“As long as a white man does it, it’s alright, a black man is supposed to have no feelings. But when a black man strikes back he’s an extremist, he’s supposed to sit passively and have no feelings, be nonviolent, and love his enemy no matter what kind of attack, verbal or otherwise, he’s supposed to take it. But if he stands up in any way and tries to defend himself, then he’s an extremist.”
MALCOLM X, Oxford Union Debate, Dec. 3, 1964
This subservient and forgiving consciousness goes contrary to the first law of nature, self-preservation.
Does it seem intelligent to love someone or something that is your ‘enemy’? No.
Let’s seriously think about this. Imagine somebody breaks into your house tonight, murders everyone in the house but you and steals all of your personal belongings. Before he escapes you have an opportunity to grab your firearm and retaliate but instead you request to have a ‘prayer meeting’ with the intruder, hoping he finds peace in his heart and turns to the lord. Doesn’t this sound ridiculous? Well that’s what it sounds like to me when I hear black people forgiving those whom systemically murder and oppress us.
It is a mental sickness. Forgiving and loving your enemy is exercising cowardice on the highest level. There’s nothing righteous about being a coward.
The crazy part is, we are actually expected to behave this way. Not everyone, just us, black people.
When white America is attacked and its homeostasis threatened, all alarms are sounded and defense mechanisms activated. You can expect retaliation if you mess with America. They do not, will not, and have not ever prayed for their enemies.
However it doesn’t matter how many generations of violent oppression we experience, or how many police murder us in cold blood, or how much institutional racism we have to fight with everyday. We are expected to ‘turn the other cheek’ and pray for our enemies.
Why are we encouraged to act like this? On one hand it looks like its because black lives don’t matter to America, or the world. I beg to differ. I maintain that we are conditioned by society to be forgiving of our enemies because even the thought of righteous retaliation from melanated minds gives even the most notable white supremacist nightmares.
They know who we are and what we are capable of. Our ‘enemies’ know now just as they knew back during chattel slavery that an uprising of self respecting black people who were fed up with oppression, and unafraid of death would be the end of their American dream.
We are the original man, physical manifestations of the infinitely expanding creative force of the universe, and they are terrified of us ever having enough self respect to retaliate.
The only thing holding us back is us, and our fear. The fact that we hold our enemies lives in higher esteem and value then our own is the main reason why we are still under the foot of the system of white supremacy.
If we have to forgive somebody how about we forgive ourselves and each other. Let’s redirect that forgiving spirit into something constructive for our self preservation.
Or we can continue to pray for our enemies, and always be prey for our enemies.
