In October 2010 I wrote a Post titled Hurting for Tyler Clementi. In that Post I said, “It seems that my heart is in constant pain over the meanness, cruelty, and inhumanity that is sweeping across our world. Human social life is steadily degenerating into something that makes the worst of Hollywood’s horror films into PG13 movies. Each day I think about the Oku Enia (the Corpse) and the tragedy that is growing in the Ojiji Aiye (Shadow world) and making its way into our Pataki Aiye (Material world) as described by the Mysterious Dr. M. and the Enia in the Handbook On Being Human, vol. I. Each day it becomes more challenging to remain optimistic in my belief that the human family will turn things around. This past week has been especially difficult. I’ve found it almost impossible to shake the pain my heart feels over the senseless death of Tyler Clementi. I know that I am not alone in feeling this deep sense of hurt for him, for Megan Meier, and for the tens of thousands of other young souls who suffer the abuse of bullying and senseless condemnation. Have we really become so blind, callous, and crude that we can take pleasure in the sadistic disregard for the pain and suffering of others?”
Now here I am a year plus later and my daily hurt for the world is laid raw once again but the senseless death of Trayvon Martin. Many souls have died senseless deaths in the past seventeen months since Tyler Clementi’s death but Trayvon’s death has even deeper significance for me as an African American male, a BLACK MALE. For some people, those two words are like the air-raid sirens that use to go off when we were worried about being nuked by the Soviet Union – DUCK and COVER! For some others the words are more like a battle cry calling them to ATTACK and DEFENSE mode. For others the words signal an opportunity to redirect their own inner pain outward towards THE OTHER in the form of unbridled hatred and aggression. And for still others the words are an ambiguous label that are both a source of Global Unification, Strength, and Pride on the one hand, and Profound Dehumanization and a persistent underlying Fear-For-Ones-Safety on the other. Obviously I am in that later group. SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER is another word-set or label that is often thought and used interchangeably with BLACK MALE. Coming from the store where I bought my lunch. Walking home from visiting a friend. Waiting outside a girlfriend’s house for her to come out to the car. Standing on the corner selling newspapers. And those are just a few of the occasions that I had to actually look down the barrel of WHITE POLICE OFFICERS’ guns before reaching the age of twenty-one. It would take too long, too many words to report all of the times that my friends and I were stopped and harassed by the police while growing up in Harlem, New York. This is the cultural context of everyday life for BLACK MALES in America. BLACK MALE doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists, businessmen, ministers, construction workers, students, athletes, and others are viewed through a mental lens that distorts the truth of who they are regardless of their achievements, personal qualities, or other social status characteristics. A devastating lost of good fortune for those who are stuck wearing those lenses. A painful experience with possibly deadly consequences for those of us who are viewed through those lenses.
When Trayvon Martin was senselessly murdered the bullet pierced every BLACK MALE in America. Some of us have felt it more deeply and with a greater awareness than others but we all know that it could of just as easily been us, or one of our sons, fathers, brothers, uncles, or friends. We have been warned from childhood about the significance of the ambiguous label of BLACK MALE in the USA. Every BLACK MALE knows that his level of risk in everyday life exceeds that of others. Now as difficult and emotionally challenging as it may be for you, please be strong and listen to these two tapes of the 911 calls that occurred during the Trayvon Martin murder. Why do we need to think ahead, plan, and proactively shape a more humane future for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Why do we need the Prime Directive of the Human Family to be taught and proclaimed everywhere? Why is it important for us to nurture a generation of humans who have internalized the importance of Creating Peaceful Space? Listen to the cries of Trayvon Martin and consider the Prime Directive, to seek pleasure and avoid pain for yourself and others, to convert negative energy into positive energy through your conduct in the world, and to nurture life and struggle against death for the welfare of the planet and the co-existence of all living things. Listen to the comments of George Zimmerman as he constructs a justification for his vile actions as they occur. (Trayvon Martin tape 1) (Trayvon Martin tape 2).
George Zimmerman did not come into the world with a vile hated etched in his heart. It was here, in the world, after his birth, that he internalized the pathology of hatred. It is pathological to be able to hear Trayvon Martin's screams, especially if you happen to be the one kindling his fear and sense of helplessness and looking into his pleading eyes, and not feel empathy, compassion, and restraint. In using the term pathology I am in no way suggesting a level of mental dysfunction where George Zimmerman was not aware of and responsible for his actions. It is to state that his actions are related to a complex of factors that are pervasive in our US culture. To put it in the language of the Handbook On Being Human, vol I George Zimmerman’s actions and Trayvon Martin’s murder emerge from the Quantum Entity that we have created by our choices. We choose to hate! It doesn’t come easily! It can be a painstaking process to plant hatred deep into the heart. But this culture seems to do a really effective job of it. Human’s make up tales, lies really, about THE OTHER in order to rationalize and justify their actions towards them. According to the Mysterious Dr. M. and the Handbook, we are social beings. We are genetically coded for affection, affinity, and love because they support the survival of our species. Fear, flight, and fight (aggressiveness) are also important survival characteristics locked into our genetic code. Fear is that compelling emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, and likely to cause pain or some other threat to ones safety and well-being. Hatred is a feeling of intense and passionate dislike for, or prejudice toward someone. It is a motivational force behind hostile actions. They are not the same because hatred can exist where there is no basis for fear. What possible threat could Trayvon Martin and a bag of Skittles have been to George Zimmerman and his gun AFTER THE 911 OPERATOR TOLD HIM TO BACK OFF AND NOT FOLLOW?
In my last Post I said about Broken People, Sometimes broken people are like cracked vessels that leak what they should contain. Some broken people syndicate their sorry by striking out against anyone and everyone around them. It is not always intentional or conscious behaviors. More often than not, a broken person has retreated to their Instinct of Pugnacity and their Emotion of Anger as an unconsciousness defensive behavior to deny the internal reality of their own pain. As Dr. M. describes in the Handbook, the Instinct of Pugnacity (to fight) ranks with fear… in terms of …the great strength of its impulse and the high intensity of the emotion it generates. Critical to his description is the statement, …this instinct is called forth from the internal interpretation of a feeling or an experience, like being challenged, threatened, constrained, or deceived. The condition of its excitement is rather any opposition to the free exercise of any impulse, any obstruction to the activity to which the creature is impelled by any one of any such instincts. Broken people unwittingly challenge, threaten, constrain, and deceive because they want others to share the burden they carry. Generally they will persist until their temperament of pugnacity and anger are explained and redirected back to them as the source of what they claim to be happening to them.
George Zimmerman is one of those Broken People whose eyes BLACK MALES look into everyday. It hurts my heart that the last eyes Trayvon Martin saw looking at him were those of the broken person who was about to take his life; not because of Trayvon’s Blackness, but because of the pathology that George Zimmerman shares with so many others in this culture of hate. It does not have to be this way. There is no instant solution to our national and global social maladjustments but as Dr. M. states in the Handbook, we are not helpless because through our choices and our children we can shape our future. If George Zimmerman was raised in a world guided by the Prime Directive Trayvon Martin would be alive. How many more? Remember the recurring statement in the Handbook, ‘but they fail to see!’ How many more things have to happen before we choose to see that we are collectively nurturing our own destruction by cultivating the culture of hate? People’s emotions are being pushed beyond their breaking point – the threshold for the Oku Enia (the Corpse) as described in the Handbook. Can you feel it coming through?
Living in alignment with the Prime Directive
is a choice to which everyone should be invited!
You have been invited!
is a choice to which everyone should be invited!
You have been invited!
Create Peaceful Space!
Trust Your Process!
Peace, Love, and Health!
