan of Willie Lynch worked and here we are as a people, divided!
One of the more obvious ways that we are divided is within the world of religion. Granted, by the mere fact that there are hundreds of active religions with active african american parishioners indicates that we will be divided within religion. However, can any explain why is it that we are so divided within each individual religious group? Why are the baptist fighting with the baptist? Why are the methodist fighting with the methodist? Church of Christ against Church of Christ? The answer is simple, we have become so used to a "crab in the bucket" mentality that the commonality of religion matters very little to us. Everyone wants to get ahead and no one minds getting ahead or being right even if it is at the expense of peace with a religious group.
Preachers fight against one another for position and prestige. Parishioners undermine the authority of religious leaders and very few people knows what it means to love and follow God. Even within the world of religion, an ideal that is supposed to be based upon following God and his commandments has now become a popularity contest. It has literally become a race to the top! And unfortunately, those at the "top" are those who havent noticed that they are standing only at the top of a mole hill with little or no success.
Willie Lynch's philosophy taught african americans that we were less than human. His theology taught that we should be treated less than human. And we were! As a result, millions of African Americans passed through the anals of history with this "im not good enough, I have to prove myself mentality" and as a result, it manifest itself within our relationship with God.
Unknowingly, we deal with God as if we have something to prove. We deal with God trying to assert our humanity. We deal with each other the same way. And many of us have not snapped back into reality to understand that God knows us better than we know ourselves. He created us and he know's our potential. And potential is what we squander in the religious world!!! He has called his children to be great but because we cant see past what we used to be, and what we've always done, we waiste the hope that he has given us all.... POTENTIAL!!!
How long will we sit and talk about what used to be? How long will we argue about what shouldn't be? How long will we oppose those who seek to do things differently? How long will we be "crabs in a bucket"? How long will we continue to waiste POTENTIAL?
Potential does guarantee you anything except that you have the ability to accomplish what you set out to do. What you do with that potential is what sets you above the rest!
Stay tuned for more on "breaking the curse of Willie Lynch".
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