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WHITE MASTERS, BLACK SLAVES
By Chika Onyeani Snippett: "The grocery store owner in Harlem, New York who sells tainted milk and expired food; the Chinese restaurant owner on Georgia Avenue in Washington, DC who sells rat and roach infested food; the Indian taxi driver in New York who refuses to stop to take us where we are going; the Caucasian restaurant owner who sits us at the back of the restaurant so that we would not "diminish" his standing with his guests; the Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue's and Macy's security men who follow us all over the store, have every right to do so because we deserve to be treated contemptuously. An intelligent group would employ the best resources available to stop such insults; they would employ the power of money to stop the disrespect. All over the world, money talks." Blacks have conditioned themselves to the status of economic slaves and illiterates. We lack understanding of economic history or business techniques. We are like magnets attracted to our oppressors. The more we are oppressed, the more we gravitate to that individiaul(s), group(s) doing the oppressing. We play the victim game, always the victim and never the oppressor. From the time the Caucasian came to Africa in the 1600s till now, we are always the group to offer hospitality to our conquerors. And even at this late hour, we seem to lack the intelligence necessary to examine the ramifications of our actions since then. We are rooted to our basic victim instinct: accept the opporessor in your midst, make him extremely comfortable, give him all your respect and all your possessions, create an aura of invincibility around him, accept his mistreatments, disrespects, looting of your possessions, disrespect of your women, but then turn around to complain about his unfairness. Today in Africa, if you are Caucasian, you are God's incarnate. In Africa, if you are European or Asian, you are accorded the respect and worship reserved for God. Being seen in the company of a Caucasian person accords you instant respectability and credibility. It accords you intelligence. If you want to be successful, bring in a Caucasian partner. If you had been having difficulty securing a contract, send in your new partner and then you will have easy ride. The highest powers, whose secretaries would not even accept your calls, would be happy to meet with your partner. He would be invited to functions you would not dream of being invited to, and you may have to tag along with him if you wanted to be accorded and associated with respectability and credibility. Even the amount of bribe demanded from you will decrease at least by 20% because you are now considered trustworthy. Today's white master, Black slave mentality started when the Caucasian came to Africa with a Bible and a gun; and the Arabs came with the Quoran. We had our own beliefs in the Supreme Being, the creator of all things. In everything we did, we called upon the Supreme Being to bless us and the event that was to take place. But when the Caucasian came, we were easily convinced that our God was not the right god; we were heathens, we were told. We were unbelievers. Our names were not good enough. Today, if you want to be a Christian, you have to answer to an English name. You have to be a John, Paul, Peter, Michael, Charles, Anthony or any of the other stupid names you have to answer before becoming a Christian. In all my years, I have never seen a Caucasian answer to an African name. In fact, I knew a Caucasian pastor in my area for over 30 years; he spoke our language perfectly well, had two children, but never thought it good enough to name them after any of our perfectly godly names: Chika (God is the highest), Chukwu (God), Chineke (God the Creator), Chinyere (Given by God), Chinenye (God gives), Chukwuemeka (God has done his best). He never thought it was good enough to give his children African names. Even our own King had to change his name to John so that he could be baptized. If you want your children to be successful, you have to send them to the British schools if you were from the former British colonies; to France, if you are from the former French colonies. The highest honor is accorded to them if they could speak the language with British or French accent. It would even accord them higher dignity if they let everyone know that they had forgotten how to speak their native tongue. African culture is faced with extinction. A case in point is the book I am writing, using English rather my own language, Igbo. Africa will be the first continent to totally lose its cultural affiliations within the next 50 years or less. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Indian, the Pakistani, the Arabs (with their conquered Black Africans) will all continue to maintain their culture through their language, spoken and written. As a victim of my own irrational ignorance and stupidity, I have two children who have no knowledge of my culture or my language. I accepted the irrational thought that my culture was primitive, which I have come to regret. A people without a language or culture is doomed to utter extinction. The master slave relationship is demonstrated everyday in how we conduct our business. It is reflected in how we spend our hard earned money. It is reflected in how we make our purchasing decisions. The more the oppressor hates us, the more we want to do business with him. My own wife has complained that every time she goes to super elegant stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's or Bloomingdale's, there always seems to be a security guard shadowing her moves, because in their minds, Blacks are thieves. The question is should you continue to do business with a business which treats you with suspicision, with disrespect, with utter contempt. You cannot complain if it happens more than twice you still go there day in, day out. Of course, the rational is that there is no establishment of equal stature of Macy's , Saks or Blomingdale's owned by Blacks. Of course, several cases have been reported where well-dressed and highly educated Blacks have been arrested by security guards outside of the establishment after they had paid for their goods. Black children are constantly being harassed by security men for no other reason than they want to buy products from that establishment. In fact, a friend of mine narrated how she went into an shoe establishment in New Jersey's Newark with her nephew. The people who attended to her were all Blacks, but the owner was white. Her nephew found the pair of shoes he wanted. He tried one foot on and it fitted perfectly. He asked to try the other pair, but the girls who attended to him refused with the comment, "You Black people are always