There is a lie, coming down through the generations past, that to survive, African Americans have to be unnoticed:

“During this 100 year period of mental and physical terrorism, mentioning equality, integration, or the desire to have quality education for our children would get you shot, lynched, severely beaten or run out of town if you were Black.  So what type of mental and emotional perspective and/or personality gets developed in an individual who learns that irrespective of opportunity, it “need not apply” to them.  Denial of the significance of the insult and /or suppression of the emotions it produces became the strategy to survive, the underpinnings of mental homicide and mental suicide, “Mentalcide”   (Mims, Higginbottom, and Reid, The Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder:  Definition, Diagnosis, and Treatment (Conquering Books, 2005), p. 68-69).

“Those who are the targets of mental homicide understand what it is they are experiencing, although they have no psychological interpretation.  In order to defend themselves from those who maintain and perpetuate the veil, they make themselves as small as possible, as insignificant as they can, as unintimidating as they know how.  These acts are the beginning of mental suicide.  In order for a tall/large, brilliant, Black man to become small, insignificant and unintimidating he will smoke, drink, do drugs, dress down, hunch his shoulders, be unkempt, and be uneducated.  A striking Black woman becomes insignificant by dressing and acting like a sexual object rather than a competitive person.  This behavior begins in school, just around fourth grade” (Mims, et al, p. 71).

“We now know that terror and fear immobilizes and incapacitates an individual from selecting life giving/saving options.  We have all seen young brothers preferring not to be educated, not wanting to stand out.  I have seen many of our bright male students prefer to play the role of the dummy, rather than excel academically, even though they knew what the outcome of their life would be.  I have asked these young men “Why are you choosing to fail?”  The standard response is “If I wanted to pass I could, but I don’t want to” (Mims, et al, pp. 72-73).

Have you seen this dynamic in someone? What do you think the answer is?