FollowINTERNALIZED RACISM
The response of the “dissed”(disrespected) to physical, institutional, emotional and psychological racism when they categorize and value themselves and their own people by how closely they identify with, compare to, and/or approximate their perpetrator in his “ white value system” and “diss”(disrespect) those who do not comply.
BLACK LOVE
Ending our series on the topic of Black Racism and appreciating our purpose and philosophy of finding solutions to our issues I dedicate our last discussion on giving Thanks, this Thanksgiving season for the blessing of being Black, of African descent.
I HAVE BLACK LOVE AND GIVE THANKS
I give thanks for the beauty of me, my physicality that is embodied in the color of my skin, the wideness of my nose and the thickness and nappiness of my hair, which is Black.
I give thanks for the beauty of me, my spiritual, intellectual, sensual and soulful self which is Black.
I give thanks for the love I have and receive from my Black family, which is uniquely Black, given unconditionally from cradle to grave.
I give thanks for my Black family’s belief in being an African “village” supporting me and each and every one of us to our fullest potential.
I give thanks to my Black/African ancestors that persevered their American experience with determination and grace so that I might live and prosper to represent them, well.
I give thanks to the richness of my Black culture of music, food, frivolity, humor, love, spirituality and joy that nourishes me and my every experience.
I give thanks for my strength of character and purpose, and my sense of nobility and the awareness to my responsibilities as being God’s original creation, the African man.
I give thanks this season again for all the blessings that my Blackness has bestowed on me.
Internalized Racism
The response of the “dissed” (disadvantaged) to physical, institutional, and psychological racism when they categorize and value themselves and their own people by how closely they identify with compare to and/or approximate their perpetrator in his “white value system” and “diss” (disrespect) those who do not.
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas, the name alone, has become a standard for the Black community to use in criticizing any one of its own as a sellout, an Uncle Tom’s, etc. The Black community is able to do so because Clarence Thomas has selectively chosen to remove himself from his Black roots, values and sensibilities.
BIO:
Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point Georgia, a small predominantly Black community founded by “Freedmen” (freed slaves) after the Civil War. His father was a farmer and his mother a domestic. His great grand-parents had been slaves. As a young child after his father left the family and his mother couldn’t support him and his brother they were sent to live with his Mother’s parents in Savannah, Georgia where he lived until maturity. He praises the lessons of hard work, persistence and self -sufficiency learned from his grandfather.
Clarence Thomas attended highs school as the only Black student, attended St. John’s Vianney’s Seminary and later transferred to the College of Holy Cross in Massachusetts where he received his B.A. degree as an honor student. At the College of Holy Cross he formed the Black Student Union and was active in civil rights issues for Black students. He entered Yale Law School upon graduation from the College of Holy Cross where he received his Juris Doctor Degree in Law.
Clarence Thomas, when applying for internships and work as an attorney, was confronted with a lack of respect for himself and his Yale Law degree. He attributes this to his accomplishment being considered a “gift” of Affirmative Action and not due to his scholarly attributes by the firms interviewing him. He describes himself as a “victim” of civil rights legislation.
BIO:
In 1987 Clarence Thomas married Virginia Lamp, a white woman born in Nebraska to upper middle class well connected Republican parents. Virginia attended Creighton University, a Jesuit school, and received both her B.A. in Political Science and Business and her Juris Doctor in Law.
Virginia Lamp was employed by the United States Chamber of Commerce where she attended congressional hearings and argued AGAINST the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act that provided “leave” to employees to care for a newborn child and/or suffering from a serious illness. While working with the United States Department of Labor she argued AGAINST comparable-worth legislation that would promote equal pay for men and women doing comparable work. She now organizes conservative activists to “protect the core founding principles” of the nation through her 501© Liberty Central lobbying group.
So how does a poor Black boy raised in Georgia by his grandparents, attend school as the only Black student, completes a college degree with honors, while becoming the founder of the Black Student Union, and receives a Law degree from an Ivy League school, Yale, and become “Clarence Thomas,” a traitor to the Black community? How does Clarence Thomas, the new, 21st century “Uncle Tom” caricature “diss” his parents, his great-grandparents, and his grand-parents by complying with his wife’s philosophies of “core founding principles” of the Constitution that exclude the Constitutional amendments, # 13, 14,and 15 regarding slavery and #19, regarding women’s suffrage, with his family’s history?
Clarence Thomas has distanced himself from everything “Black” that could suggest that he is somehow “less” because he is Black. He is unable to take pride in his accomplishments achieved as a Black man, the assets, talents and skills given to him by his African ancestry and acquired values from his Black family and instead views his accomplishments as “in spite of” being a Black man. He, in this mind set, disavows/rejects the values, attitudes sensibilities of the Black community as being “inferior” and his self-hate allows him to critically condemn them and support legislation that threatens their viability because he is now “better” than that. He is ‘White.”
