I'm gonna preface this next piece of the article by saying that this one, more than the previous 3, is going to either cause you to think, or just piss you off. Why? The previous 3 talked in more generalities, while this one will be more specific. It's going past the definitions of the principles I describe and more into practice.
It seems simple, almost too simple. Three words, all with completely different meanings, and yet they are used interchangeably today. Why? Well, that's the point of this entire article (as it was in the lost first article of the same name). Step 1 to any valid attempt to change, usurp, and dominate a culture is to bastardize language and thought. This is precisely why these words are blended together these days.
PREJUDICE is a natural extension of the human psyche. We all do it every day. There is almost never an evil intent behind it, but it can be unproductive. RACISM is not natural, always has an underlying malicious, if not evil, intent. BIGOTRY is the embodiment of hatred. These are 3 completely different levels of the game, if you will. To interchange them is to equate natural for evil, choice and indifference to malice, a random seating arrangement to a firing squad. It's not right. It's not correct. And it should be seemingly obvious, but not in today's rhetoric and vernacular. This is no accident.
To super-impose any of these words over another is to create and foster a kind of neo-tribalism. It's unstated goal is to cleave and separate population groups so far apart from each other that each sees anyone not in their group as the enemy. All members of each prescribed tribe are then compelled to only trust and associate with members of their tribe and only if those members imbibe and believe the mandated tribal rhetoric. Like an example? Try this one.
What is one of the worst insults that one Black person can sling at another? Answer, Uncle Tom. For those of you unfamiliar with this slander, it simply means that the accused is either "acting White", pandering to Whites, and (more simply) not "keeping it real". Picture a young Black kid, living in the projects, who comes home from school every day, spends time studying, doing his homework, minding his family, and speaking non-slang oriented English. His contemporaries will very quickly view him as different because he is acting, speaking, and dressing different than the rules of the neighborhood allow. This same child may grow up with an excellent scholastic record, qualify for scholarships, attend an institution of higher learning, garnering a college degree (or higher) and set forth a pathway for successful life in America. If it were any other youth, they would be lauded. But in the cultural divide set out by those bastardizing the 3 words, this person will be identified for scorn and derision. Dr. Ben Carson comes to mind. Clarence Thomas comes to mind. Dr. Thomas Sowell comes to mind. All three of these great men have been called Uncle Tom by people in politics and the Legacy Media because they aren't towing the acceptable line. They're not acting "Black enough". Roll that around your mind for a second. Have you ever heard anything so RACIST?
Yup, I said it. It's just plain RACIST by its very definition. All three of these men are being diminished, their accomplishments discounted, their very humanity questioned because they chose not to follow the very script that ensnares so many others into a trap guaranteed to drive most to failure. They refused to follow the rules of what is referred to as "Black Culture". They are verbally spat upon as heretics who "just don't get it". The question you have to ask then, if you're a thinking person, is just what exactly don't they get? In the previous piece of this article, I made the statement that we don't have a race problem in this country, we have truth problem. Is it possible that these 3 men just decided to follow the truth? Is it a fair question to ask just exactly what is "Black Culture"?
As an intellectual exercise, let's query that by using our own eyes, ears, and minds. Let us apply truth, logic, and reason. How and what defines "Blackness". Spoiler alert, I'm White, so to many, I'm not even allowed to broach the subject and, if I do, I am speedily referred to as a RACIST. I'm not afraid, by the way. Whenever you rail against the predominant dogma, this is usually your reward in our nation today. But it MUST be done to engage serious people in serious conversation and debate so that we might solve serious problems. Let's move forward, shall we?
Firstly, allow me to clearly differentiate between Black Culture and Ghetto Culture. One is a matter of common experience, common history, and common values. The other is a malignancy that spreads amongst one group to another, negatively affecting everyone who adopts it. Let's examine Black Culture first. Black people in America have an amazing resiliency and pride that almost defies imagination. In the face of decade after decade of having to deal with PREJUDICE, RACISM, and BIGOTRY, they have tarried forth and labored tirelessly to achieve the American dream. Like so many other minority folks and new immigrants, the road was rocky, fraught with pitfalls, and barricaded against their advancement. But they applied the common principles that have allowed generations of people to go from nothing to anything they could dream of. Those values were faith, family, education, fellowship, fidelity, determination, and service. These are the hallmarks of every successful elevation of every group that has ever happened upon our shores, and yet Blacks in America have had to take those values to the next level because of the sin of slavery that started their journey. When I was a child, my mother used to say "When you do the right thing, right things happen." As an adult man, I see that slightly naive phrase for what it is, but I am not Black. To be Black has meant that doing the right thing doesn't always make right things happen when you were faced with a RACIST or BIGOT who saw you as near nothing. And yet, year after year, generation after generation, they soldiered on. Why? Because the truth of America is that every parent has one driving desire and that is that the next generation will have a better life than they did.
