Racism on black people and other minority race has always existed during and after slave trade was ended. In this post I looked into reasons that holds Africans in Africa accountable for racism the black race is suffering across the globe, and why it will be difficult ending it until Africans in Africa themselves stand up to the task to ending it.
Racial supremacies through politically induced theories has classified race into the following categories in a hierarchical order as follows:
1. Caucasians-whites
2. Mongoloids-Asians
3. Negroids-Blacks
HOW RACISM EVOLVED
Racism took it root from Darwinism; a British biologist and geologist-Charles Darwin who came out with the science of evolution and with this, he classified race, and Africans were seen as biologically inferior and savages and therefore close to animals and evolved from apes.
Africans were known to live in homes fenced around and enclosed, so by the ignorant conclusion that Africans were closed to animals, racial white enthusiasts saw that to be related to how Animals are kept in zoos, therefore they will troop to Africa and surround these homes and turn that into a fun fair watching amusement. Sometimes they will even pressure them to involve themselves into athletic contest like mud wrestling and running, this was all to demonstrate that they were biologically inferior to whites. Blacks were sometimes even captured and taken to Europe to be displayed in cages at freak shows, an example is Otega Benga, a Congolese pygmy who was sent to Europe together with a chimpazee in the early 20th century and was later on put in an animal zoo for display in the New York Zoological park and was caged together with a chimpanzee for people to go pay and watch him. It is even recorded that he became so displeased that he had to sometimes shoot arrows at them. He became so depressed and so frustrated that he eventually committed suicide and died…a miserable death!
Another person that was picked from Africa caged and exhibited at freak shows is a South African young lady known as Sara Baartman (Exhibition name ‘Hottentot Venus) from the Khoikhoi tribe who was sent to Europe as a freak to be caged and viewed at funfair amusement shows in the 20th century all because of the big size of her butt.
Her owners made a lot of money from her by transporting her around and exhibiting her at freak shows. She was also used as an object of sexual desires. She could not withstand the cold weather of Europe and eventually died.
With Darwin’s theory of natural selection weaker and inferior species or race will have to be exterminated for the stronger race to take over. Meaning the black race which was considered inferior will have been wiped out from the earth…sad.
A book written by Madison Grant one of the trustees of the American Museum of natural history, titled ‘The Passing of a Great Race’ which sought to denigrate the black race as inferior, was praised by Adolf Hitler and he called it his Bible.
We should not also forget that amidst this, Asians and other minority races also suffered racist denigration. But fortunately the Chinese has proved their worth and has registered their mark globally by adding value to their race.
Blacks in the US has suffered violence, killings and terror attacks in the hands of the Klu Ku Klux (KKK) after slave trade was abolished in 1807 and blacks were allowed to integrate into the mainstream American society, the KKK which was a white supremacy terror group formed in 1865 will go around terrorizing blacks, raided and burnt down their homes, and it even moved on through to the 1960s where blacks that participated in the Civil Rights Movement were picked up by the KKK and killed by hanging them on trees.
The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s that was championed by martin Luther King Jnr. witnessed a huge endorsement by the black community and they will move out and demonstrate in their teaming numbers against racial injustice in the US.
Also the Black Panther movement Party for self-defense founded by Bobby Seale, Huey .P. Newton and Elbert Howard was formed in the 1960s to stand up for self defense against racial oppression. They even formed a well-armed black protection unit with guns who will patrol the streets of US to ensure that no black person was molested by the police.
In South Africa, Apartheid regime which brought in white supremacy and racial segregation in 1948 until 1990, saw a strong resistance from the black race and subsequently Nelson Mandela had to be jailed for his fight for racial justice.
Prior to these political movements, many international legal instruments on human rights were negotiated and passed in the US to end racism but all to no avail. Even in South Africa where Apartheid was fought with all the attention it deserves, racism still exist, racism still exist in the US as we witness blacks still been meted out with racism and murdered everyday in our glaring eyes. This should tell us that the underlining cure to ending racism lies somewhere and parading the street to demonstrate will not yield that cure, of course it will appease for the burning anger within people but will not be enough to end racism.
- Now here are the reasons Africans should be blame for Racism:
- Africans have lost our past enviable glory and rather embraced Inferiority Complex.
