Part I of a four-part series entitled “The African-Centered Family.”
By Heru Ammen
”As for the man without experience who listens not, he effects nothing whatsoever. He sees knowledge in ignorance, profit in loss; he commits all kinds of error, always accordingly choosing the contrary of what is praiseworthy. He lives on that which is mortal, in this fashion. His food is evil words, whereat he is filled with astonishment. That which the great know to be mortal he lives upon every day, flying from that which would be profitable to him, because of the multitude of errors which present themselves before him every day.”
Excerpted from “The Precepts of Ptah-Hotep”
The negative cultural dynamics that affect our urban communities are played out daily in the form of negative words, deeds, and actions. Violence and abuse (mental, physical, and especially sexual) which is primarily directed at women, children, and teens perpetuates a destructive template that desensitizes and dehumanizes its victims.
Those that survive the above madness often suffer from a post-traumatic syndrome induced malaise that numbs them to the effects of abuse and violence. The abuse and all that accompanies it has become the normal socio-psycho template for urban communities. Because the aforementioned abuse will likely occur over and over again, the resulting malaise is a survival and coping mechanism that insulates the victim from having to suffer through the natural emotional stages (i.e., hurt, anger, realization, healing) associated with being constantly abused.
Society cannot reasonably expect the majority of the individuals that exist within this type of urban environment to come out of it unscathed. This is especially true regarding children. Children are the most vulnerable and are the ones that are most likely to be abused. Young boys and girls are often the target of sexual predators. They are preyed upon by teens and adults; many of whom were once themselves victims of sexual and physical abuse. I believe that the rise in African Americans under the age of thirty-five identifying themselves, being labeled as or exhibiting the behavioral characteristics of a bisexual, gay, lesbian, pimp, ho, or player, is directly related to the sexual abuse that they endured as children and teens.
Before anyone goes on a tangent and accuse me of gay bashing, let me be clear regarding my position. Since the days of ancient Greece, there have always been and will always be a small percentage of individuals that identify themselves as gay or lesbian within what was once ancient African and is now the African American community. Whether one is born that way or makes a conscious choice to be gay or lesbian does not matter (to me). However there is a difference between being born and/or choosing to be gay and being sexually abused as a child and continuing that behavior as an adult. The former is a conscious decision based upon a genetic predisposition and/or a choice. The latter is a learned behavior based upon forced coercion and abuse.
This cycle of abuse and the resulting predatory behavior is so prevalent and entrenched within urban America that it has become a culture unto itself. Yet we find nary a public figure, minister, or so called Black Leader addressing this issue with the fervor and the sense of urgency that it deserves. Urban America has become an environement which perpetuates the generational condition which I term the New Crack Syndrome; where one is born as nothing more that a potential victim of physical and sexual abuse and grows up to emulate the behavior of their abuser.
