Hate is such a Strong Word
I was recently reading a book on body language when the author mentioned the “hate stare” that some Southern whites give to Blacks. I paused and began to wonder, what could be the reason for this hate?
It occurred to me that the reason had to be because we are no longer slaves. If a person is a chattel slave, they represent valuable property. Therefore, economically, it makes no sense to maim or kill a slave, because you would incur a financial loss. This does not imply there were ‘good masters’ all over the south, because a happy slave was a productive slave. One need only look to the sweat shops and coal mine operations during the industrial revolution to see that the reverse was true. That review would provide a mountain of evidence regarding the sub-human conditions western civilization would subject workers to, and you have yet to include the record of slave conditions documented in the south.
So it seems to me that the primary reason for the hate is that we are no longer slaves. They cannot stand the fact that we are no longer legally bound to obey them. The fact that we are free and when left to our own devices are able to generate economic stability for ourselves is infuriating. They must constantly enact laws and policies to keep us repressed because the very productivity they stole for so many years would (and has in many cases already) allow us to elevate socially and economically above many of them. I think this is the greatest source of hatred. They can’t stand the fact that a Black person could end up better off than them. It represents the turning upside down of their entire world view. Black success is a mirror that reflects their own insecurities and short-comings.
The bottom line is that this hate is their problem. If they didn’t subscribe to a way of looking at the world that requires them to be on top no matter what, they wouldn’t feel like losers when others work hard and advance. It is also our problem as Black people suffer more hate crimes than any other group on a consistent basis. Moreover, nearly three of every five hate criminals is white. This is why we have to deal with their problem, it manifests against us.
The first step with dealing with any problem is to admit it. This means we must neutralize those Blacks who seek to minimize and discount the existence of racism. These Blacks are those who argue against Blacks working together to build communities that will welcome Black agendas and address Black issues. They resist any effort to encourage Blacks to develop anything pro-Black. These people are often put in position by whites to disrupt and disparage anything that geared to advancing Black people or creating Black socioeconomic power.
Money alone is not the solution, for as Stevie Wonder once said, ” You might have the cash but you Can…not cash in your face.” Many Blacks feel if they have enough money, they look more green than Black. That may be true for the few multimillionaire Blacks who are primarily found in some form of entertainment (where the majority of them are contracted employees), but for the great majority that’s not reality. How many Black multimillionaires do you live next to? How many do you know? No, for the majority of Blacks a self-centered, individualistic attitude will not lead to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness we all want and deserve. Besides, Black people have build economically successful communities over and over again throughout the our history in America, only to see them destroyed because we didn’t have the political power and means to protect them. Only by working together, by teaching and practicing habits that value mutual respect, education and entrepreneurship can we build the political and socioeconomic power necessary to protect ourselves, and our posterity.