Recently, I wrote an article that did not present a black icon in a positive light. I pointed out the shortcomings of Marcus Garvey’s segregationist philosophy.  Some black folk felt offended by what I said. They would rather he was only seen in a positive light. Indeed, for daring to point out the man’s obvious shortcoming, one black man considered me a political illiterate who is not worth listening to. (The idea here is that one should not listen to whatever does not agree with ones preconception of the truth and in doing so remain uninformed.  No wonder these people are some of the least informed human beings on earth.)

        Marcus Garvey’s formal education ended at the fifth grade; this is a matter of public record and I merely cited it as a fact yet a black man told me that this is not true; he claimed that Garvey was the most educated black man in his world. Apparently, these folks do not do too well with facts; they twist facts to suit their presuppositions of what the truth should be; they want to bend facts to conform to what they want the truth to be. Worse, they want to get the rest of the world to collude with them and see things as they see them: upside down.

        It seems that the philosophy actuating these people is that all black folk are good and only white folk are bad. In as much as bad is seen in some black folk it is the fault of white folk; racism and racial discrimination is responsible for black folks problems; racism is to be blamed for whatever is wrong in the black world; that is, white folk are to be blamed for all black folk problems; black folk are always innocent and perfect; black folk are always the victims of white folk abuse. 

        If African politicians are practically thieves stealing their people’s money and not developing their countries, it is not their faults, it is the faults of white people, the metropolis; it is the fault of the unbalanced economic arrangement between the North and South Hemispheres that Africans are poor.

      I learned another thing. Black folk who take this blaming approach to phenomena generally see socialism and or communism as the solution to their problems (though they may not even know what communism is!). 

       Apparently, my attempt to place things in proper perspective elicited the anger of those black folk who would rather blame white folk for everything bad in the black world.  How dare I see whites in a positive light and see blacks in a negative light?

       This situation finally enabled me to understand why black folk are where they are, poor. Those who blame other persons for their poverty rather than take responsibility for it are almost always poor. It is those who take responsibility for their lives outcomes that tend to do well in life. Black folks (in the Americas and in Africa itself) generally see themselves as victims of their external world. They see others as responsible for their fate. They see white folks as the cause of their poverty. They are always blaming others, whites, for their bad situation. It is never their fault that any thing is wrong in their lives; it is always other peoples fault.

       In blaming other people, black folk manage to feel good about themselves, even feel perfect. They feel good while remaining poor; this is because blaming others does not change ones situation, it merely enables one to tolerate ones poverty but does not make one rich.

        Those who become rich tend to accept responsibility for their situation; they have internal locus of control, and feel like they are in charge of their lives. Such persons may feel bad and imperfect when they do not get what they want out of life; that is, they run the risk of depression.

        On the other hand, those who blame others for their fate generally do not feel depressed but, instead, feel perfect even as their lives are rotten; they tend to become paranoid.

      Depressed persons blame themselves; paranoid persons blame other persons for their lives circumstances.

     On the whole, white folk become depressed when their lives fail; black folk (Africans included) become paranoid when their lives fail, they seek scapegoats to blame for their problems.

        (Of course, my categorizations are too broad; they are general statements; there are always exceptions to every rule; there are white folk who blame others for their problems and there are black folk who take responsibility for their lives; one is over simplifying to make a point that is begging to be made.)

       As long as black folk blame other persons for their problems, I believe that they will remain poor.  Worse, as long as black folk have external locus of control, and blame other people for their problems, they cannot govern themselves well.

       Black folk can only make headways in life when they develop internal locus of authority and see themselves as in charge of their lives.

         I am not saying that the external environment has no effect on people. One would be a fool to say that others do not affect one. The price of coffee, for example, is determined by the West and, generally, they are low, but haven bought low they turn around and sell high and make profit. The result is that poor third world coffee producers do not make enough income to support themselves.

       We live in an interdependent world and what each of us does affect all of us; there is no such thing as independence in an interconnected world. 

      Nevertheless, each of us has the power to make decisions on how he responds to the world, to blame it or to take responsibility for his actions; to see himself as a victim or to see himself as having some power to make a difference in his life (not absolute power, of course, for in as much as other people affect one, ones power is small; we are talking about relative, not absolute power).

CONCLUSION

       Let me sum this shot write up by stating that black folk prefer to blame white folk for their problems.  Apparently, blaming white folk makes black folk feel not responsible for their problems. In not taking responsibility for their problems black folk manage to feel good about themselves, to retain some positive self esteem.

       If black folk took responsibility for their present rotten situation in the world they probably would feel low self regard and become depressed.

       It seems that black folk avert depression by blaming white folk for their problems.

Unfortunately, blaming other people tends to lead to developing paranoia.  Thus, there tends to be a lot of paranoid black folk.

      Apparently, paranoia enables the oppressed, those at the bottom of the social totem pole, to seem perfect in their eyes while they are living in poverty. 

       For folk to improve their lot in life they have to accept responsibility for their behavior and, of course, risk feeling depressed when they fail.

       We know that those who tend to feel depressed tend to be more productive than those who tend to feel paranoid, for the depressed feels that he is in charge of his life whereas the paranoid person feels that other people are in charge of his life. 

       In truth, no human being is in charge of his life. We live in a general system (environment) where everything affects everything else. We are all affecting each other and responding to what each other is doing, as they are responding to what we are doing.

       Life on earth is a process of adjustment to the environment. Those who do not adapt to changes in their environment die off. 

