Real Life Real Faith Men of Faith March 2016 | Page 4
Don't Let Anybody
Take Your Manhood
Social Commentary
NAVI ROBBINS
“Don’t let anybody take your
manhood. Be proud of our heritage.
We don’t have anything to be
ashamed of.” These words by the late
Martin Luther King Jr. told to a
congregation not long before his
death are timeless. Words dropped in
the lake of time, that ripple effect still
resonates forty-eight years later.
Many believed Martin to be a
passivist, but from these words, one
can ascertain that he was far from a
passivist. Martin understood what
and who our people faced and there
could be no victory against a hatred
that has simmered for centuries
through armed combat.
But he was not an advocate of
docile black men. Martin believed
that men were to stand strong,
even in the face of death and not
waver.
Fast forward forty-eight years and
the black man is still faced with the
dangers of his glorious history and
the melanin content of his skin.
Although the black man is just a
shadow of the African gods and
kings of old, we should not be
ashamed of our heritage. We have
endured more than any culture on
this planet and the war is still
raging. Yes, we have lost our way,
yes we have lost our vision, and yes
we have lost our position with the
black woman.
But these things are not a reason to lay
down our manhood and allow a hateful
society to take it freely. Being ashamed of
our actions is not the same as being
ashamed of our heritage.
God’s greatest gift to mankind was freewill. Many equate free will with the ability
to make your own decision and live with
the consequences of those decisions. But
that isn’t the greatest attribute of freewill. The most powerful attribute of free
will is the ability to change, to be better or
worse than you were. You could be born
poor and die wealthy, be an unfaithful
husband one day and devoted to
perfection the next. A deadbeat father
today and transform into the world’s
greatest dad tomorrow. The possibilities
are endless and it is through free-will the
black man must find his salvation.
We have the opportunity to be better, no
matter how hard this world judges or
tries to punish us for being imperfect. We
can be better. We can’t let anyone take
away our free-will aka manhood by
making us feel ashamed and unworthy of
redemption. This society will show the
worst of us and label the black man a lost
cause. Yet every day we see black men
putting their shattered lives back
together. We see our brothers, who
started off on the wrong track finally
board the right train. Yes, we would love
for society to bring light to these stories
of success, but as of today; they will not.
We can’t wait for them to do it, nor can
we allow them to make us feel ashamed
to speak aloud and spare not. No matter
how many drug dealers, thugs,
murderers and single mothers on welfare
they broadcast; we cannot decide to bow
our heads and let them take our
manhood. American history teaches us
that the reason why African Americans
are generalized is because of the
institution of slavery. Our African
bloodline was associated with slavery in
this country and over four hundred years
later this mindset is still prominent in
general society. But the worst of us does
not represent all of us. They too have
free-will and have decided to choose
another path that is self-destructive and
self-serving to the negative narrative of
today’s black man.