This is Body Image Disorder...

Slavery as we now know it now is passive in nature. It exists, of course it exists, because, well, one man pressing power on another is exactly what we are good at. Animals have power over other animals as Bees give us an example of what their bidding to the Queen, and ultimately to the hive, costs the workers. Predatory animals who hunt in packs, have a leader and natural submission to this leader exists, again, bidding to them as their needs met first, for the sake of the pack of course. Humans though, we are a different breed, our slavery, our control over another man is more malicious, more intentful to reduce a human being down to a tool, a piece of equipment unworthy of human rights.

This is the premise set, one that through a few generation shifts is a foundation for underlying resentment and disgust on both ends. One group is grown from oppression and the other group is used to being superior, and as timelines grow closer toward each other, the once-superior group feels threatened, and the once-oppressed group feels as though they are constantly striving to overcome. The minor, daily occurrences that establish this tone are as subtle as the words used on a news program or the marketing targeted specifically at a certain group.  Small behaviors reinforcing a difference. Even the music preferences, or the discussion in a household, again reinforced from beliefs of a parent or grandparent who only know of what they went through and what they had to overcome. 

Racism is very much alive and needs to be addressed on a daily basis. Any conflict that occurs has a purpose, a people screaming to be heard, like a child who knows no other way. People may judge, criticize, but people always judge and criticize. People will scoff and find fault in a message, because they feel challenged, and get scared. People fear change like man always has, "What if in the future, MY people are oppressed?" And so the fear contributes to the demise of another, even in subtle ways, dividing us, ensuring the safety of one set of peoples. 

This is America, a song performed my American hip hop artist Childish Gambino is a great contributor to the conversation of racism, violence, and that these acts are the norm in the minds of a black man in America. The violence in the video, which you can see here, is that of grotesque abuse, obvious, hostile behaviors, and simply put, "murderous," almost sociopathic acts portrayed while upbeat, culturally-sound music plays in the background. From the perspective of a white male, I must say, it hits the spot. I can only imagine as an observer what an African American male goes through on a daily basis that keeps them stuck in their same situation, contributing to, more than challenging for change. 

As significant as all of this is and as many other bloggers, professional writers, musicians, Youtube video reactions there are, I have to admit that selfishly, I thought off me the first time I watched it. That's right, the very first instance it popped on my small, cell-phone screen in the early morning after seeing an article talking about how "radical" the video was, I immediately thought, "Wow, I thought Childish Gambino would have been more ripped." And just like that, a snap of the fingers, an immediate reinforcement of all of my own issues came pouring out, including the disgust that my mind immediately went there. 

Confidence has a way of making us look more attractive. There must be something in our primal minds that depicts a confident person as a safe person to associate with, for they will be most likely to stay strong in battle or something. Maybe we are attracted to assertive, confident, and therefore genuine people because we don't have to try and figure them out. Maybe what we typically find attractive is the person as they are, something we understand more about as we get older, and the younger selves and the craving for flesh becomes secondary. Maybe the new, wiser way of thinking about a person as a whole, displaces the younger desire for a body that is "ideal" and therefore we imagine that person in a way their physical body doesn't showcase.

Unfortunately, when you obsess over the body as long as I have, you tend to be skew in thought about what is truly attractive and what is just for display. According to Erik Erickson's eight stages of development, quoted in my book, Castle-Broken, available HERE, we are supposed to grow out of this immature ideal of youth and establish a sense of self by age 18, and transition into a more wise and career-driven self to provide. When we become stuck or stagnant in earlier periods, this creates conflict within us. For me, it creates an immediate judgement based on appearance, still, even through working on it for a few years. 

I took this entire video, this talented, good-looking, young man's performance, while all the violence and social representation in the background, and the one thing that stuck out was, "Wow, he has his shirt off dancing around on screen." This thought wasn't even allowed to be put into words before I recognized it. I proceeded to purposefully indulge what I thought to try and understand it, and to remove the judgement, and move on. I immediately (which in the mind is not very immediate) went from the initial judgement to appreciation for him being confident enough to perform, like this, without a care in the world that he lacked a "six-pack," something I fear as a standard to take my own shirt off. 

"If people see me without being 'lean' then they will think I am a lazy failure." Another thought that is real without the words being formed. It is my interpretation of how quick people are to judge, categorize. I then take everything in my environment and run it through that filter where all of life becomes about how a person looks. 

Just like in the video where Childish Gambino is depicting the normalized violence in America as it is seen through the lens of a young, black man, my own filter sees people as judgmental for their bodies and I therefore deem myself as less than because of it. 

Everyone has something that prevents them from accepting and loving themselves, and therefore prevents them from loving and accepting others. We cannot be safe enough for others to be safe enough if we are constantly viewing our world as competitive based on early core values established as a youth. These beliefs about self or our environment may have been skewed by people, places, and things as a youth lacking the knowledge to challenge, forming foundational beliefs; preventing us from seeing the love, the good, and removing our own need to judge.

We are all OK, we don't have to be scared of someone with differences. If we fear change, it is because we are too fragile within ourselves to do so. This is America, and this is on us.