KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

Here’s a little something purportedly written by a White man. While I can’t substantiate that fact, since it is unsigned, nevertheless, it is a serious indictment against Black people that’s being spread like wildfire all over the internet. I had mixed emotions about whether or not to even share this with our community, but I came to the conclusion that it constitutes a graphic depiction of how some in this society think of us, and knowledge is power—even when it’s slanderous:

“THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES”
“We can continue to reap profits from the Blacks without the effort of physical slavery. Look at the current methods of containment that they use on themselves: IGNORANCE, GREED, and SELFISHNESS." Their IGNORANCE is the primary weapon of containment.

A great man once said, "The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book." We now live in the Information Age. They have gained the opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts of their fight for freedom, yet they refuse to read. There are numerous books readily available at Borders, Barnes &Noble, and Amazon.com, not to mention their own Black Bookstores that provide solid blueprints to reach economic equality which should have been their fight all along), but few read consistently, if at all.

“GREED is another powerful weapon of containment. Blacks, since the abolition of slavery, have had large amounts of money at their disposal. Last year they spent 10 billion dollars during Christmas, out of their 450 billion dollars in total yearly income (2.22%). Any of us can use them as our target market, for any business venture we care to dream up, no matter how outlandish, they will buy into it. Being primarily a consumer people, they function totally by greed. They continually want more, with little thought for saving or investing. They would rather buy some new sneaker than invest in starting a business. Some even neglect their children to have the latest Tommy or FUBU, and they still think that having a Mercedes, and a big house gives them "Status" or that they have achieved the American Dream. They are fools! The vast majority of their people are still in poverty because their greed holds them back from collectively making better communities. With the help of BET, and the rest of their black media that often broadcasts destructive images into their own homes, we will continue to see huge profits like those of Tommy and Nike. They'll continue to show off to each other while we build solid communities with the profits from our businesses that we market to them.

“SELFISHNESS, ingrained in their minds through slavery, is one of the major ways we can continue to contain them. One of their own, Dubois said that there was an innate division in their culture. A "Talented Tenth" he called it. He was correct in his deduction that there are segments of their culture that has achieved some "form" of success however, that segment missed the fullness of his work. They didn't read that the "Talented Tenth" was then responsible to aid The Non-Talented Ninety Percent in achieving a better life. Instead, that segment has created another class, a “Buppie” class that looks down on their people or aids them in a condescending manner. They will never achieve what we have. Their selfishness does not allow them to be able to work together on any project or endeavor of substance. When they do get together, their selfishness lets their egos get in the way of their goal.

Their so-called help organizations seem to only want to promote their name without making any real change in their community. They are content to sit in conferences and conventions in our hotels, and talk about what they will do, while they award plaques to the best speakers, not the best doers. Is there no end to their selfishness? They steadfastly refuse to see that TOGETHER EACH ACHIEVES MORE (TEAM) They do not understand that they are no better than each other of what they own as a matter of fact, most of those Buppies are but one or two paychecks away from poverty. All of which is under the control of our pens in our offices and our rooms. Yes, we will continue to contain them as long as they refuse to read, continue to buy anything they want, and keep thinking they are "helping" their communities by paying dues to organizations which do little other than hold lavish conventions in our hotels. By the way, don't worry about any of them reading this letter, remember, 'THEY DON'T READ!!!!”

This is a perfect example of a “factoid”—a lie that’s been told so often that people begin to think it’s the truth. The actual fact is, while much of this is true, it’s a truth that only applies to a small minority of the Black community—that small part of the Black community that this society chooses to focus upon to represent our people. And further, you can take this very same essay and apply it to any group of people in America. This essay states, for example, that “The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book. That statement is just as true for all of America—if that weren’t so, Bush wouldn’t even be in office. ” It takes an ignorant people to allow an ignorant man to rise to the top of their society. The rest of the world recognizes that, and the fact that America doesn’t is an indictment on this nation. And, as an aside, who’s more selfish and greedy than this current administration?

In fact, if someone doesn’t step up to the plate very soon and get America’s attention, ignorance, self-service and greed is going to destroy this nation. Because as we speak, the American people are standing by, twiddling their collective thumbs, while Bush is allowing our shipping ports to be sold to the very same people that we’re supposed to be fighting. And in response to that insanity, you have so-called intellectuals (with advanced Harvard degrees) saying, “What’s wrong with that?” Now, that’s ignorant. There’s not a Crip in the world—even if he’s never opened up a book in his life— that’s gonna to let the Bloods open up a crack house on his block. That is the epitome of ignorance, stupidity, and reckless greed.

So I thought I’d drop this little tidbit of racist stupidity on you for two reasons. First, since Black people are generally blessed with common sense, I wanted to give you a snapshot of true ignorance at work. And secondly, I want you to read this, think about it, and recognize that we’re not dealing with intellectual giants here. That’s part of our problem in the Black community-- we’ve been under thumb for so long that we assume that the White power structure is all, be all, and knows all. That’s not at all true. We’re being led by idiots, and with our common sense alone, we could rise to the very top of this society—and with just a modicum of formal education and effort, we could have a tremendous impact on this nation. After all, the above cited essay comes from the very same type of idiotic mentality that once said that Black people couldn’t compete in Big League Baseball. Now, how stupid was that?

Eric L. Wattree
Wattree.com

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