Keep It Movin’

We’ve all heard of the “Flight or Flight” reaction triggered when we feel threatened. Your body produces a boost of adrenaline to prepare you for a wholly mammoth or a text from your ex. The reaction is biological. Fists or feet. Escalate or escape.

What is less well known is option number three. It’s reached when you realize neither fighting nor fleeing will work. This is the “deer in the headlights” syndrome.

In the wild it can serve a purpose. Freezing is the way some animals ride out a threat. For human beings, freezing is more insidious. People are not particularly concerned with being eaten by predators. What makes us freeze is not the threat of death or bodily harm. People freeze in the face of problems, systemic and personal.

When we freeze it’s not as simple as stopping our physical motion. We often stop moving socially, economically, politically and personally. If you don’t believe me, just look around. The education system is broken and everyone knows it. The sad state of public schooling is widely accepted, and it affects black people, poor people, and other “minorities” by assuring that future generations will not be prepared to compete.

Line up any number of serious issues and the story is the same. Corrupt politics, poisonous relationships, crime, obesity, AIDS, unfairness, injustice, moral deterioration and just about every other serious issue where the status quo owns the block. Most of us are either just going along to get along or stuck trying to determine if the light in the tunnel is a train or the coming of that long-awaited moment in the spotlight.

Americans in general and African-Americans specifically are stuck. What’s worse is we can mistake going in circles for movement. Stuck is stuck. Think about the problems that exhaust our collective energy. Overeating, chronic channel surfing, drinking, drugging, senseless sexuality, hyper-networking via Facebook, Twitter or whatever.com, and all manner of other silly diversions are distractions most of us cannot afford.

We live in an age of wonder. Communication, information, goods and service and all manner of fantastic opportunities are at our command. Children are more aware of the world around them than ever before. The problem is that being aware and KNOWING are totally different things. People are aware of every move Kim Kardashian makes, but they don’t know how to get a job. People are aware of every argument on reality shows like “Basketball Wives” or “Love & Hip-Hop,” but don’t know how to maintain healthy relationships. People are aware that Congress hasn’t done a damn thing except block President Obama’s efforts, but don’t KNOW that voting will result in change.

If you hate your job but go anyway and have no plans to make a change, you’re frozen. If you are in a bad relationship and don’t leave, you’re frozen. If your child’s in a sub-standard school but you send them anyway, you are frozen. If you don’t like what’s going on in the government, but you aren’t registered to vote, you are frozen.

There is hope. And it’s simple. If you are tired of living in the deep freeze all you have to do is take a note from popular slang and KEEP IT MOVIN’!

Let’s face it, fear happens. Everyone is scared of something. There are numerous situations that seem to be bigger than what any individual can handle. The trick is understanding that just because a problem seems huge and unmanageable does not make it that way. It just seems that way. When we freeze what seems true becomes true and there is nothing we can do. Keep it movin’, and you can take back your life.

I’m not just whistling in the dark. I know history and I know that my people, black people, have always kept it moving. No other group in the Western Hemisphere has the history of continuous pain, pressure and perseverance that black people do. Fear has been our constant companion but that hasn’t stopped our movement. Kidnapping, enslavement, degradation and frustration framed our history and informed our existence, but they did not stop us. We, the people, kept on moving. We’ve been bloodied and beaten, but we have never been broken. As scary as slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings and segregation were, they are all part of the past because we knew how to KEEP IT MOVING! Sometimes we fought. Sometimes we fled. But as a group we NEVER froze. Not until now.

21st century black people seem stuck. Interpersonal relationships are fractured. Nuclear families have disintegrated. Our children act out the most shameful stereotypes as though they were born to fail. We kill and die at greater rates than soldiers deployed overseas. Our core communities don’t belong to us anymore and are too often steeped in poverty, ignorance and crime. Instead of straightening our backs and putting our collective shoulder back on the grindstone, we are checking out the latest episode of ratchet reality shows and other modern day buffoonery.

The historical list of movers is long, and I refuse to rattle off a list of “heroes.” Names are not important. What is important is that anyone we now call a hero is, basically, just a person who kept it moving. They kept it moving when no one knew their name or honored them. They kept it moving because stopping wasn’t an option. They could have frozen. Instead, they discovered that motion creates momentum and momentum creates change. That is the lesson. Keep it moving!

Some may think this is an oversimplification. They’ll say this “keep it moving” in the face of immense challenges is naive. They are wrong and probably frozen . What I KNOW is that doing nothing is not an option. As a people, we have to do something. What that something is depends on the person and the circumstance, but there is power in doing. Fear will always exist, but so will the ability to do something. Stop being stuck. Get over the griping. Shake up your soul and do what you can.