BANZA April 2016 Issue | Page 100

As unbelievable as it is, we are still suffering the consequences of an event that took place hundreds of years ago because, right after slavery, there was no taking steps to help the victims. The Jews were sorted out after the holocaust, but nobody worried about the effect of the slave trade on black folks. One wonders why… And, guess what happened next? Our directly traumatized and untreated ancestors raised our grandparents up with feelings of a foreshortened future, an outburst of anger and hyper-vigilance. Our grandparents learned from this and then raised our parents in the same way. By the time it got to our generation, this feeling of a foreshortened future, an outburst of anger and hyper-vigilance had been normalized to the extent that it had become our culture. Enough is enough. It is time to get the dead elephant out of the closet and talk about it (not sure about the dead elephant metaphor, but I guess you know what I mean). It is our duty as black, white, red, yellow or whatever your complexion, to deal with it for a better Africa and a better world. See, I told you it was not that boring! B Note that although black people are the main victims in this story, some white people are also going through their own kind of struggle. Most of them try to ignore that part of mankind’s history; that their ancestors were capable such atrocities and caused so much pain. Finally, although post traumatic slave disorder is a delicate topic of discussion, it is an issue that must tackled as soon as possible. 100