The Miseducation of the African-American

Americans believe the slogans they are fed. It is not just; “Iraq has weapons of Mass Destruction,” it is; “America is the freest nation in the world!” or that “Blacks are oppressed everywhere!”

As has been said; “It’s not what you don’t know,  it’s what you know that isn’t so.”

The freedoms enjoyed in America are a fraction of those exercised by those in Scandinavian countries. This is only unknown in America. Nations in which the African citizens have never known oppression by Europeans are ignored.

When a person who has experienced more than one environment speaks, it is remarkable that those who have never been one hundred miles from the spot they were born, expresses an opinion.  It is, to be crude, like buying tinned beans your mother bought and never daring to try another brand because your mother told you this one was the best.

Over forty years ago, the American comedian and actor, Bill Cosby, landed in Africa and was amazed to see all the Black people in authority. Would he have been amazed if he had landed in China and seen all the Chinese people in charge?

Malcolm X went on a haj and was amazed that people from other parts of the world were not prejudiced against him, seeing only another Muslim on a haj.

Did he think Islam was only practiced by Blacks?

Reflecting on these reactions one might find a bit of humour, but they are indications of the insulation which prevents Black Americans from grasping the simple truth; America is not the only place in the world.

American ‘culture’ is of limited vintage. American Blacks, overdosing on propaganda rarely identify with Africa. Most have no intention of going there, and know virtually nothing about the continent. How many Black Americans imagine going to Africa under some volunteer program? One is stunned by how many white people participate in these organisations contra blacks.

One assumed the situation in Darfur would have had the Black American community marching in the streets. One might assume that the situation in Zimbabwe would be front page news in African American circles.
It isn’t.
Most African-American ‘philosophers’ concentrate on slavery. The entire understanding of African history, of the role of Africans in the world, is reduced to slavery.

Yet, the slavery of which they speak, began in America 1609 and was of a very limited vintage.

Firstly the arrivants in 1609 were treated as Indentured Servants, not enslaved for life, and released after seven years.  Further, it took over a hundred years for the rise of labour intensive crops to make slavery feasible.

In the United States, the institution was abolished in 1864. Half of America’s blacks were already ‘free’, so it was only a specific area of the South where slavery was practiced that gained their emancipation in 1864.

Africans were not the only slaves. Irish indentured servants were virtually slaves.  Many American Indian tribes practiced slavery, and many Amer-Indians were enslaved.  The Chinese were treated as slaves.