Significant Summaries

 

 

Significant Summaries

     One of the greatest things this country did for our development, was to have a period of segregation.  Besides its evils, Jim Crow Segregation laid bare the position Westerners had towards the newly freed Black population.  Sharing the world the Blacks helped to build, was not the idea of the descendants of the colonists.  This forced us into a condition wherein we had to work with each other in order to survive, because we could not depend on mainstream America.  The option of being with the White man simply was not there.  Racism was en vogue in this country for many, many years.  There was a general outlook that Blacks were inferior to Whites and were only good for menial labor for the whites; which prompted the action from indentured servitude (slavery based upon indebtedness worked off over a period of time), to slavery based upon one's skin (American racial slavery which was aimed directly towards blacks) to last for the rest of Black people's lives--including their progeny.  This lasted up until the Union was taking a beating from the confederate forces and allowed Blacks to enter the war in order to gain momentum during the American Civil War against the south.  This was a position that was lobbied by Frederick Douglass to President Lincoln, in the hopes of gaining more civil rights and citizenship as Americans.   As a result of the success of the war Lincoln proclaimed all enslaved Blacks were freed (Emancipation Proclamation).  This process took a couple of years (from 1863 to 1865), first freeing Blacks in the Confederate South (Rebel South) and then the Union North.  When the Black man was finally emancipated in 1863-65, he was not given money nor land for his years in servitude to this country--he was just released.  Many of us had to go back to the same White people who once owned them as property, to seek employment as a free man.  Whatever Blacks in America could scrounge up, in way of existence,was what most Whites felt was equal to Blacks position within American society.

     Next came the Jim Crow Segregation, in which Whites generally agreed that Blacks are not equal to Whites and therefore are not entitled to the same rights or facilities in their country.  The Klan was planted firmly in the rural south and they did not believe in the two races mixing.  Some of these attitudes were reflected within American law (therefore making some of this racism institutionalized.  "For colored only" signs were posted all about the United States.  Blacks were not allowed to share the same hotels, bars or public places with Whites.   Most of our people knew not "to go there" with White people: meaning that Black had a place and up into the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Blacks tolerated this position.
In their world, Whites felt they were free to have their way with any other, but they would lynch a Black man for just making eye contact with White woman, during those times.  This is part of what became known as the "Separate but Equal Clause" within American society during the time.  The Klan was the vigil-ante element to segregation, but the United States Government had laws to reinforce the separation of the races.  Racism was, at one point, an institutionalized phenomena within the United States. This was something most Whites wanted.  It took local and international pressure to force the government to act, but that alone will never change the minds of the people-- just their outward behavior.  During those times, we could only rely on ourselves to take of our own needs and that was not necessarily a bad thing.
     Society created the conditions and Blacks in America responded to them.  Reliance was the product and a "loose unity" was the outcome: Take the Negro League for example:  Who do you think owned the stadiums?  Who owned the teams?  What color were the players?  What color were the people who took the photos of the teams?  Who owned the concession stands?  Who supplied the stands with product?  How about transportation?  You get my point?  A Black enterprise which supported other associated Black businesses, which worked, in part, because there was no option available.  It had to work or our people would not have had a Negro League.  And we believed we could do it, therefore it was done.  Wow!
     Did the members in the Negro League make as much money as the members in America's Major League Baseball teams?  Well, probably not.  But then, the option wasn't there for them to be on those teams or the possibility to generate that type of capital -- the numbers nor the economics were there for this to be so.  Yet they existed just the same.  Did the Negro League ever play the MLB?  Yes, several times and the Negro League came out on top.  Wow, a Black institution that was responsible for employing Blacks, for Blacks and a high caliber league to boot!  So what happened to the Negro League?
     It would seem that we did for self because we had to.  There was no other options available to us.  I often wondered why the success of this business didn't offer more promise to our people back then, but the chronology is what it is.  When our backs were against the wall, we put our minds to it and created something wonderful.  But I don't think our people fully appreciated or understood the significance of what we do, because when the option comes to be a part of the pale man's program-- our people often abandoned what we are doing for a place in their world.   Such long periods of segregation in this Western society called America makes it fairly obvious that many White Americans do not have a high opinion of Blacks.  I think when our people look at the accomplishments the colonist had already achieved, they wanted in on this too and were not willing to wait; they could do something comparable.  I don't think so-called "African tribal conflict" had anything to do with it, since familiarity with things of Central Asian origin was several generations removed.

