Going the Distance

The old saying, “The end justifies the means” seems to be the most common form of consequentialism used by whites to excuse the behavior of their ancestors. Coupled with the White Saviour Complex, many whites honestly believe that if it hadn’t been for them, the world would be in utter shambles; That almost nothing of significance had taken place among any group of people prior to their so-called myriad of achievements. That their intervention was absolutely necessary & that they made the most contributions to help develop the modern world & that almost every tactic used to do so was vital & that the ‘good’ results far outweighs any perceived ‘bad’ done to reach them.

Those who make these type of claims often will reach beyond the outer ends of the universe to validate them, glossing over, ignoring or oblivious to underlying factors to their ‘truths’. For instance, on the subject of slavery, too often do whites bring up instances of whites being slaves – failing to acknowledge that they still benefit today from the enslavement & following marginalization of blacks vs. no blacks in America having ever received any benefits from the enslavement of whites. Or they’ll try to absolve themselves of any responsibility of trying to help end systemic racism by pointing out that their ancestors had nothing to do with slavery, as if that’s somehow relevant.

Every single white person in America benefits from systemic racism no matter what their ancestors history, or their socioeconomic status. Many whites ancestors came to America for a better life knowing full well what took place to secure these lands & make it a wealthy & powerful country. Yet instead of shaming America & fighting for the people who have been displaced, alienated, dehumanized, exploited & marginalized, they flocked here to take advantage of the freedoms achieved off the genocide & enslavement of those people. They will also mention such in the context of how many other groups of people faced major hardships throughout history who have been able to recover at lightning speeds past what black people have thus far – failing to acknowledge the countless ways in which blacks efforts have been undermined. Quick to remind us that slavery was so long ago, not recognizing that slavery hasn’t really ended in this country, it’s just evolved.

See, for centuries now, whites have had to make these grandiose claims in order to fill their egos & to solidify their false sense of superiority. When most of your entire history, existence & worth has been built up & made powerful off the perceived worthlessness & powerlessness of others, this image of superiority must be upheld by any means necessary to keep those claims valid. One example, to point out that nations all over the globe have had their conflicts & wars, that there are none without a dark past, that still – America is the most just & civilized, yet failing to mention the over 130 wars the US is currently fighting. Quick to point out the warlords & terrorists in other nations, not realizing that we are also the warlords & terrorists occupying & destabilizing others nations. But it’s for the greater good, right? Maybe for white America, not everybody!

America thinks it knows what’s best for everybody, yet only does what’s best for itself at the expense of everybody else. And far too many white Americans believe that they should be praised & that everyone should be thankful for all the freedoms they feel they made possible, instead of acknowledging, praising & being thankful for all the indigenous people robbed & slaughtered, & those who were enslaved & marginalized in order to make modern white American life possible. And far too many like to believe that the worst of what America has done was so long ago, that nobody today should be held accountable, despite the fact they still benefit from those atrocities today. That there are still no limits to the distances whites will reach to maintain their image & validate their privilege.

Example: This highly disrespectful plaque posted at a Georgia State Park, claiming that white ‘pioneers’ blazed the trail of civilization there, not mentioning the hate, disease, genocide, slavery & other atrocities they blazed to achieve their definition of civil.

One repeatedly used tactic to keep America’s “Good Guy” image is to always claim there’s an entity out to take away or destroy everything that America holds dear, the main thing being freedom. That these entities want to do to America what America has always done & continues to do to others. Over the past nearly two decades, America’s main boogey-men have tended to be Muslim. In the beginning, the focus was mainly regional & mostly on key figures, but lately it’s broadening out to an entire religion & culture whose people make up nearly a quarter of the global population, due to the actions of a few. Now, maybe I am reaching quite a distance myself in pondering the possibilities of some of the great lengths America is going to strengthen the integrity of its image:

I don’t see how the same country who has so many citizens standing behind a person like Donald Trump could have ever elected Obama, let alone twice. I truly believe that Obama was used as a pacifier to shut black people up. To pretend to itself & the rest of the world that we’ve finally transcended race, also using him to shut gays up – to pretend to the rest of the world that we’ve finally transcended our gender & sexuality issues. Now Hillary has be used to try to shut the women up – to make it appear that America is now truly a place where all people are equal & treated as such, despite reality showing us the contrary.

