A Clear and Simple Reason Why Blacks Shun the Republican Party
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BISHOP E.W. JACKSON REPUBLICAN CANIDATE FOR
LT. GOVERNOR OF VIRGINA
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Paleo-conservatives - both Black and White - repeatedly make the racist and erroneous claim that the Black community is only loyal to the Democratic Party because they want a free ride. Ironically, that’s the very mind-set that makes the Black community look upon most conservatives - and especially Black conservatives - with such disdain. I mean, what kind of idiot does it take to make such a slanderous statement about his or her own people? But there’s another reason why the Black community shuns the GOP that trumps even that blatant slander - conservatives in general.
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The problem among many White conservatives is that they tend not to recognize their condescending attitude of superior entitlement towards Black people, and the problem with Black conservatives is they tend to be oblivious to that flaw in conservative character . That’s what makes them such an embarrassment to the Black community. Thus, contrary to popular belief, the Black community’s disdain for Black conservatives have nothing to do with the issues of Black entitlement, self-sufficiency, or any other political concept other than the dignity and self-respect of Black people.
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The people in the Black community vary in their political attitudes and views just like in any other group - especially the more religious Black people - but in spite of that fact, very few Black people identify themselves as conservative. The reason for that is, most Blacks who do identify themselves as conservatives seem to also embrace the White conservative attitude that Black people should go out of their way to skin-and-grin and show their gratitude to White people for ALLOWING Black people to be free.
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As a result, instead of assuming equality, most Black conservatives tend to act more like teachers’ pets with an overwhelming need to be accepted by their white superiors. As I’ve pointed out previously, a good example of that was reflected in Herman Cain’s statement that, "I’m a brother from another mother" - or in other words, "I ain’t like the rest of them Black heathens, boss. I loves you." That’s what Black people find so distasteful when the GOP trot out people like Herman Cain and Dr. Ben Carson. The only thing that seems to be missing is their leash and the pooper scooper.
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Yet, White conservatives are so filled with misguided hubris that they’re completely oblivious to the fact that when they trot these people out with such fanfare, and take such obvious pride in what they think is proof positive that they’re willing to accept Black people as almost human, that they’re actually demonstrating the exact opposite. And then, what makes it even worse, is the Black people that they find who are willing to take part in such a ridiculous spectacle are so happy to be in the limelight that they come out all but wagging their tails, and invariably, they're so appreciative of being presented as part of the fold that they feel an obligation to run out on stage and start immediately attacking their own people - "See if you weren’t so dumb you’d be up here with me."
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That's what's being reflected in the attached photo. If you’ll notice, in the photo Bush looks like a master rewarding his favorite pet. No? Well ask yourself, how often do you think Bush had occasion to pat Dick Cheney on the head like that? It's a clear sign of condescension, and what's worse is how the Black conservative is lapping it up. Again, if he had a tail, it would certainly be wagging furiously.
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So, for this and many other reasons, the GOP will never get through to the Black community. Because the bottom line is, White conservatives tend to have a matter-of-fact sense of arrogant superiority and hubris that flows so deep that they’re oblivious to it - and it’s killing their brand.
A Non-Debatable Reality
LIBERAL: Lib-er-al, noun A political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties. = CHANGE - GOOD NEWS FOR BLACK PEOPLE. . CONSERVATIVE: Con-ser-va-tive, noun
Disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change. = MORE OF THE SAME - BAD NEWS FOR BLACK PEOPLE. . ASSET: As-set, noun
A useful and desirable thing or quality. = INTELLIGENCE. . LIABILITY: Li-a-bil-i-ty, noun Something disadvantageous. = BLACK CONSERVATIVES.
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So why do Black people actually shun the Republican Party? Because we’re not stupid - at least, most of us aren't.
A Black Republican Makes No More Sense Than a Jewish Nazi
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. “I hear you loud and clear, Barack Obama. You don’t represent the country that I grew up with. And your values is [sic] not going to save us. We’re going to take this country back for the Lord. We’re going to try to take this country back for conservatism. And we’re not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in!”
