The Bridge: Working Against Ourselves…

(Akiit.com) Racism is alive and well in America, but sadly, most of the work is being done by Blacks against other Blacks.

I’m not talking about so-called Black-on-Black crime either.

I’m talking about the unwitting work that many Blacks do which hurts the cause of us all.

For example, African Americans with comfortable backgrounds chastise poor Blacks for no other reason than they are poor, blaming them for their poverty.

In nearly every arena, Blacks are blaming other Blacks for everything that has and will happen to them.

It seems as though we really don’t like each other.

I recall when I first launched Rap Sheet in 1992. I caught pure hatred from a confused Black woman because I was passing out free copies of my magazine at an event sponsored by the competition, The Source. She was clearly angry and began yelling at me. This was only two minutes after her boss, the white owner, came over to congratulate me on my new venture.

It was sad indeed that one of my former employees began telling people that I didn’t really own the publication and that I was merely a front for the white man. Even sadder that he 0was my fraternity brother and was hired directly by me.

There is no “white conspiracy” to silence me, but I do get ignorant people demanding that I stop discussing our issues in public, because “the white man may be paying attention”. Still, other evil idiots disrespect me simply because they disagree with me.

We work against ourselves when we leave our communities to flee to theirs while they flee back to ours.

We work against ourselves when we believe that SOME of us getting over should make ALL us feel good, or when we go on television looking either foolish or dangerous or when some of our sisters act like they have arrived because they are smarter than their brothers, and that most Black men would never arrive, because we were simply too lazy to get there.

We work against ourselves when we start passing out lies that hurt us. For example, telling ourselves that we are the biggest perpetrators of violent crime and that we are bringing all of the drugs into the nation to sell in the inner city and that Affirmative Action was actually “hurting” us.

Carrying the most impact, we work against ourselves to convince some of us that there really is no racism at all.

There is certainly still racism in the nation, blocking the way of many African Americans who are striving to get up and make it happen. However, the evil and ugly ignorance we perpetuate amongst ourselves must be crushed.

We work against ourselves by promoting a hatred between the “Haves” and the “Have-nots.” Yes, some of us have, but many of those “Haves” are notorious for hating on the Have-nots.

Blacks are so entrenched in being Have-nots that even people from other nations can come into the country and before long, they are Haves above us. Just take a look at the Koreans who migrate to America and come right into the ghetto, where they set up shop and quickly have.

Now, the Haves of all races, including some of the Black Haves, chastise the Black denizens of the ghetto for not having and for allowing others to come in and capitalize off of their inability to create commerce. But they leave out the fact that Have-nots are often so far up to their ears in surviving that many of them also have not the skills or the FICO score to acquire those things necessary to become Haves.

Another fact is that Have-nots often have not the public services that Haves often take for granted when they move up. We can blame the poor kids or their poor parents for the condition of the schools, but our tax dollars are supposed to provide an equal education for the entire city. Why is it that the books in the ghetto schools are fewer and in bad shape? Why is it that the teachers are paid less and are either less experienced or less concerned? The few good teachers are the ones who stick in there, even when they hear liars talk about the kids as though the school system is run by them.

Any fool can take a drive through Anycity, USA and see the difference in the streets of the ghetto and the streets in the rest of the city, which is a direct result of lop-sided government spending.

When you begin to place blame at the feet of the impoverished, do not pretend that all things are equal, and do not pretend that there are not race-based decisions being made all the time.

We work against ourselves when we place blame at the feet of the impoverished, do not pretend that all things are equal, and do not pretend that there are not race-based decisions being made all the time.

I have a big, fat, wet slap for the face of the next self-hating ignoramus who talks about “boot strapping” his or her way out of the ghetto. It is nearly impossible to raise yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t have any damned boots.

We work against ourselves by walking around looking and acting like damned fools, bucking our eyes out for entertainment, calling each other Nigger and pointing fingers of blame from each side of the gender divide.

Racism has been The American Way for centuries, crushing entire groups of people, including Native Americans and Blacks, but over the past few decades, many of us have decided that the most powerless group of people has begun to oppress themselves.

In some ways, they are correct.

We have begun to oppress ourselves not by actually taking jobs away or preventing ourselves from progressing. And our self-oppression has not come from bringing drugs into our communities, arresting and jailing ourselves without merit or even from infecting our women with HIV.

Our self-oppression has come from taking the bait of self-blame and self-hatred, efficiently propagating the racism and racist programs laid down so many years ago.

The racist white man doesn’t have much work to do to get us. We’re doing a great job of getting us for him.

Written By Darryl James

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