     Is it that we think what Whites had was better?  It is obvious that we have "Child in the candy shop" syndrome.  This is a syndrome where a child may have candy, but when he or she passes the candy shop, they see much greater possibilities and suddenly what they have looks relatively insignificant.  Look at how many Blacks go to Black colleges as opposed to Whites who go to Black colleges.  Amazing!   Once a chance comes to work in a candy store, many of our people finds himself or herself almost totally discarding negotiating the terms of their employment-- intoxicated from the possibilities of the "candy treasures" that awaits him or her.  Sad but true, many Black music artist will tell you, they were so happy to be signed to a major label-- they didn't see the raw deal the fine print represented.  We know what happened to the Native Americans-- why do we not think that the same theft and genocide would not await us as well?  They say that plagiarism is a modified form of flattery. If so, then the Black man should be flattered about what he has done in Hip Hop, all forms of music, sports and entertainment.  Chuck Berry sued the Beatles and the Beach Boys and won monetary awards for plagiarism.  Paul McCartney literally stole Little Richard's "primal scream."   But short of the Beatles acknowledgement of the originators of Rock & Roll, Whites seem only to give "back-handed compliments" and reluctant praise.  I could only guess because those who can turn a profit off of our ignorance, really don't want us to know how great we are-- no more than a pimp wants a prostitute to know that without her exploits he will make 'no dough."     Rhythm and Blues is such a highly transitional medium.  The life duration on a hit record in this form of music is six months.    If you do not have another hit in your arsenal, you will be a has been in six months.  This alone shows how dispensable our music is to us-- or how appreciated it is despite it's greatness.  It becomes oldies in less than two years!  Not classic, oldies!  You will never see such a thing in Rock & Roll or Country music.  And despite it's ethnicity, it is disproportionately White producers, Black talent.  This happened all over the music industry and the entertainment industry as well.  It seemed, being accepted into the mainstream of American society is more important, than establishing and taking care of our own needs as a nation of people within a nation constantly treats us as second class citizens.  Many people always seem to always go after the things that are not worth having.  As they say,  "The grass always looks greener on the other side."

     So why do Blacks want to deal with such disagreeable people?   I don't know, if I was in their position, that I would take my chances with those people, whose attitudes I had already seen in action.  This is despite the money potential of being successful in the White man's world wouId bring.  I just wouldn't trust in them or their practices with non-White people.

     Then again, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the highly successful Black Wall Street in Tulsa was burned to the ground due to the local White population being envious and jealous of the more influential Blacks of the area.  We live in different times, it almost seems inconceivable that we went through so much open hostility in those days.  Judging how many Whites are on medication today for Anxiety, manic depression, etc. -- knowing that they were not where they are today medically-- open expressions of hostility of those types in those days must have been a lot to deal with.  Our ancestors were probably seeking the peaceful route, thinking they can't win in the White man's courts.  After all, in this case the Black man (and Woman) were playing "an away game" (are not the people running the country or the ruling class).

     Now most of you reading this who live outside the United States may find it hard to believe that Blacks in America tolerated this treatment for so long.  As well, some of the youth inside this country might believe you and your contemporaries would have handled that situation differently.  I would say in both cases, you have no idea of the mindset our ancestors were up against.  Part of the problem for today's youth is that 1865 is too far removed for you.  A person who is 55 now, probably has parents who are 79-85 now.  This would place their birth in the 1920's to 1933.  If their parents were twenty when they had them, then the above persons grandparents would be born in 1900 to 1913.  So his or her  twice great parents would have been slaves but they would have all lived under segregation rules and a segregated "colored only/Whites only" society.  Now while this phenomena might be hard to visualize and feel, most of our young to mid adults have witnessed things that had to do with Apartheid-- where 85% of the indigenous population were forced to live on 15% of the land (and they were forced to be migratory on that 15%).  This militaristic society with its strong racist sentiments was in full effect from 1948 up until 1994-- with a White supremacy and military force similar to Nazi Germany.  That is a very tough mindset to have to try and change or fight against, especially in their country!

     If you are twenty-eight or older, you had the perfect opportunity to watch mad men and women in their finest insane ideology -- man's inhumanity to his fellow man: White Supremacy rhetoric.  It was called Apartheid.  Pieter Willem Botha, commonly known as P.W, Botha, was the prime minister and then state president of South Africa during Apartheid.  In September 1989, Willem de Klerk replaced then president P.W. Botha when he was forced to step down after an apparent stroke. Willem de Klerk, is best known for engineering the end of apartheid, South Africa's racial segregation policy, and supporting the transformation of South Africa into a multi-racial democracy by entering into the negotiations that resulted in all citizens, including the country's black majority, having equal voting and other rights. It happened in your time. However, most of you would have missed the opportunity because of your conditioning.  You were probably looking at where you are located instead of the fact that you are both Black people who lived with people who discriminated against you.  Or maybe, due to your conditioning, you too believe that our ancestors were backwards, primitive and savage creatures with bones coming out of the nose and plates used to stretch our lips like those racist cartoons we use to watch as humor.  Maybe this was the way you began to hate things 

African (Central Asian), as Cecil Rhodes, the De Beers, and the Rothschild's carted the minerals and diamonds from our Central Asian shores, without a ounce of protest from you.  More politically conscious Whites did more things to end Apartheid than you. 

