Breaking the Spell of Ghetto Hypnosis
By HHR | September 1st, 2009 | Category: Featured, HHR Contributors, Urban Issues | 6 commentsby Nadra Enzi
Some master mind boggler wove a magic spell over Inner City America and took a culture that produced dignity against all odds and replaced it with what we see on a daily basis. If I could find him I’d give him an exorcism courtesy of my size 15 foot!
My parents generation is aghast and wonders what happened. My grandparent’s generation feels cheated, because today’s parade of thugs and hoes threatens to erase all they fought for so long and so well.
The “conservatives” of my generation, culturally not politically in most cases, are mostly men raised by either old fashioned parents or grandparents feel like we’re a lonely outpost promoting a value system that died decades ago.
Surrounded by “men” we can’t dare trust and “women” we can’t risk marrying, we wonder where such mistrust will ultimately lead our community?
This is what conservative Black men consider daily while navigating this landscape. Our lives often assume the dimension of spy novels where inner city people and stories told are subjected to thourough analysis before acceptance.
Ghetto hypnosis spell can only be broken by those in its midst who refuse to keep quiet or turn a blind eye. On a policy level, it means pushing for ending, in all its forms, the welfare state that rewards backward behavior and punishes the urge to be independent.
Changing party affiliation isn’t necessary but demanding policies that take food stamps; taxpayer-funded medical care for mothers and children and public housing off the plate helps break the ghetto hypnosis spell. While liberals will be quick to note there are more White people on public assistance than Blacks, can anyone honestly say we aren’t the worse affected of the two groups?
One thought experiment I share asks what would happen if one day every EBT card was deactivated and their owners told to hunt jobs; start businesses or seek private help to in order to eat- just like the rest of us. Some say it’s a cruel exercise but my response is those of us who don’t have EBT cards have the option to either go hungry or find some money. Is that too much to ask adults who aren’t mentally or physically challenged?
I’d gladly like to to see disabled combat veterans and their injured counterparts in law enforcement; the fire safety profession and other public service occupations get their equivalent of an EBT card as a small token of society’s esteem. Why so little is done for those who give so much always saddens me.
Back to breaking the spell of ghetto hypnosis!
It’s hollow to talk about how “free” Black folks are when so many of us per capita owe our daily bread and life support to the welfare state. When someone else holds the key to your existence in the palm of his hand, I’d hardly call that freedom.
Rush Limbaugh once noted on air that he suspected President Obama of intentionally making the economy bad so he could increase entitlement payouts as a stealth form of reparations to African-Americans. While not a Rush follower, his observation is still worth noting. Central to the Democratic stranglehold on the Black vote is the poisonous premise that they “give” Black folks more than Republicans.
Ghetto hypnosis is an integrated effort to make one group of Americans disproportionate producers of incivility, criminality and other negatives that Black culture simply didn’t mass produce in generations past. Whether this result is intentional or not has yet to be determined.
Every thug and hoe can blame himself for choosing to be less than what they could be. No matter how much the Civil Rights Lobby points at other people, each Black person is the master or mistress of his personal choices. Promoting a junior human being mindset is not the same as promoting equality of opportunity.
I write so much about the inner city and ghetto hypnosis because its salvation doesn’t rest with the nation’s vocal right wing, i.e figureheads like Rush Limbaugh nor the Republican Party per se. To their credit, the right wing has preached against welfare dependence for years but aren’t as well received as Black icons like Bill Cosby who make essentially the same observations.
It will be accomplished by Black people tired of being embarrassed and swamped by behavior you couldn’t bribe one of us to openly perform decades ago.
Black mayors are reeling along with our elected officals generally; Black clergy are ducking for cover and our silent majority who wants better had better open its mouth.
Ghetto hypnosis is the last gasp of an American pathology that always sought to make Black people appear less than what we really were.
Now, the hypnotized freely go out of their way to prove racists right by becoming as vile and violent as propaganda once alleged. Inner city America’s only hope is breaking the spell ourselves.
Quiet as it’s kept, the rest of the country is waiting to see if we can do it. Other groups have done the same in American history, now it’s our turn.
NADRA ENZI AKA CAPT. BLACK is a contributor to HHR Blog he promotes crime prevention and self-development alongside his STREET TEAM OF AMERICA (very) concerned citizens group. nadracaptblack@ymail.com
on 
on 
>
We will thrive when we realize that the power to change lies within us and not outside.
HHR NOTE: Interesting article however I disagree with the part that “every thug and hoe can blame himself for choosing to be less than what they could”. The world is never neat or clean. Were not all privileged to live behind white picked fences. Each of us must meet people where they are. It’s my opinion that we should evaluate each person by his or her own story.
I can take both sides on the “thug and hoe” remark.
While it is necessary to help each person that seeks help on an individual basis, you cannot set a uniform policy on a case-by-case basis. The policy must be set in broad strokes, to achieve maximum effectiveness. Individual cases can be handled after the policy is implemented and is working.
Excellent article. I would like to add something for your consideration. A friend of mine shared his concern regarding the damage done by clergy, educators and other influencial people within the Black community regularly promoting an idealogy of victimization.
I think beyond politics, there needs to be a positive message to fall back on. A belief in the possibility to become great outside of selling drugs or becoming famous is paramount to ending the welfare state. The messages all children get today is that being sexy and rich are the goal, not being a productive person who can hold a job, raise a family and live the American Dream.
You talk about the men and women you’re surrounded by. Those you dare not trust and dare not marry. I think a lot of that has to do with different types of surroundings. Having been born on the West Coast, lived in the midwest during my youth and moving to New Jersey for college near New York City, I know a lot has to do with surroundings. There weren’t a ton of people who looked like me in Oregon where I was born. In the mostly rural midwest I learned what a “token” was and found out that not everyone wants to help their own as they feel some threat to their own status. It was on the East Coast that I really found myself and my peers. Working in the city, seeing beautiful people with dread locks and suits working on Madison Ave, my world broadened. So I understand that at times its easy to “feel like we’re a lonely outpost promoting a value system that died decades ago” but in reality we just need to enlarge our network. As a small business owner in Newark, NJ I network all the time and find that I do have peers. The hypnosis is real though and I think that causes some of us to be silent when in actuality if we were confident to speak we’d hear more voices than one would have thought. I found this to be true when attending a tea party focused on taxes. I wasn’t a speck.
Given the history of our people we can and have overcome all optical. American is the land where Afro- Americans live as well as White American live together. The Black Culture is a strong species if you put us on a boat and drop us in a strange land we would survive, If you put us on a bus and made us sit in the back we would walk, and if the government gave us a generation of lazy black people who have been given (EBT cards) shackles put on their mind you will find there are fighters to rise in the mixes of the losers. Every white thug and white hoe can blame himself for choosing to be less than what they could be. After being raised in south central thugs and hoe have no color or identity. The system is the systems take it or leave it. American has given everyone of all culture that choice. There are those of us who keep moving forward with hope and change. Not looking at today’s life of the people as backward thinking of thugs and hoes. I am a forward thinker.