We are born into boxes that we must shed! Part 2

In part 1, I wrote about the power of the box. What is this box? How does it influence our ways of thinking and behaving? How does it nurture disconnection and negatively impact our ability to connect? 

Upon our arrival on the planet, we are assigned by our environment to various “boxes” depending on our gender, race, religion, skin color, material wealth, physical health, sexuality, etc. These boxes are not natural, they are a reflection of the patterns of thinking and behaving that have been adopted by people for generations and generations. These patterns have infiltrated the culture and have become institutionalized in ways that are sometimes obvious, and at other times, invisible. 

The boxes are powerful patterns that have the effect of adding layers of separation over the membranes of our innate humanity. And, as previously mentioned in part 1, without an emphasis on cohesion and connection to counteract or balance the early lessons of distinction, we form the foundations for harmful separation. Added to this is the fact that we are forced (at least in the early stages of our lives) to identify with what our environments tell us that we are. As such, at an early age, we begin to conform to the dictates of our environment, not to the will of our souls. We are born human and then told we are this or that, and this is what creates the countless boxes that more often become the tombs that we must unearth ourselves from in our later years.

The environmental “box” is the big box and within it, all of the smaller boxes are contained. It includes the era in time that we live in, the country one is born and/or raised within, the elements in the society or culture, the parents/guardians (or lack thereof) in our lives, our neighborhoods, our schooling, friends, finances, ethnicity, religion, etc. The environmental box shapes our life perspectives and what we experience in life.

Of all the boxes, the era in time box is the most powerful and most difficult, as far as making a connection is concerned. The events that are taking place in the larger society and in the world during the times of our lives (from childhood and adulthood) influence our perspectives. If your parents were citizens of the depression era, for example, there’s a strong likelihood that they are quite frugal and very conservative about how they spend their money. The perspective of individuals born in the U.S. during the 1800’s, in another example, were very different from those who arrived on the scene in the 1950’s or 1960’s. Can you imagine the conversation between a Settler of the American West and a young person who was smoking weed while listening to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock? No, you can’t! There would be no conversation because of the tremendous gaps in the era in time that each individual was living in. The conditioning that occurred during the different eras (the survival drive versus the drive for leisure time, the clothing differences, the music, the language, and the differing experiences), shaped the perspectives to the extent that no conversation between the two could be had! Of course, in reality, these two individuals would never meet, but this example, albeit extreme, is intended to illustrate the power of the era in time and how difficult to impossible it would be to form a connection between these polar opposites. Nevertheless, from one generation to the next, the conditioning of each generation is occurring, and invariably, each one points to the other with the comment, “We don’t understand them!”

The national/country box tells us we’re American, Russian, and Chinese, and that “they”--the Syrians, Indonesians, the Africans, etc.--are “not like us!” “They” do not share our values, speak our language, or eat the things we eat. To be clear, I’m referring to the extent to which we distinguish ourselves from the other, based on our country of origin, not that one is better than another…although I must note that the “better-than-them” equation is often mixed in with these “harmless” distinctions. The differences that exist in our respective geography and culture are apparent, but these differences-especially if there’s little or no effort to counterbalance these natural differences with teachings that reinforce the oneness of humanity-tend to obstruct the fact that geography and culture is secondary to our shared humanity. The absence of reinforcing our shared humanity does not make it impossible for one to make a connection with a person from another country if the opportunity presented itself. However, this reinforcement is more likely to close the gap of separation and, perhaps, help each one to seek each other out and learn/appreciate the differences, instead of viewing each other solely through the different ways they look, eat, walk, talk, and act. When economic and military power are mixed in with geographical and cultural differences, there’s a strong tendency to view the other nation state as either superior or inferior, exacerbating the “meteorites” of disconnection.

The gender box tells us how we should act as males and females, and what roles each should play in the society. Other than being human, there’s no “right” way for men and women to act, and there’s no such thing as fixed roles for women and men in a society or in a relationship. Cultures make these things up, defining the roles and mannerisms of men and women that are most often based on the historical patterns of thinking and behaving. As far as women are concerned, the historical patterns reflect subservient roles and mannerisms that preserve the privileges of male-dominated societies. The conditioning of the collective psyche started a very long time ago and can be summarized briefly with these generally accepted (but absurd) clichés:

• Women must remain at home with the children.
• Housework is a woman’s job!
• Men are physically and mentally superior to women. 
• Women should not be allowed to vote!
• The man is the breadwinner of the family!
• Only men have the aptitude for leadership! 

