I feel I have yet to address,in detail the cause celebre, that is Stacey Dash and her comments on racial integration and segregation. It is sad to see someone who has benefited from the exposure of black magazines and movies and tv shows...suddenly turn around and decide to chastise that demographic with the parochial lens that Fox News views the world. BET was not the issue when you gained a check from it! I really do not believe in your disingenuous sentiments; you are pandering to the right-wing establishment that now signs your checks.
Now I'm going to say this because nobody else has the gall, the intestinal fortitude, or the mettle to withstand the criticism that I may receive for making such a statement: Racism is class based! Anybody with even a paltry understanding of history knows this to be fact. No one can deny the sharecropping done by Africans and Irish men on the masters plantation! Racism was a construct created to buttress the income of the wealthy. The only thing I find disturbing is that when one race uses another race to benefit from that construct, black people are the only ones who are condemned for doing it.
For instance,I always hear the discussion: "Well I don't know why Africans are complaining,black people enslaved black people and as a matter of fact Africans sold Africans to Americans" very true indeed but you are forgetting some very important details. First: African slavery and chattel slavery were two different processes. African slavery had a striking facsimile to indentured servitude. African slaves had to were treated more like the help( no pun intended) as opposed to property that was brutally beaten and used to breed others for work purposes-- that was created by the Portuguese and the Europeans. Secondly:The Europeans and the Portuguese are responsible for espionage like tactics that made African sell other Africans for European weaponry. Africa,up until maybe the 19th and 20th century, was primarily tribal. Tribal wars were a constant! The Mongols did it, the Huns did it, and so forth. It was common to see tribal war! Africa is a continent not a country, not every country in Africa or every tribe in Africa speaks the same language! Africa's the most linguistically diverse continent in the world! During the Europeans and Portuguese attempted conquest of Africa, funded by the Catholic Church, both countries were suffering repeated defeats at the hands of African tribes. In order to defeat these tribes-- and ultimately use the slaves for the sugar plantations in Brazil and projects needed in the west-- they needed to create dissension among the tribes. As history reads they were successful.African tribes fought other African tribes and traded guns for slaves(or as every other race knows it,the spoils of war).The African slaves were needed because the European and Portguese were also losing to the Native Americans who were unruly and harder to control as slaves. Due to the nature of how slaves are raised in Africa, the Portuguese and Europeans knew they would have no problems dealing with docile and petulant slaves.
No lets fast forward through the Slave codes, Jim Crow, the convict leasing system after reconstruction-- which was the impetus for the prison industrial complex that we see today--, voter intimidation, housing discrimination, military extermination,etc,etc. I say:Just as one should be horrified over Wounded Knee and the 500 plus treaties that the United States has broken towards the Natives, just as anybody of Latino descent should be horrified by the Zoot Suit Riots and the fact that Texas and many other territories in the United States were stolen from you, just as the Aborigines should be allowed to address their grievances over their treatment and ultimately annexation in Australia, just as the Chinese should be horrified over being blamed for the upturn in Opium use in this country, just as the Japanese should be horrified that America allowed for Japanese Americans to be put in concentration camps during World War 2,black people in America should be able to voice their plight. They should be able to say this without worrying about hearing about the Civil Rights Act and affirmative action,which in the first place, affirmative action--you can check the bill when it was written--was not meant for us!
Now say you been working on a job for 30 + years and you've been waiting for your just due! You felt you have helped the progression of this company and even gave the CEOs and some of the founders of the company ideas that have grown that corporation! It's safe to say if not for your hard work, if not for your toil, the company would crumble! How would you feel if the boss said you are undeserving of a promotion or even a notice on your accomplishments? Would you not want to protest? Would you not want to say "I've been here for a while and I matter?" Would you not say "Hey, I understand what the other oppressed employees are going through but I matter and my section matters as well"? This is how black people feel every time somebody says "stop complaining everybody goes through that". Why isn't the question posed: "Why is everybody going through this and how can I help?"
If all lives matter,black lives and black excellence is included in that equation and should not be excluded! The accomplishments of all man or woman-- not prejudice to any ilk,race and or sex should be recognized. Stacey Dash,my sister, I say if you want intergration, don't follow massas plan of separation by mental castration, subterfuge,and economic deprivation... which will ultimately fuel the fire to another round of segregation. One love everybody, peace.
