Black Americans (1619- ) are the people in the US who look at least part African (the One Drop Rule). Most came as slaves. The ideas that made that seem right and good are still very much alive. As the United Nations noted in 2016:
“there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.”
Demographics: US Blacks make up at least 13% of the US, 22% of the African Diaspora and 4% of all Black people worldwide. I say “at least” because many Blacks in the US who were born in Africa or the Caribbean mark “Some Other Race” on the US census.
Migration: US Blacks have migrated to the northern US (the Great Migration), Liberia (Americo-Liberians), Sierra Leone, Canada, Mexico, Trinidad, Haiti and elsewhere.
Genetically, Blacks in the south-western US are 92% African and 7% European (according to National Geographic in 2017).
Culturally, as Khalid Muhummad puts it:
“Have you forgotten that once we were brought here, we were robbed of our name, robbed of our language. We lost our religion, our culture, our god … and many of us, by the way we act, we even lost our minds.”
Most have become English-speaking Christians, but some Africanisms do survive.
Colonization: Blacks are, in effect, an inner colony of the US, one that lives under violent White rule and provides cheap labour. Blacks do not control their own schools, police departments, courts, labour and housing markets, etc. No surprise Blacks suffer internalized racism and, according to the UN’s 2012 numbers, have a quality of life worse than Brazil’s (HDI = 0.70).
Black history (in 200 words or less):
- Slave times (1619-1865) – by 1700 slavery is tied to being born Black. Self-serving stereotypes duly follow that last down to this day: Blacks as lazy, unintelligent, criminal, etc. Slave uprisings are met with slave patrols, which lay the groundwork for the Klan – and present-day policing. The wealth of the nation is built on Dead Indian Land and the Backs of Black People. About 10% of Blacks are free.
- Emancipation and Reconstruction (1865-77) – Black slaves are freed and given the full rights of US citizenship – but not 16 hectares and a mule. But even that proved too much for White people:
- Jim Crow (1877-1967) – Blacks are kept apart and at the bottom of US society by law – and by Klan terror and lynchings when necessary. Leads to the Great Migration.
- Civil Rights Movement (1955-68) – Jim Crow laws overturned through protests, like Selma and the Freedom Rides. The rise of Black Power. The US government’s Cointelpro kills, imprisons or drives into exile Black leaders seen by Whites as too dangerous.
- The New Jim Crow (1969- ) – Blacks are sent to prison in unheard of numbers through draconian drug laws and racial profiling by police. Blacks lose half their wealth in the Great Black Depression (2007- ). In the wake of the Ferguson riot, a new protest movement is born: Black Lives Matter.
It is two steps forward, one step back.
– Abagond, 2017.
Update (January 9th): Used more up to date numbers from National Geographic for Black genetic ancestry, which, using different groupings, puts it at 92% African, 7% European.
Sources: National Geographic (2017), among others.
See also:
- also in this series:
- US
- One Drop Rule
- UN report on Black American reparations
- The map of Black people
- internalized racism
- US slavery
- Jim Crow
- Civil Rights Era
- The New Jim Crow
566
“I say “at least” because many Blacks in the US who were born in Africa or the Caribbean mark “Some Other Race” on the US census.”
That is a good point that often goes overlooked. And also, many black immigrants from places like Egypt (like Dr. Mostafa Hefny) are automatically classified as white, while many blacks from Latin American countries like Puerto Rico, Cuba and Dominican Republic (like David Ortiz) choose Hispanic but not black.
And then there are many multi-generation African Americans who don’t choose black. And the Census estimates that African Americans are the most undercounted group after American Indians. Yes even more undercounted than Hispanics.
As you can imagine, whites were overcounted.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb12-95.html
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Not surprising, that’s for sure.
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“And the Census estimates that African Americans are the most undercounted group after American Indians. Yes even more undercounted than Hispanics..”
.
Don’t forget the Amerikan Black people who see it as their life’s mission to AVOID census (government) takers and census (government) forms – for all sorts of reasons.
