Why Black People Refer to Themselves As “Black” Due to Historical Oppressive Systematic Conditioning

I always ask myself why Black people are still calling themselves Black Americans. The black identity in America is continually being threatened by police officers while serving and protecting their communities. The sad reality of bad apples within the police force in America has not been healed since the first city police services were established in Philadelphia in 1751, Richmond, Virginia in 1807, Boston in 1838, and New York in 1845.

It’s a disgusting time trend for police brutality in America. Bad apple policing is using aggressive force when completely unnecessary. Using a gun on an unarmed citizen to seize and detain ends up killing the civilian. When the purpose is to seize, then investigate the citizen without murder. Not every police department in the United States of America has bad apples. Still, when those bad apples appear and keep resurfacing. We have a police department problem in certain areas of the United States. It shows our country’s lack of civil police reform training in those problematic areas with bad apples.

I will write about the era that involves oppressive systematic conditioning placed on African slaves that turned our world into the black identity. Before we got off those slave ships, we were still Africans! Coming to the New World under an oppressive society destroyed our authentic racial identity, culture, and heritage. Back in slavery, segregation, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights time distorted the African race identity to Colored, Negros, People of Color, and now Black Americans.

The song from James Brown has empowered us, “I’m Black and Proud.” And the Civil Rights movement to what African Americans have been fighting our life on this matter to this day. African Americans thought once the Civil Rights bill was signed into law. We wouldn’t have to worry about police brutality, aggressive force, or racist cops that don’t seem to have humility.

Hasn’t that been the biggest lie and outrage from our own state police department in America?

Implementing aggressive force on unarmed African American men and women, who are dying at the hands of police officers who they’re supposed to be protecting. While police officers are protected under the law, are some not being indicted for their charges.

The Black American identity acceptance and empowerment are because British America, to what majority of people would represent these people as White Americans, engraved our new fallacy color identity through advertisement flyers, signs, newspapers, and verbal communication for over 400 years. The days of the Jim Crow era were part of society’s psychological pressure in the Southern states to reidentify African slaves to a color identity.

Back in the day, signs would read the following: “For Colored Only,” “For White Only,” or “No Colored Allowed.” When I look at these signs and the wording, it describes the content to tell someone to follow the description. These signs would give you direction and an understanding of what that location is for you. In today’s society, in the United States of America, African identity has transgressed to Black American identity. In hopes that someday, Black Americans will return to their original first letter, “A” identity termed African.

As you just looked at the picture above, think of an African slave is walking around a town during the Jim Crow era, segregation times, or the Civil Rights era. Our African people read these signs in how the United States society viewed the African race as black, People of Color, or Negro. In today’s time, African Americans have accustomed their racial identity and who they are as people to Black Americans.

When James Brown sang “I’m Black, and I’m Proud” on the 1968 album, “A Soulful Christmas” and his 1969 album sharing the song’s title. The song became an unofficial anthem of the Black Power movement. “Say It Loud – I’m Black, and I’m Proud” was Brown’s first recording to feature trombonist Fred Wesley. This song was a national anthem for African Americans living during the 70s to identify themselves as Black Americans.

There is a lot of Black American cultural influence from high-profiled celebrities, mostly in the rap/ hip-hop industry. During the 90s exploded gangsta rap music, which gave us an urban street life perspective of gangs, rivalries, drugs circulating, guns, and the overall gangster lifestyle.

Whether you like it or not, that era projected a stereotype about African Americans living in urban communities. Especially African American males are being perpetuated by mainstream media and music on how to view our race. These videos are showcased to a broader audience who will watch and depict your lifestyle this way.

As time has progressed, some people are still suffering the fate of police brutality and losing their lives from over-aggressive cops. They don’t seem to understand how to seize a human being without killing them if they assume they’re being threatened. Their job is not to kill the human but to investigate and administer ethical force if truly needed. The Black Lives Matter pushes our government to defund the police, end white supremacy, and administer new funds to community services and other public-health programs. It’s necessary to hold police accountable for any murderous action on any human being they’re investigating.

It’s important to recognize our society’s structure of signs when Africans were slaves. This type of environment, where African slaves are reading signs that say, “Waiting room for Colored People Only, Colored Only, or Whites Only.” What do you think the psychological damage would be over 300 years of reading this type of signage about our people? Well, my theory would be, you’ll consume the information you see, and you become it. You’ll speak in these terms, you’ll write in these terms, and you will see yourself as black, a Person of Color, or Negro.

When you see this type of reflection within American history, I seriously hope those who identify as “Black American” really need to understand why this term was socially structured to forget our African identity.

This is part of racism.

Having one race re-identify our African race to a color.

When they’re not part of our race.

That is a major problem of the social, ethical standards of human beings. Then to heat to the boiling point, Black Americans keep absorbing their Blackness and not their African identity. It’s a stab to our African heart that you can’t recognize, say, speak, or write about yourself in the context of Afro/African.

I am speaking to Black Americans who identify as black. I am writing to you because I want to help educate and help you remember that you are always African, even though you mentally are stuck in black. It takes a mental shift of consciousness to understand your skin color is literally not black but brown. If the colors don’t match, how can our people keep calling themselves black people when our skin color is brown. You’d think we would call ourselves brown people because the context of color actually matches our skin color. But that is beside the point because I never want people to identify their race by skin color.

That’s part of European’s racist history toward other races of people.

AfriEspiritu / AfriEsprit / AfriSpirit / AfriEspirito

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