This programming, however ridiculous, was embedded in the collective psyche and reinforced in the media, in schools, and in the workplace. It became institutionalized and has hurt men and women alike.

Men who do not live up to the standards set by the culture, fall short of what it is to be a man, and can internalize the failure if they are not strong enough to raise their middle finger to the societal expectations and live with the social consequences. The same applies to women, but there’s a difference. Women, based on societal norms (forms of programming), have paid a greater price for stepping out of their defined roles as compared to men that did the same thing. Also, we’ve been conditioned for a very long period of time to view the abilities of women as subpar to men. 

The entire world has been afflicted by the legacy of unequal treatment and mistreatment of women. Where did this come from? You guessed it! The treatment of women as less than human or inferior to men is a reflection of the patterns of thinking and behaving for countless centuries. These patterns have infiltrated our psyche and our cultures and have programmed us to believe in stupid doctrines!

Even though we’ve witnessed dramatic changes in how women are viewed and treated—especially in the western democracies--the legacy of our conditioning is still with us. For example, women are still paid less than men for doing the same job, confirming the institutionalization of our programming. The plight of women that are not living in a western democracy should be of great concern to all of us. There’s been little or no movement in how these women are treated. The conditioning in these cultures are so strong and stagnant, that in some areas of the world, cattle are more valuable than women. 

How we are conditioned to view women and girls is a very serious matter. According to former President, Jimmy Carter, the number one abuse of human rights on Earth is the abuse of women and girls. He cited a number of reasons for this, including misinterpretation of religious scriptures that keep men in controlling positions and relegate women to subservient positions, the excessive resort to violence, genital mutilations, “honor” killings, human trafficking (80% of those sold around the world are women), sexual assaults/slavery, and the lack of equal pay for equal work. 

These horrible things occur in large part because of how men have been conditioned to treat women! These men were not born this way, neither did they wake up one day in their adult life, and decide to engage in an “honor” killing or sexual slavery. These abhorrent thoughts and behaviors were in existence before they were born, and were reinforced by the existing thinking and behaviors within their cultures. These awful behaviors are nothing but patterns of thinking, created and accepted over countless centuries of programming. The conditioning, what we’ve been taught to believe about women, and how we’re taught to behave toward women, has been destructive, and has led to man’s inhumanity to women.

The money box says one human is better than the other because of their material wealth. We are conditioned to believe this nonsense and our cultures reinforce it by contrasting the considerable differences in the lives of the wealthy and those who do not have material wealth. People have been conditioned to be in awe of people who are rich. The rich are treated differently, they have more access than the average person. Everyone wants to be the King and rule and have control over others, which is just another type of programming. This programming says that it’s natural for one person or a select few to be on top, control others, have most of the wealth and privileges, and make all of the rules. Perhaps man’s history of kings, queens, rulers, dictators, and other authority types, have embedded in our collective psyche over generations that this is the “proper” (or God’s) way that man should be governed. Regardless, it is a fact that most cultures have admired people with wealth and continue to do so to this present day, holding them in high regard even though they may have the intelligence of a gnat, the morals of Mussolini, or the scruples of Beelzebub! This is conditioning at its best!

The religious box can create a nasty layer of separation, whispering in our young and old ears the words of our Gods that often tell us that our beliefs are right and “theirs” are wrong; that we will be saved and “they” will be destroyed or sent to a hellish region of the cosmos; and that the divine favors us, not “them,” for living the one and only truth. Wars have been fought because of religion, and heinous acts have been perpetrated in the name of God. Religion, at least the way it has been practiced, has been used to condition our minds in a negative manner, reinforcing the message of disconnection and separation for centuries. 

Religion assigns negative labels to people. The nonreligious are often looked at differently by those who are religious. Names have been created for the nonreligious or nonbelievers, like heathens, infidels, Goyim, and Pagans, reinforcing separation, establishing the foundation for disconnection and, in the most extreme cases, creating the rationale for heinous behaviors against them. In some religions, people who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior are doomed forever! They are considered the unredeemed and prophesized to be lost in eternal damnation. In the religion of my youth, I was taught that the Most High God favored us, that we were ordained to be the spiritual leaders of the world, and that we would be the only people saved when the world ended. None of these beliefs bring people together, they condition us to see the other as a fool that must be saved, a subhuman that we should interact with on a limited basis, or an enemy that must be destroyed.  