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Dr. Mostafa Hefny is white! Thanks resw, I forgive all your previous foolishness for this bit of news. Do you have more of such gems? Since whites claim Egypt even a black Egyptian is white! Too funny.
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@gro jo
Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve educated you on this blog, as you’ve already acknowledged, and it surely won’t be the last.
It’s just a shame you’ve never returned the favour! Not once.
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“Genetically, the average Black person in the US is 77% Black African, 21% White Eurasian and 2% Native American”
Where did this meme come from? There really is no data on the genetic makeup of the “average Black person.” Even if there were, and there is not, it is asinine to label someone’s genes as “Black African” or “White Eurasian”.
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“@gro jo
Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve educated you on this blog, as you’ve already acknowledged, and it surely won’t be the last.
It’s just a shame you’ve never returned the favour! Not once.”
You graceless ingrate, I’ve taught you plenty. You should learn to take a compliment and keep doing the good work you’ve been doing lately. Now that you’ve been laid off from the Trump troll army, you’re making sense again! Money is the root of all evil! Again, thank you and keep it up.
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@gro jo
“I’ve taught you plenty”
I’m talking about in reality.
“Now that you’ve been laid off from the Trump troll army”
Irrelevant.
You and abagond just can’t seem to get over the fact that your girl lost 2 months ago. When are you two going to move on?
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Folks, do you think there will be anyone to come along in the near future as comical as Trump. Billary was boring!
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“It is two steps forward, one step back.” – Abagond
To me, our political and social sojourn in Amerika has always been a calculated two steps backwards to appease the restless and frightened Anglophilics and one step forward from time to time just to massage the nerves and trick the unfortunate masses.
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Here’s the racist white Irish supremacist lying yet again, because that’s what the klan tells him to do. I guess it’s too cold outside for his routine Saturday routine cross burning, so he’s trying to start fires here yet again.
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A troll derails discussions on black Americans and white racism, like racist white Irish supremacist lord of mirkwood has done here, just did on the “It’s Not About Racism” thread, and has done numerous times before.
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“Give a troll enough rope…”
Mirkwood!
You should know, right?
In fact you should be NUMBER ONE when it comes to knowing about utterly distasteful (trollish) comments/behavior.
You don’t get to prance around here as if you’re without guile or as if you’re not trying to conceal your surreptitious agendas.
Lest we forget ….
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How about you goddamn white people go back to Europe?
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I mean you dropped TWO nuclear bombs on people. Started close to 10 major wars, two world wars but ONLY negroes are prone to violence?
GTFOH!!!
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All the lynchings ontop of that. Emmitt Till. Getting a taste of your own medicine.
Doesn’t feel good now does it?
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Doesn’t feel good now does it?
Sure it feels good for them, that’s the point. They are in the midst of a full-blown opiate addiction epidemic.
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@ Herneith
Don’t forget the meth and heroin. They are practically wallowing in drugs right now.
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@Fan…
“You don’t get to prance around here as if you’re without guile or as if you’re not trying to conceal your surreptitious agendas”
+1000
Unfortunately he does get to do it.
Abagond used to call out this racist’s antics. Now, he allows the racist to break comment policy and derail every single discussion on blacks and white racism, and even defends the racist when I respond to his personal attacks.
So when I say abagond is biased, this is one of many valid reasons why.
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They are practically wallowing in drugs right now.
My bad, meth and heroin it is! Does anyone here actually know anyone personally, who was, is a hardcore drug addict? I have a friend who is a recovering alcoholic but that’s about it.
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@ Henrieth
I’m in my mid fifties so a number of people I grew up with are dead now. Those that were “trust fund babies” didn’t fair very well. They just never stopped partying so between alcoholism and prescription meds they never made it past sixty.
Another friend of mine died of pneumonia simply because he was afraid of doctors. Others blew there brains out because they had access to guns.