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Many Black conservatives make the racist claim that Black people shun the Republican Party because the Democratic Party gives them a free ride, and let them sit back on welfare all of their lives. That position is not only idiotic but, ironically, reflective of the actual reason that Black people keep the Republican Party at arms length - because 90% of the Black community is not stupid enough to embrace a philosophy that’s dedicated to the degradation of their own people. We clearly recognize that a Black conservative is the moral and intellectual equivalent of a Jewish Nazi.
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So, yes, there’s a very good reason why 90% of Black people vilify Black conservatives. We suspect them of being "bligots" (Black-on-Black racists), because we have three hundred years of experience with such people. We also recognize that Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White people. So 10% of the more weak-minded among us are just as racist towards other Black people as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.
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Many businesses and corporations, including the U.S. Postal Service, have recognized, and taken advantage of this fact for many years. They’ll take Black people, with a particular profile that they’ve come to recognize, and make them supervisors and mid-level managers, knowing that they'll be prone to treat other Black people like dogs. These people will harass, intimidate, and fire other Black people faster than they will any other racial or ethnic group. Thereafter, it’s next to impossible for the victims of their abuse to file discrimination suits against the employer because the abuser is of the same race. I recently had the distasteful experience of having a discussion with a person who fits this profile, and the resulting rant is a graphic reflection of their attitude:
. "Since black women are always hollering about black men be responsible and all that I say the same thing. This dude was on tv last week, interviewed on FOX, where he came out of court for child-support case for 22 kids he has. 17 baby mamas bruh. You think I’m mad at the dude? Nope. Not at all. Why? Because a man like that couldn’t exist without sorry females assisting him . . . To give dishonorable females like these the same respect we give Clare Huxtable is to lessen the word ‘mother . . . Black women comes up short, she’s a victim. These women, literally, have made a living off of being professional victims . . . Well it’s not funny when that FICA, MEDICAID, MEDICARE, etc. is taken out of your paycheck to help subsidize these females is it? You work hard while a female comes to WALMART with two shopping carts full of groceries she gets for just laying on her back and squirting out a child who is more likely to turn out to be either a stripper, a criminal, or gay for both genders. . "This is how I know the negro doesn’t hate whitey like he claims, because he couldn’t take me in power. If I was in power, I would never let these genetic anomalies (monkey negroes) get away with this nonsense they get away with. If I was in charge, I’d send tanks down the streets of Chicago and show these "soldiers" what a war really is. Since they like to shoot people with no regard for human life, I’d send special forces in their and give them the war they love so much.And I wouldn’t stop until I laid to rest every last one of these monkeys and then for desert, I’d finish with the sorry mothers who gave birth to them. If my mama was a hoe, she wouldn’t get a free pass either. And Barack is doing what he should be doing for you worthless niggas: absolutely nothing. And I’d have Rudy Giuliani run the entire operation. Oh yes there is a clear divide and I do believe in a class system in which niggas with the mentality of so-called "scholars" serve me like slaves. I would be on you niggas ass so hard that you would beg the white man to bring back slavery. . So you right. Have disdain. Because my kind loathes your kind and be very clear moving forward: we don’t have the same agenda. I support nature and nature dictates the weakest ones don’t survive so I’ll sit back and let nature run its course. It’s quite clear we won’t have to worry about these underachieving monkeys for too much longer. A monkey is not my people, although it seems we live on the planet of the apes. Nigga so freaking dumb, he thinks we put all black women in the same category. Condoleeza Rice is not the same as Shamika with 5 baby daddies. Mae Jemison is not the same as the next hoodrat with 6 baby daddies and no they get no mercy. I lived in projects before. I know what it’s like to be hungry. But do you see me making excuses? Hell no. So no. I ain’t trying to hear that BS you talking. While you make excuses for these hoes, maybe I’ll hire these same hoes to work in my strip club and let’s see what man they follow: me or you. I guarantee it won’t be you. In the words of Triple Six Mafia "Don’t save her she don’t wanna be saved." lol give this nigga a tampon it’s his time of the month." .