Clarence Thomas is one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas is a coward who epitomizes the adage “if you can’t beat them, join them.” Clarence Thomas aspires to be the “whitest” justice on the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas is an embarrassment to himself.
Clarence Thomas is a victim of Internalized Racism.
HERMAN CAIN
The people of African descent living in America as a result of the European Slave Trade can and do exhibit traits/characteristics of poor self-esteem – – – they don’t like or value themselves. They have not only been MEASURED by foreign European standards as to intellect, behavior, speech and appearance they also have been culturally and legally devalued for their differences.
To cope, court acceptance and survive, African Americans have adapted to European norms and in doing so often rejecting and devaluing their own. They do this in their appearance, their speech, their familial ties, and the selection of their marriage partners, the communities they choose to live in and their political affiliations. They separate themselves from their community in an attempt to claim that they are “different” and therefore “better” because in their mind being considered Black is “bad, is less”
Herman Cain declared that (“unlike himself”) Blacks in America have been brainwashed into being a part of the Democratic Party. He is (unlike them) separate from their beliefs and lack of independent thinking (and therefore “BETTER.”)
Herman Cain has internalized racism.
Herman Cain finds fault with and rejects Black people and their values.
Herman Cain purposely separates himself from the Black community so that he, like his oppressors, can stand above them in criticism of them, feeling superior to them.
Herman Cain’s rejection of the Black community speaks volumes of Herman Cain’s self-hate and low self-esteem.
Herman Cain doesn’t like or love, and accept himself.
Herman Cain’s current personal issues may well reinforce Herman Cain’s need for validation and acceptance from outside sources and communities, i.e.
Blond Blue Eyed White Women.
I would like to suggest that Black people do not comprise one happy, accepting, tolerant community. Black people can and often have racists feelings towards other races and probably, most often, the white race. Black people also harbor discriminatory and hateful perceptions about themselves and others within their race instilled and reinforced by preferences afforded to some, historically, by the white community. We have “documented” cases of self-hate and “internalized racism, i.e., Clarence Thomas.”
(I am airing some of our Dirty Laundry and it is necessary to do so to further discuss/explain our anomalies, Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, Alan Keyes, Larry Elder, Ward Connerly and others.)
Black Racism
What it is and how it is done – Black on Black hate
INTERNALIZED RACISM
The response of the “dissed”(disrespected) to physical, institutional, emotional and psychological racism when they categorize and value themselves and their own people by how closely they identify with, compare to, and/or approximate their perpetrator in his “ white value system” and “diss”(disrespect) those who do not comply.
(Ebonically speaking)
Black people hate on themselves and each other because of how they look and how they perceive how they look.
Black people hate on themselves over dark skin vs. light skin.
Black people hate on themselves over nappy hair vs. straight hair.
Black people hate on themselves over wide noses vs. straight noses.
Black people hate on themselves and each other because of how they look and which they think is considered better.
Black people hate on themselves and each other because of their religious preference be it Christian, Muslim, Baptist, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholic or something else.
Black people hate on themselves over whose religion better represents the Black community in its values and beliefs, and for that matter, what those are. Black priests and ministers each proclaim to preach/speak exclusively about what the Black community needs and wants and each is different and each is right and each is wrong.
Black people hate on themselves and each other because of how they speak, pronounce words, enunciate, use slang, and articulate.
Black people hate on themselves and each other for speaking or not speaking English, correctly, too white, too “street” or too slow with a drawling southern or a too fast eastern nasal accent.
Black people hate on themselves and each other for being too Black.
Black people hate on themselves for not being Black enough.
And Black people hate on themselves and each other for being BLACK.
Thank you for the “Willie Lynch” Letter and for Dr. James David Manning who speak to all that I have said. Thank you, Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain for being all that I have said.
This week I am focused on the Occupiers demonstrations. I am struck by how many Americans again feel ignored and disrespected in their own country by “the powers that be, which is now identified as Corporate America.” I am frightened again by the physical force that is being displayed against Americans protesting for their own rights. I am appalled that the very resources used to support this abuse is paid for by the very people being abused, the American public. I am incensed that we have to do this whole civil rights thing again against evil, insidious, greedy, self-righteous and entitled arrogant “devils.” Our new ‘devils” are the American corporations such as the Koch Brothers, Bank of America, etc.”
I would like to suggest that the American Occupiers protests are appearing on the world news sites just as the third world and Arab world countries protests did that we Americans closely watched this year. We, Americans, so recently applauded and supported those who protested and rebelled against their cruel and tyrannical governments. Didn’t we and our government vehemently criticize the forceful tactics used by these governments against their own citizenry? Didn’t what you saw reported by the news outlets during the Oakland, California protests remind you of what you saw in Libya, Yemen, Egypt, etc.? Doesn’t that strike, frighten, appall and incense you as being WRONG here in America, too?