Most don’t die deliberately. It’s possible that whites have an over access to health care so men get prescriptions for anti depressants, pain killers and sleeping aids.They come home from work, have a drink and take pain pills for a head ache. Then they smoke some pot and take anti depressants. Maybe they forgot that they already took pain pills so they take some more. Combine all that with sleeping aids and they never wake up.
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@michaeljonbarker
I often wondered why White people who seemed to have everything placed so little value on their own lives.
I have Black relatives, old friends and acquaintances who have suffered and survived all sorts of misfortune (some of it self-inflicted) from parental abandonment to prison and long term job loss to domestic violence. Some of them turned to religion for comfort and structure, some didn’t. Some went through a period of substance abuse (mostly alcohol), compulsive eating or “untidy” relationships to ease the pain. Eventually they hit bottom and turned their lives around. Most just muddle through from day to day. They are not reaching for anything, but they are not falling either.
It seems to many Black people surviving is considered a major achievement. Thriving is a distant aspiration. They have less in the way of material goods (no vacation homes or lakeside cabins, boats, planes or his and her motorcycles), but life itself means everything to them. Even when all they do is float through on the surface of life instead of paddling their own canoes.
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Most of the drug users I know are White. As a matter of fact, almost every White person I know is a daily drug user of light narcotics (like marijuana) and an occasional user of hard narcotics (like cocaine/heroin).
Don’t let White people fool you. Many of them are lycanthropic vampires with doodoo breath. Real talk.
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Update: Used more up to date numbers from National Geographic for Black genetic ancestry, which, using different groupings, puts it at 92% African, 7% European.
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@ resw
Those numbers came from National Geographic in 2014, from when I did a post on DNA ancestry. Looking it up now, their numbers (and groupings) are consifersbly different:
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/reference-populations-next-gen/
I updated the post accordingly.
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“As a matter of fact, almost every White person I know is a daily drug user of light narcotics (like marijuana) and an occasional user of hard narcotics (like cocaine/heroin).”
And alcohol. Alcohol is also a drug, even if alcoholics are seldom referred to as drug users. White pathology coverup in plain view.
Alcoholics garner/elicit sympathy/rehab. Recovering alcoholic …
Crack addicts, not so much!
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@ resw
Deleted comment as advertising.
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@”Deleted comment as advertising”
LOL!
I only pointed out that abagond provided a link to a website whose purpose is to get suckers to purchase one of their DNA testing kits for $149.95, from which abagond is probably getting commission, and he seriously had the nerve to accuse me of advertising.
Shows exactly how deceitful he is.
@”Those numbers came from National Geographic in 2014, from when I did a post on DNA ancestry.”
Yet he still trusts it, SMDH, as if black American genes have changed that much since 2014.
Race is simply not genetic and I’d suggest reading the following article in which Dr. Michael Yudell brilliantly notes:
“The race concept should be removed from genetics research for the following reasons: Genetic methods do not support the classification of humans into discrete races, [and] racial assumptions are not good biological guideposts.”
and “Francis Collins, then head of the National Human Genome Research Institute and now director of the National Institutes of Health, called race a ‘flawed’ and ‘weak’ concept and argued that science needed to move beyond race. ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/race-is-not-biological_us_56b8db83e4b04f9b57da89ed
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“Shows exactly how deceitful he is.”
.
@resw
I’m still wondering if THIS Abagond is the original Abagond. This (Abagond.2) version seems remarkably different (jaded, not like his former self) in numerous ways. Or maybe he just changed …
Jade – verb
– Exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stress.
– Lose interest or become bored with something or somebody.
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@Fan …
Or maybe he’s been this way all along. Either way, it really is sad.
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I’d be interested to see what the lowest percentage of African genetic heritage a person has to have to be considered “Black”. I remember when I took the DNA test, I was a bit taken aback by the fact it said that I was 50/50 African/European when both of my parents are so-called African Americans.
I recently got into an argument with a White friend (yeah, you know how those conversations go!) and he told me he would never even think of anyone visibly mixed with African and some other race as Mixed. He would just classify them as Black. When I showed him some pics of some very obviously mixed people, he told me that I see them as mixed because I’m forced to deal with that reality because of who I am and that he doesn’t give a f*ck because he’s white and doesn’t have to deal with it. Real talk.