As distasteful as it was, this is one of the most enlightening discussions that I have ever been involved in, and I intend to use excerpts from it extensively in the future. It clearly shows why 90% of all Black people hate Black conservatives, and why such people are toxic to the Black community. These people are so culturally dysfunctional that some in the community actually consider it a birth defect - and Herman Cain seemed to have validated that suspicion in his declaration that he was "A brother from another mother," in his delusional belief that he represented something other than a manipulated pawn to the Koch brothers.
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How can Black conservatives have any self-respect when they look upon Black women - the very womb of the Black culture - as irresponsible bitches and whoes? If you consider your own mother part of a culture of bitches and whores, what does that make you? That represents the epitome of self-hatred. It clearly demonstrates that their minds have been completely overwhelmed by racist attitudes towards their own people, and harbor an abiding need for acceptance by those who view them with amused disgust.
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In fact, these people tend to be much more racist toward Black people than the vast majority of White people are. How do I know that? It’s simple - if most White people were as hostile towards Blacks as the individual above - or Herman Cain, Allen West, or Clarence Thomas - Obama certainly wouldn’t have been elected president - twice.
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So I don’t feel a bit of guilt with respect to my disgust towards Black conservatives. With most things I feel the need to constantly reassess my attitude for objectivity. But when it comes to Black conservatives, I, like most Black people, have always looked upon them with disgust, and I'm sure I always will - and I'm quite comfortable with that.
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Up until now, however, my attitude has always been generalized and unfocused. I simply saw them as brainwashed, or self-serving fools. But the discussion above has brought clarity to my attitude. It's validated my belief that the majority of these people are not only self-hating bigots towards their own people, but they’re idiots as well.
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Thus, for the very first time I understand how these people can support a Black-hating agenda masquerading as "fiscal responsibility." The vast majority of them are simply ignorant - period.
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A perfect example of that is Bishop E.W. Jackson, a clergyman turned politician who’s running as a Republican for Lt. Governor of Virginia. Now, this guy is supposed to be a learned man of God, yet, he misspelled one of the most important words in Christianity - "Commandments" - and not simply as a typo in the inside of his book, BUT ON THE FRONT COVER! And one of his Black conservative colleagues cosigned Pat Robertson’s contention that the Earthquake in Haiti was the result of the Haitian people making a deal with the Devil!
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Thus, there's no longer any doubt in my mind that the vast majority of these Black conservatives are charter members of their own version of the KKK- the Klueless Klux Klan.
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FOR THE ENTIRE DISCUSSION PLEASE GO TO "THY BLACK MAN."
Motherhood: The Most Valuable Profession in Our Society
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The primary reason that our society is falling apart is because we’ve devalued the most important profession in our society - motherhood. A stay-at-home mother and housewife is a sociologist, a psychologist, a medic, a financial planner, a teacher, an interior decorator, a chef, a chauffeur, an escort, and a lover, all balled up into one sweet bundle. Yet, society treats them like they’re of little or no value. As a result, women flooded into the job market, and society’s children have been deprived of the most important socialization experience of their lives. This, in turn, has led to crime, rampant drug abuse, the breakdown of our educational and political system, and the general disruption of our society, because the American family is not only the foundation upon which everything else in our society is built, but it is the primary reason for building a society in the first place.
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Congress has clearly demonstrating that we can do without them in a pinch - they haven’t done a thing in years - but we simply cannot survive without a strong and viable American family. That should make motherhood, and the American housewife, the most lauded and protected profession in America.
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Yet, during the fifties and sixties, we began to chip away at this important institution. Due to our chauvinistic attitude towards women, many mothers and housewives tore off their aprons and began to demand equality with men. They demanded that they too be afforded the opportunity to go into the more "prestigious professions" of medicine, law, science, and business, that, until that time, had been considered the all but exclusive bastion of men.
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That created a severe problem for the nation, because, in terms of their relative value to society, women were already MORE than equal to men, because these mothers and housewives were responsible for the very lifeblood of society - our future. These women were charged with a responsibility that was more important to our society than any doctor, any supreme court judge, or any CEO. Thus, our narrow-minded insistence on relegating motherhood to second-class status in our society is directly responsible for, literally, throwing our babies - and our future - out with the bath water.
