BONDAGE  N. The CONDITION of being CONTROLLED by something that limits  FREEDOM.

In 1863, the powers in charge of this republic enacted or instituted an  Proclamation that abolished slavery in the states. A war had been fought over this very contentious issue that saw great losses of life on both sides of  the conflict.

A president would soon lose his life over his stand of trying to keep the union together at any cost. People were manumitted into the land without any  idea of what it would take to establish a socio-economic system that would  empower and sustain them in the coming years. So, once again they found themselves thrust into another form of "economic" slavery based on PEONAGE.

Working the fields for nothing, and working them for "peanuts"--well, there's not a great difference in that. The bottom line was.....blak folk suffered greatly through ALL systems of enforced or voluntary servitude.

Which brings me to my main thought for this article.......

SLAVERY was a SYSTEM. A system has laws, precepts, order, etc. that are enforced.

BONDAGE is a CONDITION. A general state or mode of existence. A condition becomes a part of one's being for a time.

The 13th amendment abolished ENFORCED servitude slavery--but it did NOT abolish BONDAGE!!

Bondage is something that goes on at this very time. The root word of bondage is "BOND". To have a bond with someone is to be connected to that person in some very real sense.

You have a bond with your family by being a member, you bond with your spouse out of love, etc......

And blak folk are still BONDED to a system and people that oppresses and dominates them. Their minds are conditioned to exist only to serve the system and it's caretakers, themselves.

Now, the difference between this and slavery is:

The "tomming" and "buck-dancing" being done today is not ENFORCED--it's VOLUNTARY.

That's right you have a choice to shun and do away with all this
"kow-towing" if you WANT to. They may fire you from your job or make it hard for you--but the choice NOT to "skin" is there. I never did it.

It is the mental CONDITIONING that blak folk have gone through that makes this what it is: "bondage".

Silly sayings like:

"This is the white man's world." "Ain't nowhere for a blak man to go but the jail house or the cemetery." "Blak folk ain't gon' never do nothing."

All of this betrays a mind that is CONDITIONED to failure and accepts it as it's manifest destiny. A mind that will never be FREE.

Another case in point, you go downtown and just what do you see?

A bunch of so-called "upwardly mobile" blak folk falling all over themselves trying to serve some SELF-serving C.E.O. of a company.

Because you've been conditioned to accept a lower standard of living--you latch on to the RULING CLASS hoping to catch some of the bones that they throw your way. And will do ANYTHING to rise above what YOU perceive as being an inferior existence.

You smile in their face hoping to fit in. You tell them what they want to hear. You stroke their vanity hoping to gain some type of reward, somehow. You can't win like this.

You're like some abused spouse that even though you keep getting beat down you keep going back for MORE punishment. All because you are bound to a system, bound to a people, and bound to way of life that is not conducive to an enhanced system of survival for blak folk as a whole.

A midget will not strike back at the giant because, his overt fear of the great size and majesty of the giant, grips him and binds him fast. It's like the wizard in the movie, "The Wizard of Oz".

Now, I must admit, a lot of the conditioning today is through 
mind-controlling agents, enacted by the government: television, radio, demagoguery, or the manipulative enflaming of passions, etc.

But NOW is the time to "overstand" our situation and to drive home the answers that will pull the SHEET off of this system and expose it for the HYPOCRISY that it is.

By continual acceptance of inhumane behavior--it just prolongs the agony and keeps the wheels turning against you. Sometimes you can't just shrug your shoulders or "leave it in God's hands"--this is conditioning. You just may BE the vehicle at God's DISPOSAL. YOU may be the miracle. But by sitting 
back, the chance just withers away on the vine.

I'll end this by invoking an old blak saying: "A scared man can't win."

And you know why? Because he has been conditioned and accepts his failure, enough, to manifest it into reality.