The Voices Around The Black Pot

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A day has passed that causes me personal sadness for so many reasons. The few reasons are this, I was a soldier like many soldiers who stood and are still standing a post during holidays, birthdays, and every day while others in The United States, but really The Divided States enjoy drinking, sales and materialistic buys and false family happiness.

I am glad for the few who cherish and appreciate their loved ones and partnerships and community. My next reason is the trauma many communities feel separated from feeling thankful of their economic, and comprehension situation. As this day people give thanks, I hope they remember what the food and the cooking pot really means.

There was a time in the heart of the American South, there existed a legendary cooking pot that had been passed down through generations of a proud Black American family. This wasn’t just any ordinary pot; it was a symbol of strength, resilience, and the rich cultural heritage of the family. Through hardship and suffering, the pot had endured, becoming a silent witness to the struggles and triumphs of generations.

There has been The Mama in our community. The Mama is the matriarch of the family, who cherished the pot like a precious heirloom. It had been handed down from the ancestors, who had used it to cook soul-nourishing meals for her family during the toughest of times.

Mama believed that the pot held a special kind of magic – the kind that turned simple ingredients into meals that could heal the soul. Every Sunday, the family would gather at Mama’s house for a feast. The air would be filled with the tantalizing aroma of food. As they enjoyed a meal cooked in the pot, they felt a profound sense of connection to their ancestors and the enduring spirit of their heritage. All cultural s have The Black Pot.

From that day on, the black cooking pot continued to be a symbol of unity and strength for the family, reminding them of the resilience and love that had sustained them through generations. And though the pot’s surface bore the marks of time, it’s true value lay in the stories and traditions that it held within – a testament to the enduring power of family, culture, and the shared experience of a community of people. The Black American journey is just one of many suffering communities that has and is still enduring hardship from system that is systematically still holding people down.

This day could be every day and in modern day western society, I understand that this type of experience is difficult to do for so many, for so many other reasons. So, when you have a few days a year, I hope you are able to eat from The Black Cooking Pot.

I have cried on this day, and many days like this for reasons I have already mentioned and many more. I cry to heal, to endure and to embrace my hope. I cry because I am hopeful. We have to express ourselves, share ourselves, and forgive ourselves. I have developed an expression, and it says we must have Cudjo Tears. Cudjo Tears is a reflection on loss and resilience” Cudjo Tears is a poignant and evocative phrase that encapsulates the profound emotions associated with loss and the resilience required to endure and overcome it. The term Cudjo Tears comes from the story of the last African Slave. Cudjo story is in The Journal of Negro History, Cudjo Lewis is one of the last surviving captives of the Clotilde, the final ship to dock in the United States with a cargo of African slaves in 1860.

The Black Pot is not just about food, it is about conversations, problem solving, and building families and community.

Our ideas, emotions, feelings, talents go into the metamorphic Black Pot and noting but goodness comes out and is fed to ourselves, our youth, our elders, our education and our communities. We must stop the fast-food eating metaphor and learn to sit down and cook and eat together. We have lost the connection to ourselves and the ancestors that speak to us. We have been focused on The Divided States to try and make it a United States and we have cut off our own unification of humanity.

I hope you loved your day. I hope your day nourished you until the next time. I hope you’re now full and ready to work. I hope you are hopeful to not give up on love, life and happiness.

I will not give up on love, life ,happiness, because I am a soldier, a warrior. I would like you to join me in The Black Pot.

Written by: Dr. Paul W Dyer