Warren Buffet Wants To End My Suffering. Not!

A FaceBook friend reposted these instructions attributed to Warren Buffett. My response: Greg, this is only partially true. While I support the idea that we need to let some things pass, and also heal so that we're not easily triggered. I'm afraid of the oversimplification and the racist/classist implications - one of which is that Warren Buffet became wealthy because he practiced logic and restraint over emotion, and others not as wealthy, are to blame for their suffering because they react emotionally and without restraint. Of course, this ignores the reality that he became wealthy by using an exploitative oppressive system tailored for the few against the many, and that same system is the real cause of my economic suffering. Let's ignore all that for now. Let's focus on the more direct reference to emotion over logic and restraint. Greg, did you know that emotion also drives the restraint that Buffet advocates? Emotion drives discipline, too. The carefully stalking lion is driven by its desire and determination (emotion) to eat. You can't separate emotion and logic or cognition. While well intended, these kinds of "logic" over "emotions" statements simplify too much and teach us to suppress our emotions. When others are aware of our emotions - often that they induce - before we are, we lose. Authentic emotion doesn't hinder logic. Unconscious scripts that direct us to suppress some emotions over others - does hinder logic and renders bad decisions. Emotional illiteracy and emotional inauthenticity *DO* hinder logic. They blind me to the socially/educationally installed emotional script that's running and directing my behavior in service of others! The answer isn't more logic that completely ignores the "script." It's breaking the script with emotional authenticity, then using the authentic emotions to execute the right plan with logic. Think about it, Buffet's own desire for power, and his determination to use his logic to keep it is emotionally driven. So is mine.

When a soldier - say Harriet Tubman - defies logic to escape and then go back behind enemy lines time and time again to save us, we say GREAT, and praise her as a shero? If logic is king, then why would we do such a thing? It certainly wasn't logical for her to do what she did. It was emotional. She cared about her family and her people. Notice "cared about" means to be emotionally connected. That's why I say Buffet's message is too simplified and in reality dangerous for Black people. When the poet Sterling Brown's Joe Meek rushed the police station facing machine guns and tear gas with only courage and pawn shop weapons. We cheered. Even when resulting in his ultimate death, he's still lauded as a hero for standing up against the police who slapped a sister down. He could have just "taken a deep breathe and let it pass." That's what too many of us do today. Without emotions or with suppressed emotion, we don't care, we don't remember, we don't think! We need emotion to help us win economically, politically, socially, and militarily. I also know the African proverb: "When one is in love a cliff becomes a meadow." This isn't a "feeling-over-thinking" problem, it's an emotional suppression problem. The emotion of fear is suppressed for the illusion of power and sometimes by the injected "thoughts" or beliefs that "I'm not good enough." Hence, I suppress the danger and take inordinate risks to "prove" I'm worthy and garner the respect, love, approval of the other. This falsified belief that "I'm not good enough" is a "thinking" problem that creates emotional problems - not the other way around. Sure we need to do something about our emotional issues. It's not a call for more logic, though. It's more authentic emotion that's needed. It's a balance between thinking and feeling that we need. It's getting beyond the "suppress and redirect script" that been drilled into us. Just today I was teaching my students about the early 19th century Black Nationalism. They were a bit taken put off that in 1827 Africans came together in NYC to renew our HATRED for African captivity. It's the strong emotion of the word HATRED that bothered them. Jackie Mayfield taught me that you have to be "disturbed" (emotional) about a problem to be motivated to fix it. So I reason that the more I hate our current captivity and oppressed state, the more likely I am to make the economic decision to buy Black! Similarly, the more I LOVE my African self and Afrikan people the more likely I'll execute a plan for removing those from power over us - economically and otherwise. Greg, I fear that I've overstayed my welcome. Continue to work for Afrikan people. Take care, Brother.