I remember the first time I heard the word "nigger" come out of a White person mouth, it was a friend of mine who when to the same Catholic school as me, someone I thought that I liked. We were both about 11 or 12 years old, coming from school and walking pass the public school that didn't get out until about 30 minutes after we did, and he said, "we should get home before the niggers get out". And then he looked at me, and said, "not you Antoine", like that was going to make me fill not like a nigger, which sadly to say it did. Because needless to say I had no defense against this type of hypocrisy at the age of 12 as a result of my indoctrination (education), from home or from the world who was suppose to be educating me to deal with the world. On the other hand, this white friend of mine, was being prepared to be master of his domain by training him to look down on people he has been instructed to believe are lower then him. Even my mother treat him better, this white kid, then my other friends because of her cultivation in white superiority training. She would offer him something to eat or drink, which he always turn down, and I know now it was because of his training. What 12 year old kid do you know who is not always putting something in their mouth?
Now don't get me wrong being Color or Black at the time, I've hear that word all my life come from Black people but never from a White person. I was offended by the way he said it, like we Blacks were one, unlike the way I was accustom to hearing it directed at one person, plus the pronunciation of it was foreign to me, like he was saying something he hear someone else say,but didn't understand it(his parents). It would be years later before I understood what he meant by that statement, "not you Antoine", because what I came to understand it meaning is that collectively we are what they think we are, niggers or kaffirs, people to them who have a negative definition. Another time, while serving in the U.S. Navy I had a friend who I hang-out with who was of the European persuasion who worked on the same navy base as I but in a different area. We were exchanging our work day, and he said to me pertaining to a conversation him and is co-workers were talking about, which was if he and I were such good friends, could he call me a "nigger" and get a way with it. I said to him, which later I thought was quite profound of me in that space and time, and that was, "good friends don't call each other out of their name". Something my parents taught me as a young child, to respect life and all its properties, something I found out that wasn't the norm with everyone else.
There are many stories just like these experiences by many people of color, everyone of us share them because of our and their indoctrination and the bigotry of our educational infrastructure that teaches us that everything worth being human was created by Europeans. Hell, we are being programmed by a group who believe that the human journey only started six thousand years ago, and before that only different forms of primates that was incapable of intelligent thought. These are the same people who are distributing the rumor that Egypt was a part of Europe in order to claim it as a white race culture. Think about it, if a place like Egypt who had a lest 10,000 years of recorded history at the time of Greece's Neolithic period, about 7000 BCE, where did the European get Man's birth at 6000 years ago. They get it from the Bible, the Jewish Bible at that, which according to it says it is the year 5775, which in the Roman year is 2014.
Understand that we are listening to people who don't really know their own history (story) and they are telling us about the story of MAN, about us and we believe this pseudo-tale which is often motivated with the help of ones desires rather then objective perceptions. Objective perception in terms of humanity must always be about reality, it a matter of seeing things as they are, rather then seeing them from a certain interpretation. Racism is a subjective antithesis, which means it conforms to ones position, ones feelings, ones beliefs and ones attitudes.
Friendship, European style is the same, that is you have to conform to their position, their feelings, beliefs and their attitudes, Africans on the other hand have more of a emotional attachment with their friends. Characteristics such as sympathy, empathy, honesty, a social conscience, mutual understanding, compassion, trust, the ability to be self with a friend without judgement. European rapport tend to come from a shared background, shared occupations, shared interest, and having similar demographics. If and when (and the probability of this happening is very high) Africans first appeared on the shores of Europe back in the day, they were probably killed because of their different and feared because of European attachment style (if you are different then me, you are against me). Now on the contrary, when the European first landed on the shores of Africa, well history shows us what happen.