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We’re currently paying a severe price for our bigoted attitude towards women - as we will eventually pay for all areas of institutional bigotry - because the most obvious solution to some of our most tenacious problems - our dysfunctional educational system, the breakdown of the family unit, and the proper socialization of our children - is for a large number of women to temporarily leave the job market, return to the home, and reassume the essential function of nurturing and guiding society’s future - at least until their children reach an age where they are relatively self-sufficient. But that’s not going to be easy. In fact, I expect to be attacked by some for even suggesting it, because our society has made the word "housewife" - again, the most important profession in our country - a bad word. To many women it’s going to be perceived as the equivalent of asking Black people to return to slavery for the best interest of the country.
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So in order to convince women to return to the home en masse, society is going to have to bestow upon motherhood the kind of stature, prestige, and compensation that’s commensurate with their value to society - and we owe them that, because the fact is, the business community has essentially been working women for free for the past fifty years now.
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Prior to women coming into the workforce in large numbers, a family of five could be supported on one income. But after women came into the workforce, the cost of living began to gradually rise until it consumed the woman’s entire income. So now whether or not a woman decides to enter the workforce is no longer a family option. The woman MUST work just to maintain a standard of living that could previously be sustained by her husband’s income alone.
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So while business has indeed accommodated a woman’s ability to enter the workforce, it’s the business community itself that derives all of the benefits, not the woman and her family. The business community benefits in many ways from the toil of working women. First, working women have enabled business to nearly double the cost of everything in our economy; secondly, business is obtaining what is essentially free labor from women; and finally, it’s using that free labor to either layoff or lower the wages of the working woman’s husband. And where is all of that extra money going? It’s going into the pockets of grossly overpaid CEOs and executives, even as our children suffer, and society is rendered dysfunctional by a destabilized family structure.
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So we’ve got to turn this trend around, both through social pressure, and legislation. First, mothers and housewives have to be made equal partners with their husbands. If a woman defers her career or education to raise the family’s children while the husband pursues a medical degree, that medical degree, and all of the future income derived therefrom, should be considered community property, and half hers - for life. After all, by deferring her own education to raise the family, she invested heavily in her husband's education. And the reverse should also be true for stay-at-home dads.
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In addition, the same principle should apply for employment. When a company hires an employee, it should be understood that they are hiring a partnership, so any and all compensation derived from that employment should be issued to both the husband, and the wife - and if one partner so chooses, the compensation should be divided between the two of them. That way, should the stay-at-home partner decide to further their education after the children become self-sufficient, they’ll have their own source of income to pursue that goal.
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In case of divorce, the partner who deferred his or her career to raise the children should continue to be compensated by the employer of the working partner until such time as the child-rearing parent has achieved financial parity with the working partner. If the child-rearing parent never achieves parity, the employer of the worker should pro rate the second partner’s compensation to make up the difference in income. But of course, there would be exceptions, like if the caretaking parent is proven to have been a liability, such as by being found guilty of being the primary cause of the destruction of the marriage, guilty of adultery or reckless and irresponsible behavior, or gross deception and manipulation.
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And finally, in order to get corporations to cooperate with these policies, the people are going to have to place pressure on congress to pass a "Worker’s Bill of Rights." And included in that legislation, there should be a provision that would require any company or corporation who wants to do business in the United States, to pay it’s employees a living wage, provide affordable healthcare, and maintain a given level of employment based on the amount of profit that it generate within our borders. thereafter, if the corporation decides to thumb its nose at such legislation and take its business elsewhere, that’ll open up the market to domestic entrepreneurs.
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But in order for such policies to be put into place, the American people are going to have to come to the conclusion that they’re tired of being manipulated by multinational corporations that have a vested interest in lowering the standard of living of the American middle class to conform to that of third-world countries. We’re also going to have to stop allowing bought-and-paid-for politicians to keep us divided. In that regard, a good rule of thumb will be to always remember that the bigger a politician’s war chess, the less likely he or she is to be working in the interest of the people. If we remember that, money in politics will become a liability rather than an asset.
