An afro-American millennium really had me thinking this weekend.
We were discussing the increased racial tensions in the USA and the decades of struggles of people like Representative John Lewis, who recently died, for racial equality. Lewis's achievements were being celebrated all weekend as a precursor to his burial which will take place around mid-week.
That's when he sprung this question on me; "Did you know the term racism was coined by whites?"
Taken aback I told him I had never given it a thought, but racism in the USA is certainly toxic.
Then he added, "whites are inherently evil."
My initial reaction to that was one of amusement since I had been around when the late Elijah Mohammed, founder of the black Muslims, used to declare that the "the white man was the devil".
More specifically, according to the Independent, with reference to the white people in America, Elijah's often declared that "The white man is the Devil. We do believe that. We know it he is a blue-eyed, blond-headed Devil! No good in him, no justice, he’s gonna be destroyed!"
Even my hero, the late Mohamed Ali who was an ardent follower of Elijah Mohamed, had often repeated such sentiments, but since the death of Elijah and the divisions in his organization, I really had not heard that argument again. In fact, as a student of the late Malcolm X, I had dismissed or rather, ceased to give it even a second thought since Malcolm's rejection of that philosophy after he returned from Mecca, where he discovered that, unlike in the USA, Muslims came in all colors, and it was illogical to brand any one race as all bad.
Anyway, I decided to engage my young thinker in further discussion.
His philosophy was that white people are inherently evil since from the beginning of written history, each generation of whites has tried to either enslave or commit genocide against every other race. This as they pillaged and stole their possessions. To detract from this inherent evil as a race, he continued, some devious white person coined the word "racism," so we would become distracted from the real issue and instead waste time arguing about which whites, groups, or parties were more racist!
Well, that certainly stopped me in my tracks and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how correct he could be! And now I understand perfectly, the sentiments expressed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-cotton-slavery-necessary-evil-1619-project/)that; " US founders viewed slavery as a "necessary evil upon which the union was built".
We were discussing the increased racial tensions in the USA and the decades of struggles of people like Representative John Lewis, who recently died, for racial equality. Lewis's achievements were being celebrated all weekend as a precursor to his burial which will take place around mid-week.
That's when he sprung this question on me; "Did you know the term racism was coined by whites?"
Taken aback I told him I had never given it a thought, but racism in the USA is certainly toxic.
Then he added, "whites are inherently evil."
My initial reaction to that was one of amusement since I had been around when the late Elijah Mohammed, founder of the black Muslims, used to declare that the "the white man was the devil".
More specifically, according to the Independent, with reference to the white people in America, Elijah's often declared that "The white man is the Devil. We do believe that. We know it he is a blue-eyed, blond-headed Devil! No good in him, no justice, he’s gonna be destroyed!"
Even my hero, the late Mohamed Ali who was an ardent follower of Elijah Mohamed, had often repeated such sentiments, but since the death of Elijah and the divisions in his organization, I really had not heard that argument again. In fact, as a student of the late Malcolm X, I had dismissed or rather, ceased to give it even a second thought since Malcolm's rejection of that philosophy after he returned from Mecca, where he discovered that, unlike in the USA, Muslims came in all colors, and it was illogical to brand any one race as all bad.
Anyway, I decided to engage my young thinker in further discussion.
His philosophy was that white people are inherently evil since from the beginning of written history, each generation of whites has tried to either enslave or commit genocide against every other race. This as they pillaged and stole their possessions. To detract from this inherent evil as a race, he continued, some devious white person coined the word "racism," so we would become distracted from the real issue and instead waste time arguing about which whites, groups, or parties were more racist!
Well, that certainly stopped me in my tracks and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how correct he could be! And now I understand perfectly, the sentiments expressed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-cotton-slavery-necessary-evil-1619-project/)that; " US founders viewed slavery as a "necessary evil upon which the union was built".
Yup, necessary in the view of whites, as it comes naturally to them to either erase every other race or work them to death, so the white race can prosper!
I am sure we all know some really good white people so may very well reject this thesis, but before we do we need to remember always, that there are exceptions to every rule!
The child is surely the father of the man (woman).
