They went underground, and it was never addressed, and so the behavior has traveled down generations.
Hello everyone, I’m back again continuing the discussions on For the Love of My Father, and today I thought I’d do something interesting to give you a little bit more information. Oh, and by the way, the book is back on Amazon. The paperback is back on Amazon and it’s back as a second edition, revised, so you can now go over and order it on Amazon. Super excited about that.
So today I thought I’d do something interesting. I wanted to give you a little bit more information, and one of the things that is very interesting about the book, aside from the fact that the foreword is written by one of the foremost spiritual teachers on forgiveness, which is Edwene Gaines, someone that I speak about in the book often as one of the people that really helped me with the subject of forgiveness. The foreword is written by Edwene Gaines. Also, another interesting thing is that there’s a poem, and the name of the poem is I Remember You.
These Are the Names of the Chapters
But most interesting are the titles to the chapters. So just to give you a little insight, these are the names of the chapters:
- What if that was the way it was supposed to be?
- People can’t give you what they don’t have
- No way around it
- Forgiveness, a pill to take as if your life depends on it
- The desire and willingness to heal
- Things buried alive never die
- Getting ready to love another
- Balancing the whole equation
- Daddy dearest
- And the final chapter, you are the one you’ve been waiting for
So these are some very interesting titles, and there’s a reason for each one of them.
Why My Father Behaved in Certain Ways
But the one we’re going to talk about today is chapter six, and it’s Things Buried Alive Never Die. And I think it’s a very important chapter because, as in my process and in my discoveries, one of the things that I, early on at least, I really wanted to understand was why my father behaved in certain ways. And clearly there will never be a way to know for sure why he behaved in the way that he did, or why certain people in general behave the way that they do or did, in terms of being absent fathers or just not being good fathers to their children.
There’s no absolute way of knowing. But there are ways of getting glimpses and shots about what is possible and what it could be. And in this chapter, what I basically talk about are some of the issues related to the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the effects that I believe are still present.
Now, to be clear, every person of African descent living in the Americas — not just in the United States of America, but in the Americas in general — does not remain affected by the consequences of the transatlantic slave trade. There are many people who are healed and have addressed their issues and have made perfectly balanced lives for themselves despite being descendants of people who were enslaved. So there should be no question about that.
However, there are those who seem, at least for purposes of discussion, to be still affected by that. And that’s how I came upon the title of the book, Things Buried Alive Never Die. Because from my experience in my family and what I’ve seen, I can tell that there are vestiges, there are remainders of slave training, slave behavior, that still linger till today. And I can talk about it because I’m one of those descendants.
Foods That They Only Ate Because They Had To
And for example, in the book I talk about eating and what you eat. And many people in my family are from the Caribbean. My maternal grandmother specifically is from Jamaica. And I can tell you that till the day she died, she ate, she liked rice cooked with pig tails. She liked pig’s feet. She liked cow foot, ox tails, and a number of other foods along those lines. Which, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with them.
However, my mother came along and she was of a different mentality. And she basically said, these are not foods that are good for your diet on a regular basis, and this is not going to be part of what I pass along to my children in terms of what I want them to eat. There’s nothing wrong with any of those foods. Certainly you can have it from time to time. But many of them were foods that the slaves from Africa were forced to eat, because they were the less desirable parts.
Now, the amazing thing about that whole thing was that even though they were the less desirable parts, they made the best of it. They flavored it and cooked it in a way that was reminiscent of the cooking on the West Coast of Africa. However, I have a joke that I say to myself, and that is, listen, if the slaves came back and saw that their descendants were still eating things that they only ate because they had to, they might be a little disappointed. The people who came from Africa had not been eating the things that we believe is part of our culture as a regular part of their diet.
In fact, many times in America when I hear people talk about how people of African descent, or African Americans, suffer from certain diseases, I wonder how come nobody ever references or looks over to the West Coast of Africa to see that these are not illnesses that are normally part of the lives of people who don’t eat the diet that people of African descent and people in the Americas were forced to eat. They just are not. And that’s one small example of things that sort of linger coming out of the experience of slavery.
