By Trish B., Award -winning journalist
For generations, the black family was the foundation of power, survival and heritage against unimaginable adversities. Through slavery, separation, mass imprisonment and financial exclusion, black families have found ways to keep – in between, in faith, in identity and hope. But today, we see a slow unfolding. Not because of an external power, but of a convergence of quiet murderers – body, social, emotional and spiritual – silently silent life from our homes.
We carry generations of pain to our DNA. From PTSD he went through slavery and Jim Crow, in daily micro-induced and racial battles, black men and women face only to survive. But we rarely call it. We rarely treat it. Because somewhere on the line, they were taught that treatment was weak, that vulnerability was not safe and that prayer would only determine it all.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, only one in three black Americans who need mental health care really receive it. The stigma runs deep. We say “I’m good” when we break. We say that boys don’t cry and wait for women to carry it all. This silence is the depression of reproduction, the discontent, the emotional abuse and the dysfunction of the generation.
It’s hard to throw in your family when you live paycheck on Paycheck. It is difficult to build inheritance when you are simply trying to survive. Due to decades of reconstruction, wages and lack of access to funds, black families hold only one tenth of the wealth of white families, according to the Brookings Foundation. Economic stress of relationships. It develops arguments, silent hassle and ultimately distance – especially in homes where love is expected to survive only hope.
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We glorify the grind, but many of us loot in the grave. No life insurance. No savings. No property planning. We let our children start from scratch. And in many households, women are forced both in roles and roles, while dissatisfaction is based on silence.
This is not a responsibility. This is the truth. Seventy-two percent of black children are born in single parent households-a statistical weapon often against us, but is rarely explored with compassion and depth. It’s not just about absence. These are broken relationships, circles of mistrust and the failure of Community support that once paid the gaps.
Too many men did not show how to drive or love, and too many women taught that independence was safer than vulnerability. That’s why we’re kept. Unattached. They are afraid to need each other. What was once cooperation has become a survival on the opposite aspects of the battlefield.
Instagram teaches us more about the relationships than our elders. Filters feed false fantasies of wealth, love and success – and our people are quietly suffering behind the screen. Weddings end because they don’t “look” like couples. Friendships are disconnected during influence. And family time is lost to move, compare and pretend.
We are more connected to strangers than our brothers. They are more invested in fans than in the family. And when the internet is quiet, so does our homes – because we never learned how to sit in amazement.
Our ancestors prayed through whippings, war and water pipes. But today, faith has become convenient. We are ecclesiastical but we are not committed. We know the writing but not the forgiveness. We love the public but they are fighting privately. And for many families, God is no longer the center – it is an emergency contact.
Without spiritual discipline, the house becomes a war zone. There is no model, no peace, no compass. And when you remove the source, the structure begins to collapse.
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We don’t talk about how jealousy separates families. How the ego sams the reconciliation. How women walk away from each other with pain and men compete more than they are connected. The black section is threatened not only by systems-but by self-sabotage.
We have forgotten how to cover each other. How to call each other in, not just calling each other out. And when the community dies, the family soon follows.
We need truth. We need treatment. We need Jesus and healing. We need fathers to return home – not only physically, but emotionally. We need mothers to be able to rest. We have to redefine love as discipline, not a feeling. We must remember that our elders were not coming, quickly and fighting to be successful – but so we could be whole.
Our families are not available. Our children are not experiments. Our weddings are not pieces of performance. What kills black families today is not exactly what it has done to us. It is what we allow to continue.
But what kills us does not need to determine us. We can heal. We can rebuild. We can remember. Because the same blood that built kingdoms from nothing runs through us. And our families deserve to live – not only in history books – but in power, joy and in reality.
