Don’t You Dare Tell Black People They Have to “Heal”

Passive racism is every bit as evil as overt and deliberate oppression

I skimmed over an article this morning that contained language about how “a healed black person works hard and doesn’t blame white people for his problems.”

Let me make it clear: those are not MY words.

I didn’t click on the article because I didn’t want to inadvertently send that person any money. However, the phrasing was so passive-aggressive and hostile that it made me think about the false narratives we’re confronted with on a daily basis.

Every single message tells us that the key to everything is to work hard. Then, there’s another set of messaging that tells us that we’re wrong to complain. Then we’re told that we have to be grateful. Then we’re told who to admire.

This isn’t a conversation, this is a lecture.

You’re not allowed to offer an opinion. You’re not allowed to make a suggestion.

The “better” people tell you what and how to think and if you dare to so much as ask a follow-up question for clarity, they respond with rage.

What’s the word for the class of human being that will scream at you to “heal” before they’ve even bothered to take the knife out of your back? I don’t think we have a word that conveys the true malice of that action.

They are false counselors. They are liars and deceivers. They are entitled oppressors. They rule our society to this day. They smile at you and claim they’re your friend even as they suck the strength from your body and toss your lifeless husk to the rats.

Then they start in again on your kids.

You know what all this reminds me of? It reminds me of being seven or eight. It reminds me of driving around with my dad and having to listen to him lecture me about how everything in our family would be so much better if mom just “tried a little harder.”

“You know, I work all the time. Your mom is just never happy with anything. She just gripes and snarls at me.”

“Well, what about the other day when you started screaming at her and then you slammed a door in her face?”

“Listen you little brat, I’m the one speaking here! You better shut up and listen. How dare you talk back to me!”

It’s just always the same dang con.

Look at the number of articles out there competing for your attention with claims of how to make “a couple thousand dollars” with a side hustle. Or, you can sign up for the “program” from some “super-successful” recording artist or some BS and learn how YOU TOO can succeed in the industry.

If the artist is so “successful” why does he or she have to fleece people for some absurd “members only” workshop? It’s all Trump University. It’s meaningless. You’re just throwing your money away.

Don’t tell me I’m not “healed.”

Don’t tell me it’s wrong to be outraged!

Putting your head down and getting to work DOESN’T WORK!

It NEVER has.

One of the main things I’ve been trying to do over the last few years is bridge that enormous chasm between the perception of what the United Sates is and the reality of it. It’s wrong to say people are “planted” in their belief system. That’s too simplistic.

“Planted” suggests that with the right amount of momentum, they could be made to move to a higher plane. I would suggest that’s an inaccurate visualization.

The passive racists and the overt racists are in a different dimension. They can’t be gently moved to the “non-racism” perception of reality by conventional methods. They have to be jolted out of their current zone of potential and teleported into another.

This is more like “through the looking glass” than it is a matter of traveling down the highway. They have to shift their understanding of reality to the degree that their right hand becomes their left.

I’m not trying to suggest I’m an expert because I’m fully aware that I’m not. However, I do know enough not to lecture the black community that they need to “heal” and just forget about hundreds of years of institutionalized oppression.

This whole “work will set you free” nonsense got disproven back in 1945.

The passive strategy of “forgive and forget” only condemns you to future abuse.

The United States of America in 2023 is not a fair or just society. Remember how we all used to think the Jim Crow era ended in 1964 with the signing of the Civil Rights Act? Well, surprise, that act got gutted in 2013. That put us back in the Jim Crow era. It’s not “history.” It’s TODAY!

The idea that the black community has to “heal” is just an offensive statement. It’s the type of thing that a youth pastor tells a child after he violates him. “Well, that’s in the past now my son… you have to heal. You have to forgive. That’s why we’ve been talking about this.”

Imagine that scenario with a guy who looks and speaks just like Mike Pence.

Now imagine that scenario imposed on every minority child in the whole United States of America.

Now you’re approaching a mental place where you might start to comprehend the true reality of our nation.

This is a country of kids sitting in cages.

I’d like to see the person who wrote the article telling black people to “heal” sitting outside some cage in which an innocent child is held captive like an animal.

“In order to get out of that cage, you have to work hard and try to ‘heal.’”

Maybe if we had more images of people doing things like this, it would be obvious how ludicrous and offensive the whole suggestion is.

You can’t work hard and succeed in the United States. Stop pretending you can. Do you want an example? Fine!

The wealth of the Baby Boomer generation has its roots in the G.I. Bill Roosevelt signed in 1944. It gave them access to education, housing and other benefits.

Black people, who served honorably in World War II, didn’t get it. They were robbed.

Now, how would you feel if I broke into your house, took everything you owned, burned the building to the ground, and then, when you came to complain, I said, “Well, the best thing for you to do is to heal. The best way for you to heal is to get to work. I’ve just created a job for you. You need to respect me, I’m a job creator. I’m the one who can finance your future because I’m rich.”

“You’re only rich because of the money you stole from me.”

“Listen you little brat, I’m the one talking here! You better shut up and listen. How dare you talk back to me!”

It’s that instant pivot to hostility that keeps the collective consciousness of our nation stuck in neutral. We’ve all been conditioned to think we must sit and listen when entitled, obnoxious, rich jerks start lecturing us with their lies about how we can be like them.

