Jaha F. Cummings

Stagnation: Frustrated Creativity and the Black Gay Question Jaha F. Cummings

What is the greatest problem facing the Black family-community? Unlike what is being preached in many of our churches today, it is not the presence of same-sex loving people within our family-community. It is frustrated creativity. Frustrated creativity is the main issue that the Black community should be concerned with. We were created to express our creative potential as individual components of a collective soul; and we as a community are the support that ensures that each of us achieves self-mastery. If we choose to express our creative potential, we will no longer view ourselves and each other as commodities. We have been so conditioned to be commodities in this society, that many of us can only see our worth and the worth of others in the same manner that we were during slavery: breeding capacity and consumer value. This conditioning directly influences those leaders in our family-community who wish to exclude our same-sex loving family. A crisis of values has gripped us for the last forty years, when the integrity of the Black community was compromised to achieve the aims of social integration. We need to once again design our lives based on expressing our creative potential rather than on conspicuous consumption. In doing so, the quality of life for our entire family-community will be markedly improved. If we do not value every member of our family-community because they bring something special to the earth to share with us individually and collectively; we are not acting like Black people. Author Biography: Jaha F. Cummings is the director and publisher of a research organization in the Asia-Pacific region. His focus is on youth & values formation, culturally-relevant education, and culture-based national planning. His academic training was at Dartmouth College in Asian Studies. He is also a traditional High Priest. He was initiated, trained, and ordained in Cuba and West Africa in Ifá, Afa, and Vodou. His focus is on mental health and female reproductive issues. He is the author of Essential Ifa Reference; and co-author of Omowali: The Child Returns Home - Reconnecting Our Children With Their True Culture; Cultural Literacy and the Restoration of Traditional Values Among Youth; and Preserving Cultural Integrity in the Age of Globalization: An Educational Response. A second edition is planned for late 2014. He is also the author of other works under pen names.