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What I’m suggesting may seem far-fetched at this point, but so did the New Deal at one point in our history. So even if it seems far-fetched now, as the corporatists continue to drag American workers under the bus, I guarantee you, it won’t be long before we see the light - and that light will reveal that saving our women and children is the key to our survival, not protecting multinational corporations that’s sending their money to Dubai.
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Eric L. Wattree Http://wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
One Good Teacher is Worth a Boatload of Politicians
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Contrary to popular belief, surviving the adversity of the Black community requires the ability to think. When I look back upon my life I can only imagine the contributions that some of my friends could have made to this society had they not succumb to the adversity of having to survive the Black experience. The only reason that I survived was through a combination of luck, and the fact that I lacked the personal courage that many of my friends were blessed with, so I was willing to put up with many of the things that they were prepared to either lay their lives on the line to fight, or they found so unbearable that they essentially committed suicide through the use of drugs or other means. . I wasn’t the smartest of my friends by a long shot - in fact, when I was in elementary school I was about to be placed in "Special Training" because I couldn’t keep up. The only reason I wasn’t was because my teacher at the time, Ms. Lady Lee, convinced the principal, Mr. DeTonto, to give her a semester to work with me, and during that semester, she taught me the key to being a survivor. It’s all about self-concept - you are what you think. Jews have convinced themselves that they're "God's chosen people," so they tend to excel in science and intellectual pursuits; Black people believe that "we have soul," so we tend to become great musicians and entertainers. That’s the way it works – you are what you think, and Ms. Lee taught me to look at myself differently. . Ms. Lee was a statuesque, and dignified lady. She was also a concert-quality pianist. In any event, she pulled me to the side, and said, "Eric, let’s play a game. For the rest of the year I want you to pretend to be the smartest person in class," and I agreed. It didn’t make sense to me, but I was willing to do anything to avoid the humiliation of being segregated from the rest of the "normal" students and put into the "Dummy Brigade" - which, by the way, is a practice they should do away with. That’s a horrible assault on a child’s self-esteem. . So from that point on, instead of simply being my teacher, Ms. Lee became my fellow conspirator. We "conspired" to pull off one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated against Holmes Ave. Elementary School, and she had a plan that was brilliant in its simplicity. All I had to do was stay a chapter ahead of the rest of the class so I'd be the only one who had the answer to the questions that she'd put to us. I was amazed at how devious this lady was. I was also amazed that she would help me pull off such an elaborate hoax on all my unsuspecting classmates. But what made me feel especially close to her was that we shared a secret that nobody else knew about. That made me feel special. . Before long I began to notice that people started treating me differently - in fact, the prettiest, smartest, and the most sought-after girl in class, a girl who wouldn’t even speak to any of the boys in class - casually walked up to me during lunch one day and said, "Hi, Eric. Can I sit here?" .
Wow! That did it. From that day on I decided I was gonna trick people into thinking I was the world's greatest intellectual. That started a friendship between Freddie (that was her name) and I that lasted through high school. In fact, when we became teenagers she even wanted to take it to the next level, but by that time I'd met the young girl who was later to become my wife and the mother of my children. . But it wasn’t only Freddie who was treating me differently, by the end of the semester I noticed that I was being treated differently by everyone, peers and grownups alike. Even as a nine year-old kid I noticed that people seemed to treat me with more respect. Yet, I was the very same person that everyone used to dismiss as dim-witted. I hadn’t changed a bit. The only difference in me was the new respect that I had for myself, and the fact that I would always come home and read a chapter ahead of the rest of the class to maintain the fraud that I was perpetrating. . After awhile I began to cherish this newfound respect that I was getting from others. In fact, I had become so used to it that I knew that I could never go back to the way things had been before, so I used to be constantly afraid that I was going to be found out. But gradually I began to see the light - I had absolutely nothing to worry about, because most "smart" people are perpetrating a fraud. For the most part we're all equally intelligent, in one area or another, the only difference is some people take more pride in their intelligence than others. They also recognize that the key to making people think you're smart is to simply remain a chapter ahead of everyone else. Ms. Lee's brilliance resided in the fact that she had the insight to recognize that she only had to introduce a child to the tremendous self-esteem that accompanies knowledge, and the child would do the rest. I thank God that I learned that as a kid, because I've been pulling the wool over people's eyes ever since . . . but don't tell nobody. . Thank you, Ms. Lee. . Eric L. Wattree Http://wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com
A Sensible Response to White Supremacy Let Excellence Do Our Swaggerin'
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ADVERSITY MAKES YOU MORE, NOT LESS
I'm sick to death of continuously hearing so-called Black "intellectuals" talking about how the "White Supremacist" system is holding the Black man down. While we should always be at war against any and every kind of supremacy - White, as well as religious, ideological, sex and class - can't these so-called intellectuals see that if they concede that White Supremacy can hold the Black man down, they're also conceding that the White man is indeed superior!!!?
