His NAME Is Great

Last night I watched the re-make of the mini-series Roots.  I didn't like it.  I should have known that I wouldn't because I have the entire original series on VHS and I've learned the lines word for word verbatim.

The scene that I particularly didn't like was the scene where Kunta Kinte is whipped to the point of submission and proclaims that his name is, in fact, Toby.  Though I didn't particularly appreciate the new dialogue, in that moment, something spoke to me.

Kunta Kinte tried to hold on to his true identity even to the point of death.  With every lash, he defiantly proclaimed that his name was Kunta -- Kunta Kinte.  But as the flesh was torn from his back and pain became more unbearable, he finally acquiesced and decided to become who THEY said he was.  He became Toby.

As I watched that scene, I thought about the black men of today.  My father.  My son.  My husband.  I thought about how they have had to fight the names that have been thrust upon them.  How they fought the labels of lazy, liar, thief, womanizer....but with every lash, it is harder to fight.  It is harder to stand.  It is harder to be who they were actually created to be.

As a black woman, who loves black men, it is difficult to watch that scene on TV and in real life.  We watch our men take the lashes of white supremacy, the lashes of a criminal justice system that is designed to entrap them, the lashes of their own community that tells them a man must rule his home with an iron fist and he must have multiple women.

We watch them take those lashes every day and we can do nothing.
We can love  them.  We can encourage them.  We can even wipe their wounds with our tears but we are helpless to the attacks on their minds that tells them they will be Toby or they will die.  We are helpless.

Or so it seems.  Unlike the women back then who watched a fine black man being beaten to nothing, as Godly women of today, we have a right and responsibility to say, "Enough!  It is enough!"  We can't protect them in the natural.  We can't beat up the bullies on their jobs, at their schools, in their minds.  But we can live a life on our knees, bombard heaven and engage in intercession that will heal them from the lashes they have already received and prevent any further lashes from landing.

So today, I encourage every woman, to take the posture of prayer when it comes to YOUR man...not somebody else's.  We as women always have been and always will be warriors when it comes to the men in our lives.  Make a decision to speak healing to his soul, his mind and his spirit.  And by all means, do not add to the lashes with your angry tongue.

Call that man by his name for his name Prophesies his destiny.  His name is Great.