WHY BLACKS ARE FAILING UNDER WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE
The genocide of indeginous black culture
There is much talk and debate that juxtaposes the performance of blacks with other racial, immigrant or ethnic groups and even with blacks of different nationalities, here in America. The goal seems to be the pointing out of performance discrepancies and to place and or discredit causes of these discrepancies. However, when all is said and done, all arguments funnel into the two major schools of cause, which are the internal school of cause and the external school of cause. In other words, is black lagging performance the product of "blackness" and endemeic traits and proclivities that lead to inferior performance or is the lag the resultant reactions to external events imposed upon blacks?I consider myself to be a student of the external school of thought. In my observations and research I have concluded that the primary factor that leads to success or failure in the Western political economic construct is “culture”. What is culture? There is likely numerous working definition of culture, but my working definition of culture is that it is a societal blue print or template of expectations concerning, behavior, attitudes, values, norms, religion, language and so forth, as well as history. Hence, it is this template that when followed leads to certain end resultants by population groupings in a given environment.
The people in the global West (USA, Europe, Canada and others) that do the best are the ones who have the greatest connections to their indigenous culture. For black people, that means Africa. For Asians people, that means Asia, for white people that mean Europe. Out of those mentioned, the people with the least amount of link to their indigenous culture are black people. Not surprisingly, black people have the poorest social and economic performance. Now some will surely argue that this could simply be coincidence and not correlation and that there is no way to prove this. However, not being able to prove something does not means it’s not true. ( See esaay, Jamaicans fighting for reparations for example).
Not only has Black Americans been disconnected forcefully and purposely from their indigenous culture and history, the base of their culture (Africa) has also eroded by the spread of European cultural superiority during the years of slavery and colonization. When one look at Asia and Asians, there culture is much stronger and much more intact than Africa’s. One barometer of the degree of Europeanization is the prevalence of Christianity. Where Christianity has taken hold the most, the erosion of traditional culture and normative behaviors follow suit. Also, when the official language becomes that of Europeans, then that is yet another indicator of cultural genocide from European imperialism. Most black African nations have English as their official language and Christianity as the most widely practiced religion.
In the process of becoming culturally Europeanized, the expectation and conditioning of black inferiority manifested as the consequence of Eurocentric white superiority propaganda. The fact that most black people still pray and worship to a white Jesus is more profound than people know. It epitomizes the general effect of black people living under white indigenous culture. The vast majority of heroes and historical people of note and praise are white. The language that you speak is white. The people who have the real power are white. Thus, subliminally, whites do begin to look God like and superior in juxtaposition with blackness, darkness and evil…the connotation of blackness. People ignore the most insidious and subtle effect of slavery, colonization and European acculturation, which is the psychological.
Black culture today is illegitimate. It is the offspring of the white cultures rape of black people. Black culture today is simply an emulation of or a reaction to white culture in the West. Let us not forget that the purpose of blacks to whites was to use us as the beast of burden to help elevate whites and their civilization. That is the reason that we are here in the West, even if that original purpose has waned, it was successful in its objective. In order to do that, they needed to strip of all things African, which they made out to be inferior and savage. Today, many blacks wrestel with what it means to be black. This uncertainty or erroneous assumption of the meaning thus leads to destructive behavior.
Culture is like the root of a plant. Without long and healthy roots, one cannot have as healthy plants as those whose roots are long, deep and strong. Thus, the cure for what plagues black people is that we must start working on our roots and culture. All the effort we place on treating the plants and leaves will be all for naught until we address the problem with our roots. We need to reconnect ourselves to our indigenous roots. We need to realize that most of the problems of the black community today, in regards to behavior, is in direct conflict with traditional African culture. We are not practicing black culture in America. We are simply reacting to and emulation of white culture.
posted by Noah TA @ 10/12/2004 07:25:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I just wanted to note that I was not attacking Christianity...rather, I was attacking Christianity applied upon blacks in a Eurocentric manner and for the purpose by some to passify blacks into submission to their masters (whites) as certain scripture teaches. The fact is that all non pagan religions have a God in their image. it is not wrong for whites to have God in their image...its just wrong to apply that upon black people.
I think most people would have understood that this was not an attack on Christianity, but I understand the reasons for clarifying it as well. I recently wrote a piece using Kanye West verse out of his song Jesus walks, wherein he laments, " I am not here argue about his facial features", my essay asked the question, since you do not want to argue about his facial features, do you want to discuss the psychological affects on Black men and women worshipping a white Jesus.
We should all look back on the words spoken by Khalid Muhammad on that PE track when he asked "have you forgotten that once we brought here, we robbed of our names, robbed of our language, we lost our religion, our culture, our God and many of us by the way we act, we even lost out mind!"
These words are also at the root of what you have written here in that we have to understand from whence we came to understand that our current culture and behavior is a reaction to white supremacy and not one born from just living life and enjoying it. All of our music has been linked to telling a story of our condition, because it was our condition that produced the music. I just finish reading Cornell West new book Democracy Matters, in this book brother cornell writes about how trying to force democracy as practiced in the U.S. on Islamic nations will not work because Democracy as practiced in the U.S. is the sum total of all experiences in the U.S. and it compliments the cultural experience in the U.S. Thus this form of democracy can not work in a nation with different norms, different mores and a different culture.
Governments imperialistic leaning are carried out by spreading their form of government and changing the culture, religion and norms of a people. This is what we have when we look at the Black man and woman in America. We are made in America but we are not Americans. There is no people on the earth more disconnected from their roots than the Black man and woman in America, and there is no people on the earth fighting to reclaim their roots like the Black man and women in America but the problem is we are fighting external forces and traitors from amongst us to reclaim our roots.
I think that what is really damaging to our global aspirations is the destruction of the culture in African urban areas, that idolize the west and are becoming westernized. The times that I have been to Africa...they simply worshiped all things western. They wanted to trade all their local stuff for my Western goods. Those youths who could afforded where attempting to emulate African American youth...who are simply reacting to white culture and oppression. It is black youth in America who should be looking to emulate traditional African culture...not the other way around. That is like the leaf trying to switch places with the roots...the end result is that the plant will die under such an unnatural arrangement.
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