Colonialism has maliciously erased our enviable historical heritage and imposed on us distorted history thereby making the African elevate the white race and rather succumb to inferiority complex.
Blacks were the first to start and build civilization anywhere in the world; Blacks were the first to invent Law, Science, Agriculture, Mathematics, Writing and Music. This was started by a pure black tribe known as the Nubians from northern Sudan. The Nubians had a well organized political system which established an empire. It is noted that Egypt was a colony of the Nubians and they derived their civilization from the Nubians.
Archival records has it that Africa has the world’s oldest record of human technological achievement; Science Metallurgy, Architecture, Mathematics and medicine started in Africa, and has made strides in these areas. Africa actually laid the foundation for modern medical science: The related discipline in medicine such as anatomy, physiology, pharmacology etc where already been studied in organized school systems in ancient Egypt.
The first surgery, the first neuro surgery the first investigation into cardio vascular physiology all begun in the ancient Egypt 6000 years ago (remember the dominant Africans in Egypt were not the current day Arabs but they were black Africans, the Nubians)
As world modern civilization through the Church made us believe the earth was flat, archival information reveals that ancient Egyptians in the pyramid age 6000 years ago, got it right as they studied and knew that the earth was not flat, but round and went around the sun in 365 and 104 days, and their astronomers measured the earth; they knew where the Equatorial line was, they measured the circumference of the earth and calculated it accurately.
We also had the likes of Hannibal who was a Carthaginian black man who lived in North Africa and established a colony that grew into an empire. He was a great general and warrior who conquered parts of Italy and is regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in world history. There was also a black man who ever ruled the Roman Empire by name Emperor Caracalla who ruled from 211-217BC, He was the eldest son of Septimus Severus the first black African to rule Rome, His father Septimus Severus was actually born in Africa whereas Caracalla was born and raised in Italy. He was influential with his military might and registered his dominance in Europe.
Blacks produced arguably the wealthiest man on planet- Mansa Musa. His wealth when calculated is greater than that of today’s Jeff Beuzos whose worth is calculated around $113 billion and that of John.D.Rockefeller whose worth is $ 318 billion making John.D.Rockefeller richer than Jeff Beuzos but even the estimate value of Masa Musa rated around $ 400 billion, making him the richest ever in history until a recent 2019 update that made John.D.Rockefeller a bit greater than him with $ 18 Billion.
It is also recorded that on his pilgrimage to Mecca en route Egypt, his charity donations of about 72 thousand pounds of gold which in today’s value could be $1.3 Billion to the poor people in Cairo caused inflation in Egypt devaluating the local currency for some time because gold money he left behind was enormous.
Abubakar II (half-brother of Masa Musa) was a great Malian ruler, was the first to make a voyage across the Atlantic ocean about 150 years ago and subsequently discovered America before Christopher Columbus, debunking the distorted idea that Christopher Columbus discovered America.
Blacks also traded by commuting from Africa to the Americas. It is also worth noting that, through the voyage of Abubakar II Africans and the Indians have developed trade links some 600 Centuries away before the Europeans supposedly discovered America.
Archival information indicates that, during the Rule of Mansa Musa the Empire of Mali was known overseas and even had diplomatic relationship with some European countries like France.
- Now the big questions is; what has happened to this past glory??
- Colonialism has made us low achievers as we go by what the colonial master has offered to us to learn in school without subjecting it to scrutiny: the colonial mentality has unconsciously made the African unambitious and tied-down, deficient in critical thinking. We think we are not capable of achieving certain greatness and rather think is a reserve of the whiteman.
2. Inability to Prove to be a Worthy Race
I know some people might not be happy to hear this, but we cannot run away from what it is; from Automobile, Computer technology, Astrophysics, Scientific technological inventions among others, Africa seems to be absent when it comes to championing technological inventions. I know some people might argue that we have blacks in Africa who are equally making efforts, but how many?? And more so the likes of Sarfo Kantanka- a Ghanaian automobile producer, still have to import most of the parts from China to assemble the cars he makes.
The few persons who might have that God given ingenious ability to be inventors or scientific discoverers, the system will not support them and they eventually might have to move to Europe where they can get a system support or that ability dies in them.