stealing. I can't give you the other pair. When you pay for the shoes, I give you the other pair." Here was a store where you have to try the pair of shoes to make sure that when you go home, it doesn't hurt you. And this young man was ready to shell out $125 to buy that pair of shoes even with the contempt that these Blacks, speaking on behalf of their master, had shown him. Of course, needless to say that the lady who accompanied him could not tolerate such an indignity and dragged the young man out of that shoe store and vowed never to return. When I asked her what happened later, she felt defeated because her nephew had returned to that store and purchased the shoes on his own, disprect, contempt and the accusation of being a member of a stealing race notwithstanding. The treatment of Blacks by new immigrants in their business establishments leaves you utterly flabbergasted. How can people look themselves in the mirror in the morning and smile? Let's look at the makeup of the economy and businesses in Black communities. From Los Angeles to New York, from Houston to Boston, 90 percent of businesses in Black communities are owned and operated by outsiders. The Black community is the community which depends on others to satisfy its needs. The Black community depends on others to feed it; it depends on others to provide it with its clothing and shoes; it depends on others to provide it with dwelling; it depends on others to repair its roads; it depends on others to clean its streets; it depends on others to provide it with mortgages for its homes; it depends on others for its banking needs; it depends on others to provide it with its repairmen; it depends on others to provide it with carpenters, electricians, and even the so-called Black communities depend on others to be their gardeners. In every Chinatown I have been to, the Chinese control the economy and business within their communities. In Chinatown in New York from the store that sells fish, to the diamond jeweler, from the banks that operate in the area to the insurance companies; from the construction workers repairing and reconstructing buildings; from the electrician to the exporter on Canal Street; from the store that sells electronics to the stores that sell hand tools, the owners are all Chinese. The buildings where they do businesses belong to the Chinese. In the communities where East Indians live, they control every aspect of the economy and business in the area. Every store where they buy their foods is owned by Indians; every store where they buy their clothing is owned by an Indian; every diamond store is owned by an Indian. They have their own electricians, their own construction workers. All aspects of business are integrated in Indian communities. But contrast this with Black communities. In fact, the other day in Washington, DC., I was totally struck with similarities in most Black communities. I was astonished to find on Georgia Avenue its similarity with 125th Street in New York City and most of the Streets in Harlem. Every block in Georgia Avenue has at least one, or even two, Chinese Take-Out diners. It is not that these Take-Out eateries are there, but what strikes you most is the filth that surrounds these establishments, and you wonder how anyone with pride in themselves could go in there to eat and at the same be treated with disrespect and insult. If you have no pride in yourself, of course people will proceed with the assumption that you don't respect yourself - so how could they respect you and not treat you with contempt? Most of these eatery establishments are nothing but rat and roach infested establishments. Even before you go in you see all the filth surrounding the area, but nobody dares challenge the owners to keep the place clearn. Of course, if you don't desire a healthy eating establishment, you get what you desire: rat and roach infested food which could carry all kinds of infectious diseases. Then when you step into the "restaurant", the first thing that strikes you is the uncleanliness of the floor. Many times, the floor has not been cleaned for days and droppings of mouse and roach are all over the place. Then to add insult to injury, at the counter, a walled cage has been erected to keep out the undesirables. When you want to order, the menu is passed to you through a small opening on the counter. When your food arrives, it is sent to you through a revolving container after you have paid your bill. Of course, while you are waiting for your food, you are in this establishment which invariably has no air conditioning in the summer or heating in the winter. If you are lucky a small rotating fan at the ceiling provides you with more heat or a small heating fan blows cold air. A lot of times, I wonder at the lack of demand for respect. It has been said in baseball parlance, that three strikes you are out. In the Black community it is three strikes you are in. The more you insult us, the more we love to patronize your business. The basic point is that we lack the intelligence to understand that we are in a position to stop the insult to ourselves and to our communities. The Chinese would not have so many eating establishments throughout the Black communities if it was not profitable to them. This proliferation of Chinese eating establishments in the Black communities is central to the argument of laziness within the Black community. It goes to the question of always looking for others to take care of us. And others obviously don't think much of the Black community. They know there is an ease of entry into the black community, where nobody can challenge them. After all, they know there is no black establishment to cater to the needs of the people. Then there are the grocery stores where we purchase our foodstuff for cooking or sandwiches. Here again, the stores are hardly owned by Blacks. In fact, I can say with certainty that 95% of these stores are not owned by Blacks. These establishments, just like the Chinese dining establishments, are rat and roach invested. Foods are exposed and in a lot of cases, the expired date under which the food could be sold has already passed. Everything in that store is at least 25 to 40% higher than in a similar store in a Caucasian neighborhood. It is incongruous for me to think that I belong to a race of people who are nothing but blood suckers for other peoples' efforts. We drive the best cars - BMWs, Mercedes-Benzs, Jaguars, Lexus; we wear the nicest and most exclusive and costly clothes; we wear brand names; we spend a lot of money on shoes. We buy our nascent children brand name products, shoes, clothes, you name it we buy it. Yet, people cannot get together enough money to buy one grocery store, stuck it with fresh goods, sell at a cost which should return ample profits to you without