Are Black folks finding it hard to love? One Black lawmaker thinks so.  Read and respond.     

Posted Sept. 25, 2007 – It’s not every day that members of Congress set aside time to talk about Black folks’ emotions and their relationships, but that’s just what Democratic Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush is planning to during do. It’s time for us “to love the skin we’re in” and get to the “core issue” as to why some folks don’t, he told me.

“In the African-American community, the question of love has been a question that we’ve had to struggle with since slavery,” he said.

  That’s why he’s dedicating a workshop on the topic Friday, Sept. 28, to examine what he called “the political realm and governmental realm” of the problem and to find solutions.

Rush contends the social issues plaguing Black communities are rooted in “self-hate,” with skin color often being the catalyst.  “The pre-condition for enslavement of a people was to deny those people any obvious mechanism that would promote love of oneself,” Rush said. 

The Black community can’t come together, Rush warns, “with relationship issues, male -female, young and old, light skin-dark skin, working class-upper class, you know; we’ve got to resolve and dissolve some of these issues and come together as a people.”

He describes the break down of family and violence as “psychological divisions” that must be eliminated.

A workshop on “Black love” may be a first for the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Weekend, but Rush says it won’t be the last.  “It is the biggest issue we have as a people – this question of loving each other.”

The conference will start tomorrow.  Here’s a link to the planned events through Sunday.
 
http://www.alc2007.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=55

Is Congressman Bobby Rush right, are we just haten who we are?