For We Are One
By Talibah Chiku | July 16, 2019
Many years have passed since I was exposed to and read Becker’s Denial of Death. Unfortunately in this now, I fail to recall those moments of yesterday; was it my undergraduate or Master’s work that captured Becker’s words as akin to blood in my veins? Nevertheless, I knew for sure that Denial of Death was a profound undertaking. What I learned transformed my spiritual journey. I am engaged in recollecting how I was influenced by Becker in all of my studies, readings, teaching, transformation, and daily living.
The words from Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death were cushions for my knowing, learning about values and how I grew beyond labels. My education in values and how to make clear definitions about life and how to create a worldview were essentials for my development. While I did not fully understand Denial of Death, I kept abreast of how to use Becker’s words in my spiritual journey as well as learning more about the denial of death and the components of xenophobia, dehumanization, and denigrating people of color — African American, Native Americans, Mexicans. Today, it is the same as it ever was.
I was born and raised in Washington D.C. It was the backwoods, not the inner area of the District. I was 16 and proclaimed I would write a book, Powerful Effects of Society on the Individual. I knew something was amiss in the backwoods. At such a young age, I had no ideas about specifics of what I saw or heard; intuitively, I knew the wrongs were made normal, inclusive, and the reality of what was to be. For example, privileged residents in the Nation’s Capital were not under restrictive, racist, housing covenants. The redlining policy maps by color (red, green, blue, yellow) determined where various cultures should live. Early education was track-defined and determined what and how long a student could remain in school, and which subjects they were allowed to learn. This all depended on family income. What is more, fiduciary matters were limited or unavailable for home purchases, loans or the plethora of other options beyond residents in the backwoods.
In my development, I have recognized some values, regardless of age, religion, economics, ethnicity, or gender: most of us have been groomed to partake of the “Kool-Aid” with prompts to include, accept, believe, and thrive from socialized indoctrination from parents, school, family, friends – how to live, who one should be, why, when and where. In my understanding the goal has been to create a Disneyland reality for odd beliefs to live in happy land and possibly to deny death.
From a very young age, I ignored the “Kool-Aid” and was identified as the defiant one. In that darkness, my family did not know I skipped with joy wherever I went, picking flowers from neighbors’ yards, wearing them on my clothes and in my hair. I fathomed that I was beautiful against the many oblivious distortions about me and those looking like me. No matter, I pursued the reality of creating my freedom through school, early adult life, collegiate efforts, many of whom shut the door even after getting scholarships. Yet, “Still I Rose,” as Maya Angelo and other African American writers spoke – words that raised us up.
Educationally, I did not know what GPA nor Magna Cum Laude meant. But I claimed them both with effort, secretly knowing what I did not know but I knew anyway. Books were my friends. Somewhere in those times of Becker’s work and numerous others, I translated whatever made sense to expand my journey of freedom while never attending to be a hero nor attempting to expand a light around me. Still, I learned who I am and whose I am without any societal label. I remember saying I may never have my name on a marque, but I would be a powerful human anyway in what and how I engage.
In my understanding, racism, violence, trauma, human destruction, and hate are all endemic in local, national, and worldwide atrocities, and epitomize the reality of attempting to delay one’s mortality. So my last word is Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death needs, produces, and deserves a CLARION CALL. If more than academics were familiar with Denial of Death, perhaps those many might do more in expressing their gifts – education, understanding, defying hero worship and disregarding the sometimes crazed ideas of being number one. There could be a metamorphosis of consciousness – to understand more and learn that we/they matter, have dreams, ideas, and hopes. Death-denial engenders the realm of politics, violence, language, gender, race, education, sexuality, abortion, immigration, economics, and class. Becker’s work interlays with all possibilities within societal humanity regardless of identity.
It is time to welcome the other. Express open hearts to love and to recognize the other as a friend while deleting the word stranger. For we are one.
Talibah Chiku, BA, MA, RScp, received her BA in African American Studies and her MA from the San Francisco Theological Seminary. She went on to complete programs in Ministerial and Spiritual Practitioner Studies. She has spent 20 years as a Licensed Spiritual Practitioner in Washington and California, teaching and supporting newness about consciousness and the metaphysical philosophy. In addition to her wealth of experience with counseling, she has served as a clinical program manager, grant reviewer, and education director in the public health sectors, led conference workshops on topics such as chronic disease and cultural competency, and volunteered at Centers for Spiritual Living. She plays Zimbabwe/Shona music and has continued to learn, dance, play piano, laugh, love, and know that life is good. She has three children and five grandchildren, describing herself as a “happy elder.”