And, make no mistake, they’re all lies.

Never trust a rich person to tell you how to get rich. The only one that was ever truthful was P.T. Barnum when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The reason I know they’re lying is because they never say, “Steal your fortune and force other people to support you by beating them down and calling them lazy and worthless no matter how hard they work.”

The conversation goes like this:

“I am working hard, why don’t I ever become rich like you?”

“Tut, tut, tut, it’s because even though you think you’re working hard, you aren’t doing enough!”

“But how do I know that’s true?”

“Well, you’re not rich are you? And I am, therefore I must know!”

This is not a scientific observation! This is why rich people don’t want you to study history. If hard work is so successful at making people wealthy, why are the history books so full of crimes?

Why is every theft presented as a noble undertaking?

It’s because the rich jerks are the ones who funded the textbooks!

All that being said, am I telling you not to work hard? NO! You do have to work hard.

It’s hard work to better yourself. It’s hard work to train your body and your mind. Focus on your mind. If you don’t know what else to do, go and learn mathematics. Do derivatives over and over and over again.

The reason you should do this is because everyone is terrified of math and, next to money, math might be the most powerful weapon in the world.

The trick isn’t to not work hard. The trick is to DEMAND that you are FAIRLY COMPENSATED for your work. The subset of that is you have to demand it legally. The oppressors own the cops and they own the violent white supremacist counter-protesters remember.

Oppressors OWN violence. We can’t get to equality with violence. It’s impossible.

One way to protest is to learn math to the point where you become irreplaceable, and then refuse to do the work.

“If you don’t provide us with this calculation, you’re going to cost the company a billion dollars!”

“Then I guess the work is worth half a billion isn’t it?”

“How dare you! This is outrage! This is blackmail! This is dishonest!”

“No, this is just capitalism. This is a negotiation. Didn’t you tell me to work hard? Why is it in all those years of encouraging me to ‘heal’ by ‘working hard’ you never once discussed compensation?”

“An oversight… I…”

“Well, let’s discuss it… now!”

When I was seven, and I called my father out on his logical fallacies, even then he accused me of being “violent.” That’s what the oppressors are going to do. They’re going to read this article and falsely claim it’s a call to violence.

With everything oppressors don’t like, they fixate on some absurd hypothetical that’s statistically unlikely and use it to fan the flames of public terror. Examples:

“Well, if we let trans kids play basketball, they’ll dominate your kids and keep them from joining the WNBA!”

“Well, if we allow same-sex marrige, it will lead to the end of civilization and eventually result in unions between men and animals.”

“Well, if we have reasonable gun control, hard-working, decent families will be left helpless when rampaging hordes attack their homes.”

“Well, if we have universal health care, it will mean that government assigned death squads will get to decide whether your children live or die.”

“Well, if we switch to solar energy, the lights will go out at night when the sun sets.”

Then, if you insist that people recognize these statements are absurd, they pivot to the completely fabricated claim that you’re “calling for violence.”

My father did this when I was SEVEN! He was a 240 pound adult man driving a car screaming at me about how I represented a threat to his way of life because I politely asked him to stop slamming doors in my mom’s face.

I wasn’t a threat to him! He was imagining some future where I was fully grown that was decades away. He was using that image to fabricate a belief that he was a victim already!

He told me that if I didn’t “heal” I’d probably end up like one of those gestapo guards at a concentration camp. “Because that’s the path you’re headed down son! That’s where this is is going to go. You better get it into your head that you have to submit, work hard, and, above all, heal.”

Nope.

It’s all lies.

The simple truth is that we deserve more. We’ve been cheated. The system is broken. The system is corrupt. The system serves oppressors. Our vote is suppressed. The history books are filled with thefts and injustices presented as triumphs, and…

…and “healing” is not how this problem is going to get resolved. We’ve already tried “healing.” It doesn’t work.

“THERE YOU GO CALLING FOR VIOLENCE AGAIN! HOW DARE YOU? YOU’RE A MONSTER… YOU’RE…”

I’m not calling for violence.

I’m calling for resistance.

I’m calling for compensation.

The answer to the future isn’t accepting and forgetting the atrocities of the past. The answer isn’t blindly accepting a strategy that only serves oppressors and exploiters. Quit clicking on articles with false promises about how you can make $1,000 in a “side hustle.”

The answer is to demand that we all come together to repair the damage that was done. Nobody can heal until the blade or bullet has been removed.

This is common sense.

Take a moment to recognize that the people who are urging you to work hard never work themselves. Take a moment to recognize that the people who are telling you to heal have never themselves been wounded.

You have every right to make these observations no matter how much they protest.

Speak the truth!

You have every right to be heard, even when the oppressors lift their voices in rage and make false claims that they are under attack.

You aren’t “attacking,” you’re speaking.

You have every right to speak.

In fact, you HAVE to speak.

They want us to “shut up and work.”

We have no obligation to passively participate in our own oppression. In fact, getting to the point where we can speak would be an improvement.

The oppressors sternly demand us to, “BE QUIET!”

But most of the oppressed aren’t even speaking.

They’re crying out in pain.

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