THE BRIDGE: Comfortable Backgrounds
By
Darryl James
"Being
a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It
means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death.
It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of
inferiority in their mental skies. It means having your legs cut off,
and then being condemned for being a cripple. It means seeing your
mother and father spiritually murdered by the slings and arrows of
daily exploitation, and then being hated for being an orphan."
--The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is part of the American way to blame the poor and the oppressed
for their condition. Even America¹s favorite father, Bill Cosby,
blamed the "lower economic people," for not living up to
the burden of the Civil Rights legacy.
And Cosby is not alone. Many Blacks who have managed to navigate through
the sea of racism and oppression in this nation look down on those
who for myriad reasons have not. A great number of those who have
"overcome" have done so merely as a birthright‹they
come from comfortable backgrounds.
It is sad, indeed that many African Americans who have been fortunate
enough to have been born in situations to advance easier believe that
the playing field is level.
How arrogant, elitist and silly when statistics of arrests, convictions,
bank lending, college admissions and hiring practices prove out discrimination
and de facto oppression.
We as a people will always face a certain bitter roadblock because
of self-hating escapists among us who believe that whatever they have
achieved is because they are individually special and beautiful.
If there are no obstacles, how can we explain the dire straits of
Black children in the inner cities of America? Many of those with
comfortable backgrounds, like other racists, probably blame them.
The problem is that some time ago, clever racists sold America, including
deluded Negroes, the concept of the oppressed as whiners and essentially
weak people. Currently, some of those deluded Negroes employ clever
rhetoric to indict the oppressed for being oppressed.
The words of those with comfortable backgrounds often sound intelligent,
but are without substance and the anger toward oppressed Blacks is
palpable. Perhaps that misplaced anger is intended for their own self-hated
skin.
The reality is that either you feel the stings of racism or you don¹t.
Many who don¹t feel it deny its very existence until they finally
encounter it--as in the cases of OJ, Michael Jackson and Clarence
Thomas--then they come running back to the community and/or cry racism.
It¹s laughable and pitiable because they are actually shocked
that all of their ass-kissing and gratuitous self-hatred ultimately
failed when it came to the issue of race.
The delusion happens in other groups as well. While Jews were being
walked to the ovens, many denied that such a horrific process could
take place until they were tattooed and lined up for cooking.
Many Mexican-Americans deny that California once belonged to their
people and that they should stake a claim to it still.
Many self-deluded Africans in the midst of South African Apartheid
fiercely denied that racism was in place or that there was oppression,
and some of them even railed against the freedom fighters.
Deluded people all have one thing in common‹they pretend that
there is no racism or oppression because their greedy self-centered
silliness and individualism has given them a modicum of comfort.
The original House Niggers have provided a true legacy, indeed. They
denied that slavery was horrible and helped to keep a foot on the
necks of other slaves, in order to maintain their comfort. They even
blamed other slaves for getting beaten, raped and killed. That mentality
has never left, and the people who possess it fail to realize it,
because many of them see themselves as "down for their people."
These thoughts are not the result of critical thinking and are neither
new, reality-based, compassionate, or broad-minded. Every generation
of Blacks in this nation has the blind who believe that all has been
overcome. When Dr. King was marching, there were confused Negroes
dogging him, declaring there were no real problems. Throngs wished
for Malcolm X¹s demise, and the bullets came from evil motherless
children with Black skin.
I recently found real self-delusion, elitism, misplaced anger and
pretentiousness in the words of one confused Negro from a comfortable
background, who suggested that decades after the Civil Rights Act,
the biggest problem is found in people who believe that the white
man's foot remains pressed upon all Black folks necks. He asserted
that the premise is that there has been no progress and that such
thinking is problematic in such a "progressive" world.
No one is really suggesting that there has been no progress, just
that the progress that has come did not come for all, and that there
is still a way to go. Not everyone has a comfortable background, and
if the foot is not on your neck, and you have not seen the foot, how
dare you say that there is no foot?
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with a "comfortable background,"
but when you begin to believe that it is everyone¹s birthright
and equally potential possession, you are being foolish, selfish,
elitist and delusional.
While many oppressed people seek to deny racism¹s existence,
African descendants the world over are the only people who consistently
and persistently help to blame themselves for their condition, and
there is no more blame than in this silly nation where the assumption
is that everyone has the same opportunity without obstruction.
Such situations are powerfully disgusting. They prompt me to near
violent regurgitation from the repulsion because I grew up in abject
poverty, and I know damned well that I could not have risen without
concerned residents of the extended African Village who understood
the complex conditions I faced as a part of the Welfare system. My
straight A¹s, hard work and strong desires for better were not
enough. Some of today¹s deluded Negroes with comfortable backgrounds
would not have helped me, but would have blamed me for my condition,
because of their inability to understand what I faced.
They may as well be white racists.
The problem here is not laziness, whining, or "victimology,"
but the blaming of the oppressed by both the oppressor and some of
the deluded oppressed who narrowly escaped the overt stings of racism
by being born in a better condition.
Finally, God forbid those with comfortable backgrounds should lose
their family¹s support and comfort, and have to begin again in
the worst areas of this nation¹s inner cities, with little to
no access to education, health care or other programs given freely
even to newly immigrated citizens from Europe and Asia. They might
just have to take the blame for that condition from others with comfortable
backgrounds.
