It has come to my understanding that the people are not an abstract concept. When we say “the consciousness of the people is rising” we say this because we have observed the phenomenon.
People are not mindless drones, though sometimes we may feel like it. We are complex, reactionary, insightful, introspective and any other adjective you can use to describe human behavior. An attempt to label a person as anything other than a complex individual, is an attempt to dehumanize. The question that we must always ask is; who labeled you, and what did they label you for? Even a positive label such as “smart” plays its role in hindering and defining human potential, that may be incongruent with the motives of the individual.
Suppose we take a small group of five. The “smartest” person within the group bears the task of organizing and coming up with ideas. This position is forced upon that group member regardless of personal ambition. Their ambition is created through the surrounding group members. The members of this micro society have chosen a position of being told what to do by their “smartest” member in order to function as a cohesive unit.
When understanding that society functions as a small group on a macro scale, we see how racism is fundamental to keeping society functioning in favor of those who perceive themselves as white. Racism as we know it would not exist without Europeans creating the myth of race, therefore the construct is a vital tool in creating the societies in which we live today. A vast majority of which are the products of European settlers who chose to conquer.
From this, we can come to the understanding that there is no such thing as a “positive” stereotype. The destruction of being, comes from living up to something that is mythical. Because race is mythical any associations with said race is also a myth. An asian person can be good at math, but because that person is asian does not make them good at math. They are good at the subject because their life experience created a person who finds joy in the subject. But their lack of ability in math, does not discount or disqualify them from their identity, their history, traditions, pastimes, families and way of life. In the same way a “positive” stereotype, even when the it appears to be a compliment, such as: “black men have big penises.” This stereotype still aims to treat black men as nothing more than sexual objects lusted after, by the eyes of others who have sexualized him.
Racism has been the founding tool, particularly within American society to maintain order. The manual laboring class is black, we can tell because of their skin. We can tell because of the garbage that piles up in their community. We can tell because of ever present police patrols. We can tell because of poverty. The ruling class is white, we can tell because we can see who the police look like, we can see who our political leaders are, we can see who owns the wealth. Now of course there is much more nuance to this situation. And any simplicitication of racism, never truly entails its capabilities to destroy the mental state of those affected by it.
But to get back to my original point. The flaws of a racist system have always been understood by those affected by it. No one can teach the victim of racism what racism is, they know it. Currently we live in a predicament where the future of this world either lies in the hands of those who were robbed of life's pleasures or those who selfishly cling onto it. The age old tale of the rich versus the poor. And the poor have come to understand their mistreatment in totality.
The covid-19 pandemic and the George Floyd uprising has left me radicalized and disillusioned with the operations of the state. Because of this I am left with two options: comply and live in a state of bitter resentment or revolt and find liberation either in life or death. This radicalization has not been reduced to me alone, my experience over the past two years has been the understanding that we have all been radicalized. From my Obama loving mother who now adopts the term socialism as part of her everyday vocabulary. To my reactionary father, who desires nothing more than a boat to sail away from his problems. To my wealthy classmates who have entered states of pure nihilism. The masses have grown discontent with their situation. Because of this, change, whether democratically or violently, is inevitable. The question that stands is; how will this change affect us, and what are we looking to change?
A reform into social democracy, with all racist trappings and capitalist enterprises of American society, is no solution to the plight of the African masses within this country.
For black people, the question of change means the elimination of power being concentrated into the hands of the white bourgeoisie and their petty patrons as well as the elimination of economic exploitation. For African people the question of change is creating an America that looks nothing like the one we have known for 400 years. This means rejecting the norms and stigmas that have been enforced by our oppressors, and liberating ourselves with shared ideals that are unequivocally our own.
What that means is to be successful and black in this country is to distance yourself as far away from the African masses as possible. The phrases “I’m not that black” or “You cant take niggas nowhere!” are common because to see the natural expression of African culture, which black people naturally express when together, is something so fundamentally foreign and frightening to a white audience that it is not tolerated within the society that they have built for themselves.
Colonization was a “civilizing” process. It sought to make the colonized more like the colonizer, to make your history mine. That is the state of the African in America is a post- negrohood. Because we have been led to believe that a culture which has abused, tormented, enslaved, raped, robbed, lynched and is fundamentally opposed to one's own, is ours.
But, the consciousness of the people has awoken. The African in America today, is just that, home by circumstance, we will own the land in which we have toiled for centuries. Because we as Africans are tolerant, when we lift one voice, we lift all of them. When we liberate ourselves, we liberate everyone who is suffering oppression everywhere. We even liberate our oppressors. The fight for the future is ours. With the ensuing crisis we must ask, is raising our children in the ghetto what we want? The same amount of energy it takes to start a successful business is energy that could have gone into serving your people to wage revolution. A future where no child suffers is possible if we choose for it to be so. There was no homelessness in Native American or African society prior to the European invasion. We can solve the problems of today by understanding ones people, and knowing that a new system of economics and laws that values none of the values of old. To do this, we must organize and we must prepare to defend our values, even through blood. We will never be forced into the state were we are dominated anyone else, even our own. We wage a war over principles. These must never be undone.
Our entire history in this country has been one of brutal violence, we are raised into it, taught by it and molded by its manors. America to a black person, is dead, it is a drunk father who comes home late to a messy house in the wee hours of the night and beats his child into cleaning it. By the time that child has aged, the child has been toughened and molded by their fathers violence.
We will survive America, and rebuild it anew.
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