Dred of a New Year
I have been watching news, reading articles, observing social media posts, listening to podcasts throughout 2023. It has been daunting to my soul. Never have I felt so powerless and hopeless, not even during my darkest days of depression. Then, I could say I was in an emotional fog. Today, it is more terrifying because I am fully cognizant of what is going on.
I feel that by this time next year, I will be reminiscing about what we had as a country, as a culture. I will be coming to the full realization that the America many of us sought to create, an America that would truly live up to its creed of equally created men and women, endowed with life, liberty and happiness, will not come to pass in my lifetime, if ever. I say this with much despair, because this is not a normal time.
In my lifetime, I have seen self-hatred rise in the Black community to the point where not only do we peddle poisons to our community, but we will kill each other for the right to do it and profit from it. However, that hate has risen, or should I more accurately say, fallen to a new level, where we look at others from different parts of the diaspora with disdain and extreme prejudice. They have forgotten the basic concept that there is no community without unity. I fear that if the prevailing negative voices are not tempered, consequences will occur that will cast a pall over our community for generations.
People divided can be easily conquered and subjugated. As a new authoritarian phase in America emerges, we, African Americans, will feel the brunt of it, because many will believe the rise of a new fascist nation to be partly our creation. From the backlash that energized it to the division, and apathy, in the diaspora that allowed it to grow unabated. That burden would not be fair, but it will be our burden.
There will be no life preserver of the free press or the civil courts to aid us at that point. Whatever our new subjugation is, we will have to endure it for more than a moment in time. Those that will be naive and think they will be special enough to avoid the persecution will be the examples used to keep us in line. All of this could possibly start in 2024.
My semblance of freedom has been good for the most part. I did not achieve all I wanted to achieve, but I did have personal, financial, physical, mental, and spiritual victories along the way. However, I am not guaranteed any more of those achievements, and my fate is not totally in my hands. My freedom, my fate will be determined by African Americans that I don't know, that have lost faith in their Blackness under their delusion that they are the Blackest of Black folks.
These delusionists will either not vote, vote willingly for authoritarianism, or vote unwillingly through protestation for authoritarianism. That is their right. However, their right will cost me, my family and my true friends ours.
I am sorry for this obituary. I pray that I am wrong. Correction: I vigorously pray that I am wrong! However, if cooler heads don't prevail, if true consciousness doesn't settle in, if truth remains pressed underground, this bleak outlook of the aftermath of 2024 will be a predicate tome for our new normal.
As we are still in 2023 though, there is still time for hope. There is still time to plan and strategize. There is still time to educate, energize, organize, and mobilize. There is still time to mitigate, and maybe outright defeat, the principalities and powers that seek to devour our very souls.
We must overcome our timidity with a boldness from a righteous place. No more tolerances of lies. No more embracing misconceptions. No more being agents of our own demise. We should seek the truth, because truth is our protection and our freedom. We should seek unity, because unity is our strength. We should seek peace, because just as light ends darkness, peace ends hostility.
This would be a 2024 worth anticipating. I'll settle for a 2024 that allows me to anticipate, with hope, 2025.
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