From Malcolm X’s speech, “Message to the Grassroots” (1963):
There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes – they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his food – what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro.
If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,” the house Negro would look at you and say, “Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?” That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here.
This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about “I’m the only Negro out here.” “I’m the only one on my job.” “I’m the only one in this school.” You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, “Let’s separate,” you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. “What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?”…
Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent. That’s Tom making you nonviolent. It’s like when you go to the dentist, and the man’s going to take your tooth. You’re going to fight him when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they’re not doing anything to you. … Blood running all down your jaw, and you don’t know what’s happening. ‘Cause someone has taught you to suffer – peacefully.
See also:
- Malcolm X: Message to the Grassroots – his answer to King’s “I Have a Dream Speech”. He calls King a house Negro and says you cannot have a revolution without violence.
- Negro
- Malcolm X
- Possible examples:
Wow. Do you really feel it’s a betrayal to love America or to live in a predominantly white neighborhood? Bragging about being an honorary white is a letdown for sure, but must races be so segrated? I interperate MLK’s dream to include neighbrhoods where diversity is the accepted norm.
The theory of violence is my major problem with Malcolm X. We are not animals but men and we can react with intellect and discussion, not blood and disaster.
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PS–Amy Holmes may be too conservative for my taste but by god she is beautiful!
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PREACH ON ABAGOND !!!!
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Amy Holmes illustrates the modern house negro? LOL. That’s cold, Aba! I’m not very familiar with her but from what I’ve read about her, she embodies the prototype. Do you think that her having a white mother has enhances her status as a “house negro” in some level?
Funny, a local columnist did a piece on modern house negroes. Holmes didn’t come up!
I think she is attractive but she’s hardly beautiful. But of course, that’s in the eye of the beholder.
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I agree with Ames: she is beautiful. It is her eyes.
House Negroes see white interests as their own self-interest, so having a white mother I think had a great deal to do with it in her case.
She goes out mainly with white men. Maybe she just has a thing for them and it does not have any deeper meaning to it, but maybe she thinks of herself as white at some level.
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Ames said:
Wow. Do you really feel it’s a betrayal to love America or to live in a predominantly white neighborhood? Bragging about being an honorary white is a letdown for sure, but must races be so segrated? I interperate MLK’s dream to include neighbrhoods where diversity is the accepted norm.
A field Negro can be rich, love his country and maybe even live in a white neighbourhood. But he understands one thing that house Negroes do not: that what is good for white people is not always what is good for black people and therefore not always good for him and his family. White is not always right.
It would be nice to live in an America where there was no black or white, where everyone was just “American”. That is the way it should be. But because racism is still alive, you got to look at things with both eyes wide open if you are black. You cannot afford to fool yourself into thinking of white people and yourself as a “we”.
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I agree wholeheartedly w/ Abagond’s two previous comments.
Now that I can remember, I actually have seen Holmes perform commentary on CNN once before. I thought she came off as a fake, valley girl-sounding airhead! I can buy that she sees herself as white on some level. I brought up her white mother in the previous comment because that columunist that I mentioned above noted that some house negroes were often kin of the slavemaster or bore a striking resemblance to them.
We’ll just have to disagree about her beauty. She’s certainly attractive but not beautiful. She has beady eyes to me. LOL.
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@ mynameismyname
No, She is beautiful! She is most likely a “house negro” in the most basic sense, but she is eye candy none-the-less.
It’s funny…I think Malcolm (before he became Malik) would have considered me a house negro, based off of what he says in he says in his speech. Hell, pre-Mecca Malcolm,might have even called post-Mecca Malik a house negro. Just a thought.
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LOL.
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there is no such person as post mecca malcom x. that was a lie. MALCOM X NEVER CHANGED HIS VIEWS ON WHITE PEOPLE!!! you can say anything about anybody when they are not around to defend themselves. if that post mecca mess is in alex haleys book on malcom, you know that was a lie, hell he lied about his own ancestry in roots.
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“But because racism is still alive, you got to look at things with both eyes wide open if you are black. You cannot afford to fool yourself into thinking of white people and yourself as a “we”.”
