DANIELLE SPEAKS FOR ME

One of my favorite bloggers (who is now quite a celeb) is Danielle Belton whose blog is called The Black Snob.  Danielle has been on MSNBC, NPR, etc. and in addition to all the other cool stuff she does, writes for Clutch Magazine.

 

Danielle recently wrote in Clutch a piece called "To Assimilate or Not: The Black Person's Lament"

This community journal has been called racist by some small minded people in Maple Heights.  Well, this blog is focused on a race of people who have been disenfranchised, enslaved, ignored, and still denigrated.  So, who is racist?  Besides, as Dr. Joy DeGruy (and others) puts it, at the very root of racism is power (and the intentional abuse of power).  Well folks, the people who have the power are not Black folk. 

Anyway, back to Danielle's piece.  ... She writes:

"Racism has played some pretty horrible tricks on black people but the worst is the one that teaches you that if you just modify your behavior, if you just dress, talk, walk, act differently, the doors will open and the prejudices will melt away, but that’s a lie. The prejudices stay the same, but your individual treatment might slightly improve. For example, the President of the United States can’t say bluntly anything about race and he has the nuclear launch codes. Somehow, for certain white folks, the potential of blowing up another country is less controversial than admitting racism still exists in America. Why? Because President Obama has to assimilate. Yet, for what? All you ever hear from racists are fried chicken and watermelon jokes and how he’s such an “urban” president and how his obviously not overweight wife is “fat.” For all the good assimilation has done to get him where he’s gotten in life (it got him all the way to the White House!), at the end of the day he still might as well wear a doo-rag and smoke a Newport on the South lawn because he’s not fooling anyone.

They can still see you’re black. They can still see we’re all black. And yet we try and try and try.

Nice work, racism."

Read the full post at Clutch Magazine Online here.

See, I don't waste a lot of time trying to be liked by those of European descent.  I know who and what I am and I'm pretty damn proud to be Black (or if one likes the term ... African American).

 

Jewish people could care less if you love them.  Asians don't give a hoot, and neither do the Irish, or Italians, etc etc.

So why is it that so many Black folks get down right ashamed, and some white folks "go crazy" when we (Black folk) talk about our history and culture, and political and economic empowerment?   Well ... I think it's because they have allowed Europeans to define them (our history and culture, etc). 

Well, they better get with the program.  If you (Black folk) don't like being Black, go dig a hole and lie in it because there's a whole lot of people who are proud to be Black, and are teaching young folks about our magnificent history and culture, .. and urging them to get politically connected so they can become significantly and elegantly, economically empowered.


Love this article:
"Who Wins in the Land Use Lottery? Not the People" by Mansfield Frazier [read the entire]


Wealth Gap Among Races Has Widened Since Recession, April 28, 2013