c. 1997 Religion News Service
(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)
UNDATED _ For African Americans, the controversy surrounding the San Jose Mercury News'”Dark Alliance”series is merely a sidebar to a much larger issue where facts collide with perceptions.
In this case, the facts of whether or not the CIA was aware of the cocaine-Contra connection in Los Angeles is less important than the idea of government complicity. Even the suspicion of such awareness supports a notion widespread in the black community that there is a”master plan”to control, if not destroy, African Americans.
Why? Because the history of racism in this country has demonstrated that _ at least in the eyes of some _ blacks have no implicit value of their own, only that which is imputed by those in authority.
Witness, for example, the federally sponsored Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, in which nearly 400 black men infected with syphilis went untreated for more than 40 years. These men were duped into participation through promises of free medical care, and were never told the true nature of the study.
Moreover, though media exposure brought an end to the research in 1972, an official apology was not rendered by the government until President Clinton did so earlier this month.
In view of this history, the Mercury News’ much-ballyhooed mea culpa _ that the”Dark Alliance”series”presented only one interpretation of complicated, sometimes-conflicting pieces of evidence”_ provides African Americans with little comfort.
The notion of a”master plan”continues unabated.
Even though there are historical reasons for suspecting a conspiracy against blacks, the community itself, nevertheless, is ill-equipped to do anything about it.
Why? Because our sense of victimization has effected the way we see ourselves.
Take, for example, the current debate over the multiracial designation preferred by some persons of mixed racial parentage. Traditionally, blacks have defined their racial identity by the standards of the pre-Civil War miscegenation laws. Loosely interpreted,”one drop”of black blood coursing through one’s veins was deemed sufficient to relegate an individual to the status of a”nigra.” Though in recent years we have learned to utilize this interpretation for positive ends (bloc voting, for example), the fact is we have continued to define ourselves by that standard.”Multiracial”is merely the latest label _ following”colored,””Negro,””black,””Afro-American”and”African-American”_ to be worn by a people whose racial and cultural identity has been defined by others.
What this suggests is the need for another, healthier standard of identity. The black community has, for a generation, been attempting to erect such a standard, by retracing our history and developing new cultural paradigms for our lives.
The problem is that in so doing, many have rejected the Christian faith, thus setting aside a history _ and its particular moral and ethical norms _ which once could be said to have characterized our people.
The result, it seems to me, has been an increase in crime, disunity and social dysfunction. Moreover, we have failed to achieve our goal: A defining sense of our identity, purpose and mission.
And because we failed, rather than defeating the”master plan,”we have, however unwittingly, become complicit in it.
The Bible makes clear that a healthy identity and the fruits it brings can only be attained through a relationship with God.”Where there is no vision,”_ that is, divine insight _ says Proverbs 29:18,”the people perish. But he that keeps the law (of God), happy is he.” It is only as we see ourselves through God’s eyes and yield ourselves to his plan that a proper sense of self can be achieved, whether for an individual or a race of people.
MJP END ATCHISON
