Black Identity
By Joe Taylor
Yet another crosspost...
While doing my part of the Around the OSP Blogs column, I read Earl Dunovant's site. Now, I don't think that P6 ever got on the Around the OSP Blogs column, the main reason being that it comprises almost solely of news copied-and-pasted from news sources with evry little original material (this also goes to other blogs with little original content).
Anyway, Earl Dunovant is black. He's not black like some people I know, who simply have a black skin; Earl is a self-professed "black partisan" who has a strong black identity. He quotes Malcolm X: "Who taught you, please, who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin, to such extent that you bleach, to get like the white man? ... Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate, the race that you belong to?"
Now, Malcolm X is an interesting figure. Reverse everything he says - i.e. replace white with black, etc. - and you get something that David Duke et al would say. What I quote above is pure, unadulterated racism; if a white person talked to the same extent about a "white identity" and "getting like the black man," he'd be correctly branded as a total racist. But I know that few people will say the same thing about similar statements when made by black nationalists.
The concept of a black identity is as racist as this of a white identity. Blacks aren't different from whites in mental and physical capabilities, unless one counts the fact that blacks are more resistant to sunburn. A racial identity has to be manufactured and exclusive and contradicts reality, regardless of the race or ethnic group involved.
Some people are oppressed because they're black or homosexual or atheist or whatever. That doesn't justify turning this into a culture identity or crusading for ethno-nationalism. It makes sense to the same degree as becoming a Christian theocracy in order to prevent becoming a Muslim theocracy. Ask me what race I am, and I'll tell you that unfortunately, I'm human. I'm saying that black nationalists should cut the racism and the racist propaganda, and I'm further saying that liberals should stop cutting them slack that hardly anyone would cut the KKK just because they're "minorities."
Race, unfortunately, is not something that can be ignored by masking, like sexual orientation; the minute a person walks into, say, an interview, the interviewer knows what race and sex he or she is. But it can and should be masked on the Internet, when filling out forms, etc. There's a problem in the United States of blacks being disfavored in work solely due to race, but it should be solved by integration, not racial separatism. People who have close friends of different races (not the "black friends" everyone immediately talks about apologetically), have dated people of different races, went to integrated schools, and aren't brought up to think in terms of race and/or ethnicity, will not discriminate on the basis of race.
If you're oppressed, end the oppression and move on, but for fuck's sake, don't consider yourself different than whoever oppresses you because you have a different skin color. And even if you are different, due to, say, sexual orientation, or social class, then don't think for a moment that being a minority or just plain oppressed makes you somehow better. When your oppressor does that to you, you rightly accuse him of bigotry; and yet you applaud such behavior when you do it.
Addendum exclusive to OSP: this also goes to the various "black news" outlets. The only people who talk of "white news" are overt racists - not even the I-don't-mind-minorities-as-long-as-they-don't-move-next-door crowd. Why should anyone in his right mind support "black news," "black entertainment," etc.?
