Cling to Your Own Peace in all the Noise

The NAACP National Conference is being held in Houston, Texas this year, and is still going on as I write.  During the Keynote Address by Chairman-Roslyn M. Brock, she stated, ever so eloquently that,

"Today, the enemies of justice are not lynching African-Americans and 

practicing Jim Crow laws of segregation.  They are more sophisticated.  But 

they are equally sinister.  They are erecting barriers to economic viability, 

educational quality, health care accessibility, judicial equity, and political 

opportunity.  The opponents of justice are more refined, but they are equally 

threatening".

Chairman Brock's Keynote address mirrors the sentiment of the 2sisters blog, overall.  I would not be surprised if I wrote the above statement myself, however, I am going to shift gears today in an effort to inject more optimism and positivity into the community.

All too often we hear words and phrases that are meant to characterize and define the black community.  Some of these words are positive, but the majority are negative, and when repeated mercilessly throughout the media and popular culture, it becomes hard to differentiate between fiction and reality.  The two points that I mean to tackle in this article are (1) the black community is made up of individuals, just like any other community, and (2) we are the ultimate masters of our own reality.

Like I stated above, the black community is made up of many individuals, and it is improper to not only use blanket statements to define a people, but it is also equally improper to personally accept and internalize such things.  With that said, it leads us to how we are in control of our reality.  It is so easy, these days, to begin to accept the things that have been said about African Americans.  With all the "noise" and confusion constantly churning around- and unfortunately within us, we have to have a zero.  A zero is a term I defined a few years ago that quite simply describes an inner peaceful sanctum within oneself, that if everything around us were to fall away or accumulate, for that matter, your zero would be that place where you pick yourself up from and start over again.  More specifically, a zero is a state of mind, which everyone should work to acquire, where you keep your own self definition.  Once you achieve this zero, life can still get you down, but you will always have a secret weapon that cannot ever be stripped from you.  In the face of adversity and discrimination, among other things, you will always have your dignity and personal peace once you define your own zero.  With it, you will be able to filter through the negative impact that society means to place on the African American individual, and you will know how to rise above the filth and grime of other people's negative views of you. You will be able to access this place of peace at any time, because ultimately you will have defined who you are, and no other outside definition or characaturization will be able to sway or penetrate the fortress of your psyche any longer.

Good Luck.