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The complaint is directly analogous to a man going home and telling his wife and family that he can't feed them because "Willie won't let me." Any real man would die before he'd go home and admit that, because he'd immediately recognize that if Willie can prevent him from feeding his family, that means that Willie is more of a man than he is. Thus, every time we say, "The 'White man' won't let me," we’re admitting cultural impotence, and also reinforcing the idea in our own minds that the White man is indeed superior to us. It shouldn’t take Socrates to see the simple reality in that logic.
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The White man is not our daddy. We're the masters of our own fate - or should be, unless we think of ourselves as children - so it's time for these "intellectuals" to come clean with the Black community. Nobody's going to GIVE us anything, and that includes justice. The only way that the Black community is going to get its piece of America's pie is to make ourselves strong enough to demand it, and competent enough to hold on to it.
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But there's a reason that these professional poverty pimps won't tell us that - because they know that once we begin to realize that reality, we will no longer need them as our highly paid envoy to the White man. So instead of telling us what we NEED to hear, they're telling us what we WANT to hear, because that's what they get paid to do, to make us feel comfortable in our misery, and in our rapid decline into irrelevance. Isn't it curious how they can continuously tell us that it's the White man's fault that we're in poverty, yet, they're just as Black as we are, but none of them are in poverty. Why is the White man giving them a pass?
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While I understand that "the White man" has a system in place that is designed to give him the upper hand, all the whining in the world is not going to change that system. How long have we been whining so far, and what has it done for us? It hasn’t done us a damn bit of good, has it? No it hasn’t, and it never will.
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The fact is, we will never be able to out-whine, out-scream, or out-fight, the White man. The only way we’re going to overcome the denigrating affects of his system is to OUT-THINK him. So what we need to do is shut up and stop telegraphing our every thought, turn off BET, MTV, and ESPN, and then start educating ourselves so we’ll have something of substance to bring to the table. And this is the perfect time to do that.
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The powers that be are currently embarked upon an agenda designed to dumb-down the entire poor and middle class segment of this society, because the fact is, we’re currently knee-deep in a not so covert class war. What the paleo-conservatives (social bigots) fail to realize - at least, at this point - is that the fiscal conservatives (corporatists) don’t care any more about them than they do Blacks, gays, or women. So while the corporatists are engaged in dumbing the rest of society down, if the Black community had the insight to start quietly embracing education and knowledge, that would serve to level the playing field that we’ve been traditionally complaining about - and what makes this the perfect plan is, knowledge is free. The only thing necessary to obtain it is to want it, and to have sense enough to respect it.
. The root of the problem that we’ve traditionally had in the Black community is our attitude toward knowledge. As a direct result of our history of slavery, we’ve developed a sort of aversion to knowledge. We tend to equate the pursuit of knowledge with selling out. We see knowledge as part of the White man’s domain, so we look upon Black people who have a love of knowledge with disdain, because we see them as "trying to be White."
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The reason for that is simple. During slavery the only Black people we knew who spoke anything close to proper English were the "house niggas," and many house niggas had a tendency to look down their noses at those of us who worked in the field. As a result of that experience, today, even highly intelligent Black people will often try to hide their intelligence, because, ironically, over the years we’ve developed an attitude where many feel that we have a moral obligation to remain ignorant in order to prove that we take pride in being Black. Think about that. Isn't ironic that many of us embrace ignorance as a sign of Black pride? That's why you hear educated young Black people going around saying things like, "What it is?" or "What it be like?" They know that's improper, but they see it as giving credibility to their pride in being Black.
