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| Are We Listening to Our Black Children? |
Those posts are for everyone, regardless of racial or cultural background (although the examples in part 2 came from the Black community).
But I continue to be very concerned about parenting within the Black community - how we parent our children. It's not just about physical violence. About physical abuse, i.e. beating children, and the fact that so many of our Black parents tell me we "have to" beat our children. No, we don't "have to" be violent to children. We need to find better ways to communicate. We need to upgrade our skills.
As I said, it's not just about physical violence. I was on the bus a few weeks ago and I saw this sista with a beautiful, beautiful little girl on her back. The child had such a beautiful smile. She was trying to get her mother's attention and her mother was telling her to "shush" so she could talk on the phone.
This really hurt me. And I see similar things all the time in my neighbourhood, in my community. WHY would you ignore your child to talk on the phone?
And I have seen a lot worse than this, and I experienced far worse than this when I was a young person. So many of us are so damaged. We come from damaged families. We have been damaging each other in our families for many generations, as a direct result of racism. As part of the legacy of slavery. We carry wounds that go very deep.
As I have said on this blog many times, we have learned toxic ways of communicating, toxic ways of behaving. And we will keep infllicting these toxic behaviour patterns on one generation after another until we heal them. This is probaby the main reason why I wrote Success Strategies for Black People. We CAN heal ourselves and each other. And the healing process begins with healing oneself.
My own healing journey has been a long and difficult one, and it is ongoing. I have learned a lot through my healing process and my aim is to share with you what is of value. See also: Violence Begins at Home.
