| When my children suffered an injury, I held them close, reassured them and dried their tears, my first concern was the healing, addressing the damage and doing whatever it takes with whatever help I could enlist to heal the wound or mend the bone and minimize the scar or future suffering that the injury might cause. If the injury was intentionally caused by an evil doer, I would also set out with like minded people to eliminate or reduce the possibility of that evil doer harming my or any one else's child, hopefully within, but possibly outside of the law, if the law protects evil doers. If the injury was due to something dangerous in the environment, I would do all in my ability personally and raise awareness of its danger and enlist others politically to have it removed, destroyed or modified to make it reasonably safe for children. Failing being able to remove the danger, I would do everything I can to make sure that children knew all about it and how to avoid or armor themselves against it in the future. |  LLOYD DENNIS: Motivator, Trainer and Author. |
So my interest in Racial Reconciliation / Healing is about the same: Repairing the damage, Removing evil doers power, De-constructing institutionalized racism, and Preparing children to survive and thrive regardless.
To attack these we really only need agreement that the disproportionate poverty and incarceration of black people is the wound and a willingness of people to use their personal power and influence to change laws and policies that contribute to the injury (Ineffective, underfunded schools and the war on drugs), and use their time energy and resources to help children avoid the pitfalls that maintain poverty and incarceration rates.
Political power is being driven by bigoted people who believe that black poverty and incarceration are because something is innately wrong with people with melanized skin. They are not necessarily evil but suffer from ignorance, traditional beliefs and media's focus on the outcomes rather than the causes. These folk are not very likely to participate in discussions with those of us who know better. Public media are the best hope for shedding light into their dark places.
Healing the Wound: The conversation that led Pastor Wardsworth and I to begin the Silverback Society was about repairing the damage. This takes boots on the ground and overcoming the internalized racist beliefs that black men are helpless to change their communities and that the children are “lost”. We are healing those concepts in the hearts and minds on hundreds of boys and soon to be hundreds of men.
I write to express that addressing the pain cause by racism may soothe the injured but does nothing to heal the injury, reduce the political power of bigots and racists, change how real estate values work, or prepare the next generation to deal with it while becoming people who will break the cycles put in motion generations earlier. Healers have to do something to change something.
To attack these we really only need agreement that the disproportionate poverty and incarceration of black people is the wound and a willingness of people to use their personal power and influence to change laws and policies that contribute to the injury (Ineffective, underfunded schools and the war on drugs), and use their time energy and resources to help children avoid the pitfalls that maintain poverty and incarceration rates.
Political power is being driven by bigoted people who believe that black poverty and incarceration are because something is innately wrong with people with melanized skin. They are not necessarily evil but suffer from ignorance, traditional beliefs and media's focus on the outcomes rather than the causes. These folk are not very likely to participate in discussions with those of us who know better. Public media are the best hope for shedding light into their dark places.
Healing the Wound: The conversation that led Pastor Wardsworth and I to begin the Silverback Society was about repairing the damage. This takes boots on the ground and overcoming the internalized racist beliefs that black men are helpless to change their communities and that the children are “lost”. We are healing those concepts in the hearts and minds on hundreds of boys and soon to be hundreds of men.
I write to express that addressing the pain cause by racism may soothe the injured but does nothing to heal the injury, reduce the political power of bigots and racists, change how real estate values work, or prepare the next generation to deal with it while becoming people who will break the cycles put in motion generations earlier. Healers have to do something to change something.
LLOYD DENNIS, a.k.a. the "Love Doctor" is a motivator, trainer and the author of HIS WAY WORKS: A Primer For Modern Living. For more information visit: wwwlloyddennis.com or www.facebook.com/lloyd.dennis.
Originally published on June 11, 2015 by lloyddennis.com.
Originally published on June 11, 2015 by lloyddennis.com.
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