When America (ns) protested like this before in the 1960’s and were physically beaten like this before, it was called the Civil Rights Movement. The protests were then focused on obtaining the denied constitutional civil rights of Black people in America. Now, once again, I suggest that in 2011 we have another Civil Rights movement and this time it is focused on the 99% of Americans abused, ignored and denied their American rights to financial freedom. This has occurred because the 1% of Americans, the American Corporate Aristocracy, with their Republican supporters, has captured two of the three divisions of government, the Supreme Court and the Congress. They are frantically fighting for the third and final division of government, the Presidency. If they obtain the Presidency they will be able to rule without obstruction, tyrannically, as the Arrogant Corporate Aristocracy they have become/are. Welcome to government of the 99% BY THE 1% or “Welcome to Libya, Iraq, Yemen, etc., etc., etc.” We will have President Goldman Sachs, Vice President Bank of America, Secretary of State Halliburton, Secretary of the Treasury Merrill Lynch, etc.
When this happens the use of physical force to control the “masses” will be more than racially motivated. It will be physical “class warfare” paid for by the taxes of the masses, the 99%, to insure the power of the 1% Arrogant Corporate Aristocracy, the Tyrants of the 21st Century.
Speak up now!
Dare to Be Heard.
The concrete/physical “acting out” of fear toward the “dissed” (disrespected) that results in physical harm/death and/or the threat and fear of physical harm/death for the “dissed”(disrespected.)
Below is an excerpt from my memoir where I recount the physical racism I encountered when my family moved into an all- white community in Chicago in 1955. It speaks of the both physical danger we lived with as the first Coloreds in the neighborhood and the physical segregation due to racism that resulted when white flight occurred.
(Excerpt from my memoir)
7838 Chicago, Illinois
When I was eight in 1953 my family moved out south to 7838 where only white people lived. We left the comfort and security of 4926 and started a new and scary adventure, just the three of us. My grandmother, Mom’s mother, who could pass for white and was a real estate agent, bought us the house. The neighbors were really, really, really surprised when we moved in. They had mistakenly thought the house was hers. For six months a police car was parked outside our house to make certain that this transition in a social experiment, integration, went well. One afternoon after being stationed there for several months the police car briefly left. The policeman went to a store for snacks. When the policeman returned all of our windows had been broken. A police car followed me to school every day as I walked alone down 79th Street. Ruby Bridges, in that Norman Rockwell picture, had nothing on me. I did well at school, Martha Ruggles Elementary School. There were only three houses on my block when we first moved in and we were surrounded by vacant lots before they built the Dan Ryan Expressway. I made two friends my first year there. Sonia, Ralph and I would play baseball in the lot behind my house every day after school and in time Sonia and I walked to and from school together until her family and Ralph’s moved away. By the time I left Martha Ruggles Elementary School I had gone from being the only Colored child in my class to a whole school of Colored children. I got to see firsthand what “white flight” was all about in the four years I attended Martha Ruggles Elementary School. The evidence is blatantly recorded in my yearly group class photos that changed drastically in hue over the years. More houses were built on my block and were called Universal Homes. These filled up quickly with Colored people moving south as the white people sold their homes and ran. My new neighborhood became the crowning glory of middle class Colored people. We lived there, the doctors and nurses lived there, the teachers lived there, the contractors lived there, the lawyers and secretaries lived there, and the businessmen in real estate, funeral homes, daycare centers, cleaners and barbershops lived there. All the businesses up and down 79th Street were Black owned and prosperous. Many of our celebrities lived in Chatham too. Mom’s Mabley, Ernie Banks and Mahalia Jackson’s houses could be reached just by walking a few blocks from my house.
We were segregated again, now in Chatham/Park Manor. We looked after each other, knew each other, and were safe again in our newly racially segregated Colored/Black community.
The concrete/physical “acting out” of fear toward the “dissed” (disrespected) that results in physical harm/death and/or the threat and fear of physical harm/death for the “dissed”(disrespected.)
Emmitt Till (excerpt from my memoir)
When I was very young my grandmother took me on a long bus ride from her house in the Woodlawn area of Chicago to stand in the cold in a long line with many, many, many other people that I did not know. I always stayed with my grandmother on the weekends and she would always find something fun for us to do so I was looking forward today to this adventure. I hadn’t been to the aquarium yet so maybe that’s where we were headed. She never said. I guess it was supposed to be a surprise. She held tightly to my hand as we moved slowly forward. I remember going into a building that had a strong pungent smell of flowers, walking into a room filled with all the people who had been in line in front of us, and walking around a wooden box. I think it was brown. I was too short to see too much, mostly just people’s coats in front of me. We said nothing and after we had circled the box we left the building, got on another bus and went back to my grandmother’s house that seemed so far away from all of this. When we got back home she told me the story of Emmitt Till, a thirteen year old Colored boy from Chicago, who had gone to visit relatives for the summer down South, “a horrible place,” she called it. He was killed and his body thrown into the river for allegedly whistling at a white girl. I had been, with so many other Black people, to Collins Funeral Home on Cottage Grove in Chicago to view the thirteen year old beaten and bloated body of Emmitt Till, as my grandmother described to me, and as she said,” to learn” I remember that experience and that lesson to this day although I could not have been more than five years old. I don’t remember all the other things we did for fun together quite so clearly now as I do that day that I still remember all too well. I learned what the South, had to teach. I learned what hate did/does.
