Excerpt

DOING WHAT WE WERE CONDITIONED TO DO. A movie recently aired on TV called Most Wanted. In it, the Black protagonist was confronted with a critical and dangerous situation. His friend then asked him in typical ghetto fashion, What you gonna do now? To which the Black protagonist replied, Im gonna do what I was trained to do. If we consider this situation carefully, the response is very relevant in most of our own predicaments today. In critical and in other type of situations, most of us do what we were trained or conditioned to do. In the movie, the actor referred to specific commando training received for the particular task he was embarking upon, but in real life we respond to novice situations based on our lifelong conditioning. An individual cant do more than what theyve been conditioned to do with regard to life in general.

Early training and conditioning. From the time children enter the world, theyre being conditioned in one way or another: in pre-school, kindergarten, elementary, junior high, high school, college, or any school after that. All the while, while children are exposed to friends, relatives, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, mother, father, were being trained. Sometimes even in interactions with significant others, were also being trained. Some say this training is always in process. Most children in these situations arent aware were being conditioned for what well eventually become. If we knew this fact at the time we would probably be more careful what behavior we accept and emulate. Its believed by many that environmental factors have more impact than genetic factors on ones subsequent attitudes and behaviors. In fact, a person is far more likely to respond based on influences due to environmental factors and experiences than genetic factors. The idea that ones actions are primarily based on genetic factors is rather absurd. What we will be and how well react is mainly determined by our early social, psychological, and educational conditioning.

Calling upon ones early childhood conditioning. In critical situations, all one has to call upon is their early childhood and young adulthood conditioning. The author remembers watching various segments of the TV show Kung Fu, when every time the major character got in a challenging situation, he would call upon his childhood training and conditioning in a monastery to help him get through the situation. Reprocessing of childhood conditioning helped him to cope with the trauma and to work through the current incident. We can be no more than our conditioning and environmental stimulation has prepared us to be, and again people will often respond based on this early childhood and environmental conditioning. Most people will never get beyond this early childhood conditioning, no matter what happens in the interim of our lives, well always call upon this training and conditioning. Even as a senior citizen most individuals will continue to call upon this training. This is one reason why parents need to act as a guide to ensure that children get the appropriate training, conditioning, and development. Without such guidance, we can be crippled for the rest of our lives, leaving us upstream without a paddle.

Children only carry out script. We often chastise our children and other young people because they seemingly go astray. We give them labels such as the lost generation and generation X. In reality, children only carry out the scripts theyve been given. If we expect children to function better they need a better script. So, if you were to get an unconscious response from most people in critical situations, with respect to the question, What are you gonna do? If they were truly aware of there circumstances concerning the question, most people would respond, Im gonna do what I was trained and conditioned to do. In any case, we would be basically accurate, both literally and figuratively. This situation is more relevant for us than most people would ever believe.



BLACKS CONDITIONED FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION. Sometimes our conditioning is inappropriate, and we end up being conditioned for self-destruction. Black communities are frustrated and disfranchised socially, psychologically, educationally, economically, and politically, to the extent that Black individuals often lose control of their impulses. Many of them, even at the tender age of 12 or 13, see no way out of their negative circumstances. The situation many Blacks find themselves in is a result of being programmed for self-destruction. The problem didnt just begin yesterday.

Blacks were consciously and unconsciously trained and conditioned for self-destruction. Blacks were consciously and unconsciously conditioned from first contact with invading cultures to become destructive to themselves and others. Slavery continued the process of deterioration and conditioned self-destruction. Blacks have continued to be conditioned on a daily basis to manifest this self-destructiveness. The Black story represents one of the greatest survival stories of earths history. For us to experience the cruelty, brutality, and wickedness we encountered and survive the experience with any amount of collective or individual sanity is a near-miracle. However, that survival experience didnt occur without its consequences, says Richard Williams in They Stole It, But You Must Return It. In fact, there are many long-lasting consequences that continue to affect Blacks today. After having been programmed for self-destruction over many centuries and generations, many Blacks will either seek to destroy themselves, seek, out a relationship with someone whos likely to extirpate them or find a specific vice thatll ultimately prove deleterious.