I met a rather educated man when taking an old friend to a club in Scottsdale. This fellow, an architect, described in detail the conversation he had with a supermodel from Africa.
He said that the upper classes of blacks from Africa wanted nothing to do with the blacks in America. They were quite unapologetic about it declaring that they got rid of those people along time ago and wanted nothing to do with them!
In this particular supermodel, who shall go unnamed, said that the blacks in Africa rounded up those that they considered substandard, criminal, defective and inferior and got rid of them. She was obviously proud of her lineage and made no bones about the fact that those undesirable blacks had been rounded up and sold into slavery.
In fact, she was extremely proud of the fact that whites never took them captive and sold them into slavery because the African blacks would never allow that. The tribes of Africa were too powerful and would never allow the white invaders from Europe or England into their lucrative market. In other words, blacks sold blacks into slavery. The merchant vessels of England were merely allowed to purchase the slaves and transport them to the New World.
When I hear about “reparations,” I think about white guilt and the fallacies thereof. True, white men and women owned them but they bought them for fair value from other blacks!
Therefore, blacks in America should not misplace their anger upon whites in general. If anything their anger belongs properly directed at those who enslaved them — their fellow blacks!
Today, blacks are openly defiant claiming that no amount of reparations or repairs can satisfy the insults against them. What blacks in America need is a change in attitude, and the change that I offer, the strategy I suggest is the same that I have employed myself when I, too, needed correcting and redirecting — from my miserable attitude which was a source of my own grief.
Those were some of the darkest days of my life and it was not until I applied myself and exercised the suggestion given to me to “develop an attitude of gratitude” that things improved. For me, this started rather slowly. I found it was necessary to dwell upon the simplest details in life and rejoice in each facet.
For instance, rather than complain about the type of car I drove or what ever else I felt entitled to which I lacked, I found great solace and peace in thanking the Lord for each and every blessing of the day. In fact I often broke it down to the moment. For example, if I had clean clothes, a shower and a shave and a good breakfast, I made certain to dwell upon each and every aspect of those cumulative blessings. It was not until then that my “luck” began to change and I started to finish off my business today in better shape than when I had started the day.
In other words, it was my own impoverished attitude. It was my own thinking I was “poor” that deprived me of the riches that were mine in the present. By thinking I was poor and wanting more, I fail to acknowledge the Lord’s blessings in my life and I set myself up for a depressing attitude.
So, to my black brothers I say: develop an attitude of gratitude. You have a lot to be grateful for. Imagine if you were living back on the continent of Africa what your circumstances might be. Imagine if your forefathers were not among those selected to be purchased by those white men away from their black enslavers, or what your fate might have been.
Be grateful for the staunch constitutions of your ancestors because without those benefits of superior health, they may have expired during the long voyage to the New World, and, subsequently, you would never have been born. You must bless your own birth and all of the circumstances, even the insults and injuries, which led to superior stock and natural selection resulting in your life of freedom in the New World. To deny this is to deny your birthright, our Lord and your peace.
Reparations are an impossibility and it is only through the grace, the same grace that our Lord Jesus offers all, that one may forgive others and thereby release not only others but your selves. Reconciliation requires two participating parties. However, when there is only one party available, forgiveness is the only route out. We forgive others not so much to release them from their obligations because they may not have the ability to even be aware of such obligations, but we forgive others in order to release ourselves and free ourselves from the enmeshment.