"Black Pride"....
....I've already never gave a hoot about "white", but I'm also growing to not give a hoot about "black"....labels will never truly change what one was, is, will, or can be; but because of others, they can undeservingly restrict or promote.....therefore, I have no problem with not refering to myself as "black".
....but aren't I supposed to be "proud to be black"...????....why..???....if I can't find joy in anything other than my blackness, then I am one sad, pathetic, and lost individual....and if I can't break away from something such as labels that were put onto me by my "oppressors", then I'm one extremely fearful individual...."black" people always talk about freedom, but as long as we refer to ourselves as being what those who we seek to become free from defined us by, we can never be free.....true freedom is not about simply going where you want, or doing what you want to do, but it is also about having no fear; and dependence = fear.
To be free is not merely to do what you like, or to break away from outward circumstances which bind you, but to understand the whole problem of dependence. Do you know what dependence is? You depend on your parent, don't you? You depend on your teachers, you depend on the cook, on the postman, on the man who brings you milk, and so on. That kind of dependence one can understand fairly easily. But there is a far deeper kind of dependence which one must understand before one can be free: the dependence on another for one's happiness. Do you know what it means to depend on somebody for your happiness? It is not the mere physical dependence on another which is so binding, but the inward, psychological dependence from which you derive so-called happiness; for when you depend on somebody in that way, you become a slave.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
....as long as we refer to ourselves as, and 'find joy'/'take pride' in what those who oppressed us defined us as, we will forever be dependent on those oppressors, thus never being free from them....this is something that we must at least understand.
....but for those who are content with the present situation of themselves and all those around them (directly or indirectly), then all of this is irrelevant.
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....I've already never gave a hoot about "white", but I'm also growing to not give a hoot about "black"....labels will never truly change what one was, is, will, or can be; but because of others, they can undeservingly restrict or promote.....therefore, I have no problem with not refering to myself as "black".
....but aren't I supposed to be "proud to be black"...????....why..???....if I can't find joy in anything other than my blackness, then I am one sad, pathetic, and lost individual....and if I can't break away from something such as labels that were put onto me by my "oppressors", then I'm one extremely fearful individual...."black" people always talk about freedom, but as long as we refer to ourselves as being what those who we seek to become free from defined us by, we can never be free.....true freedom is not about simply going where you want, or doing what you want to do, but it is also about having no fear; and dependence = fear.
To be free is not merely to do what you like, or to break away from outward circumstances which bind you, but to understand the whole problem of dependence. Do you know what dependence is? You depend on your parent, don't you? You depend on your teachers, you depend on the cook, on the postman, on the man who brings you milk, and so on. That kind of dependence one can understand fairly easily. But there is a far deeper kind of dependence which one must understand before one can be free: the dependence on another for one's happiness. Do you know what it means to depend on somebody for your happiness? It is not the mere physical dependence on another which is so binding, but the inward, psychological dependence from which you derive so-called happiness; for when you depend on somebody in that way, you become a slave.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
....as long as we refer to ourselves as, and 'find joy'/'take pride' in what those who oppressed us defined us as, we will forever be dependent on those oppressors, thus never being free from them....this is something that we must at least understand.
....but for those who are content with the present situation of themselves and all those around them (directly or indirectly), then all of this is irrelevant.
.