As I’ve said before in the past, many MANY white people I know love to remind me that I’m Black (as if I’d forget). It’s almost as if they are reminding themselves to never forget despite my appearance.
I really, really pity them. White people seemed so trapped in this bullsh*t reality created so long ago, by people long dead and long forgotten.
Can they be rescued from this Race Matrix??
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“Can they be rescued from this Race Matrix??”
Not if they have their way about it. They love the way things are with themselves on top and Black people at the very bottom!
My pity, sympathy, empathy for them as a group is nonexistent.
If a critical mass (meaningful number??) of white people regarded us as full human beings, I’d probably do likewise. But since they don’t _ _____.
Therefore the question ought to be can, or, when will dark(er) skin people rescue ourselves – our minds – from them??
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@SomeGuy
“…I’m forced to deal with that reality because of who I am and that he doesn’t give a f*ck because he’s white and doesn’t have to deal with it. Real talk.”
It’s amazing how candid some White people can be one on one. I’ve heard some of that “Real Talk” several times in the past. It really cuts through the usual gaslight fumes Black folk deal with from official sources, like the media.
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Hatred against black Americans- I believe- is more a means to an end rather than a phenomenon motivated merely by belief in white-supremacy. By the way happy new year everyone.
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@ villagewriter
Have you lived in Amerika your entire life??
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@fan
No. Why??
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@villagewriter
“Hatred against black Americans- I believe- is more a means to an end…”
Interesting comment. What particular end do you see anti-Black hatred serving for White Americans? How is that end distinct from a general belief in White Supremacy?
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@Afrofrem
It is not really different from the comments I have been making about white supremacy not just being about skin color but mostly about power. Rallying people with the same skin color to achieve certain specific economic and political aims is very easy-. For instance:
1. Want to divert attention from growing inequality in society? Just tell the whites of that society that they are actually superior and should be served by the “inferior blacks” (diverts attention from economic inequality by giving a false sense of superiority)-happened after slavery was banned and blacks were allowed to vote. In medieval Europe the aristocrats were closer to god and that is why they “deserved” their wealth.
2. Want to militarize police officers without drawing too much attention from the media. Just call black people thugs and create “tough laws” that will not only lead to the infringement of black people rights but also white people rights. Why are the police so brutal? They are protecting us from those black violent “brutes”. Protesting political decisions will become even harder.
There are many other examples of this. It is simply playing with peoples fears about people who look different from them. I think that the white establishment (the rich and powerful) don’t really care about white people and would obliterate them if it served their interests. Note that I am not denying the fact that there are a number of white people who actually think they are superior and closer to god. I just think most racists are motivated more by economic and political factors.
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@ villagewriter
“No. Why??”
Based upon your comment (shown below), I was wondering about the duration of your exposure to your African Amerikan family members memes regarding life in the USA – as well as the amount of time you’ve spent living first hand experiences as a Black person in racist Amerika.
“Hatred against black Americans- I believe- is more a means to an end rather than a phenomenon motivated merely by belief in white-supremacy.”
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@Fan
I have no first hand experiences because I haven’t lived there. I have several relatives in the US (some have children that cannot speak their native languages). I also work for mostly Americans and may be moving to New York temporarily next year.
I studied African American literature in college and read books like the Piano Lesson by August Wilson, A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes poems and so on. I have read widely about slavery in Africa and the Americas. When you study African history you also come across white supremacy in all its disgusting glory.
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‘@Fan
FYI African American literature was not my major but a minor course. Our professor studied in Honolulu Hawaii.
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@ villagewriter
The rich and powerful only care about the rich and powerful. Everyone else is either a useful tool or an impediment to their success. Tribal loyalties are exploited to keep one group of people at the throats of others. It’s a system that’s likely as old as the dirt on this earth itself.
@ SomeGuy
No, they cannot. You can’t rescue someone who wants to stay in the Lotus Dream Eater forever.
