POOR AND OPPRESSED?

Many People Of Color fight racism and discrimination for years but I think they have very little will to not fight the foundation of their oppression or to delve deeper into what they have and haven’t internalized. This may be obvious to many, but I’d like to give examples of what I mean.

I’ve taken two different “ordinary” news articles that we read each day in the newspapers or watch on television.

First:

Reuters:
Lot 403--Painting offered for song goes for bomb

By Jeremy Lovell Wed Jul 18, 1:22 PM ET
"It entered the auction as an 18th century painting by an unknown artist worth a few hundred pounds, but emerged as a suspected early work by Renaissance master Titian possibly worth several million."

Second:

LOCAL NEWS FOR NORTHWEST ARKANSAS
Overseas Anglican Conservatives Strengthen U.S. Presence

NEW YORK -- "More conservative Anglican leaders from overseas are building up a presence in the United States to counter the liberal-leaning U.S. Episcopal Church on its home turf.

The Anglican Church of Uganda plans to appoint a former Episcopal priest as an assistant bishop to oversee its American congregations. The Rev. John Guernsey of Virginia will be consecrated Sept. 2 in Uganda, according to the Most. Rev. Henry Orombi, head of the Ugandan province. The date of his installation in the United States has not been released.

Separately, the Most Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi of the Anglican Church of Kenya plans an Aug. 30 consecration of Canon Bill Atwood to oversee breakaway U.S. parishes that have affiliated with the Kenyan church."


In my mind these two examples typify how People Of Color are inundated with racism and its progenitor, world wide white supremacy. From a black perspective, I’d ask myself questions when I read “news” article like these. As to the first article I’d ask, how many non European paintings are hailed as “masters?” Second, I’d ask, why such a high price when “beauty (art) is in the eye of the beholder” and these paintings don’t appeal to the ENTIRE world? And third, what gives Europeans the right to determine what is and is not a “master” work of art?

As to the second article, I’d ask, why do Africans need an “Anglican” god to propagate and what’s wrong with their ancestor’s gods? When they refer to “overseas” in the context of an English church, why do they point to Africa? What is the Anglican church doing in Uganda and why do the Ugandans accept an English church which is one from their “former” colonizers?

These examples have deep implications for People Of Color and especially People of African descent. In the larger context, they go to the heart of white world rule of non white people. When these types of notions are taken for granted and not challenged, it’s akin to non whites conceding their psychological independence to Europeans without a single shot being fired. Its Carter G. Woodson speaking from the grave, “The thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies and when you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”

I suppose these are also examples of why I speak so harshly of Black people. I am hurt and disappointed that they won’t even try to not think in the terms their oppressors give them. I’m not asking that they quit their jobs, kill whitey, or pick up a gun; I’m wondering why they won’t think ancestral African first. Why do they insist on embracing, like the Ugandans, a foreign god? Why don’t they openly challenge the notion that European art, or Education for that matter, (look at how many of us send our children to Euro dominated schools and Universities) is the “master” form to be emulated?

I suppose I’m writing this because I care and because if we don’t embrace ourselves, we are doomed as a People and as a culture; while never relieving the white man of his burden and staying mentally poor and oppressed.