I just read another sad and sorry proof that the Black Community project is an utter failure. I was on Facebook (a phenomena I still have yet to master. What the heck is a "wall" and how do you post stuff? (*UPDATE: I just figured this out! YAY!) when I came across this crazy fiasco about Gweneth Paltrow and her use of the N-word. *sigh*Remember when I told you about the Poser Patrol? Well, here is proof of it. Didn't I tell you EXACTLY about this? I wish I had a TARDIS and could go back in time to the early the 80's and show the stupid, ignorant and massive unconscious members of the Black Community Project what happens when they fail to police riff-raff members who use their ethnic identity as an means to financial gain. You know what happens:
YOU EFFECT US ALL!!!!!
Let me tell you where I think it all went wrong.
1.Using ethnic identity as a vehicle to gain acceptance. This might sound confusing, but let me explain. From comedians to gangsta rap to interracial relationships, blacks have used their blackness as a tool to gain a foothold somewhere. Bare in mind, this is different than the freedom fight, as the freedom fight properly sheds light on a peoples' plights and shows the rest of the world how it ultimately effects everyone. However, blacks have for too long used their blackness as a platform to gain personally. When you do that, you not only FORCE people to see you as a color and not a person, but you sell out every other black person and establish a norm for how the general population treats them and is allowed to relate to them.
I mentioned on Facebook that in reality, the rap/hip-hop industry IS the authority on modern day black identity. Not the the church, not great forefathers or foremothers of the past but these freaks. Think about it: what freaking right did Nas have to give Paltrow the right to be participate in OUR ethnic identity? Who else on the planet does that? Who else on EARTH invites people to disrespect their own and give them EQUAL AUTHORITY in their own house? This is why so many people have NO RESPECT for black people. This is pure stupidity. She is an OUTSIDER and she does not have my permission to use a word that I don't think black people should be using. She is a blond, straight haired, white Jewish woman and therefore not my equal in my house as she does not reflect me.
2.Not maintaining an insular cultural infrastructure- Many people note how black Americans were more united in times past, in spite of greater adversity. If anybody has studied the history of the Reconstruction, you would know that great effort was made by free and former slaves to establish much needed infrastructure and ministries to help former slaves adapt to free life. The history on this is FASCINATING. Women's finishing schools, the start of HBCU's, the black church when it actually did what it's supposed to do, black schools and the list goes on. So much intellectual and cultural gain. So much "wealth". They were always sub-par in many cases compared to their white counterparts, but these are the institutions that any people need to build pride and instil dignity among their group.
So what happened? Integration happened. The problem wasn't with integration itself. The problem was with assimilation. While it is true that everyone in a multicultural nation must assimilate into certain mores of behaiviors and norms, what is NOT true- and what happend in the BC- is that they ABANDONED their insular community and it's infrastructure. Don't you think it just odd, that black children learn black history from non-black peeopl? Don't you find it odd, that the black church doesn't take this up or keep the people spiritually accountable or teach the history of the black church? Isn't it a little funny that all of the financial buying power of black Americans is NEVER directed at their self-preservation? You know why? Because the infrastructure is gone.
3.A refusal to self-criticize and self-police-Unfortunately in the black community, criticism of anything black people do, or the mere suggestion that the great bulk of their problems are their own and nobody else's is considered racist. For those of you who don't know, the term "Blaming the Victim" actually came about after the Moynihan Report, a study done in the '60's by a man named Robert B. Moynihan. He did a study showing that the raise of matriarchy- black women with jobs and black men without them- would cause drastic consequences for black families. His report, which is really a prophecy, suggested that black people had to do more to get themselves out this problem and avoid the predictions Moynihan saw coming. And what happened? A counter-argument called "Blaming the Victim" is what happened. A book that basically said that Moynihan was a racist and that the real problem was racism and he was big big meanie for blaming the poor and yadda yadda. *sigh*
Now a note about the matriarchy thing. Many DBR'S often say that the black community is a matriarchy in the sense that women run everything. What they miss- and what I think Moynihan missed as well to an extent, is the successful indoctrination that goes on in black communities as far as telling a woman what her place is- submitted to a man. The matriarchy that Moynihan was really describing was NOT birthed from, ball-busting, emasculating unruly females. It was birthed by a racist economic disadvantage that put black women in a catch-22 situation as both bread-winner and submitted, obedient back-bone of the community. I beg of you- READ THAT WHOLE REPORT. The man was calling for national action to save black families and what did he get? Slapped in the face by the very people his report was to help and the government he asked to help chose instead to fight the Vietnam War. Please. Read it.
Conclusions:
The reason this has gone on for so long is because most black people view
themselves as part of a "people" when in reality, they are simply a
number of people who share heritage and experiences. A defining characteristic of a people is that they self-preserve. That's the difference. Allowing no-goods to have free reign and license to kill and refusing to hold people to a standard of conduct and honor is NOT self-preserving behavior. It's a self-imposed genocide. What binds people together more
than anything is shared values, not color, but black people have been
taught the opposite- they believe their color is the basis of their identity and not their values. The lack of ethnic pride is an added problem that those of us who are truly proud will have to solve in our own why by showing pride in some other way than just saying we are proud- we must act.
If you want to see a change, YOU MUST start to make a distinction between yourself and ignorant people of your ethnic group. YOU MUST make it abundantly clear that you will not be defined by people who have no authority over your ethnic identity and YOU MUST not be afraid to combat the Unity Police. Stand against those people who try to run your ethnic identity into the
ground and use it for their own personal gain. STOP THEM. SPEAK OUT
against them. Refuse to associate with them. Do NOT make yourself into a
clown to gain other people's acceptance and never support those that
do.If you are truly proud of the amazing people you come from, then acknowledge that pruning is way past due. We owe it to the men and women who stood against all odds for us, whose trials and adversities we will never experience only because they fought so that we wouldn't. Don't you DARE be afraid to put an end to this nonsense. Do not shame your ancestors. You have never faced fear like they have. It is because of them that you don't know what fear is. But if you don't act now, the children born now just might.