This is the truth. It’s difficult if you are mixed-race (regardless of the race), though. But you just have to remember that white people don’t look at you and see a person, they see a black/biracial person. They can’t help it, they’re conditioned to it. It’s not even racism; just habit (and it works in reverse, as well).
This country won’t be truly post-racial until we don’t even notice other people’s race.
“Roots” is a work of fiction but it tells a true story nonetheless because it is a window to history. Just as “I know why the caged bird sings” does. All autobiographies are partially fiction just as all fiction is partially autobiographical. It’s the nature of novels.
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Well, if you are white they might see you as a person, but yes I agree with that.
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And if someone comes to you right now and says, “Let’s separate,” you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. “What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?”
A Negro who doesn’t hate white people, who sees himself as an American is a threat to the black race industry’s power. Naturally, race pimps and hustlers would see him as a traitor.
As for Amy Holmes, in a way, she’s Barack Obama’s benign counterpart. A person of mixed ancestry who doesn’t base her entire identity on trying to prove she’s “black enough”. (And who is, the horror of horrors, a Republican.)
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So Malcolm X is a race hustler and Amy Holmes is just a sensible woman?
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One of my pet peeves in life is this house/field negro (nigger) dichotomy that some of us get off on. All of these supposed angry field negros (niggers) are all talk and no action. All talk about screwing and getting whitey, but what have they ever done except complain while putting up with and go along with the very same things as the supposed house negro? It’s as if they are trying to encite others to do what they are too cowardly to do themselves.
And at the end of the day you are still a negro (nigger). I guess to these types it is a way to avoid some of the responsibilities of being a 21st century human.
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So Malcolm X is a race hustler and Amy Holmes is just a sensible woman?
Yes. Granted, blacks had real grievances in his time, as opposed to phantom ones of today. Nevertheless, his legacy is one of the main reasons why civilized coexistence of blacks and whites remains problematic.
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And yes, she is exceptionally easy on the eyes.
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That is not a good picture of Amy Holmes in the post, by the way. I chose it because it had the words “CNN” in it.
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nonserviam said, speaking about Malcolm X:
Yes. Granted, blacks had real grievances in his time, as opposed to phantom ones of today. Nevertheless, his legacy is one of the main reasons why civilized coexistence of blacks and whites remains problematic.
So racism is pretty much dead in America and it is just the race industry that is keeping the issue alive, keeping blacks angry over nothing?
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not fine
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VAMC Jackson Mississippi’s “Stephen” or worse
To use a more politically correct term a house “wolf” masquerades as a field “sheep” within the VAMC in Jackson MS. Despite having the role of a Black male Union President, this modern day equivalent of Samuel L’s character in Django , disguises himself in the role of a champion for the people, when in fact he is the Stephen character or worse, unwilling to accept a Black woman in any other role than subservient. This Stephen like character takes joy in subjecting Black Female authority figures to the symbolic hot room and stripping them publicly of their character and dignity in the midst of on lookers. It is also often reported that Dr. King added that “Once that door is opened by someone, no one else can close it again. Black female managers at the Jackson VAMC are fighting every day to unleash the door and get out of the hot room.
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Stockholm Syndrome
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The problem with this speech from the great Malcolm X is the lack of nuance for this alleged dichotomy of house slave and field slave. Some historians who do research on slavery in US history find that ‘house slaves’ were sometimes in situations worse than field slaves. By being around the slave masters and household all the time, they were easy targets for violence and sexual assault. So, no, being a slave surrounded by the white master and family could be very dangerous and not always full of privilege.
Thavolia Glymph has written an excellent book about how slave master’s wives exerted their own authorities in some horrendous ways. A lot of their violence fell on the backs of the ‘house slaves.’
Check it out, its called Out of the House of Bondage.
http://aaas.duke.edu/people?Gurl=&Uil=1206&subpage=profile
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@ talibmensah: Thanks for sharing i so appreciate your post.
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If you want to read more about this Malcolm X speech and the house slave vs. field slave dichotomy, Henry Louis Gates (I generally dislike his work, but this is worth a read) wrote about it for The Root.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/04/house_slaves_vs_field_slaves_were_there_betrayers_like_djangos_stephen.html
Gates refers to Malcolm X’s strategy here as ‘hyperbolic allegory.’
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