Nurture Success

Feb 26, '10 4:50 AM
by Zhana for everyone

Click here for Part 1.

One thing I did not mention in yesterday's post was that our brothas and sistas are overrepresented in mental hospitals and among users of mental health services.

African American doctors are addressing hypertension and cardiac disease by going to where the brothas are - the barbershops. To read more, see More Black Success Volume 5.

Part 2

Continuing the series on Why People of African Heritage Need to Heal and Transform Ourselves, Our Families, Our Communities and Our World.

Another reason why we need to heal is to do with our self-hatred. We hate the reflection we see in the mirror.

Our children are being taught the same nonsense in the same education system that we went through.

I was taught:

"Lincoln freed the slaves";
"Manifest Destiny"

People in the UK were taught "Wilberforce ended the slave trade".

How about you?

The education system does not reflect us or our children. It does not reflect our greatness. We are not taught about the great African Royal dynasties; ancient African civilisations.

The media does not, generally speaking, reflect us in positive ways.

Cleopatra was played by white actresses including Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor.

I grew up seeing images of ignorant African "savages" in films such as the Tarzan series. These days, the images are more subtle, but still destructive.

TV has shown us a multitude of images of African people starving, helpless, and dependent on Western aid.

This is why I am passionate about us creating our own images. We must be in control of media images of African people.

It is why I have published Black Success Stories and the More Black Success free ebooks.

We have been taught to hate ourselves and distrust each other.

We have been brainwashed by negative stereotypes and destructive representations of ourselves.

This conditioning goes very deep and the consequences are devastating. They include:

- Young Black men and women killing each other in drug-related and gang violence in our inner cities

- African people in South Africa being hooked on alcohol

- Wars - we are not content to kill each other, we have to chop each other up and mutilate each other.

For more about this, see

Hotel Rwanda

"Johnny Mad Dog" in African Women's Creativity.

Warning: I found some of this information disturbing. It is hard to take. But is vital that we have this knowledge.

Then there is the poverty.

We have inner-city poverty with its related debt and crime in many of our Western cities.

Black children, particularly boys, are more likely to be excluded or expelled from school. They are more likely to leave school without qualifications. This leads to them becoming involved in crime and ending up in the criminal justice system.

The jobless statistics show that we are more likely to be out of work than our European or Asian counterparts, and we tend to be out of work for longer.

Then there is the extreme poverty we have seen in places like Haiti, New Orleans and many parts of Africa.

Millions of our people have no access to clean water, education or health care.

But we can transform these situations. We can transform our lives and those of others.

My work is all about solutions. My work is all about healing and transformation, creating a better future.

For more about how we can heal and transform our lives and our world, see Success Strategies for Black People.

To hear me describe some of these methods, go to: Join Us on the Radio Again.

Stay tuned for Part 3.

Click here to leave your comments on my blog.

Have a great day!
Zhana
Publisher and Personal Growth Consultant

2 CommentsChronological Reverse Threaded

nolver wrote on Mar 10, '10

It's true that many black people are less fortunate, but whenever a black person has succes, people (mostly whites) mainly get jealous when you have achieved something good. And sometimes you don't get credit of your own black folks either and they get jealous as well.

People don't like it when we have success, but why is that? Why they are so afraid?

zhana48 wrote on May 3, '10

People are only jealous or envious when we believe we cannot achieve what the other person has achieved.

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