@ Fan …
That requires complete and total separation of blacks from their white tormentors, followed by centuries of non-interference from whites. A long-term rehabilitation project that could easily be upended by white entities.
Barring a cataclysm that severely reduces the white population and their social, economic and military strength, you’re not gonna get the above.
@ Afrodem
This is something I can’t get through to my own folks, who place more importance on surviving rather than thriving. It’s a mindset that keeps many black Americans locked into what I call “the minor things” — the laser focus on managing the day-to-day (“how can I take care of these bills this month?”) instead of looking towards building for the future.
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@ Afrofem
I think that villagewriter was trying to say that White racism is continuously spread not so much because Whites really believe that Blacks are inferior, feeling good at thoughts like “I(we) am White and so I am better than every Black or person of color…ah, it’s so good this feeling, I am better than any other living creature! “, but because that ideology (=system of ideas) of White superiority is useful at helping to maintain them at the top of the food chain, making more probable that their fellow Whites remain faithful to the group and will discard any doubts or moral considerations about the system, and persons of color will be more likely to believe that their position in the system is not “unfair” but deserved (=that they are simply inferior people in an inferior position).
That is actually the function of any global ideology in any social system: to “explain” or “describe” the system, the position of the different groups, the relationships between them, in such a way that the system becomes “natural” (and not “man made” and therefore susceptible of change!).
The ideology is the glue that helps maintain a society functioning with less internal frictions.
This is true not only with White supremacism today in the Western hemisphere (the Americas) but also with the ideology/religion of castes in India, the ideology of colonialism (and the idea of spreading of civilization, or “White man’s burden”) a few decades ago in Africa, Asia and America, and many others that appeared at different moments and different locations along centuries.
The concept of ideology that I’m following here is the same as of superstructure that Marxists define and use.
An ideology once turned “natural” is hard to fight because it becomes a “natural way of thought” for the masses. The only way to fight an ideology is to present an alternative one that unmasks the present one and proposes a different reading of social reality. This was what Marxism represented in the struggle against Capitalism and/or Imperialism (the Western variety!). Implicit in this blog is an ideology about race and racial relations that presents a different reading of racial relations in the USA and Western world in general than White supremacism – in all its variants – presents.
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@Munubantu
“but because that ideology (=system of ideas) of White superiority is useful at helping to maintain them at the top of the food chain, making more probable that their fellow Whites remain faithful to the group and will discard any doubts or moral considerations about the system, and persons of color will be more likely to believe that their position in the system is not “unfair” but deserved (=that they are simply inferior people in an inferior position)”
This is why I think efforts to change hearts and minds of racists is mostly a waste of energy. Racism is a cash cow, a gift that keeps on giving, a honeypot that leaks honey; no one will let go of their racism if it helps preserve their privilege or help maintain a certain political ideology that looks down on the poor and favors religion-based thinking over deductive thinking. That’s why black people must always be portrayed as poor whether they are in America, Brazil or in Africa. Showing poor white people on TV or in movies is likely to cause people to ask questions about why they are poor but poor black people will be dismissed as lazy or lacking in IQ. As a result a poor white person will be ashamed of being poor and will blame himself not the system. Others will take refuge in stale ideas of white supremacy to save face and separate themselves from those poor “lazy” black people. Politicians (Republican or Democrat) will use this as a tool to maintain power and escape accountability. White purity makes a dirt poor white person think he is superior than a successful black rocket scientist.
White American anti-black racism will only end when it loses its luster.
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@ Mack Lyons
“This is something I can’t get through to my own folks, who place more importance on surviving rather than thriving. It’s a mindset that keeps many black Americans locked into what I call “the minor things” — the laser focus on managing the day-to-day (“how can I take care of these bills this month?”) instead of looking towards building for the future.”
.
There still exists today among many Black people the idea and belief that if we succeed beyond a certain point white people will come (as they always have because of jealously, meanness, hatred, whatever) and relieve us ordinary *unapproved* Black people of any outward signs of power, prosperity — “uppity-ness.”