The race box, particularly the legacy of slavery in America, has created a thick layer of separation and misunderstanding. Like the other “boxes,” we are programmed by our environment at an early age to use labels that help us make the distinctions between the races. Nothing is inherently wrong with this. Roses, orchids, lilies, and tulips are all part of the family of flowers just like Blacks, Whites, Asians, and Hispanics are part of the human family. The beauty of humanity, just like the flowers, is in the diversity. An orchid will never say to a tulip or a lily that it is better than the rose. The plant kingdom is not programmed, as we know, to create a distorted sense of its nature. But in the human kingdom, of course, we have the “superior” capability to program ourselves with a twisted logic about the members of our human family. And in this destructive program, we tell our cultures, our children, and convince ourselves that we are the better flower in the f _ _ _ _ _ _ garden. “Those other flowers are not like us!” “We are more beautiful, and smarter too!” “They are dangerous weeds that can destroy us!” “The sun shines more on us, not them!” And then with all of our “wisdom,” we add religion to the equation and proclaim that “God made it this way!” My Lord! What a dark way to view each other!

Once again, if there’s little or insufficient effort to counterbalance these unnatural proclamations-that have dominated the thinking about racial differences for centuries-with the truth, it reinforces individual and systematic separation, unfair discrimination, and disconnection. In the most extreme cases, it creates the rationale for heinous behaviors that target different races.

If we look closely or casually, we are still experiencing the aftershocks of U.S. slavery in our minds, in our culture, and in our institutions. Our culture treats black people, especially black males, like they’re dangerous and a threat to civility. The prevailing images of African American men convey dysfunctionality, criminality, and violence. These terrible things invoke fear in the public psyche and have programmed certain behaviors when a black person passes by. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked by Caucasian women (mostly older) and witnessed the immediate clutching of their pocketbooks as though I was ready to rip their Louis Vuitton handbags off their shoulders and run! And it didn’t matter if I was dressed in an eight-hundred dollar suit, a four-hundred dollar tie, and fancy shoes that cost more than my daughter’s tuition for a semester. It was my skin color they were focusing on, and they reacted like most people would if they feared for their safety. This reaction to the hue of my skin is a programmed one. It is not natural. The gentle psyche of these old ladies were victimized by a society that warns people of the criminal behaviors of men with black skin, and they reacted by tightening the grips on their purse!

These reactions also have harmful effects on the guilty-in-mind-only “perpetrators.” Whether it comes from those in law enforcement who are fearful of (or have disdain for) black males, or those store officials who are following us to make sure we’re not stealing their goods, these reactions to our skin color can make an African American (or any person for that matter!) bitter if they don’t have a strong constitution, an unshakable love for humanity, knowledge of how people can be conditioned to be fearful, or an acute awareness of the psychological dynamics of racism. Day after day after day, these reactions can wear you down because you are viewed as a menace to society just for having the “wrong” color. Over time, these experiences program the psyche to be defensive, even under those circumstances that do not warrant a distrustful reaction. When a guilty-in-mind-only “perpetrator” reacts with displeasure, whether or not they have valid reasons to do so, they are most often labeled as an angry black man!

The programming of skin color is so powerfully ingrained in the subconscious of the collective that it has become nearly impossible for people to see the existence of racism in their words and behaviors, and in the actions of others who are supposed to protect all of us. No one is a racist these days, even if the evidence is crystal clear. The excuses for racist behaviors appear to be trending. Presidential candidate Donald Trump, for example, has said things about black people that are overtly racist in my opinion. But friends of mine-people I’ve worked with for close to 20 years, who know me, and like me, and have gone through good and bad times with me-have described him as “rough around the edges,” as though his ugly comments should be completely overlooked. They did not even recognize that their friend (me) may be alarmed by the bigotry in Trump’s words. What is that? And when my friends tell me they’re voting for Mr. Trump regardless of his racist (and misogynist) comments, what they are saying--regardless of whether they’re aware of it or not—is that racial bigotry and belittling of women can be accepted character traits of the leader of the free world, as long s/he possesses other (more important!) traits that solve bigger problems! What is that? How can a leader of the free world embrace bigotry and misogyny! It’s a glaring contradiction…at least in my mind. But in the minds of these friends of mine, and they are still my friends, it is a minor character flaw that can be excused under certain circumstances. What is that?

Perhaps it’s the lack of awareness of the dangers of a racist President, or the unwillingness to recognize how a racist in charge of the country could affect my life and the lives of people of color in our country. Either way, people who make the excuses like my friends made, are saying that bigotry is a problem for black people, only. But, as most of us know, bigotry is a problem for all of us! None of us are safe if we rationalize bigotry or downplay its impact. One day, blacks are the problem. The next day it’s Jews, or Mexicans, or Muslims, or Christians, or Ukrainians. 