I See Something Different, I See Something Better
Now, I don’t think that being a descendant of a slave or the slave experience is an excuse for anything, because clearly we’ve come a very, very, very long way in terms of this whole thing. However, it is a reality that it existed. And so, for example, as I said, in my family, my mother was the one that said, no, we are not going to continue to eat this way.
Now, my mom didn’t have a conversation with my grandmother about it, because my grandmother was not going to have it. She ate what she wanted to eat. And she lived and died eating that way. And nobody was going to change her mind about that. But my mom came along and said, I see something different. I see something better. And I’m going to change it. And she did that for us. And obviously, that has been passed along to our children.
Creating a Mentality of Breeders
Now, much like that, one of the areas that I see that people try not to talk about, but it’s a fact. And again, I can talk about it because it’s my story and it’s my experience. And I can see that, perhaps — because we never know with any amount of certainty that something is absolutely the cause. But I see that there are patterns of behaviors in families that seem, and I will speak particularly of my family, behaviors that seem to sort of come out of the dysfunctionality that existed during slavery.
So, for example, in the book, I talk about the fact that you effectively had males who were breeders and women who were breeders. That the slave master could say to a man, you need to impregnate this woman, without the need for a relationship, without the need for bond, certainly without the need for marriage. Not only could he force a male to impregnate a woman, but then after the woman had the child, the master could take the child and break the family. These are pretty traumatic experiences, and clearly they’re experiences that are not happening now. But they’re traumas that seem to be carried from one generation to another.
And what we’re talking about is basically creating a mentality of breeders. And it works on both sides, because in a situation like that, you have a man who becomes a breeder without emotional attachment, without the proper family structure. And somehow — and there’s lots of studies about the change in DNA and a number of different things that I’m not going to get into — but somehow that pattern of behavior, whether it’s social or otherwise, is passed down from one generation to another.
Now, obviously I’m talking about the transatlantic slave trade, but that’s not the only human experience that kind of affects the pattern of behavior for families. There are many other groups that have suffered different traumas. Native Americans have suffered a lot of trauma in terms of their generational history, and it clearly has effects on the family.
The Behavior Has Traveled Down Generations
So with regards to, for example, my family and the people in the community in which I grew up, I can look back and I can honestly wonder what impact that experience had on those men and on those women. And specifically, as I speak today to this chapter, Things Buried Alive Never Die, what I’m saying is that apparently some of those traumas were passed along. They went underground, and whether it was social or whether it was by DNA or whatever other means, it was never addressed. And so the behavior has traveled down generations.
And so what I speak about is men becoming breeders. When you see men who are having children with multiple women without forming bonds and without having the emotional connection to the woman or to the child, it is not normal for a human being to produce a child and be okay with not having a connection. There’s something wrong, whether it’s because of the transatlantic slave trade or because of some other trauma. It doesn’t have to be race based or based on that experience. If you are not properly connecting with the children that you produce, or if you don’t feel anything, then you have some issues to be addressed.
How Important the Women Are in This Equation
Now, right now, I said the men are breeders, but we also have a situation in our society. And by the way, fatherlessness is at a crisis rate here in the United States and across the world. But the women also are participating in this breeding situation. If you have children and you allow yourself to be impregnated by a man and you know that this man has no real connection — obviously, somebody could pretend to have a connection and then you’re surprised, but in many circumstances, these are just guys who are moving from one relationship to the other very quickly. And you as a woman don’t have any basis for believing that there’s a real connection, and you allow yourself to be impregnated and bring a child into the world who will invariably suffer in the absence of a father.
Now, this is why this is so important. I talk about how important the women are in this equation, because if you are a woman and you have become aware of what is happening, you have the ability to make a decision not to breed with a breeder. And you can then begin to change the course of your family’s history.
If you realize that some of this trauma has been buried and it’s moving along generationally, you have the opportunity of bringing it out, healing it, so that it doesn’t continue to be buried and does not continue down the line.
I highly recommend that you read this chapter, Things Buried Alive Never Die. The book is For the Love of My Father. It’s available on Amazon. My website is OliviaSBenson.com. My Facebook page is Author Olivia S. Benson. Also, I’m on Instagram.