COUNTRYMAN –‘My people, my people’; a story in Black and White – Part 1

Nov 02, 2014 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
Back in the sixties when there was street violence, noisy festivity or just a regular ‘buse out’ in our Charlestown

neighbourhood, my father would morosely and sagely wag his head and intone, “My people, my people!” Consequently, the ambivalent perception, mistreatment, and plight of Black people have intrigued me.
Racism, so-called Black-on-Black violence, Black poverty, and the association of the colour black with things evil and ugly, (with its converse of white/pure and good) are some aspects of this concern. Each of these can be explored in at least one large volume, so what can be said in a brief article like this? Maybe just give a little food for thought.
I like to move around, observe, and contemplate human interaction, and for a long time I’ve tried to divorce these actions from any racial nexus; you know, no prejudices, no stereotyping; no overgeneralizations. For me, it’s hasn’t been an easy undertaking, not here in Guyana and also not in other places I’ve visited like Jamaica, The Bahamas, the United States and South Africa.
The things I have seen, heard and read, ranging from teasing banter to utter degradation in the way Blacks have been perceived, described, and treated, have actually caused me to briefly ponder the idea that we are a cursed people, (Biblically, according to some persons) even to how we help shape our own realities. And there is no end to the number of individuals and hate groups who target Blacks because of this notion.
Of course Black people aren’t the only demographic that is thus perceived and treated. In the United States, for example, hate ‘crimes’ against Jews and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) were second and third, only after Blacks, for the period 2008 – 2012. Over 70 per cent of hate crimes were committed against these three groups, and of that sector, 53 per cent were against Blacks. I have no figures for such transgressions outside of the United States, but I suspect that the general pattern would be somewhat similar in other countries where Black people comprise a significant section of the population.

Two weeks ago I spoke about James Manning, a Black pastor, and his derisive, pejorative rants against Black people. There are many James Mannings in America, and elsewhere, who seem to think that our race is a clan of near sub-human creatures, devoid of any real understanding of how ‘the world’ works. What joy, what validation this may bring to the hearts and minds of anti-Black and White supremacist groups and individuals!
I guess Patrick Lanzo, for one, is thrilled. He has a sign plastered outside his Georgia Bar which reads ‘I Don’t Support the N****r in The White House’, just one of many that slur prominent Black Americans. Conservative radio host and commentator, Rush Limbaugh, has been quoted as saying, “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honour? James Earl Ray (The confessed killer of Martin Luther King Jnr.) We miss you James, Godspeed.”And there are thousands more like them.
Hate speech/free speech? Incidentally, hate speech is said to be legal in the US unless it contains ‘defamation, incitement to riot, obscenity or fighting words’
New American Media, a multimedia ethnic news agency, states that there are 65 known White supremacist groups in the state of Georgia, and over 1000 active hate groups in America, most of

which believe a Black man has no place in the White House. This number, it claims, represents a significant increase since President Obama took office in 2008. But why are so many people (including Blacks themselves) seemingly unable to look past skin colour and prejudices associated with this race, especially when it should be obvious that such sweeping generalizations about any one ethnic group are just sheer ignorance? I don’t know.
Obviously there are multitudes of Black men, women and children who are undoubtedly strong, healthy, beautiful, super-intelligent, creative, and innately good human beings, just as there are multitudes of similarly-endowed White, Indian, Chinese, and other ethnic populations across the earth. But somehow, in some perverse and pernicious way, too many Black people, too many Black youths, too many young Black women, in the United States, the Caribbean and in Africa find themselves over the centuries struggling in a miasma of poverty, illiteracy, crime, and social stagnation. Why?
Again, I don’t know the answer, but there may be some clues contained in the following excerpt from a speech made by Jamaican national hero and Pan Africanist, Marcus Garvey nearly 100 years ago, hitting out hard against Black people demeaning themselves and keeping themselves from attaining real progress. He may as well have been speaking these words yesterday in the United States, Jamaica, or Guyana (for the truth and relevance they express).
Here is a small portion of what he said then, in some ways not very dissimilar to some of the things ‘Rev’ Manning is saying now.
“. . . Man is moving onward as time moves on, but you, you have hated yourselves as you’ve done in previous years, you have shown malice, prejudice and hate to each other. The result is that while other races have made progress . . . while the whole world has made progress in man’s accomplishment, you still stand fighting yourselves, dishonouring yourselves, showing no disposition toward that higher life, so that you will be abundantly blessed . . . what a pity it is that we cannot stand united without the written law? There is no written law compelling other races to stand together . . .? But with the Black man, you can preach to him from the pulpit, you lecture from the platform, from the byways and the hedges the spirit of cooperation, but he will not cooperate. . .”
I agree up to a point, because some things have obviously changed. (Think Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Nelson Mandela et al…) But like French critic Jean-Baptiste Karr wrote, ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’. (Think of how those three achievement epitomes have been criticized and ridiculed, often by other Blacks) And if you’re so inclined, listen to what a young Black American, evidently intelligent, radio talk show host, Tommy Sotomayor, has to say about Black women in America, today. Check out his dissection of them on the internet.
Many years ago while in New York, USA, I was fond of telling my relatives there that I could easily identify black/minority neighbourhoods, as opposed to White ones, without seeing anyone around. I said I could be blindfolded, driven around, then put off in a residential area, and I could immediately tell the main ethnic composition of the neighbourhood. It may have been a simplistic experiment, but the presence of strewn garbage, sagging facades, and derelict vehicles, or their absence, generally told me a story, one that is told around the world, in graphic Black and White. Here in Guyana, it has a more colourful twist. (More on this next week)

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