Article By Saab Lofton - Dec 22 2006
"White folks only want to hear the good shit: life eternal, a place in God's Heaven. But as soon as they hear they're getting this good shit from a black Jesus, they freak. And that, my friends, is called hypocrisy.
A black man can steal your stereo, but he can't be your savior."
-- Kevin Smith's Dogma
The aforementioned line illustrates just how important it is for whites to constantly be exposed to positive black role models — be they a historically accurate Jesus of color or stellar fictional characters such as Captain Sisko from Star Trek, Mace Windu from Star Wars or the Green Lantern John Stewart from DC Comics. If black saviors (as opposed to the clowns or beasts blacks are usually depicted as being) are not highly visible to the masses, there will be a complete disregard for black life.
Two atrocities recently occurred that proved this to be the case: On the west coast, the concept of blacks performing on cue like the minstrels of old was revived in Tempe, Arizona when a cop told a couple of black men they could avoid getting a littering ticket if they improvised a rap song for said cop ... and on the east coast, the villainous NYPD — the same police department responsible for the rape of Abner Louima — murdered 23- year-old Sean Bell en route to his wedding.
All too many whites still fear a future in which they'll lose their strength-in-numbers due to ethnic miscegenation. Oscar winner Halle Berry is half black and half white, but since she clearly looks more black than white, more than enough whites throughout history have acted, voted and invested out of fear of being cosmetically/superficially assimilated. So with any luck, the following list of rules
for whites will save lives and spare us all some grief.
1) Horatio Alger was a child molester. The man who coined the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was an admitted pedophile, so don't ever tell a black man to risk getting hit by a car a la Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness just to get a job. CREATE JOBS! A Greenpeace version of FDR's New Deal would be a good start. Professor Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States said it best, "While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of 'rags to riches' were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control."
2) Learn to deal with double standards. Just as it's not OK for men to walk into the ladies room, it's not OK for whites to use ebonics with cavalier abandon. If you're directly quoting someone or you've been accepted into the black community the way white rapper Eminem has, fine. Otherwise, act as though you're visiting another country with a different culture. If we were all Americans, there wouldn't be any disparity between blacks and whites insofar as the statistics charting everything from employment to imprisonment ...
3) It's not about equality, it's about respect. Whites need to admit that the current institutional structure of the so-called First World amounts to what is known as white skin privilege. As a result, whites are more powerful than blacks — NOT superior, simply more powerful. A good way to look at it is to imagine whites in the role of Superman and blacks in the role of Batman. They're obviously not "equal" — one has bulletproof skin whereas one is reliant on body armor — but they RESPECT each other. Knowing that Batman is — for all his many skills — a mere mortal, Superman has enough respect for the Dark Knight not to put him in just any ol' situation ...
4) Being called a "conspiracy theorist" is far worse than being called a "nigger." It's inevitable that some blacks might "cry wolf" as it were, but people in pain usually don't protest in vain. White supremacy may be in decline, but it's still very much in power, and blacks have a lot more to worry about than an occasional lynching/cross burning. There's this great quote in the book Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press: "It is not in the least paranoid for any black person to conclude that since
the late nineteenth century prominent white intellectuals and politicians have devoted much effort to reducing the number of black people by the expedient of sterilization, or selective medical assault, often chastely described as the 'science' of eugenics."
5) The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and when you forget history it repeats itself. This means there will NEVER be a point in which whites will be let off the hook. You'd never ask a Jew to let down his/her guard when it comes to anti-Semitism, so ...
Finally, there must be some consequence to police murders like Sean Bell's, so from now on — every time there's a similar murder — I will personally burn an American flag. I'll close with the words of Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron: "Don't ask our people to be peaceful while they are being shot dead."
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SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/03/sm.01.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/29266/
http://www.counterpunch.org/webb12172004.html
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3113.shtml
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