And America still needs its boogey-man to look down upon, to appear holier than thou. Just days after a national broadcast of the funeral of very well-known & respected Muslim man, Muhammad Ali, who sacrificed his freedom to refrain from using violence, a Muslim man attacks America, targeting our gays that America has only very recently started acting like they cared about? The timing is impeccable… America couldn’t let the Muslim community be shed in a positive light for more than a few days. Sorry, but not sorry if I don’t believe that a single gunman, who had just days before purchased the weapons used, was able to become such a skilled gun operator & shooter in such a short time. Or that he was accurate enough to shoot over 100 people without anyone even trying to stop him. That a man under previous investigation by the FBI was not heavily surveilled after making a weapons purchase.

Would America really go that far to push its agendas, to stabilize its image, to keep its ego inflated? Hasn’t it before? And gone even further? To what ends will America go to prove its better than the rest while simultaneously acting as bad as the worst??

White History Month

Every year without fail, during Black History Month, black people catch flack for celebrating, accused of racism for focusing only on black history and accomplishments. Often it’s asked, “Why don’t we have a White History Month?” Well, I thought I’d share something I saw on Facebook, a list of things that should be highlighted during that month, if ever created:
1 Cherokee Trail of Tears
2 Japanese-American internment
3 Philippine-American War
4 Jim Crow
5 The genocide of Native Americans
6 Transatlantic slave trade
7 The Middle Passage
8 The history of White American racism
9 Black Codes
10 Slave patrols
11 Ku Klux Klan
12 The War on Drugs
13 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
14 How white racism grew out of slavery and genocide
15 How whites still benefit from slavery and genocide
16 White anti-racism
17 The Southern strategy
18 The rape of enslaved women
19 Madison Grant
20 The Indian Wars
21 Human zoos
22 How the Jews became white
23 White flight
24 Redlining/Gentrification
25 Proposition 14
26 Homestead Act
27 Tulsa Riots/Black Wall Street
28 Rosewood massacre
29 Tuskegee Experiment
30 Lynching
31 Hollywood stereotypes
32 Indian Appropriations Acts
33 Immigration Act of 1924
34 Sundown towns
35 Chinese Exclusion Act
36 Emmett Till
37 Vincent Chin
38 Islamophobia
39 Indian boarding schools
40 King Philip’s War
41 Bacon’s Rebellion
42 American slavery compared to Arab, Roman and Latin American slavery
43 History of the gun
44 History of the police
45 History of prisons
46 History of white suburbia
47 Lincoln’s racism and anti-racism
48 George Wallace Governor of Alabama
49 Cointelpro
50 Dotbusters
51 School tracking
52 Mass incarceration of black men
53 Boston school busing riots
54. Man made Ebola and A.I.D.S.
55  Church Bombings and fires in deep south to Blacks
56. Church Shootings
57. How the Irish and Italians became white
58. The Perpetuation of the idea of the “model minority”
59. Housing discrimination
60. Systematic placement of highways and building projects to create ghettos
61. Medical experimentation on poor PoC (people of color) especially Blacks (including surgical and gynecological experimentation)
62. History of Planned Parenthood
63. Forced Sterilization
64. Cutting children out of pregnant Black mothers as part of lynchings
65. Eurocentric beauty standard falsification
66. Erasure and eradication of all achievements of Ancient Africa and Kemet
67. White-washing of history and cultural practices of PoC
68. Media manipulation and bias
69. Perpetuation of the myth of reverse racism
70. The history of white cannibalism
71. White Fragility
72. Indian Removal Act
73. Red Summer of 1919
74. Compromise of 1877
75. The Assassination of Dr King

And a perspective about Black History Month from Zipporah LeGarde:

Black History Month, as well as other history months based on racial history, aren’t racist. BHM is no more racist than Breast Cancer Awareness month is discriminatory against other types of cancer. Racism is defined as privilege plus power, and something that uses racial lines to instill a hierarchy in society, usually with white on the top. So, from a sociological standpoint, only Euro-Americans can exercise racism, but racial minorities can only be prejudiced.

