0 Abibisika (Black Gold) Points

Rank: Unranked Obibini

Originally written December 8, 2020

I’ll never forget that about 13 or so years ago, I ran a little experiment online where I posed a scenario to Black Folk and asked them what they would’ve done. It went like this…

If aliens attacked earth right now and were destroying nations/ governments, but they were only targeting white people, and were leaving Black People completely alone, what would you do?

A. Stay out of it altogether.
B. Help to save white people from the aliens
C. Help the aliens

Nearly everyone chose B. One, MAYBE two… MAYBE… chose a different option.

Then, I revised it and did it again. I said, maybe ya’ll don’t understand because oppression is much more sophisticated nowadays. So, same scenario, but the time period was changed. So, this time the aliens attack IN THE MIDDLE OF CHATTEL SLAVERY!!!

What was the result?

The same.

They’d help to save white people, admittedly while knowing that if they were successful, it would mean a return to a life of slavery. Their explanation? Basically, better the devil you know than the one you don’t. They preferred the certainty of the brand of oppression they were familiar with to the uncertainty of the unknown.

They somehow managed to transform chattel slavery into a “lesser evil” scenario.

I asked in order to get an assessment of sorts of where we were at now, psychologically. It was based on the fact that there were times when we were presented with opportunities during slavery to go to war against the whites and the prevailing pattern throughout the diaspora is that more times than not, we took it.

It was one of the ways in which I saw how disconnected we had become from our ancestors and ancestresses and, therefore, ourselves. But it isn’t the only way I’ve seen that we turn chattel slavery into a lesser evil scenario. For years, I’ve seen us express all sorts of ideas about the “benefits” of slavery. I’ve literally seen our folks start conversations asking for us to list the good things that we got out of slavery and people would respond with all sorts of examples.

Probably most of all was christianity. Some literally said thank god for slavery because at least we got christianity.

Some said that slavery made us tough. jesse lee peterson said something similar when he spoke of slavery giving us a strong work ethic.

Most uttered some variation of thanks for slavery because it got us over here where things are better financially than over in Africa where we’d be starving with flies swarming all around us and what not. Soulja boy also said something similar when he famously stated: “shout out to the slave masters! Without them, we’d still be in Africa. We wouldn’t be here to get this ice and tattoos.”

You see it, don’t you?

The disconnect from their own?

Ancestors and Ancestresses be damned for just about anything under the sun. Jewelry, tattoos, money(material items in general), jesus etc.,

But also something even worse.

A connection/ bond forged throughout time and space.

They would save the white people who were oppressing their ancestors and ancestresses, if they could.

When I present experiences such as these, most Black People will respond by separating themselves from these kinds of Black People as though they are an aberration among us. A departure from how most of us think and feel.

But are they?

Nearly everyday, even among our intellectuals, I see how we cordon off our own people in our approach to issues because framing the narrative from our historical and cultural perspective is viewed as inconvenient, unreasonable, infeasible, unrealistic… EXTREME…

And we partake in this exercise with other races of people who absolutely ground themselves in their people’s historical perspective, which is often antithetical to our own. Well before I ever set my sights on this cultural obsession among Black People of choosing the “lesser evil”, I would often speak of a phenomenon I witnessed so often that I began calling it the culture of expedience over principle, which I concluded was killing us slowly. I’ve come to realize that the two are actually one and the same.

Consistently, stubbornly, wittingly and doggedly making the wrong decisions due to some weak premise of a “greater cause” that they didn’t conceive of themselves, that never comes to fruition and for which, no one can ever be held accountable. Choose evil and then hold its feet to the pedicure. Rinse and repeat

And all of it involves a whole lot of pretending.

The issue of the police…

Look at what the argument is about. That the word “defund” won’t SELL. It won’t catch on. It’s too extreme. It’s horrible wording/ phrasing. It won’t become popular. It’ll scare people off from supporting what are actually good ideas behind it. And why? Let’s be honest. Because of media propaganda that promotes the police as some bastion of “law and order” regardless of all of the crimes they’ve committed.

So, instead people want to use a nicer and friendlier term for the slogan. Something that more so insinuates that this is about HELPING the police because they are so OVERBURDENED with issues for which they are ill equipped to handle.

Now, of course, this can’t be done when you present the issue on the basis of the historical and current relationship between the police and Black People. When you present it that way, the issue will then be rooted in one of accountability. And police actually being held accountable for their criminal behavior is EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR with the establishment and with a significant amount of the general population as well.

It’s not… expedient.

But it IS principled and so it can’t actually be debunked.

Only ignored. Boxed up or cordoned off like those ancestors and ancestresses of ours.

That way, the “right terminology” can be used so that the slogan/ movement can become popular, which of course then means that elected officials will have no choice, but to be dutifully compelled to… ABSOLUTELY IGNORE IT!!!

Box it up.

Cordon it off.

Because that’s the pattern, you know? There are other ideas that are MASSIVELY POPULAR that the elected officials regularly ignore, or at best distort regardless of the WONDERFUL AND DELIGHTFUL AND FLOWERY, CANDY-COATED descriptors because, at the end of the day, those elected officials are CRIMINALS and you refuse to make the slogans/ movements about THAT FACT!

And this in face of the fact that accountability of the leaders is a cornerstone of the concept of democracy.

The same group of Black People in the beginning of this post, when many years later, I presented the time travel to prevent chattel slavery scenario, decried it as undesirable because all of their loved ones would never have existed, including themselves.

Also, whenever presented with a scenario where they are offered everything they previously threw their ancestors and ancestresses under the bus for, with the condition that they must allow for all of their loved ones in their homes right now to be raped, tortured, enslaved and murdered, they rejected it.

Right now is all that matters for us.

To hell with our family from yesterday.

To hell with our family in the tomorrow.

Best wishes to white people for all times.

And in every scenario, they swear they’re doing what’s best. There’s no consistency to any of it, except that it’s absolutely insane!