Posted by JuJuan Buford @JSBUFORD
What is it like to live with something you absolutely despise?
When you’ve been exposed to the inevitable-ness of something. When you understand a thing. Become so familiar with it, that you know it’s ugly contours like the back of your hand. You reach a point when you experience and observe it’s dehumanizing and guttural impacts as if in third person. At some point even the macro begins to resonate micro….even taking on an air of anonymity, like being forced to inhale carbon dioxide emissions. It’s very presence, by definition antithetical to the expression of your humanity, but you learn to co-exist. Or do you?
Perhaps, a select few do. But most simply learn to become highly effective at pushing it down.
You can walk into a boardroom full of its sympathizers and progenitors, and narrate a meticulously planned strategy that gains you temporary victory. You sit across the table and communicate an immaculately curated value proposition, knowing you may be staring into the eyes of one of it’s minions. You push it down deep into the recesses of your gut.
You push down the knowledge of knowing that though you may have won the day, the economics aren’t on your side. The economics of attention. The economics of financial interests. The economics of eating, raising children, sleeping in a warm bed. The economics of self interests and avarice. The economics of hate. Of obliviousness. Of indifference.
You push it down.
You avoid watching the grotesque displays of the economics splashed across the television set, of ebony and brown people being accosted…..their gyrations ugly, violent, infected by the economics, gallivanting as late night news.
Because you still have to win. You push it down. Collect your victories how and when you can. Carve out some semblance of sanity and safety. Find a space of self-definition. It’s all fiction anyway.
You push it down.
The anger, the rage, the disappointment. To tally the losses on a daily basis would surely lead to insanity. The lives being lost.
Trayvon Martin, you push it down.
Amadou Diallo, you push it down.
George Floyd, you push it down.
Philando Castile, you push it down.
Ahmaud Arbery, you push it down.
Breonna Taylor, you push it down.
Michael Brown, you push it down.
Eric Garner, you push it down.
Atatiana Jefferson, you push it down.
They tried to kill Assata Shakur, you push it down.
Fred Hampton, you push it down.
Emmitt Till, you push it down.
The Tulsa massacre of Black Wallstreet.
I’m no longer shook or surprised to have a gun pointed at me. What does that mean?
I’m not an anomaly.
They know. Women. White, black, yellow, purple, blue. Men. White, black, yellow purple, blue. They know what they’re doing. Amy is nothing new.
You push it down.
When you call a business owner or prospective client and they answer the phone with excitement, and you forget to lower the bass in your voice temporarily. You listen intently (cursing your sloppiness) as they’ve heard your complexion and their mood changes.
Down.
You have to perfect your craft. Be obsessed with your craft. Your value prop is your freedom. Your waking moments pregnant with knowing there is a highly effective agenda being executed to exile you to the fringes of society. Can you imagine all the latent talent being denied expression because of it. The inventions not created. The solutions buried in graves. All the energy and potential extinguished. The value of their labors.
Then again, there is the prison industrial complex. You push it down.
You still have to compete. Eat, live, laugh, screw, drink. Take vacations. Enjoy holidays with family. Travel. Enjoy comedy shows and read great novels. Dream.
So you push it down.
A church gets bombed. Ebony bodies discriminately shot up. Children die. You watch.
You watch people being reduced to a biscuit in an oven. The psychological beat down. The literal knee being applied to the neck. The blatant, unapologetic terrorism and it begins to bubble up. He was out taking a jog. The anger and the rage. You fight not to see them all the same. Like agents in the Matrix, you know they could be anyone or everyone. Smiling in your face, but secretly placing a knee on your success.
The Washington Red Skins, you push it down.
The theft of land from Palestinians, you push it down.
Europeans first, now China exploiting Africa, you push it down.
People lock their cars when you walk by, you push it down.
Anita Hill, you push it down.
Grab them by the pussy, you push it down.
People clutching their purses on the elevator.
Seeing babies. Young brown babies on the border being treated like animals.
Seeing people being shot in cold blood because of who they desire to love and sleep with.
Watching ethnic cleansing in China, you push it down.
The funding of drug cartels that slaughter people, followed by the transfer of the proceeds to a militarized police force that slaughters people…… further down.
The continuation of slavery via the prison industrial complex. Down.
The systemic mis-education of ebony and brown people, and mutilation of their identities in so called schools of higher education. Down further.
They came to this land under the auspices of God. Claimed to arrive first. Afflicted people with all manner of disease, pestilence, and violence. Systematically removed them from their land and homes.
And then mock them by literally attempting to take ownership of their names and heritage, and display them like emblems or tributes to a blood thirsty, murderous, and inhumane conquest.
It simmers, slow, and violently underneath.
Waiting, seething. Collecting energy.
You want to go out and break some shit. You want to kill it.
This is the double consciousness. Two identities. Two realities. Warring against each other. Threatening to tear the other apart. To be African American and aware. To have read enough history to know.
Some inebriate themselves constantly.
Some deny its existence.
Some betray to gain favor, in hopes of gaining some breathing room.
And some try to pray it away.
You want to be around your people who haven’t been infected with it.
Be free from the eye of Sauron’s gaze.
You want to seek out environs where your greatest desires and passions can freely find expression.
Be free to be.
#entrepreneurshipisempowerment
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JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, entrepreneur, Founder & CEO of JSB Business Solutions Group, business development professional, and writer dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
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