The Power of Culture

The Transformational Agenda Magazine 26th Edition

…the power of culture…
Culture can truly empower
— or truly disempower —
a people.

Awareness of culture can be almost subconscious, leaving people to blow in the wind without an anchor, acting in self-destructive ways and not knowing why, lacking things like belief in self, willingness to extend one’s self to achieve important objectives, and devaluing life itself; as is the case in the African American community today. Our culture can be extremely conscious and explicit, be manipulated to set high expectations and to make positive behavior second nature; and as such can propel a culture to greatness for millennia, setting a cultural standard for the world; as did our Ancient Egyptian ancestors, whose civilization referred to itself as Kemit.

Slave culture in America was horrific. Legally, in America the enslaved were chattel property and as the Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision made crystal clear, enslaved Africans had not a single right which any white person need respect. The many positive aspects of African culture were consciously attacked and prohibited under threat of terror and brutality. Implanted was the oppressors’ manipulated culture of the enslaved in America—a culture that didn’t even recognize the enslaved as human beings. It was a culture that can only be compared with forced labor camps of the world’s most brutally repressive regimes.

Yet our ancestors consistently chose life, so that we might know today… certainly believing that at some point a future generation would know enough freedom to be able to heal themselves and to thrive. That generation is us!

The Transformational Agenda Magazine 26th Edition

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