Unlike Europeans, Africans are not quick to judge difference, we accept all of Nature's (God's) choices for living, even the one's we don't understand and there are many. It is the Motherland's way, not the European's and don't forget most of us are indoctrinated (educated) in the European way, that is we may look like Africans but we think like Europeans, the bi-product of RACISM. Malcolm X said, "that the problem with integration is that it teaches one is better then the other", that white life is better then black life, which is wrong. Integration should demonstrate the good and the bad, the right and the wrong in both worlds so that we can learn to exercise our being for the good of all. That is why Friendship will always be an odyssey in a racist community.
"Tafadhali maoni na asante kwa muda wako". (swahili)
Now don't get me wrong being Color or Black at the time, I've hear that word all my life come from Black people but never from a White person. I was offended by the way he said it, like we Blacks were one, unlike the way I was accustom to hearing it directed at one person, plus the pronunciation of it was foreign to me, like he was saying something he hear someone else say,but didn't understand it(his parents). It would be years later before I understood what he meant by that statement, "not you Antoine", because what I came to understand it meaning is that collectively we are what they think we are, niggers or kaffirs, people to them who have a negative definition. Another time, while serving in the U.S. Navy I had a friend who I hang-out with who was of the European persuasion who worked on the same navy base as I but in a different area. We were exchanging our work day, and he said to me pertaining to a conversation him and is co-workers were talking about, which was if he and I were such good friends, could he call me a "nigger" and get a way with it. I said to him, which later I thought was quite profound of me in that space and time, and that was, "good friends don't call each other out of their name". Something my parents taught me as a young child, to respect life and all its properties, something I found out that wasn't the norm with everyone else.
There are many stories just like these experiences by many people of color, everyone of us share them because of our and their indoctrination and the bigotry of our educational infrastructure that teaches us that everything worth being human was created by Europeans. Hell, we are being programmed by a group who believe that the human journey only started six thousand years ago, and before that only different forms of primates that was incapable of intelligent thought. These are the same people who are distributing the rumor that Egypt was a part of Europe in order to claim it as a white race culture. Think about it, if a place like Egypt who had a lest 10,000 years of recorded history at the time of Greece's Neolithic period, about 7000 BCE, where did the European get Man's birth at 6000 years ago. They get it from the Bible, the Jewish Bible at that, which according to it says it is the year 5775, which in the Roman year is 2014.
Understand that we are listening to people who don't really know their own history (story) and they are telling us about the story of MAN, about us and we believe this pseudo-tale which is often motivated with the help of ones desires rather then objective perceptions. Objective perception in terms of humanity must always be about reality, it a matter of seeing things as they are, rather then seeing them from a certain interpretation. Racism is a subjective antithesis, which means it conforms to ones position, ones feelings, ones beliefs and ones attitudes.
Friendship, European style is the same, that is you have to conform to their position, their feelings, beliefs and their attitudes, Africans on the other hand have more of a emotional attachment with their friends. Characteristics such as sympathy, empathy, honesty, a social conscience, mutual understanding, compassion, trust, the ability to be self with a friend without judgement. European rapport tend to come from a shared background, shared occupations, shared interest, and having similar demographics. If and when (and the probability of this happening is very high) Africans first appeared on the shores of Europe back in the day, they were probably killed because of their different and feared because of European attachment style (if you are different then me, you are against me). Now on the contrary, when the European first landed on the shores of Africa, well history shows us what happen.
Unlike Europeans, Africans are not quick to judge difference, we accept all of Nature's (God's) choices for living, even the one's we don't understand and there are many. It is the Motherland's way, not the European's and don't forget most of us are indoctrinated (educated) in the European way, that is we may look like Africans but we think like Europeans, the bi-product of RACISM. Malcolm X said, "that the problem with integration is that it teaches one is better then the other", that white life is better then black life, which is wrong. Integration should demonstrate the good and the bad, the right and the wrong in both worlds so that we can learn to exercise our being for the good of all. That is why Friendship will always be an odyssey in a racist community.
"Tafadhali maoni na asante kwa muda wako". (swahili)