I know what the real problem is! The problem is not my friends or my enemies. The problem is not Donald Trump or his hairdo! I can say with absolute conviction that the real problem is not race! It is our conditioning! Change the conditioning and the problem also changes. Change how we are programmed to make race a factor, and over time, race will no longer be a factor. The evidence of this is in the new generation of young people who are exposed (conditioned) to more diversity in their schools, in the media, in sports, and in music. As compared to the days of my upbringing, many of the young people of today are beginning to understand that race is a non-factor in the determination of ones worth.

Now, I would not call my friends overtly racist, but I use this example to show the insidious nature of our conditioning as far as race is concerned. My enemies (those who do not see me as a human being and are willing to hurt or kill me because of the color of my skin) and my friends (that I believe like me but in some odd way still see me differently) both share the same conditioning! They are both unaware of how they’ve been negatively programmed by our environment, which has been severely stained by the legacy of slavery.

Now I’m going to say something that may be considered controversial but it confirms the power of conditioning. On the face of it, one may believe that race is a factor but it has nothing to do with race. It shows how humans react under dark conditions. 

This year, we’ve witnessed the alarming number of killings of black males by the police. It is an ugly reminder of a problem that our country has not yet prioritized. But the real problem with the killings of African American males are African American males, not the police! The alarm bells have been ringing in black communities across the country (especially in places like Chicago) for a long time and it’s not grabbing the headlines like the police shootings. The fact is that black-on-black crime is significantly higher than the police killings of blacks.

From 1980 through 2008, according to the FBI’s annual crime statistics in the U.S., 93% of black victims were killed by blacks. If we examine the FBI’s numbers for the most recent years, we see the same pattern:

Year	Percentage of blacks murdered by blacks
2009	91
2010	90
2011	91
2012	91
2013	90

Both the pundits and amateurs support and poke holes in these statistics. Some say they are not comprehensive and others believe they are purposely misleading. Some social scientists -- like Northeastern University Criminology Professor, James Alan Fox – believe these stats are not surprising; that people are usually murdered by someone of their own race, since they tend to marry, date, befriend and live with people from the same race. There is probably a kernel of truth in all the arguments that support and oppose these statistics. To me, however, these statistics indicate patterns of neglect in black communities.

For generations, black communities have been neglected socially, individually, economically, and spiritually. This abandonment has created hostile conditions that program certain behaviors that are aligned with the lower natures of a human being. It is not surprising that violence, murder, drug infestation, and other forms of criminal behavior are thriving in these communities. In these environments, personal responsibility is dwarfed by survival, powerlessness, deterioration of the family unit, mistrust of any type of authority, and a warped sense of respect. 

Some people subscribe to the stupid notion that black people are inherently receptive to these criminal behaviors; that whites or Asians or Italians would not be susceptible under similar conditions. Complete hogwash! This is a human thing, not a black thing! These conditions, if replicated in any community for generation upon generations, would have the same results, regardless of ethnicity.

I am not saying that the killings of African American males by the police are not a problem. It is a big problem that affects me personally and my loved ones. I am an African American! I’ve had countless experiences with racism. I’ve had police officers draw their weapons on me and my wife when driving our new car in Port Jefferson, N.Y. because the car (not me, of course!) “was suspicious looking!” I fear for my life and the life of my 25 year-old son when he’s out and about in the City. My son’s a good kid, very respectable, and understands the dynamics of racism. But I know this is not enough because the color of his skin may be the only reason why he’s harassed. I worry that a police officer will let his conditioning get the best of him and my son will become another statistic.

The killings of blacks by the police must be addressed. It is a significant problem in our society. But we must not ignore the killings of blacks by blacks. Both are very important. The point I am attempting to make is that black-on-black crime is significantly higher than the police killings of blacks! And the reason why this is so? You guessed it again! The circumstances that a lot of young African American males live in this country (especially in urban areas) condition behaviors that are less than desirable. These circumstances have a strong influence on their outlook on life, love, and respect for themselves. They are conditioned by their environments to disconnect from their individual humanity and from each other; and they don’t even see (or even care for that matter) that “Black Lives Matter!” when they’re killing their brothers or sisters! This is very sad. But this truth is begging us to realize that our conditioning is a human problem that affects all of us, regardless of our race, gender, etc.

While we're pointing to each other as the reason why there’s a severe lack of space in our small room, we ignore the impact of our "boxes". We fail to notice that our conditioning, the great big elephant sitting in the midst of our finger pointing, continues to grow day by day, blinding our eyes to the real solutions.