The True Oppressor

It is easy to blame slavery for whatever ills Black people experience. Considering Abolition (in the United States) was over one hundred and forty years ago, no one is alive today who owned slaves or was a slave. The question is when do we stop blaming history and start looking in the mirror?

There is no slave master forcing black boys into “gangsta rap”, whipping them if they don’t wear their pants so low we can see their underwear. No slave master forces crack into their noses, ties them to corners or punishes them if they don’t get a tattoo. No slave master tears the father from his children and sells him “south”, or buys him as a “stud” to breed their mares.

These are choices black men make, despite opportunities to chose otherwise.
The word opportunities is not to be ignored.

There is no slave master forcing fourteen year old girls to engage in sex, to bring forth unwanted children and abandon or brutalize them. There is no slave master for them to trick or seduce or expect to be supported by.

These are choices black women make, despite opportunities to chose otherwise.
Again, the word opportunity is not to be ignored.

The leaders of black people in America have usually used slavery and its aftermath as a soapbox. Black leaders in America never admit that joining gangs, engaging in promiscuous sex, becoming drug addicts, are choices.

This is because black leaders in America benefit from moving the blame from the individual to white society. Black people in America can find comfort in the relegation of volition.

Where the hallmark of an adult is taking responsibility for actions, admitting fault, children blame the chair for tripping them, the teacher for failing them, and expect to be taken care of by adults. The preservation of juvenile traits in the adult Afro- American enables Afro-American leaders to climb on their backs to fame and fortune. Blacks who eschew the “black ghetto culture” are often berated by their “own people” as sell-outs, so their effect is limited.

The boy who goes to school, concentrates on his work, and gains a scholarship, not in sports but in academic pursuit, is not highlighted. The girl who remains a virgin into University or beyond, is boxed out of contention as being an aberration, and the fact she doesn’t have a boyfriend contraindicates the “A” she attained in physics.