The Lethargy of Black Skepticism

Why Ask Why?

LaDarius Dennison
AfroSapiophile
3 min readMar 23, 2022

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Animation By LaDarius Dennison

In Black culture, we do not ask questions and we do not demand answers, which explains to a large degree, the oppressive situations we find ourselves in today. We just go along with the flow without bringing a life jacket.

We fail to question the very religions we have been practicing since enslavement. We were forbidden to read or write but they gave us a bible to hold at night. They told us to deny self and accept the Lord, a white man, as our savior. And so, we wait for his second coming to be able to enjoy the streets of gold in heaven, while our white counterparts enjoy their heaven on earth.

“Their religion, handed down by their oppressors, promises them rescue, a messiah, a Moses, “pie-in-the-sky” — and thus their revolutionary will is pacified. They wait on the Lord, the tribulation, and are gratified by religious ecstasies. Their oppressors are thus permitted to enjoy heaven-on-earth at their expense.” — Dr. Amos Wilson

They told us, “DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER”, and we foolishly believed them. Let’s take a look at that cover.

Courtesy of www.bibledesignblog.com

To judge a book by its cover, it says New King James version, who is King James? And what is the original version he decided to remix? I challenge you to find that out for yourself.

We fail to question the welfare state of our people. We think the government is doing us a great service in providing government assistance in housing, food, unemployment, etc. We even treat these dependencies as assets that can be passed down to future generations. We fail to realize that the government is suppressing the functioning of our brains, to decode and solve problems in our environment. The government would rather pay us to sit on our ass than to pay us to get a job to receive our tax dollars. Dr. Jawanza Kunjfu, an educational consultant, says, “The government is willing to break the spirits of people because oppression means more than economics.”

To be oppressed is to be forced to exist not for oneself but for the other; to support one’s enemies and oppose oneself and one’s fellows. To. be oppressed is to have one’s worthiness and esteem measured in the currency of one’s oppressors — to have one’s value measured in coin and utility, exclusively. — Dr. Amos Wilson

We fail to question Black leadership. We think representation, in its entirety, is enough, without knowing if the representative has our best interest to ensure our survival as a people. We have strayed away from judging people by the content of their character. Dr. Amos Wilson says, “We have a leadership that refuses to confront forthrightly the issues and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. For that, we must hold ourselves responsible.” Since the 1954 Brown decision, our situation has gotten worse. We have failed to establish a strong socio-economic foundation, we do not own and control our communities. We are responsible for our revolution.

I encourage you to be skeptical of all things on the surface. I challenge you to dig deeper than the surface and what you will find is the root of all problems.

“If you don’t understand Racism/White supremacy, what it is and how it works , everything else you think you understand will only confuse you.” — Neeley Fuller

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LaDarius Dennison
AfroSapiophile

Philosopher | Historian | 💎 Gem-Dropper Scholar 📚 | Creative Professional | #BluPhi 🤘🏾