Tags
Africa, Africa America, Africa continent, Africanism, Africans, America, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Black historical achievements, black history, black history month, black music, Black people, black science, Christopher Caldwell, Civilisation, Coffee, Defend the modern world, Facebook, Immigration, Multiculturalism, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rihanna Muslim, Sub-Saharan Africa, Twitter, twitter facebook, United States
I’ve just finished reading a lengthy article on the ethno-nationalist website American Renaissance (Jared Taylor’s organisation) entitled ‘What I don’t like about Blacks’. It was written by a Black intellectual named Zora Wheatley and is presented as a polite and self-deprecating rebuke to Jared Taylor’s (uncharacteristically diplomatic) essay the prior month – “What I like about Black People”.
Here are three defining paragraphs from Wheatley’s article:
“The discontent you feel with yourself and blackness as a whole can be crushing. You discover that aside from the tall African tales of Alex Haley, Underground Railroad figures, and peanut proprietors, there’s not much there (in terms of Black historical achievements). And on top of that, these historical footnotes arise from a new world that is leaps and bounds beyond the stone-age existence in which your ancestors were found. As (Black academic James) Baldwin put it, ‘It is quite possible to say that the price a Negro pays for becoming articulate is to find himself, at length, with nothing to be articulate about.’….
“Mr. Taylor finds the way blacks speak English entertaining, and I would agree in part, though most modern black English is so dumb and vulgar that I wouldn’t be surprised if clicks and grunts will be making a comeback….
“One of the things that I don’t like about blacks (is) their tendency to lay claim to the building and resulting greatness of the West. Picking cotton, tilling soil, and whipping up sweet potato pies were helpful and important in their own way, but were nothing like the establishment of private property rights or the implementation of Enlightenment-era ideals in the New World, which guided the nation for generations. It would be akin to a Native American claiming that, because his ancestors shared corn and turkey with early European settlers one fine November day, they are as important as the descendants of those white settlers who would fight the British and build the America in which we live today.”
Though I admire greatly the intellectual detachment and personal bravery it must have taken to say these things about her own ethnic group, I must disagree with Ms Wheatley’s argument entirely.
It is sadly accurate that most Black contributions to history were enabled by contact with Europeans (and their technology), and that before this, Black history was a long and largely blank expanse of time. But since that great encounter with Europe, and the subsequent incorporation of Black people into European culture, Black accomplishments have been multitudinous and often dazzling.
Perhaps the reason racists feel comfortable in denying these achievements is because they are not various and widespread but concentrated in a few particular areas, compact and neat enough to kick under the nearest cupboard and pretend not to have seen them. One can then focus on the map of absences – the absence of a Black Darwin, Brunel, Newton or Shakespeare etc…
But this is incredibly unfair and intellectually dishonest. Every racial group and culture has a speciality – something they do better than anything else. Austrians are better at composing music than they are at writing. English people are better at writing than they are at painting etc… A speciality should never be considered a limitation.
And what are the Black specialities? Well, the obvious starting point is music. Since the abolition of slavery, there has appeared no musical discipline that cannot be traced back to Black innovation. Rock n’ Roll, Jazz, Soul, Blues, Southern Folk, Disco, Hip-Hop, Swing – all of these are Black inventions, and very influential ones at that. They have changed our tastes, fashions and social norms, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. They have all been cheerily received by other races, understood and celebrated by all the varieties of mankind.
In the connected field of entertainment, Black people have also proven sublimely capable. Through their extroversion and wit, African-Americans have conquered the fields of comedy, film and presentation. Every facet of modern Western humour is informed by Black sensibilities. Their urban parlance has penetrated deeply into our vocabulary and can never be excised from it.
And in Sport, Black athleticism inspires the mind and spirit, dazzling, humiliating and surpassing our view of human capability. Through their determination, Blacks have even conquered sporting disciplines for which they have no natural advantage, like golf and tennis. And whatever sports the future may withhold, Black people will surely eventually dominate these too.
I write this in part to clarify my earlier posts about Black demography. We in Europe reserve the right to maintain a cultural balance favourable to our traditions, but this does not (or need not) imply a dislike of Africans themselves. Despite the contemporary plagues of violence and anti-aspirational politics afflicting the Black community, the fact remains that over the last two centuries, this great and gifted race has scaled the peaks of the Western world. Let that never be forgotten.
D, LDN.
Defend the Modern World 
As I write under a assume name, I will answer much more plainly than I would ever dare under my own name.