This has held true for EVERY immigrant family that ever came to America. You work hard. You play by the rules. You do your level best, and you teach and encourage your children to be more than you could ever hope possible for yourself. This is the heart of America and it's the soul of Black Culture. What, then, is Ghetto Culture? Poetically speaking, it's a sad song of defeat, defiance, and diminished expectations. It's the belief that the game is fixed, the table is rigged, you can never succeed, the rules are set against you, and you must do whatever you can to "fight the power". You cannot and will not allow yourself to meld into the national identity. To do so makes you weak, insignificant, and a traitor to your tribe. You must speak differently, act differently, dress differently. You must defy all of the rules and credos the national culture defines, the same rules that others have followed to success, or be seen as an infidel.
Before you lose all emotional control start writing me hate emails (already been done, by the way), ask yourself what your own eyes have seen. How about a few quick examples? In the earliest part of the 20th century, the Black family was moving toward a strong "nuclear family" model and the Black middle class was on the rise for decades. The overwhelming majority of Black children were born into 2 parent households and education was a priority. Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education didn't make it to the Supreme Court of the United States because of fashion or music. Education was a critical factor in resolving the disparity between destitution and prosperity in the Black Community. Fast forward to today, where more than 70 percent of all Black children born in America are raised in a single parent home which almost EVERYONE agrees is an impediment to success. Make no mistake, I am NOT saying that this is a result of Black Culture. It's most assuredly not. It's a direct result of Ghetto Culture.
Ghetto Culture says it's perfectly OK to make babies outside of marriage. To that end, the title "baby mama" is now a universally accepted term and being added to various dictionaries and reference texts. But that's far from the only example. Judeo-Christian teaching dictates that a person shouldn't steal, lie, or kill. Ghetto Culture dictates that only suckers get caught doing any of the above. An understood principle to success in America is to work hard, save, follow the rules, and live life in moderation. Ghetto Culture rejects all of that in favor of hustles, flash, reputation, and instant gratification. Ghetto culture goes out of it's way to be the antithesis of American culture. All of our values, all of our precepts, even the very language we use to communicate with one another.
Devotees of Ghetto Culture go out of their way to establish that they are different than the rest of us. The have taken the "us versus them" mentality and turned it up to full volume. Not so many years ago, the ivory tower crowd in American academia went so far as to suggest that Ghetto Culture street slang should comprise it's own language. They wanted to call it Ebonics (a totally racist term, BTW). But wait, before you fly off the handle, allow me to throw in this wrinkle. Ghetto Culture isn't simply Black people. As does every type of malignancy, it is metastasizing to everybody else. Observe any upper middle class White kid driving his parent's BMW down the street with Megan Thee Stallion on full volume as they pull into their private school parking lot and you'll get what I mean. It's not a Black thing, folks. It's a Ghetto thing. It affects Blacks, White, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans in this country. It has a hold of our young folks in a way that can't be ignored, but the most affected are our young Black children because this cancer emanates from an extension of Black Culture.
Young Black kids are continuously bombarded with disinformation from every corner and information source they are exposed to that to be "down" is good. "Keeping it real" is the most important thing. Chris Rock has an HBO special where he breaks this down better than me. He asks "Are you keepin' it real? What? Real dumb?" And why does nobody say that it's wrong-headed, destructive, and bodes totally negative for their future? Easy, because if you do so, you're either called a RACIST (if your White) or an Uncle Tom (if your Black). It's an almost impossible task anyway to reach out to young people of all colors and walks of life anyway, because they can't hear you so long as their ear buds are in or their Beats are covering their ears. You can't really get them to look at you, because their too busy looking at the latest trash video on TikTok.
