We Are Not the Same (eBook)

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Melanin Manipulation

“Among the Egyptians themselves, those who dwell in the cultivated country are the most careful of all men to preserve the memory of the past, and none of whom I have questioned have so many chronicles…

For there are three consecutive days in every month they purge themselves, pursuing after health by means of emetics and drenches; for they think it is from the food which they eat that all sickness come to men.”

–Ancient Egyptian proverb

Our ancient Egyptian ancestors knew that the cure to all ailments, aches, pain and overall dis-ease are provided by nature. They knew dis-ease comes from poor diet practices. In this current day and age, with fast/over-processed food everywhere we turn in our community, highly melanated people are experiencing debilitating health and have nowhere to turn. We have to work on going back to our original diet prior to slavery.

“From 1984 to 1989 life expectancy for whites increased, while life expectancy for blacks decreased.”9 We can attribute part of the statistics to upbringing, lifestyle and diet. Growing up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, on every corner there’s a Wendy’s, McDonalds, Chinese restaurant, Kennedys Fried chicken etc. Supermarkets are overflowing with aisles of processed food, non-organic meat, farm-raised fish, and non-organic vegetables and fruits.

Then on the flip side, take a drive over to Park Slope, Ft. Greene, or Ditmas Park; there are organic supermarkets, healthy restaurants, vitamin shops, and a plethora of juice bars.

It’s no surprise that major cities throughout the Unites States are organized by racial groups. The obvious racial organization in America is due to the segregation and unconstitutional racial zoning enforced by government. In “The Color of Law: A forgotten history of how Government Segregated America,” Richard Rothstein presents the long history of federal, state and local policy that produced a well-organized segregation all across America.10 I am by no means saying that integration would have saved our communities, but having access to better housing, schools, and food options would have been crucial to communities of color thriving in America. It is quite clear that this was not the main objective that white America had for our kings and queens.

Think about the feeling you have after a large plate of white rice, pork chops, fried chicken, mac ‘n cheese, and a cup of juice. You develop what we call in urban neighborhoods, “the itis.” This type of food, if you can even call it food, requires energy to metabolize in the body. The energy comes from other organ systems which helps increase the blood supply to the stomach to help break the food down. This is what causes a fatigued feeling after eating. Real nutritious foods don’t give you that sleepy, drained feeling.

The “itis” is what’s clouding our minds and holding us back from our true awakening as a whole, to start solving the issues that affect our community. From the inception of colonization, Europeans suppressed our melanin because they knew the power of fueling our bodies with quality food, which would enhance our minds and enlighten our souls. Europeans fed us poison during slavery which we now call “Soul food.” “But good for whose soul?” 11

The nutritional plantation has been used to replace the physical plantation because controlling your mind is way more powerful than controlling your body.

My goal in this section of We Are Not the Same, is to present you with several options for cleansing your amazing bodies, starting with the most efficient, yet stringent way to reset your digestive system. It makes sense to first understand a little about how our digestive system works. This will allow us to see why it’s in our best interest to reduce or eliminate our intake of processed foods, white flour, sugar, “chopped cheese”, excess salt and flesh foods. Your melanin and your immune system are in an intimate relationship until they are disrupted by poor diet and toxic environment. Under the skin, people of color are different and have to be treated as such.

DIGESTION

The process of digestion begins once we smell food. That smell stimulates the digestive organs to get ready. This is why when you see food you say, “my mouth is watering.” You are now ready for those digestive enzymes to mix with the food you’re about to eat. Saliva is not just a clear liquid; it is actually chemistry going on in your mouth to break down foods. This is why chewing your food properly is so important.

When my family would get together to have dinner, my brother would pray with one eye open, waiting to devour what lay before him, while making sure no one went near his plate. It was like a race that involved gulping and not enough chewing. The salivary enzyme that helps break down food is called amylase. This enzyme is only effective when food is chewed to completion. It cannot breakdown fats and proteins, only carbohydrates into simpler form.

Food that is not chewed to completion travels through our esophagus then into our stomach to be left undigested. Our stomachs are not equipped to break down large chunks of food. So, for all of my fast eating brothers and sisters out there, please take your time and chew your food. Put down those weapons called a knife and fork between bites.

The stomach produces hydrochloric acid and the enzyme pepsin, which turns the food into chyme and makes it a paste-like consistency. Proteins like chicken and steak need the acidic environment from the stomach to be broken down. The liquid is then passed through the duodenum to be saturated with digestive fluids from the pancreas and liver. As you can see in the sketch below, that paste travels through a twenty-five foot or so coiled tube called the small intestine, all neatly packed in our midsection.

The small intestine is where the vitamins and nutrients from our liquefied food are reduced to a chemical substance to be absorbed into the bloodstream. Waste left over from the digestive process is passed through the large intestine (colon) until a mass movement empties it into the rectum, hopefully one to three times a day. Think about how many of us actually do “number two” daily. The stool passed into the toilet is mostly left over food debris and bacteria. On average, it takes about thirty to forty hours for stool to get through the colon.

Such an arduous process is done by our bodies effortlessly, but unfortunately, when there isn’t a well-balanced diet to assist with carrying out this seamless operation things get quite constipated… I mean complicated. If our diet lacks fiber and consists mostly of goat, rice and peas, mac ‘n cheese… you get my drift – these highly refined foods can lead to compaction of waste in the colon; allowing waste that should be excreted to be absorbed back into the body. In layman’s terms, your shit is reversing back up your colon into your small intestines.

Constipation is caused by improperly masticated food whose waste matter is left in the body too long. When food hangs out in your system too long, peristaltic contractions in your digestive tract may be decreased. All this compaction of mucoid (mucus that traps toxins in the intestine) and matter cling to the walls of the colon. Improper functioning of the digestive system can lead to headaches, brain fog, allergies, dry skin, and in extreme cases, cancer.

Your colon can be thought of as a drain pipe in your toilet bowl. When your drain is clogged and you try to flush the toilet the waste backs up and spills all over your bathroom floor. When this happens to our colon, the waste spills over into another important filter called our lymphatic system.

Lymph is a clear fluid containing cells that flows throughout different channels in our body, collecting impurities such as bacteria, old red blood cells, cellular waste, heavy metals, pesticides, and drug residue. This fluid circulates around the body through muscle movement. This is why being physically active is crucial. When that lymph fluid makes a stop in the lymph nodes, which you can feel in your neck, armpits, or groin area, those nodes destroy whatever impurities are being carried through your body.

If you have a lymph node in any of those areas that is enlarged, that means the toxins are too much and you need to stop whatever you’re doing and cleanse. You can think of the lymph node as the dump site for toxin collection. If these two areas are getting backed up, the waste travels back into our bloodstream. That is essentially what disease is, waste being reabsorbed back into the body due to poor digestion, assimilation and elimination.

Now that we know a little about how our amazing bodies excrete waste, let us look into several ways in which we can assist our bodies in taking a much-needed break. The first of many options to cleanse is called fasting.

FASTING

“Salvation is the freeing of the soul from its bodily fetters; becoming God through knowledge and wisdom; controlling the forces of the cosmos instead of being a slave to them; Subduing the lower nature and through...