Consequently your own folks and many of us would just rather survive and go about their daily lives UNNOTICED and left alone than be subjected to the potential consequences of unprotected/unapproved prosperity and the dire costs attached to it. My great uncle amassed a good amount of money as a business owner that he never really enjoyed because he was always driving beat-up cars, buying second hand clothes and living well beneath his means. He hid his wealth out of fear.
Remember the ZERO SUM GAME, and how any gains obtained by ordinary Black people is always perceived as something rightfully deserving and belonging to whites – by virtue of their whiteness… because we’re supposedly too lazy, too dumb or too criminal minded to have obtained land, boats, second homes, etc otherwise. Or, if we somehow managed a leg up, it’s considered a slight against them if they don’t get the same or similar leg up too.
Locking into “the minor things” with a laser focus is a psychological-mental defense mechanism designed to keep us exactly where we are. Last and least with hardly anything left over to pass on to our progeny.
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@abagond
Thank you very much for this post.
What were the reasons for the Great Black Depression and in which ways does it differ from the GD of the previous century?
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@ a Russian nagpo
The Great Black Depression was mainly caused by predatory lending by banks, which led to many Blacks losing their homes. And the Great Recession in general, which hit Blacks and Latinos much harder than Whites (last hired, first fired). Blacks and Latinos function as a reserve labour force that cushions White unemployment.
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When responding to resw, @LOM said: “You continue to spread racist lies about the Irish people.”
The original people of the land of Ireland were Black, dwarf sized Twa Pygmies. This is most certainly not a lie. They were a diminutive people who migrated to Ireland some 8,000 years ago. Perhaps white descendants of yours took part in their genocide. I think it’s absolutely absurd for you or any of the white people in Ireland today to refer to themselves as irISH, in strong suffix mode and not be ashamed.
It would be the same if I took an army and wiped out all of the indigenous people of the Amazon. Subsequently, decades and centuries later, would that then make me, my army and our descendants Amazonians? No! It would make the offspring of me and my army’s descendant’s, nothing short of being the benefactors of genocidal terrorists, occupying land that was never there’s to begin with.
To me, this is how I see the irISH people of today and I feel the same way about the britISH people as well. Therefore, stop referring to yourself as being such, because you’re not!
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@villagewriter
“Want to militarize police officers without drawing too much attention from the media. Just call black people thugs and create “tough laws” that will not only lead to the infringement of black people rights but also white people rights. Why are the police so brutal? They are protecting us from those black violent “brutes”. Protesting political decisions will become even harder.”
I agree that the top tier racists have used laws against Black folk to stealth mode restrictive policies against the rest of the population. It always works like a charm because White people forget that we are all connected—–what affects one group today will affect other groups tomorrow.
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@munubantu
“An ideology once turned “natural” is hard to fight because it becomes a “natural way of thought” for the masses. The only way to fight an ideology is to present an alternative one that unmasks the present one and proposes a different reading of social reality.”
Well said.
Presenting alternatives has been a weakness of progressive and left voices in the US. Only recently have young people in Black Lives Matter, the Immigrant Dream Defenders, White people once involved in the Occupy Movement and the Indigenous youth of the Water Protectors (No Dapl) started to formulate and share their alternative visions. Deep social transformation could be possible if they can learn to work in coalition. We will have to wait and see.
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@ Mack Lyons
I agree with Fan’s analysis of why many Black people limit their horizons. Historically when Black people built community structures (homes, businesses, schools or transit systems, etc.) White people considered those structures a threat that somehow deprived them of what they consider theirs and theirs alone.
Violence in the forms of rampaging White mobs in the early 1900s or official policies that lead to bulldozing Black business districts for freeways, etc. in the 1960s became a reason to avoid reaching for something better. In many cases, Black people are not consciously aware of why they have limiting beliefs, it just become embedded in the culture.
Surviving = safety Thriving = danger
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“The only way to fight an ideology is to present an alternative one ….”