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That’s one of the weapons that’s being used against President Obama by many envious Black intellectuals. They’re trying to convince the Black community of the following:
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"I’m cool - see my long, wooly Afro, how cool I act, and how I can quote Lil’ Wayne when I’m on stage? I’m one of y’all. I just have enough intelligence to speak the White man’s language, so I’m keeping an eye on him for the people. But that Obama, he’s not like us. He don’t have no Afro, he don’t never quote Lil Wayne, and he’s obviously much too intelligent to be trusted as a genuine Black man."
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People like those mentioned above, while posing as intellectuals themselves, are reinforcing a negative attitude towards knowledge that we desperately need to get past. And at the same time, they're promoting a negative stereotype of the Black male that even we embrace. Instead of quoting Lil' Wayne, they should be on a mission to get the kind of ignorance he's spewing banned from Black households. But they can't do that, because in spite of the damage that his message is doing to Black youth, they're afraid that if they speak out against him too aggressively it might damage their street creds.
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Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that we should go on a mission to destroy the careers of hip hop artists like Lil' Wayne, because he's a victim of the system as well. But it is incumbent upon the community to place pressure on artists such as Wayne to modify their message and image so as not to send ten minute commercials around the world with their every video that negatively profiles the Black community.
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That sort of pressure is nothing new. During the sixties and seventies even James Brown had to cut off his process and start sending the message that "I'm Black and I'm Proud," and any Black activist, entertainer, or athlete who didn't actively support the dignity of Black women and the upward mobility of the Black community didn't get our support.
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It is essential for all high-profile Black people to represent the Black community in a serious and dignified manner, because most of what we think we know about ourselves comes from the very same sources and stereotypes that informs White Americans about who we are. That's a serious problem in our community because we've allowed ourselves to buy into a negative stereotype of ourselves that’s destroying the self-image of our youth, and our popular culture has not only embraced this negative stereotype as a romantically heroic image, but it’s embellishing upon it. Then we complain about being profiled by society, when we’re actually profiling ourselves! Much of our popular culture is nothing less than an updated version of Stepin'- Fetchism.
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So instead of benefitting from the luxury of defining ourselves in a positive light like every other culture in America, many Black people have quite literally embraced a form of gross ignorance regarding our own character. Thus, it is imperative that we take the time to stop just long enough to consider who we really are. Then once we become cognizant of that truth - warts and all - we should address our issues, and then teach our young people to embellish our assets rather than our dysfunction.
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Who Are We As Black People?
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An excellent example of who we actually are was reflected around the turn of the 20th Century when you could find Black musicians sitting along the side of the road playing washboards, tubs, and anything else they could put together that would make a sound. When people passed them by, including White musicians, they would simply smile, and sometimes even throw them a few pennies for the modest effort and industry that they displayed for even attempting to make real music with such crude instruments.
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These simple music-makers were looked upon as "quaint" at the time. There was no hostility towards them at all, because they weren't a threat. After all, they were no threat to the White musicians, since they could never hope to get any real instruction in music. Most of them couldn't even read their names, so why should anyone ever worry about them learning to read music; and they had to struggle just to get through grade school, so what threat did they pose to White musicians who had access to the great music conservatories of the world?
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Well, little did the world know that in the very near future those simple little ragtag musicians with their makeshift instruments would develop into some of the greatest musicians the world has ever known, and they would contribute one of the most important and harmonically complex forms of music to the world in the history of all mankind - modern jazz, and as an offshoot, Big-City Blues, R&B, Rock &Roll, and literally, everything that most people think of as music today.
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Few knew at the time that one day Universities, musicologists, and music conservatories all over the world would struggle to understand the complexity of their musical genius, and even fewer could have guessed that many of these "quaint" musicians would someday become world renowned, and synonymous with their respective instruments–Louis Armstrong, Jellyroll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, just to mention a few.
