I am an African American male. I was
raised by an African American parent and one who was bi-racial, but who
identified with the African American culture. I attend a predominately African
American church and live in a neighborhood where people, for the most part look
like me. I am firmly ensconced in the Afro American culture.
As a ScreamFree Fellow I have the
opportunity to travel the world teaching this wonderful message of calm
connection. I count it as a blessing from God. Although I have a chance to
speak to people that come from different cultures, domestic or abroad, I am
always particularly interested when there are African Americans in the audience
because, based on past experiences, I think I know what some are thinking. Some
have even spoken their thoughts out loud.
“The
ScreamFree philosophy would never work on black people.” Depending upon the
audience, you could
substitute the word black for any
other culture—Latin, Italian, Irish, etc. This is what I call, “the cultural
excuse for screaming.” I’ve heard a great deal of them. My personal favorite
though is, “Hey, I’m from Brooklyn. This
is what we do!”
An excuse, by definition is when one
seeks to defend or justify a particular behavior or action. When we allow
ourselves to buy in to the cultural excuse for screaming, we remove the control
that we have over our own functioning. If we were to buy in to the ScreamFree
philosophy, I believe we can take that control back.
We
All Scream...
ScreamFree is all about managing one’s
emotional reactivity. We all get reactive—white, black, Latin and Italian. In
other words, we all scream. The screaming disconnects us from those that we
love the most. Yes, we may be different, but we are all the same. We all love
our families and we want to be better connected to them. ScreamFree teaches
individuals how to be better connected by focusing on the one person in their
household they can control—themselves.
In my case, there is only one black person that the philosophy needs
to work on—me. To say that I can’t manage my own emotional reactivity
because I am black is an excuse that those who have lived before me would not
accept. I shouldn’t accept the excuse either.
If we journey back to the 1960s, we can
see African Americans that were oppressed and depressed, until a few people
decided to do something different. They decided to manage themselves in order
to bring about worldwide transformation. To do this would require a ScreamFree
approach to change. They would be threatened, beaten and imprisoned, but they
kept their cool. They had to handle violence with non violence and to be
responsive, but non reactive.
This approach to change has not been
limited to those of the African American culture. We’ve seen it with Gandhi
(Indian), Cesar Chavez (Latin American) and the Velvet Revolution
(Czechoslovakian). It can be said that it was best seen in the Hebrew culture
through a certain carpenter from Nazareth named Jesus.
We can’t escape our culture. Hopefully,
we don’t want to. We can and should embrace all that our respective cultures
offer. Our cultures may shape us, but they don’t exclusively define us in such
a way that they dictate that we must be emotionally reactive screamers!
Along with all of the cultural benefits
that our families can experience, we can also give them something else. We can
give them someone that is working on creating the peace that will allow any
relationship to thrive.
We are all different, but we are very
much the same. We love our families. We embrace our heritage. We can manage ourselves. We all can be ScreamFree.