Africa virtually depends on Europe and some Asian countries like China for everything. Africans are concerned with what they put on their bodies to gain wealth status than what they put in their minds, that is why we are good at been consumers of products from the west and China than been producers ourselves. The few Africans by virtue of their stardom who got some money will prefer to surround themselves with wealth status such as; splash cars, chains, jewellery, public show of extravagance, partying among others they do not invest, and that is why most of them go broke shortly after their carrier is witnessing a twilight.
The world is fast becoming a technological global community and counties that champion technological invention and industrialization sets the pace and registers their mark globally. This was something been dominated by Europe and America, but the Asians especially China has taken over. Don’t forget in the classification of races, the Asians too were rated below the white race, but they have proven themselves worthy race by their global contributions to technology and dominance of the global manufacturing industry.
China also has a past glory that has been lost just like Africa, archival information shows China has past glory of been one of the richest with great civilization from around 200 B.C to 1800 but lost it. However, with great determination into industriousness China has regained its place and registered its economic authority on the world economic map. Sadly Africa is still deeply asleep and not ready to awake to refuse the negative image it has sunk itself into.
China is the world’s largest producer of ships, high speed trains, robots, machine tools, computers, cell phones etc.
It is on record that Africa holds 30% of the world known mineral resources and reserves. However the natural resources only benefit the local and foreign elites through illegality and corruption to the detriment of the majority of the African population. Our mining and oil companies are mostly given to multinationals mining companies.
Bad economic decisions of our leaders has further impoverished the continent, How? By putting Africa in a loop of loan trap set by the west and the World Bank and IMF.
Africa’s dignity will continue to dwindle as much as we depend on the foreign world for everything-medicine, technology, products supply, the world bank and foreign loans. The sad thing is that, with these loans, they are mostly legal clauses binding these loans as Africans have to put their natural resources on the line as collateral.
Sadly World economic super powers such as China use this as strategy to silently take over African countries culturally, intellectually, socio-economically etc. and premeditatedly recolonizing the continent. So sad.
3. Blacks for that matter Africans have identity crises
Africans have self-hate for the race. (blacks pretend to love the race but not) Blacks have a cultural and identity crises; and this is evident in a lot of Africans easily naturalizing to European countries, to the extend that some pregnant upper class Africans or stars will prefer to travel to Europe or America to birth their children so they can easily be given citizenship.
Pro black groups such as the Pan-Africanists, the Rastafarianism group, all claim to champion the course of the race, but you still find some of them secretly admiring white values; they hide behind colors and will prefer to marry white people and embrace European lifestyles.
Also the high preference for western lifestyle among Africans in Africa has resulted in inferiority complex to the race and has given way to others disrespecting the race.
When Africans gets to Europe, most of them easily turn their back to their culture; they want to eat white, dress white, speak white, and do everything white, even if an African happens to visit the US for a week and returns to Africa, he still want to force himself to speak like an American.., you see, that is our problem.
Chinese in America or Europe are still Chinese, no matter what, they do not compromise their culture. They eat Chinese, and uphold to their Chinese cultural values. You can find Chinese restaurants almost wherever they find themselves. If they are to develop IT software or programs they do that in their own language. They do all these without compromising their cultural identity.
An African in Europe or US do not want to hear anything about his culture, he warmly embrace European values and become cool with that. This is evident when they return home to Africa, they tend to portray a certain lifestyle to prove they have tasted life in Europe or US and can even sometimes despise their own people. Sad!
The hatred for the color of the race explains why most blacks will prefer to bleach their skins so as not to look black enough but closer to been white. Sadly most of our international black movie and music stars whom a lot of youngsters look up to as role models are unfortunately promoting the displeasing phenomenon as most of them bleached out their skins.
Now when this happens, sadly it becomes difficult to defend the race since the people themselves are ambivalent towards it.
Summary
Until Africans re-educate ourselves from colonial mental pollution, embrace our values, do away with inferiority complex and self-hate, and having a can do spirit, by contributing our quota to the global industrious and technological world, our race will be considered a low achieving race and not worthy to be respected. Bitter truth!!!!!R