.
@ munubantu
Are you saying that there’s only one way to fight an ideology?
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@blakksage
“blakksage
“When responding to resw, @LOM said: “You continue to spread racist lies about the Irish people.””
That racist can’t even quote a single lie I’ve ever said about the Irish people. He was just upset that I told the truth on another thread and took it upon himself to derail this thread to make it about Irish people once again. Same thing he’s been doing since he first started commenting on this blog, and abagond allows it.
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@ Fan
Reading again my own sentence, yours seems to be a natural interpretation of it.
In fact, what I had in mind is to emphasize that the ideology is a system of ideas, not a simply sample of ideas more or less independent of each other, and therefore, to fight it, you must think in a systematic way, and not try to challenge alone this or that specific and individualized idea or attitude you may notice in the society it belongs.
There is, at first, the tendency to see injustices or abuses as something that occurs occasionally and mainly to others: a cousin reporting that somebody called him/her nig.er, for example. The reaction is to see it as bad luck. Later, one has a close encounter with the racist abuse. At that point one realizes that nobody – of the dominated group (not yet understood as such!) – is totally immune to such things. But one thinks yet that these are random and probably rare events: bad luck can hit anybody, from time to time!
At some point, some people began to see patterns in the relationship between them and the others belonging to the dominant group (gradually, the notion that, there are indeed groups, begin to sink). If one then tries to make sense and relate those patterns, eventually one begins to understand that they build an edifice, a system, that exists far beyond the “abuses”, and contaminates many more things: aesthetic ideals, moral judgments of people in different groups, ideas about intelligence, the clustering of people in neighborhoods according to groups, etc.
At this point, the understanding that there is a system of domination with a specific set of ideas to support it, its ideology, begin to emerge.
To fight such a system, a new system of ideas, a new ideology, based on a different set of assumptions, must be created. It is no longer enough to combat individual aspects and ideas of the existent system alone. Marx did it regarding the ideology of Capitalism. Abagond is trying, more or less, in my view, to do the same regarding the ideology of racism, specifically, the ideology of White supremacism. From post to post he is unmasking the underlying ideas and practices of that system!
For a systematic attack, a systematic response! (at least, at an intellectual level!)
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@ munubantu
Are you familiar with Neely Fuller’s constructive body of work regarding how Black people might respond/react to, or think about, racism/white supremacy??
“For a systematic attack, a systematic response! (at least, at an intellectual level!)”
What systematic response do you see as useful that hasn’t already been tried or deployed during the last 500 years of systemic (racist) oppression/attacks?
And – what sort of response(s) do you suggest to combat those systematic attacks that aren’t intellectual, but are indeed immoral, ungodly, de jure, de facto, physical, violent, deadly?
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@ Fan
No.
I’ve seen some references to Neely Fuller and his work here at Abagond’s blog,
more specifically in connection to the work of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing.
I don’t have a solution for the problems of Black people in Western countries and, in particular, in the USA, but to recognize and correctly diagnose them is certainly one of the first steps in the correct direction, and I think that Black minds there have certainly already done some thing in that regard.
I’ll take your question as a challenge to do some research on Neely Fuller’s work.
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@ munubantu
“I don’t have a solution for the problems of Black people in Western countries and, in particular, in the USA, but to recognize and correctly diagnose them is certainly one of the first steps in the correct direction, and I think that Black minds there have certainly already done some thing in that regard.”
It’s an uphill fight, an ongoing several hundred years long war with with no immediate end in sight, unless something divine or supernatural occurs.
“I’ll take your question as a challenge to do some research on Neely Fuller’s work.”
Yes. We Black/African people as a group move forward and advance further when challenging and encouraging each other to do constructive and positive things. African Amerikans are our own worst enemies whenever we fail to engage each other in a constructive positive manner, which makes it easier for THEM to work less hard to maintain their supremacy-racism.
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Great post. I admire American Blacks… but I would like to see a mass revolution among my BLOOD RELATIVES that would lead to dismantling white supremacy!
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