By: Klairm
“When we say ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’, it simply refers to the notion that there is a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability” ~Barack Obama.
This piece was intentionally delayed for two fundamental reasons amongst others; firstly, because I never wish to tell a ‘truth’ that will expire someday, and secondly; because Racism is a perennial issue that incessantly has made headlines for centuries. It demands a sober reflection and a sense of deeper consciousness of who we truly are as humans. As it is not so simple to attempt solving.
Let me ask you this question; when you say you are ‘proudly black’ or ‘proudly African’ what do you insinuate? Do you, an African, smell the aroma of the soil that you are made of at all?
Now, there is nothing to hide. When certain concepts come up, some biases come to mind. When we talk of injustice for instance, we see it done everywhere; between the free and slaves, between the rich and the poor, the elite and the vulnerable, between employers and employees, between women and men, boys and the girl-child and of course between the blacks and the whites.
Justice as we know it, is not just about the equitable distribution of goods and services between people, but also about restoring equality where there is inequality and respecting everyone as due. Just as when we fight for gender equality we know most times that we are actually fighting for women’s rights, so also when we fight against Racism, we fight for the lives of those who mostly have not been treated as the human beings that they really are -the blacks as earlier said by Barack Obama.
As you know, this ideology called Racism is defined by the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary to mean, “The prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races”. This is a discriminatory or abusive behaviour that sadly are still displayed in our world today, especially by some whites towards blacks in many white countries.
Prejudices as such do not easily efface because it is part of history and memories are not so easy to forget, and so, while one faction is forced to hate, the others are bent on making them forever realize that they are inferior to them no matter what. Meanwhile, there are always exceptions, the humane ones; and so, I would respect and commend people who are not guilty from both sides of the coin.
‘Looking down’ on the black race did not start today. In African Philosophy we learnt of countless Western philosophers who argued for decades that the blacks do not have the capacity to reason. They say, we have no philosophy of our own. Aside that, slavery may not be as dehumanizing as the creation of ‘Human Zoos’ where black children were used as exhibits, fenced for whites to visit and throw bananas to and for them to see what having a black skin looked like; from the time of the German Empire to the 1930s. Honestly, you may get to weep when you read the stories of people like the Cameroonian Theodor Wonja Michael.
Have you noticed how English language identifies the word ‘black’ with many evil/bad things, like; ‘blackmail’, ‘black-leg’, ‘black angel’ and others, thereby making the word come along with so many bad things, meanwhile the word ‘white’ represents goodness and everything good.
Now, about knowing who we really are irrespective of our covers (skins) and to help many of us conquer our superficiality, Aristotle, as well as Aquinas in explaining essence (what makes a thing what it is) tells us of the differences between substance and accidents. Your substance is what matters, others such as; shape, height, time, colour, position are merely accidents. Substance can do without accidents but not the other way round. As the humans (compound substances) that we are, our bodies and souls forming us are what matters not what your skin looks like.
Hope you agree with me that deep within every human, though transcendental beings, we feel the sense of wholeness and know that we are all equal even though the accidents of life seems to have favoured some than others. History has been unfair to the black race for generations and circumstances have forcefully indoctrinated many of us; making us see ourselves as inferior beings, but we are not. This may take a lifetime to explain due to the gap in development and advancement in technology and the standard of living of both sides, but it is the truth. It is like a very intelligent Jss3 boy knowing within himself that he could do better than some students in ss3 class and would not take last position if given the opportunity to be taught the same thing with them in class before exams but may not know how to go about it because he may never be given the opportunity to.
Fellow blacks, it is impressive how the world has advanced and how we all have become so sensitive towards cases of injustice, wickedness and vices. Our reactions and efforts in creating awareness is commendable indeed! But then, as the saying goes, “you cannot value what you do not appreciate”, we blacks must first and foremost begin to learn to love and appreciate ourselves and more still, our black skins, and identify with ourselves with pride and dignity, else, we are nothing but hypocrites and show-offs. Just like in elections, where most of us make noise and do all the elections and likes on Facebook where it does not count but sadly, do not have our Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs). Often times, we are our problems.
