It is easy to blame slavery for whatever ills Black people
experience. Considering Abolition (in the United States) was
over one hundred and forty years ago, no one is alive today
who owned slaves or was a slave.
The question is when do we stop blaming history and
start looking in the mirror?
There is no slave master forcing black boys into "gangsta
rap", whipping them if they don't wear their pants so low
we can see their underwear.
No slave master forces crack into their noses, ties them
to corners or punishes them if they don't get a tattoo.
No slave master tears the father from his children and sells
him "south", or buys him as a "stud" to breed their mares.
These are choices black men make, despite opportunities to
chose otherwise.
The word opportunities is not to be ignored.
There is no slave master forcing fourteen year old girls to
engage in sex, to bring forth unwanted children and abandon
or brutalize them. There is no slave master for them to
trick or seduce or expect to be supported by.
These are choices black women make, despite opportunities
to chose otherwise.
Again, the word opportunity is not to be ignored.
The leaders of black people in America have usually used
slavery and its aftermath as a soapbox. Black leaders in
America never admit that joining gangs, engaging in
promiscuous sex, becoming drug addicts, are choices.
This is because black leaders in America benefit from
moving the blame from the individual to white society.
Black people in America can find comfort in the relegation
of volition.
Where the hallmark of an adult is taking responsibility for
actions, admitting fault, children blame the chair for
tripping them, the teacher for failing them, and expect to
be taken care of by adults.
The preservation of juvenile traits in the adult Afro-
American enables Afro-American leaders to climb on their
backs to fame and fortune.
Blacks who eschew the "black ghetto culture" are often
berated by their "own people" as sell-outs, so their
effect is limited.
The boy who goes to school, concentrates on his work, and
gains a scholarship, not in sports but in academic pursuit,
is not highlighted.
The girl who remains a virgin into University or beyond,
is boxed out of contention as being an aberration, and
the fact she doesn't have a boyfriend contraindicates
the "A" she attained in physics.
Slavery mentality is not enforced by the white world, it is
enforced by the black.
Black television does not provide viewers with uplifting
images nor focuses on parochial news to offset the white
world view, but pushes music videos in which the worst
behavior is elevated.
Where other ethnicities gain space on cable channels to
present their views and versions of mainstream networks,
Afro-Americans do not.
The Internet, which could be used to publish positive images,
ideas, opportunities, satisfies itself with black as victim
with no alternative even mooted.
The feeling of resentment, of being victimized, is inculcated
into those who read such publications, which maintains the
status quo ante.
Where other groups do not need to see themselves as victims
of the white world and push forward, despite opportunities
and choices, Afro-Americans embrace their idea of powerlessness.
By insuring that blacks grow up with a sense of
powerlessness, black leaders fill the niche of
benefactor.
Blacks who have been taught they need benefactors will go
to these leaders for things they can get or do on their own.
The confidence they can do things on their own has been
eroded. Eroded not by the apathetic white community, but by
the mercenary black, which maintains the sense of oppression.
Every incident in which whites, no matter how stupid or
unique, commit a crime against blacks, is waved as a
banner.
The attitude that "all whites hate us", that the world is
'racist', is so pervasive that American Blacks refuse to
perceive the contrary, even when blatant.
The belief in black inferiority held by American Blacks
causes them to ignore those who hold cabinet positions
or the highest office at the United Nations.
Further, this belief becomes the excuse why a set back is
suffered. It is never "I" who is at fault, it is always
'Them',
Where other groups unite for their own betterment, helping
each other, Black Americans look outside of their group for
a permanent "reparation", as if the world owes them.
Other nations, with histories of enslavement, colonialism,
move on.
Malaysia was a British Colony, so was India and Pakistan.
Many were virtually sold and sent as indentured servants
to the West Indies to work on Sugar Plantations when
slavery was abolished.
One doesn't hear much of this quirk of history, simply
because those who were sold into servitude moved on.
American Blacks would have moved on if they weren't
constantly under the oppression of so-called "leaders"
who alienate wider society while inculcating the "failure"
mentality into those who follow them.
West Indians who go to America for opportunity fill the
middle class. Their skin is as black if not blacker than
the American, yet, because they have not been subjected
to the propaganda, they work as many jobs as they can get,
save their money, buy property, become landlords, and don't
seem to notice all the racism Americans do.
West Indians, as American Blacks, experienced slavery,
starting about one hundred years earlier, (Fifteen
Hundreds, contra the Sixteen Hundreds for America).
Slaves brought to South America, under the Spanish, were
not freed until 1888. Under the English; 1834.
To maintain slavery as the touchstone of experience of
Africans in America is to constantly inculcate in them
that sense of inferiority which works so well for those
that purport to lead them. And so badly for those who
must be led.
