Na’im Akbar, Ph.D. opens Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery with work as a forensic entry point. And from the first pages, I kept having to stop because I kept recognizing myself (as was the case in reading The Miseducation of the Negro)

Woodson named what was withheld from us. Akbar goes inside what was built in us instead. The behavioral adaptations we have been told are moral failures, cultural pathology, racial traits...he traces every single one back to a specific condition of chattel slavery with a precision that is both devastating and clarifying.

I cover the Psychological Legacy of Slavery and the Liberation from Mental Slavery sections of the book. I chose not to cover the third section on Racial Religious Imagery and Psychological Confusion as it doesn’t reflect my personal entry point, but I name it for those for whom it may apply.

What I did not expect was how much of my own story was in these pages. My years in corporate spaces. The professional cycles I kept cycling through. The material acquisition I mistook for freedom. The question I was already trying to answer in graduate school that this book gives me new language for. All of it is in this episode.

”The influences that permit an illusion of freedom, liberation, and self-determination while tenaciously holding one’s mind in subjugation is the folly of only the sadistic.”
Na’im Akbar, Ph.D.

The chains don’t feel like chains. And THAT’S the design.

Akbar also gives us the liberation framework, which is actually quite natural to who we are, we just need to Know Thy Self….which we’ll do in the next episode.

This is Arc I, Episode 5. We are still naming the distortion. And now we are learning its interior.

Reflection Questions for the Week:

Which behavior Akbar names did you recognize in yourself before you understood where it came from?
Where have you seen grafted leadership rewarded in your community, your workplace, or your own circles? And what happened to the natural leader?
When you pursued material acquisition, what were you actually trying to secure?
What has the cost of waking up been for you (personally, professionally, socially)?
Akbar says freedom from captivity must be taken, not passively requested. What would it mean for you to take it?

You can check out the ">video version of this episode on YouTube.

Arc I: Naming the Distortion (Break These Mental Chains)