How many of us (dark-skinned) look ourselves in the mirror or take photos and are happy with the colour we see? We bleach yet use Beyoncé and Wizkid’s ‘brown-skin-girrrrrrlo’ to disturb us in the neighbourhood. We bleach our skins to mask ourselves to look like the same people we claim are persecuting us for looking the way we wish to abandon. Instead of being in Africa and seeing our light skins as questionable, it is the other way round. So why then should a light-skinned Nigerian still be proud of being ‘Black’ if being African or human was just about the colour? We insult ourselves for looking dark in complexion and claim to be fighting racism. No wonder, Maria Anderson reminds us that, “none of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath”, and Martin Luther king Jnr, in his ‘I have a dream’ speech dreamt of a world where someday his children would be judged not by the colour of their skins but by the CONTENT of their character.
Another very important thing I wish to draw our minds to, is how we celebrate ourselves who are blacks. The titles and headlines we give when any black man or woman breaks records is insulting. Do you know that when the poor celebrate the vulnerability of the rich, just like many of us did during this Corona Virus, they display inferiority? In the same way, we blacks should celebrate ourselves when we break world records and not see victory as defeating the whites. For example, when Perry bought a multi-billion dollar studio, instead of ‘all’ to celebrate with him as their own becoming a hero, blacks where there saying, “a black man has owned a studio worth blablabla”. Obama became President of the U.S.A and instead of humanity celebrating him as a fellow human attaining that height, we the blacks personalized his achievement and titled it, “the first black man in the white house”. Tomorrow when a black man becomes the Pope, instead of we saying “the first Nigerian or African to become the pope” or call his name as the pope, we say the ‘first black pope’ and we allow ourselves to celebrate victory as defeat. That is not solidarity, we are only trying to personalize the celebration to make it seem like ‘a slave has become an heir’. Are we not the ones selling ourselves negatively without knowing? How many times have we seen the whites celebrate success as we do? We raise our children thinking true success is when they grow to have whites as maids, no!
If only we were blessed with good governance, a responsible and accountable administration and economy. If only we could sit down and expel corruption and standardize our educational system to compete internationally. Migration would not have seemed like the ‘greener-pasture-searchers’ that many of them see us to be. That is why we have all failed in one way or the other.
The chairman of First Bank Plc., who doubles as a motivational speaker, Ibukun Awosika on Oct 14th, 2019 in her speech to BPI France said, “…except the least of us is taken care of, the best of us cannot survive. We need each other. Take a child from every corner in the world, no matter their tribe, colour of their skins, their language or where they come from and put them in one room and you will find them as a team, playing and supporting each other, except you teach them otherwise. We need to go back to being ‘children of the world again’…together we can find the solutions of the world”.
Kofi Annan admonishes also that, “tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where people are becoming more and more closely interconnected”. In fact, until now, many people still do not believe in race. Toni Morrison once said, “there is no such thing as race, none. There is just one human race- scientifically and anthropologically”.
Scriptures too is against Racism. Matthew 7:12 reminds us of the Golden Rule, “do to other what you would want others to do to you”. We must learn to love and to listen to the words of these great minds showing us the way because they fought with their words and actions. Nelson Mandela speaking on this says, “no one is born hating another person because of the colour of their skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, then they can be taught to love, for love comes naturally to the human heart than its opposite”.
Finally, I leave you with the words of the Indian Legend, Mahatma Ghandi who gave a beautiful understanding of civilization, he says, “our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and test of our civilization”. My people, yesterday it was George Floyd, before him many of us could not breathe, after him your silence and inaction or racial actions may cut off the nostrils or poison the lungs of our children, the future blacks. The time to act is now!
I am proudly Black!
I am proudly African!
And I am proudly HUMAN!
Thanks and God bless!
Kindly Share.