The Black Savior

The Black life is largely an interrupted one. Many white children grow up pursuing their interests. They choose Schools based on what they like, they choose friends and date based on who they like. But for Black children, specifically those that are members of low-income neighborhoods mostly occupied by African-Americans and Immigrants of color, daily decisions are dictated by survival.

Growing up, whether it was in the home, in the school, or in the church, we are told and taught what to pursue. It's important to understand that I'm not speaking about Tradition. We are taught to achieve a set of expectations that were never achieved by the people who ingrained them in us. Black children quickly learn that their job isn't to simply go further in life than their parents did, no, the Black child's job too often is to fix the mistakes their parents made, and to accomplish the things their parents couldn't - with no actual point of reference.

The Black child in all of his or her ambition begins their journey to success working backwards before they can begin to work forward; making peace with the sins of their family's past in order to pursue redemption in the future.

The reality of this salvation story lacks the romantic element that often fuels the Black parent's desperate imagination.

This is one of the major drawbacks of systematic oppression. The engineered disparity experienced by many people of color creates a great desire for a Savior. Black children by adulthood abandon dreams of being a person and adopt the righteous cause of being a Savior or waiting for one. This is the unconfronted narrative of being "Black".

Estranged from will, pleasure, and individuality, the deeper within the grips of oppression a family is the more the personal pursuits of the child is met with undeniable guilt. There is indeed an honest need for salvation, but psychologically such conditioning is more likely to breed a slave than a Savior.

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