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What we've got to recognize and absorb as a community is that creativity is not restricted to just music. The reason that the creative genius of Black people has been reflected more in music than in business, science, or technology is because it was an area where we didn't have to depend on the approval of others, and more importantly, we were rewarded in the community for its development. We've also got to recognize, as any scientist who studies cognition well knows, that creativity is not stagnant - it has associative properties that allow it to be transferred from one endeavor to another. Thus, as Barack Obama is clearly demonstrating, Black people have much more to offer the world than a twelve bar blues.
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The Pursuit of Excellence is the Key to Black Viability
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So today the Black community is in a similar situation as those early musicians were in their day, but this time we have the advantage of not having to sit on the side of the road. We have a supportive Black man in the White House, an economic environment that's thirsting for innovation, creativity, and new ideas, and no one to hold us back but ourselves. Therefore, all that's left for us to do now is to recognize our potential as a people, shed all of the defensive excuses and bad habits that were a part of the old paradigm, and get to work.
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And our very first task should be to reassess and rid ourselves of the negative cultural mores that we've developed over the past hundred years or so. That involves discarding, and refusing to reward or romanticize the image of the Black man as an urban predator - that's what directly contributed to the racist attitude that the brutal murder of an innocent Black child constituted a public service.
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Mass ignorance is at the very root of our problem. How can we possibly expect to raise a well adjusted generation of young people when they're being sired by idiots running around in unlaced tennis shoes, wearing baseball caps sideways, and whose most heartfelt ambition is to be looked up to as serial abusers of Black women (the very womb of our culture) and successful gangsters? It can't be done. This is the real world. We can't base a culture on trying to relive the life of Al Capone. It's time to grow up. So we've got to stop rewarding such behavior, and make that a community effort.
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When I was a kid my grandfather use to tell me, "All I want from this whole damn nation is a pretty little wife and a good foundation." I didn't realize it at the time, but he was relating the key to life to me in that one little lyric - the foundation of happiness and success starts with a solid family.
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So we need to start with our girls in order to get the attention of our young men. We've got to start teaching our young girls from birth that young men who assume the gangster image are bad news, and we've got to keep such images out of our homes. We must also create an environment where if BET wants to continue to enter our homes, its call sign will have to be changed to meanBlack Excellence Television.
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In addition, we've got to demand more responsibility from our other community institutions. We've got to make it clear to our churches that if they expect to take collection money out of our community on Sunday, they'd better be prepared to put some kind of service back into the community during the week. Our churches should be serving as low-cost childcare facilities for working mothers during the week. They could then employ unemployed mothers, and at the same time hold classes in child rearing. So the community should send the following message to our preachers -"Don't just preach me a sermon, live me one."
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And we should also encourage the promoters of these awards shows, like the Soul Train Awards, to be more responsive to the needs of our community. We don't need yet another parade of swaggering millionaires staggering up on stage, snatching microphones, and acting a fool. We need to start placing more emphasis on honoring young scholars, educators, and the people in the community who are helping to move Black people forward. That isn't to say that celebrities and entertainment shouldn't be involved in the shows (I'm a musician myself), but they should be the "help," not the honorees. After all, if all our young people ever see the community honoring are singers, movies stars, and athletes, why should they aspire to be anything else?
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The only hope for the Black man is to make knowledge, the new "soul" of our culture, because God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. Thus, it’s no longer enough to simply say "I’m Black and I’m proud." It is long past time for us to start investing in our excellence, so we’ll have something to be proud of.
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The axiom that "Knowledge is power" is no myth. The truth of that assertion has been repeatedly proven throughout human history. For that reason, with very few exceptions, it has been the most knowledgeable who have ultimately prevailed, not the coolest. Thus, those who simply continue to advocate what’s been repeatedly tried and has failed miserably - attempting to whine, complain, and protest their way to equality - are on a fool’s errand. It's time to give the novel and completely obvious a try - the stability of excellence, and the strength of knowledge.
Paleo-conservatives - both Black and White - repeatedly make the racist and erroneous claim that the Black community is only loyal to the Democratic Party because they want a free ride. Ironically, that’s the very mind-set that makes the Black community look upon most conservatives - and especially Black conservatives - with such disdain. I mean, what kind of idiot does it take to make such a slanderous statement about his or her own people? But there’s another reason why the Black community shuns the GOP that trumps even that blatant slander - conservatives in general.