gouging the community; and at the same time show respect and service to your customers. To a great number of my people, everything is due to racism. The fact that we cannot own anything in our own community is because of racism due to the banks not making loans available to us. We forget that many new immigrants come here without a dollar. It is just the idea of freedom that challenges them to reach the highest level of achievement they can. They pool their meager resources together. They deny themselves the good life now so that they can become successful later. The come here, get menial jobs that hardly pay much. They stay together, sometimes more than ten in one bedroom housing. They save their money. They cook for themselves rather than going to eat at Chinese restaurants. After they have saved enough money, they buy a business for one of their own. He in turn provides jobs for the new arrivals. Before long, they pool all their resources togeher to buy the building they have been living in. It becomes theirs, and in this case more than 30 people can live in that building, all contributing to its upkeep and before long they buy another business and more buildings. But, we as a people are not prepared to deny ourselves the satisfaction of here now. We must have it now. We teach our children the satisfaction of here now, not tomorrow. We buy three year olds brand name shoes, clothes and every other gadget at costs that would be enough to pay for their college education by the time they reach eighteen. Meanwhile, the people who just arrived yesterday have become our masters. Every group becomes our masters. We go to the grocery store that they just opened. When they feel contempt for us, why should we grumble? They see us driving the best cars, wearing the best clothes, and buying the most expensive electronic entertainment systems. We see all the opportunity available to us to propel us to success and achievement through the educational system, yet we blame the school system for failing our children, and not the children for failing the school system. Yes, they have every right to feel contemptuous to a people like that. I consider myself one of those Africans who have used the system of racism to justify failures. I make excuses why the newspaper which I publish has not reached the level of success that other newspapers started at the same time by my Caucasian counterparts have achieved. I blame the mainstream media for excluding me from getting the ads that they get. I blame my African-American colleagues for discriminating against me. I blame my own people for their stupidity by not picking up the newspaper to learn what is going on in their motherland. The white master, Black slave mentality will continue to exist within the Black community because of our victim mentality. We believe if we continue to cry racism and oppression, the oppressors will change, feel empathy for us and give us what we want. But that is not the reality of the world in which we live. It is a jungle out there. It is the survival of the fittest. Those who dare to rise above mediocrity and beyond the use of racism as an excuse for their failures are those who will survive in this world. No group can survive when all their needs are met by others. At a point, they will feel burdened to continue to provide for us and cut off the sources of our pleasures. The grocery store owner in Harlem, New York who sells tainted milk and expired food; the Chinese restaurant owner on Georgia Avenue in Washington, DC who sells rat and roach infested food; the Indian taxi driver in New York who refuses to stop to take us where we are going; the Caucasian restaurant owner who sits us at the back of the restaurant so that we would not "diminish" his standing with his guests; the Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue's and Macy's security men who follow us all over the store, have every right to do so because we deserve to be treated contemptuously. An intelligent group would employ the best resources available to stop such insults; they would employ the power of money to stop the disrespect. All over the world, money talks. Yes, money talks all over the world. I remember in 1996, after Mr. Tony Blair became the Prime Minister of Britain, one of his first acts was to ban Nigeria Airways from flying into London. The ban took effect in February, 1996. Nigeria waited until May of that year to retaliate and ban British Airways from flying into Lagos, Nigeria. Mind you, Nigeria is one of British Airways' most lucrative routes. It is the same syndrome of following the oppressor who treats us the worst. By the end of the year, British Airways had started feeling the pinch of losing this most lucrative route. It began to urge its government to lift the ban on Nigeria Airways. It campaigned hard to convince the Labor government that it was not in the best interest of Britain to lose the route to airlines such as KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Sabena Belgian World Airways, Air France or Alitalia of Italy. In August of 1997, Britain lifted the ban on Nigeria Airways so that British Airways could resume flights to Nigeia. However, Nigeria refused to lift the ban on British Airways. The other airlines had started to feel the impact on their profits from the ban imposed by Nigeria on British Airways. They conspired, according to British Airways officials, to keep British Airways from coming back into the Nigerian market. British Airways continued to plead to the Nigerian government to be allowed to resume their flights to Nigeria, but their pleas fell on deaf ears until a new government came into power in June 1998 and lifted the ban on British Aiways. Now, British Airways has nine flights a week to Nigeria. People understand greed. People understand the value of money. Companies understand that they cannot afford to lose a large number of their clientele due to disrespect and insults from their staff against a particular group. Running always to the government for protection hardly accomplishes much. It is when you hit them hard where it counts, their pocketbook/bottomline, that they understand the value of your patronage. The above is culled from Chika Onyeani's internationally acclaimed best selling and controversial book, "Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success," pp 83-93. Onyeani is also the publisher and editor-in-chief of the award-winning African Sun Times newspaper, as well as a Fellow of the New York Times Institute of Journalists. Hear Onyeani interviewed and tell more than 10,000 other authors worldwide how to be a bestselling author on: http://www.wbjbradio.com/viewshow.php?id=50&aid or visit: http://www.promotioninmotion.net/ChikaOnyeani.html |
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