I don’t think I need to make a case for how fast and how heavily Black culture travels the globe. It is for this reason that I believe and hope Black people redirect human evolution as opposed to amplifying western values.
In the so called United States of America, Black people have adopted values bestowed upon us via slavery and still hold on to these values, western values as stated. They have their origins in Greece and Rome (which are largely based on myths) and do not serve us or really anyone for that matter.
Let’s take a look at these values and go into detail.
- Individualism.
- Greed.
- Materialism.
- Warped Concept of Masculinity – Belief in The Strongest Survive or as used today the Alpha Male (violence, domination, emotional shutdown).
1. Individualism –We have adopted values based on individualism which erode the importance of collective meaning, collective goals/experiences, and the realization that the group is more important than the individual. I define individualism as being cut off from oneself, the family, society, and humanity. The results are people titter somewhere between being neurotic and schizophrenic without even knowing it. Because many in society are the same, the imbalance is nothing to be noticed, it is normalized.
Individualism also leads to a human vs. human mentality which seems to extend to human vs. planet or nature as well. Because there is no collective meaning few individuals see life as anything more than the opportunity to go for the bag and get as much as possible as quickly as possible.
In the past humans left monuments that attested to a concept of time that seemed to have great importance as well as an astrotheological belief system. Monuments were aligned with stars, the moon, and the sun around the globe because their movements were connected with the divine and these monuments required huge group effort and resources.
Today our monuments are nothing more than shopping centers and religious centers. Whether a person is shopping for the latest fit or seeking relief in a megachurches church dedicated to a man made God our monuments will be torn down or decay in a few hundred years at best.
Finally, it’s not a coincidence that some of the highest selling products begin with an “i.” iPhone, iPad, iMacs, iCloud, etc. Apple states that the i is for internet, I don’t totally buy that. I think by putting the “i” in front of their products it states that you can tame the digital frontier just like the cowboys did the west.
2. Greed – Individualism leads to greed. One can never have enough money or things. Ones self worth becomes based on what they have instead of who they are. This is why there is such an obsession with Gucci, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace, the list goes on.
Only someone or a group who really can’t afford these items would salivate over them because they think the item defines who they are or gives them some type of value.
I heard a brother say “I’m a Gucci Nigga.” This is problematic on so many levels I have to force myself to stay focused on the topic at hand and not get diverted into going down the rabbit hole of the consciousness behind a tongue that could emit those words.
As a result of individualism and greed, others simply become a means to this end or obstacles to be eliminated. The history of the USA with Native Americans (and yes I do know there were some Black people here before the slave trade) and the exploitation of kidnapped Black people are the only examples needed to demonstrate this but there are also numerous examples of actions taken abroad against others as well for their resources.
Greed in short leads to materialism.
3. Materialism – While we hear terms like “In God We Trust” and “God and Country,” make no mistake about it. The belief is in money and what it buys. The belief in God is nothing more than a human with megapowers so I prefer to say they do not have a connection to the divine. The fact that they (those running things) do not live in accordance with harmony is the strongest evidence that there is no trust in God or a higher power. He or she is just an excuse to justify whatever actions are necessary to fulfill the wishes and desires for a materially rich life.
Unfortunately, while Black people in America are some of the biggest victims of this materialist motivation for wealth, still we have adopted the same values that ultimately make us and others the modern enslaved.
4. Warped Masculinity – Darwin said “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.” Somehow we have gone from this statement to “The Strongest Survive,” and the word “Alpha Male” has become a part of our daily lexicon. It makes sense in the context of capitalism based on extracting the most from individuals, communities and the planet with no thought of justice or harmony.
This warped masculinity requires the shutdown of emotions and othering. Emotions make us human and othering makes us inhumane.
Human evolution can be changed if Black people readopt our original values. There is ample evidence that Africans traveled the globe and influenced the development of humans everywhere. This is why we see pyramids around the globe, why we see an alignment from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey to Cohokia, in Missouri.
Another great alignment is from an open circular stone temple in South Africa which some call Adams’ Calendar which is over 5360 miles apart from the Great Pyramids in Egypt on the other end of Africa but is only 26 miles to the east of the stone circle. Both structures are also aligned with various stars. Why is this important? Black people used this knowledge of the earth and heavens to travel the oceans and spread science and culture without the need to dominate others.
One of the oldest symbols found in a cave about 670 miles from the stone circle mentioned above is in Blombos cave. We see this symbol all over the world from pillar 43 in Gobekli Tepe to other places in Africa and South America.
Where Black people traveled we see signs of mutual cooperation to build, share religious beliefs and cultural exchange. There is cocaine on a mummy and the coca plant is indeginous to South America, there are the Olmec heads with one having an Afro, the same burial practices of embalming and burying the dead in certain positions, the list goes on and on. Still so called anthropologists and others want to say that people of the earth developed independently. The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of a shared global culture.
So in order for Black people to once again influence the course of humankind we must reject western belief systems and embrace collective thinking and find collective meaning.
We must learn to have the courage to trust others in our group and live in harmony with each other and not behave like crabs in a barrel.
When we reject the current values mentioned and embrace collective meaning and goals we can once again demonstrate the best of what humans can be. As our ancestors who left Blombos cave with the first symbol as seen in cave paintings as far away as Europe, we can once again cause a great shift in human evolution