     And for you outside this country, you are suffering from geography and not true allegiance to us as a people -- whether indigenous or not.  This phenomena places you as a removed observer, rather than someone who would take the time necessary to do the research in order to get a clear mental picture -- culturally, as well as, spiritually.  Googling racism in the United States, lynchings, equal education under the John F. Kennedy administration -- as well as, articles and speeches by P.W. Botha and Frederik de Klerk on subjects dealing with the issues of trying to be a ruling class in somebody else's land might help you see the factors more clearly confronting Blacks in America and Blacks in South Africa during the Apartheid era.  But by all means, get involved!

     What I am saying is that nothing came from the racist elements within South Africa or America to end segregation or discrimination.  They had not evolved past the point where they could look at all humanity through non-prejudice eyes.  Segregation and its long chronological series of events are indicative of what was preferred in both lands before the rest of the world pointed out to these lands just how ignorant and evil these ideologies are and made pressure on these countries to abolish the acts.  But these actions did not abolish the ideas in the true believers minds.  We Blacks today, see-between-the-lines, concerning the covert racist acts of our White so-called fellow Americans and Afrikaners.  But they are forced to hide their intent so out of decorum.  They want to appear civilized and cosmopolitan.  But at one point, both countries were ruled by people with this segregated point of view and the majority of White people seem to go along with it.  Sure the elements were there amongst Whites for social change within both countries, but we know by the chronicles of both lands-- it just wasn't enough.  It was outside political pressure that caused both countries to change their discriminatory practices -- not the evolution of mainstream society as a people who wanted social change.

     Yet, because things appear different (that is despite the undercurrent of second class citizenship and past sentiments from the majority of Whites), we Blacks in both countries are supposed to prefer mainstream above doing for ourselves and relying on mainly that.  Given the chronology of both countries, I say that proposition is fool-hardy.  It is our lives that lie in the balance and it is our lives we are fighting for.  We would not even be having discussions on equal rights if we were all the same people.  We are asking another group of people to be fair, hoping they will see it within their hearts to accept us.  I know that despite having a White ruling class that we have a democratic voting process for legislation and change, but if you put up signs and order the police to enforce them-- it still falls back on the ruling class people to obey them. Because If they, as a people don't, there is no way to enforce those laws without major rebellion.  

     It is obvious to me, that as a group of people, Blacks expect too much of White people.  We are the first to acknowledge that we are the first people and that all cultures originate from Central Asia and the Cradle of Civilization, yet we expect them to change to do right, when what they have shown you chronologically that they are content to live with what they did in order to get what they got-- until forced to do otherwise.  These are the same people who made 97 treaties with the Native Americans and did not honor an one of them.  Basically, it is quite natural for where they are humanistically speaking.  If we were the dominate culture in American society, getting our rights would not even be an issue, because the laws would have sprung from our natural way of thinking.  This way of trying to convince another culture which doesn't have your same world view, to conceive things or execute things the way we want them-- is folly.  Why, even striving for fair, is a stretch at best.  There are too many points in their history to prove otherwise.  This is not a unfair assessment, this is the truth.

     Being here is a love affair you will never be successful at.  Loving somebody is never any good until somebody loves you back.  When you are being used and you can hardly make a living off of what you acquire, the relationship is unequal.  When the life of your people falls into the hands of another people, it is bondage.  When you do not teach your child to provide a way for themselves and not rely on others, their future is uncertain.  When you will not devise a way in which the future of your progeny can be in their hands, you are a poor parent.   But when your children can love the people they are; when the children can form allegiances to each other; when they can cooperate and assist each other through interrelated businesses and labor; when they can trade amongst each other and live within a community which embraces its people and establishes its own laws amongst each other -- this is the beginning of real power and real nationhood!

     Now we must be about the work of removing previous notions and establishing productive ones for our social interactions.  Just because you are learning to love and appreciate your own people, does not mean that you hate or don't love others.  Quite the contrary.  I had a White person of Quaker upbringing, who taught me a lot about being an artist and being self-reliant and responsible.  When he heard these thoughts coming from me, he thought I abandoned him or suddenly hated White people.  I told him, he has always been fair to me and he taught me a lot about humanity, but White people should not and cannot govern the future of Blacks in this country-- we should.  That's where we take over -- in the re-education and cultivation of us as a people who are self-reliant and concern towards the future of Black people all over the world!

Love, Peace, and Happiness Black family
(where ever you are),