I must agreed. The case of black people is a mix blessings for us of European heritage. Blacks has enriched us, but also been a burden. And while we must take ownership of our part of slavery and colonialism, far too many blacks refuse to take ownership of what is their own problems. As a American, I especially say this. Despite having been a slave society, America ended slavery by large. Despite allowing a ‘Jim Crow’ society to arise after the Civil War, America (and especially a white America) truly changed to supporting a equal society. Despite all this, far too many blacks refuse to accept they have duties of themselves to do the right thing. Things such as education, employment, but most especially understanding that a place was made for them at the table that didn’t mean they got all the table.
However, yes – we in the West are rich because we are many. This marks us as different from most other societies, and it is a strength. The question of whether any of us represent that wonderful tradition of the West is in whether we add (ourselves) to what defines us as valuable players. Like any other group, blacks have great individuals as well as bad. We all do.
The one thing I would say further, and as someone living within a easy drive of St. Louis and the mess there, is that I am done with listening to the sad stories of why some blacks select to hate the West, and indeed hate white people. This condition of blame for the problems of the black community is not now from white people or Western culture. It lies at the doorsteps of black people. I can say this. My family history has in its history here in America the roots of slave ownership that led first to ending it among ourselves, then working to help run away slaves, and finally to fighting (and dying) to end slavery. Frankly, black people of today have no excuse for themselves when we see blacks rioting and looting. And certainly none for claiming the West is against them. It was the West that found within themselves the means to learn that slavery was wrong. That wasn’t the case with traditional tribal Africa, and certainly not Islam. It was the West, and the strengths it has that allows blacks to make their own lives as equals. Them, like us, are free to do just this. We must also accept that our mistakes are indeed ours. Frankly, it is time for the real leaders of the black community (the real ones) to speak a little truth to the rioters – and the looters…
(Good article; you got a little out of me.) :>
LikeLike
Yes, the grievance industry in Black society is most unfortunate. A lot of the blame for it lies with the White Left. Liberals use Black people as a stick to bash the White majority. It’s sickening when you think about it. Way back when America was still uniformly conservative, the Blacks were themselves conservative and relatively prosperous.
LikeLike
Quite so. This is hardly the place for a full discussion of this, but being what I come from I watch the black community being used. Now for some two and three generations by the leftist, and it is the the black community that suffers. I have going further with study of my family tree and the years in North Carolina before the Civil War. Quakers all of them, and quite a few of my close relations were major players in trying in slavery. They were concerned for the well-being of blacks. It was not all like the story these days.
It was one of the conditions that removed me from being around the Left. I knew the difference. What is happening today is something very difference, and does nothing to build up black people. This modern movement has done more to hurt the blacks than can ever to said. You are a ‘racist’ if you try.
LikeLike
We should support the Blacks who run away from the ‘Liberal Plantation’ (as it has been called) – people like Dr Ben Carson. He’s exactly the kind of role model young Black people need.
LikeLike
Continuing to blame White people for slavery is completely unfair. Do the Jews demand special treatment from the Germans?
LikeLike
I agree with you – the Left and the “Grievance Industry” have a handy stick to beat down anyone who would challenge the status quo, such as it is, between black Americans and others (Whites, Asians, Latin American, etc). The fact is, it’s not a Black and White issue. It’s almost exclusively a Black issue. If you insist on being “African” American with a big hefty hyphen to separate you from the rest of society, then you shall reap the results. And now that other races and nationalities have jumped on the bandwagon, divisions grow wider and accusations louder and the “us vs. them” narrative gets ever more distorted. We in the U.S. are mostly American citizens. Period. Out of many: one. This is a given. The hyphenated identity political bullshit started with the Left during the1960s and has only transformed into a nine headed hydra that won’t go away. Direct from the Saul Alinsky playbook. It’s standard now to be a hyphenated American, whatever your racial identity and I find it completely ridiculous. A vast majority of American blacks have European and Native American DNA in their blood. The loudest proponents of “justice” for the people of color are almost all guilt ridden, self hating whites on the left who see retribution as a simple solution to all racial issues. Skin color über alles, or else. Therefore, the “people of color” are always innocent and always “of color” and downtrodden by the false narrative of being the eternal victim. The ability for the individual to succeed within the cartoon stereotype is limited and thus we have a huge problem with the racism of lowered expectations, fomented and proffered exclusively by the Left and their mouthpieces in the media. I agree, it is sickening when you consider it. It’s also self defeating. This racial club used to beat down mostly white critics, operates outside of any protocol. What the clubbers fail to realize that they are not helping anyone “of color” or otherwise. It’s a short term feel good solution founded on a myth and a lie and is repeated so often that it is now an accepted truth. And it does a great disservice to the many, many black Americans who are achievers and participants in the great social experiment that is Western Culture.
LikeLike
I’ve never liked the phrase ‘people of colour’. It sounds like another way of saying ‘people of beauty’ or depth. What are White or light-skinned people? People of nothingness?
LikeLike