Birmingham riots - Sparked by a mistrust of our own people?
// 04/11/2005 // Guest Contributor //

The events that happened in Birmingham are unfortunately of our own
black peoples' making. This may sound inflammatory, but I will explain
what I mean by our own making.

Our lives today have been forged through history. In previous
centuries missionaries were sent to Africa - specifically to the west
coast - being colonized by the British at the time, and where most of
our decendants hailed from originally. To quote from George Bernard
Shaw in his play "The Man of Destiny" :

"The natives killed the missionary: he flies to arms in defence of
Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as
a reward from heave. in defence of his island shores, he puts a
chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his
top;gallant mast; and sails to the ends ofthe earth, sinking, burning,
and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him."

What George Bernard Shaw was referring to, was both colonization and
also the merchantile law of the time. The former speaks for itself,
our foreparents were systematically bullied into believing that
through the form of christianity that was handed to them by the
missionaries i.e. that they would be good christians if they worked
for next to nothing, and humbled themselves as if this piety made them
'good people' in the eyes of God.

This form of christianity (I deliberately spell this with a small 'c'
here) was created by Henry the 8th with the Reformation - dissolving
of the monasteries - a state church system.

How does this history relate to what has sadly happened in Birmingham?
Well, black people have been placed in a position through the church
laws of this country.

And, the beliefs (in good faith) of our parents and foreparents before
them, to not want, because of being led to believe that they are
second class citizens of this world - and therefore to be given
charity, and not to trust themselves, but to trust the people who for
hundreds of years have been telling them who they are.

Now, the Asian people have a different set of rules (although they
were colonized) they were not put into slavery and sold. Africans were
enslaved by the British to work in the 13 states of America that they
- the British - owned and ran as slave colonies, and then 1783 when
the War of Independance ended - and the Americans kicked the British
out - they took the same slaves to Jamaica, where they created the one
and only slave trading port in the western hemisphere.

Asian people on the other hand, are more psychologically independent
chiefly because, they have their own religions and, they are not being
looked down on by anyone, because they are true to their original
culture. The Asian people feel that they are over black people, and
black people respond to them as if they are lesser.

Black people are starved of true knowledge of themselves and their
historical achievements. The education system here facilitates this
problem. The mistrust that Black people have for themselves make it so
that unless a white person tells them, for instance, that a Black
American - Mr. Lewis Howard Latimer - created the filament for the
light bulb to work, they either think it is of no value, or don't
believe it! It only becomes real, when a white person tells them.

There are numerous Black writers, some who have won Pulitzer prizes;
hundreds of Black inventions; medical advances; scientific advances,
in fact, it just goes to show that humans of different ethnicities are
capable of the same things.

The idea is that our parents have to learn to trust themselves and
grow up out of the ideas they've been sold. The Asian people who cross
this line, wouldn't dare to attack a middle class white community in
this way, because they, in their poverty, would show respect to the
fact these people are not without. It seems some Asian people have a
perception that Black people are poor and lacking, and they learned
this from the media.

It is now time for Black parents to educate themselves, and to take
pride in the achievements of Black people, as equals in this world.

Black people should visit libraries - they don't around where I live -
and read books by Black and White American authors - why? Because, the
British authors do not include Black characters in their literature,
only patronizing, colonialized, voiceless ciphers.

For example, in the 1890's James Finnimore Cooper - white American -
wrote "The Last of The Mohicans" in that book he had a half Indian
scout, a freed slave, and a slave, travelling throughout the story;
(they took it out of the film - made a nonsense of it - but it's in
the book).

Another author, William Faulkner - white American - talks in his
writings about ridicule and how it was used as a tool, to control
Black people in the post-slavery world of America, turning Black
people loyal to the White social laws of society at the time, against
other Black people who had high ambitions for themselves. (The fact he
was even exploring this in it's awful truth in the 1920's is a measure
of how repressed this society actually is).

The information is out there - there are internet pages under 'Black
Inventors' 'Black authors', etc . It's time for people to take stock
and to wake up from the 600 years of sleepwalking.

Not trusting ones self is a sign of a lack of self-respect. We are all
responsible.


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