That being said, the purpose of these months is to highlight the contributions racial minorities have made to the fabric of America. Some of you believe we don’t “need” these months, bringing up what Morgan Freeman said (regardless of the fact most black and other minority intellectuals have written countless articles rebuffing his point of view. Sorry y’all, Freeman is an actor, not a race scholar, and doesn’t speak for the entire black race – we are not monolithic in our blackness). But you’re not looking at the larger picture. Tell me when, in school, you learned about a minority in history that wasn’t Harriet Tubman, MLK, George W. Carver, *maybe* Malcolm X, you see the point? And you *probably* learned about them during BMH.

Black History IS American History, and if our educational system made more of an effort to incorporate minorities (including women) into the story of how America came to be, it would then be unnecessary. But to say it’s racist not only is a gross misunderstanding of what racism actually is, but totally ignores the fact our educational system is highly Euro-centric. When you’re a racial, gender, or a member of other minority group, it means a lot to have positive models from your camp, to let you know you can achieve what they did, that you can be as successful.

The Negro Project

Michael Brown is all over social media & the news… Yet another unarmed African-American teen shot down dead by the police, an organization whose supposed intent is to protect the public. This is nothing new, it’s no longer shocking, yet it is still hurtful.

A serious lack of empathy, respect & value for human life has always loomed in America, especially for those of African descent…

The Ku Klux Klan at it’s peak was 4 million members deep, some of them governors, mayors & senators. Today they only claim to have only a few thousand members, yet that does not mean their ideals do not still reside in the mindsets of far more. It was recently discovered that a couple of Florida police were members. Most police officers, mayors, governors & senators probably aren’t members either, but that doesn’t mean they don’t share their sentiments!

The police departments in America were originally formed to protect Caucasian people & their neighborhoods, not African people & theirs. Jim Crow laws were formed & implemented & still being exercised today. Planned Parenthood was originally called The Negro Project, formed to attempt to rid society of their undesireables. When an entire race of people is deemed to not be fully human, of course their lives will matter less & be dismissed as expendable.

When cases like Mike Browns come about, a great sadness befalls the African American community & many of it’s parents become fearful for their own sons & daughters lives. Some even become afraid to reproduce. Some have been convinced that the tiny persons developing in their wombs are not human either, just like many of their oppressors believe about them. Only a few years ago, abortion ended the lives of more African American people than their top seven leading causes combined. So in some ways, The Negro Project has been a success.

Side Note: I am not trying to spark a debate about abortion rights, or if it’s murder. Technically, it’s not because murder is the illegal ending of a human life & abortion is the legal ending of a human life. I do not argue the aspect of morality regarding abortion either; that is based on personal beliefs & my perspective is not based on that. Mine are based on facts, and the Universe proves to us when human life begins, which is at conception. The laws of nature are not debatable.

Black on black violence is a major issue in America, and is often brought up when incidents like Mike Brown’s generate outrage. They wonder where the outrage is when we kill each other. Trust me, it’s there, but it doesn’t garner the same level of backlash from the community, because it’s not based in the same ideals; It’s not racially motivated. Logically, there is no reason to even compare the two. Most violent crime happens within racial lines, not across them.