        The healthy person accepts his limited power; it is delusional to believe that one has absolute power (as is found in both depressed and paranoid persons…blaming others is an attempt to seem powerful, a passive mode of attaining power).

       I am calling attention to the need for black folk to take responsibility for their actions; Black folks have to stop blaming white folk for their problems and do what they could to improve their lives.

      Of course, what white folks do affect black folk’s lives? Be that as it may, black folk cannot change white folk’s behaviors; the only people they can change are themselves. 

       When black folk change, take responsibility for their actions, those around them have no choice but to respond to them differently.

       If black folk take responsibility for their actions they behave in an empowered, adult manner and white folks would have no choice but to take them seriously and treat them as adults. If black folk do not take responsibility for their actions and are always blaming other people, they are being childish and white folks will treat them as childish, as they currently do.

     Regarding black heroes like Marcus Garvey, clearly they had some strength that black folk could emulate, but they also had some weakness that black folk should avoid.

       All people, whether we like it or not, will become an integrated. Developments in transportation and communication technology have made the unification of the people inevitable. In the past cultures developed in isolation from each other and adapted to the exigencies of specific environments. Now, communication media is socializing people into a scientific culture, a universal pattern of adapting to our shared world. We are moving from cultural parochialism to universalism. Cultural relativism is a thing of the past; the future is going to have a universal scientific culture.  Just as we have one scientific mode of approaching physical phenomena we shall have one cultural mode of approaching social phenomena.

        Good leaders are those who point to the realistic future, not those who point to the nostalgic past, who ask us to separate from other people. Union of all people is the truth; separation of people is a lie.

         We should remember that our heroes are human beings and all human beings are imperfect.  Black folk, as other folk, should accentuate their leaders’ strength while improving on their weakness; they should not make the mistake of seeing their leaders as perfect; no human being, black or white, is perfect.

        Finally, this essay is not an exercise in simplistic self upliftment philosophy. One knows that whereas the individual ought to do what he could to improve his life that the larger social environment plays a role in his life’s outcome. If racism is real, as it is in America , nothing the black individual does would deny that fact. Be that as it may, the individual has an obligation to do his best in whatever he is doing with his life. Being realistic does not mean being deluded; one does not deny the imperfect world one sees with ones eyes. One works to change the rotten world black folk live in; nevertheless, one encourages them to do their best with what life currently gave them; black folk should  make lemonade with the lemon contemporary life gave them.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

April 26, 2007

Robot  Villager

# 1 Recently, I wrote an article that did not present a bl...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 26.04.2007 16:52

uniben82  Villager

# 2 You gotta be kidding me:twisted:. Okay, would someone please pinch me? Right now would be a good time! I’ve often wondered if anyone actually screened materials that are published on this site. I guess NOT. This piece is proof enough. On a more serious note, I believe there's a diamond in the rough buried somewhere inside this painfully repetitious verbiage. I think what the writer is reaaaaaaaaallllllllllllly trying to say is this… -Blacks need to lay off the "blame game" for their less than stellar lives. (Did he say all blacks?) -Africans need to refrain from pointing fingers at the west for all the problems in Africa. Abi? Guess what? He has a point. I think we ought to start taking responsibility for our actions and our lives. We must stop blaming the white man as the root of our problems-past and present. Bob Marley once sang, "emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds." Take a closer look at some of the real issues that are of greater concern to the average Nigerian who currently lives in Nigeria. Who deserves to be in the hot seat for the deplorable quality of life of a great majority of our people? Our leadership figures that have proven time and time again, that they are only interested in fattening their wallets or the West? Posted by uniben82| 26.04.2007 20:06

Auspicious  Villager

# 3 Hi, Uniben82! With regards Africans and their habitual blame-game of "the west" for their woes, you only need a cusory stroll around this Village to find out the truth. I can think of five threads off the top of my head that active campaign against the west (rather than their home-based persecutors) are ongoing. Heaven help you if you dare share a foreign opinion to theirs, as you will be labelled everything from traitor to oyibo house-slave - while they are the super-patriots who love Nigeria more than your Grandpapa and my Grandpapa two-both-togeda! Their patriotism is so righteous, so deep, that it blinds their reasoning faculty! You know what, just take a stroll around. You can stop by the "U.S Senator Finegold thread" or the "Moving on Quickly" thread - amogst many others. You will see our brothers and sisters in patriotism explaining away the failure of the current establishment with fine words, while they descend with almighty fury on anyone with a contrary opinion. Auspicious. Posted by Auspicious| 26.04.2007 21:19

uniben82  Villager

# 4 Hey there Auspy! Me really thinks that people blame others for one or both of the following two reasons: -To excuse their behavior:o -To bolster their pride:rolleyes: Personally, I'm just so sick of it all. Life's not always fair. Life doesn't always give us equally level playing fields. We could either sit, whine and feel sorry for ourselves because life had given us nothing but sour lemons or drag our whiny rear ends online to google some kick butt recipes for key lime pie and lemon meringue treats. If adversity causes some men to break; others to break records according to William A. Ward (whoever the heck he is), I'm willing to bet that those who excel with flying colors in just about any venture, (under the right circumstances in most cases), had somehow figured out the immense value of the above words of wisdom and taken it to heart. If we could only redirect some of those wasted "blame whitey" energies into finding creative solutions???? Who knows? And we will definitely never know unless we try. Have a great day mi hermano!:wink: Posted by uniben82| 27.04.2007 08:48