No one even bothers to ponder the idea that, if you go out of your way to be seen as "different", from where do you draw righteous indignation when someone sees you as different and responds to you as such? When somebody tells a young kid to pull his pants up because he is wearing them down below the cheeks of his behind so that his underwear is in full view, the immediate response from that kid is that the other person is RACIST. Really? No, I mean it. Really? If anyone so much as questions the morality of providing social welfare benefits to single women with children out of wedlock, they are immediately tattooed as RACIST. Is it possible that the perpetuation of single parenting is an avenue to failure and the government and power elite are perpetuating and promoting it by subsidizing it's illicit nature? In modern America, you're not allowed to even postulate that without receiving massive amounts of negative feedback. Whenever anyone, White or Black, starts to point out the horrific effects that Ghetto Culture is having on the most vulnerable of our society, they are instantaneously BLASTED as being uncaring, elitist, RACIST, or unaware.
The Legacy Media goes out of it's way to paint a particular picture when it comes to matters involving race, and that picture is most assuredly skewed. Take, for example, any one of the stories you've seen and heard about police shootings of young black men. The narrative is always laid out a certain way which is designed to have you believe that RACISM is assumed to be baked in to all police departments. It's made as a statement, not a question anymore. The idea, the very notion, that we should be discussing these type of events in ANY other context is summarily dismissed. Stick with me on this for just a few more minutes. Let's look at 2 examples: Michael Brown and Tyre Nichols. It should go without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It is an absolute tragedy that these 2 young men were ripped from their families. That isn't in dispute whatsoever. The circumstances of each are telling when it comes to race as an issue in America.
Firstly, let's look at the Michael Brown episode. When the story first hit the wire, the Legacy Media proclaimed that "an unarmed black teenager was shot by police". Full stop. This type of sensationalism IMMEDIATELY barred further scrutiny and discussion, initially at least. The fabrication was perpetuated that Mr. Brown had his hands up in surrender and was shot by a purportedly RACIST police officer. This story fermented for months. Riots ensued. People were hurt and property was destroyed. The usual race mongers stepped in front of the camera and behind the microphone and proclaimed that America, as evidenced in this case, was a RACIST nation. Time, though, has a way of allowing facts to surface. According to supposed eyewitness accounts, Mr. Brown was shot in the middle of the street. The Legacy Media interviewed numerous people who said that Mr. Brown was a kind, sweet soul who would never go afoul of the law. Welp, video and forensic evidence spoke to the contrary. Young Mr. Brown was far from an upstanding citizen and it wouldn't be a total stretch to think him thuggish. Far from being some sort of shrinking violet, Mr. Brown was a very large young man, standing well over 6 feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds. The officer involved, Darren Wilson was considerably smaller in comparison. In the aftermath of the incident, it was found that Officer Wilson approached Mr. Brown after a report of an assault at a store was committed by a person matching Mr. Brown's description. Mr. Brown resisted arrest and a scuffle ensued between he and Officer Wilson. Mr. Brown's blood and DNA were found sprayed all over the inside of the police car which was evidence that he was shot INSIDE the car during a physical altercation with the policeman. Officer Brown testified that the fight began outside the car and that Mr. Brown was basically whooping his ass and he feared for his life. He drew his pistol and fired. No hands up. No don't shoot. That was all a lie manifested to sell the tale the power elite wanted you to believe.
This tale completely blocked any other examination of the problem. Now, let's look at the recent tragedy of Tyre Nichols. There is copious amounts of video showing detail about what happened to this young man. He was Black, but so were the police officers involved. He was unarmed and made no threats to the officers involved. He wasn't shot, but he was beaten to the point that he succumbed from his injuries. The two things these separate cases have in common are police and a dead young Black man. And even though all officers involved were Black, the Legacy Media STILL had the unmitigated gall to espouse that the cause of Mr. Nichols demise was, you guessed it, RACISM. See, that charge eliminates all other discussion and debate on the subject. It absolutely shouldn't and we could have collectively learned a great deal about ourselves and each other if that conversation would've taken place.
All of this leads me to ask how and when we can or will ever solve the race issue in this country. I thought it would happen in my lifetime, but lately I'm having my doubts. The powers that be have way to much invested in further bastardizing the language, encouraging even more neo-tribalism, and fomenting distrust amongst groups of people that, were they to actually come together, would see they are being ruled rather than governed. In the next piece of this article, I'll try to cross all the T's and dot all of the I's and maybe, just maybe, sketch out a blueprint that we can follow to find our way of the woods we find ourselves walking in circles around.
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