Today in America, you will find people of all backgrounds struggling. However, even within that struggle, there are privileges to not being of African descent. Most Asians & whites do not have to live in fear of being harassed or killed by the police in their own neighborhoods just because of their appearance. Monsanto buried toxic sludge in predominantly African American neighborhoods that have caused serious health problems throughout those communities, including death; There are no predominantly white neighborhoods that this would ever happen in. When African Americans gather for peaceful protests & vigils for their fallen, they are greeted with a heavy police presence, dogs & tanks. You will not find such things at gatherings held for people of any other color.

Marching & protesting doesn’t help the situation or change anything. The justice system in America does not typically work in the favor of African people, so it’s pointless for us to trust & believe in it. Awareness alone does nothing; Action is the only solution. It seems like tragedy is the only thing that brings the African American community together. We need to continue this unity at all times. We’re so busy fighting & competing with each other, we’re not able to stand up against our common enemies to better our situations.

No matter what we do, we’re still living under their system & must live by their rules, even when those rules do not benefit us in any way. In America, we have no power. We own nothing & run nothing in comparison to all that our oppressors own & operate, such as land, shelter, utilities, media outlets, clothing companies, banks, court systems, law enforcement, etc. We rely on all these industries that they control. That’s why we need an infrastructure of our own, because we’re not faring well under theirs & it’s modeled in such a way to make sure that we never will. We could be thriving instead of just surviving, but we first must learn to value ourselves & each other!

Even if you in a Benz – you’re still a N*GGER….

A line from one the infamous Kanye West’s older tracks that holds true in the beliefs of many American’s today, which they’ve continued to prove to the World over & over again.That no matter how educated, well-mannered, successful, or well-liked African people may be, they will never, ever be recognized or treated as equals by their counterparts.

Kanye was widely criticized & praised for expressing his true feelings about our then POTUS, George Bush, claiming that Bush did not care about black people due to his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Was he right? Is this not also true of many other powerful, affluent, respected people throughout the country? Is this not an issue, despite if those notions are kept private, that can negatively impact us all?

This is an old USA military recruitment poster during America’s war with Germany (cir.,1917), depicting a German soldier as a gorilla… Then a cover of Vogue magazine & you can clearly see what they’ve done here using LeBron James & model Gisele Bundchen… Times have changed, but mindsets certainly have not! Despite LeBron’s huge career success & maintaining his good guy image, as you see here for yourself, he is still believed to be a lesser, subhuman being to many people.

Like Donald Sterling, for instance. Although he invested a lot money & time into in a business that is made up of a majority of men from African descent, he doesn’t want to be associated with them, nor does he want anyone he associates with to either. He owned the team. Doesn’t that remind you of slavery, somewhat? A white man “employing” black people, tells them where they can live, what they can & cannot do, dress codes, curfews, contracts, etc.. Is that not, at least in part, parallel to owning someone? Almost all NBA teams are owned by white men. The players make lots of money, but the owners still make more & for far longer. Most NBA careers do not last any longer than 5-10yrs, but coaching for decades or owning a team usually lasts for a lifetime, wealth that they can pass on to their families. And the monies generated from merchandising & advertisements? The money the players are making doesn’t really quite compare. Yes, of course, this is how most corporations work, however these involve very touchy ethical issues.

Rich Nevada Rancher, Clive Bundy employs an African man as a bodyguard, who even after hearing remarks Bundy made regarding poor Africans in America, said that he would still take a bullet for him! Bundy fired some people up with his perspective:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Putting the racial aspect of his comments aside for a moment, this could be true of any persons using gov’t subsidies. On the other hand, although it may be hard to admit, Sterling & Bundy did make some valid points, regarding the lack of unity in African communities in America, the slaying of our unborn (not too long ago, abortion was killing more African people than the top seven leading causes – combined) & the generations of Africans who have become comfortable with living off of subsidies for their entire lifetime. These are very real & very serious issues plaguing our communities that need to be addressed. Africans in America do not have the overall sense of pride they once did back during the Civil Rights era. We desperately need that fire again!! Just because there are millions out there who will never see or respect us as their equals doesn’t mean we can’t treat & see each other as such!!!