I was taught and reminded of what racist hate is early in life as an African American child. I am a witness to it still.
Solutions? How do we counteract hate? Please comment!
The concrete/physical “acting out” of fear/hate toward the “dissed” (disrespected) that results in physical harm/death and/or the threat and fear of physical harm/death for the “dissed” disrespected.)
Physical racism is probably one of the easiest and most obvious forms of racism to detect. It is a physical attack with the ominous threat of harm and death. It is the beatings, the hangings, and the burnings. It is James Byrd Jr., Emmitt Till, Rosewood, Florida, the bombing of five little girls in church, the Central High School nine, the execution of Troy Davis and the bombing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s home, to name only a few.
Physical racism is the overt ACT of hate, racial hate.
I suggest that as we are now so appalled at the consequence of the
“BULLYING”
of young and often gay children in schools that we begin to acknowledge that the Black community has always been the victim of bullying/bullies in the form of racial verbal and physical attacks. WE had/have been made afraid to go to . . . almost everywhere, for fear of harm. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was bullied in his own home.
America has been our bully.
Barack Hussein Obama
Americans chose by a majority vote through a democratic election to give America its first African American President. One of the African American President’s parents was African, directly from Kenya without the “legacy” of the transatlantic cruise on a slave ship. He met him once during a month long visit in Hawaii. The African American President’s other parent was a white woman originally from Kansas who raised him while living with her two white parents in Hawaii. He attended a prestigious private white school in Hawaii, graduated and went to a prestigious private college in California, transferred and completed college at prestigious Columbia University in New York. He later returned to a prestigious graduate school, Harvard University, where he became the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review and completed his law degree. He joined the political arena as a state senator in the Illinois legislature and then went on to become one of two Senators from the state of Illinois to the U.S. Congress where he served as the only African American senator. He ran for and won the Presidency of the United States in November 2008 against all the many other contenders.
Our duly elected African American President of the United States of America
-has appeared on the cover of the New Yorker as a Muslim in full religious dress, with his wife, the First Lady Michelle, appearing as a militant Black Panther.
-has been depicted as the proverbial monkey in cartoons
-has appeared as the “Joker” on posters.
-has been called “Hitler” with videos posted on the internet.
-has been accused of not being a natural born American.
-has been called the “Racist in Command”
-has been yelled at by a US congressman while delivering a televised address to Congress and the American public.
-has had a petition for his death circulated on Face book.
-has been mocked for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
He has not been criticized by segments of America, but MALIGNED by them.
Why? Because:
HE is a threat to Almighty racism.
HE IS BLACK AND HE IS IN CONTROL!
HE IS THE MOST POWERFUL AND INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN “THE WORLD” AND HE IS –
A BLACK MAN.
Soooooo, he had to be RACIALLY PROFILED for targeting and DESTRUCTION and he WAS and IS.
Only Stupid or Something More?
The abuse of power, racial profiling, and all is
STUPID AND “ACTING STUPIDLY!”
The African American NFL player in Texas on March 27, 2009 detained in the hospital emergency parking lot for a traffic ticket by a white cop while trying unsuccessfully to get to his mother’s dying bedside with her condition personally verified by hospital staff present in the parking lot.
The African American ambulance driver on May 28, 2009 in Oklahoma pulled over off the highway by a white cop and physically by chokehold detained for a traffic ticket while his emergency patient was screaming for help inside the ambulance.
Dr. Henry Louis Gates, an African American professor, arrested and handcuffed in his own home by a white cop on July 20, 2009 for “screaming” when there was no case for burglary.
Troy Anthony Davis accused of killing a white cop, executed on September 21, 2011 in Georgia when the preponderance of current evidence demonstrated him to be an innocent man and the previous eye-witness evidence that supported his guilt was recanted by 7 of the 9 witnesses all citing police intimidation as the reason for their initial false testimony.
Why are all of these instances of extreme police abuse of power always between white cops and Black men?
Are they isolated incidents or a dangerous “trend,” historical in nature, throughout and across America?
What if they aren’t acting stupidly or doing stupid acts?
I paid attention and I learned.
I’m scared and I’m scared for my family, Still and Again!!!!!!!!