The problem, not with the question, but in answering it is the underlying, hidden problem with Black/Latino, but mainly Black culture: the inability to address what being oppressed and victimized has done to the psychology of Black people. If we can’t fully acknowledge A, we can’t even see or address or more importantly, heal B.
We are a culture, who as entertainment call ourselves niggers.
No, sit with that.
Now lets run through other cultures—-Italians, Jews, Brazilians—-and let’s examine the art form from them that denigrates them as a people—-with cultural, racial slurs. That they bop and dance and hop and party to. Come on, you know Jewish, Italian, even Latino slurs—-you know them, I know them.
Now go to an Italian party and blast you know, Italian music, made by Italian people, with Italian artists/musicians—-or Jews—-blast that hard—-like Matisyahu (whom I happen to have some great CDs/music from)—-you know what he and those partying Italians are not doing—-calling themselves niggers, or hoes, or bitches or glorifying gangbanging/killing each other.
Just sit with that for a moment.
Blacks, Americanized, and some Africans, are the only cultures who party to their own self-denigration.
When I teach about race, racial theory, the social construct of race, racialization and racism being manifestations of a mental-social anxiety/neurosis as of yet, undiagnosed by the DSM (the fact that you and I, we were all trained—-if you recognize race, that makes you racist. I know, upsetting but the first step, even AA will tell you is accepting the truth. So based upon melanin, simple environmental differences that have affected pigmentation of folk—-you, me, your friends, my friends, our families, folk all over the world think of other folk and project biases, prejudice, discrimination upon them. Insane, right? Especially when broken down like that.
Rap is much the same way—-it is a legitimate human expression, yes, even Art. A creative artistic human expression but let’s dig a little deeper….
Who is expressing this Art and what are they saying through this venue?
That’s the problem.
Ok, let’s get extreme in our metaphors and examples—-say rap was invented in an extreme society—-like Germany in the 1930s by the German people. And there was you know casual German rap about beer and partying and really long words and dancing and getting into all kinds of shenanigan's and jiggy, in Berlin.
Then there started to be extreme German rap from this dude Adolph. And then him and his crew, in Prada-esque uniforms, started spewing about socialism and rights and changing society…and then as the years went on about certain kinds of people not being “good enough” and what to do with those people. And more frighteningly, what was occurring in the countryside at these “camps” to those people.
I actually looked up was there “Holocaust” rap. There is. Extremes in artistic expression as both barbarically simple and others as in a height of creativity—-Lil Dicky. Hilarious because his video—-below—-is artistic in the sense that one, he’s a normal looking nerdy White Jewish dude just rapping away but in his video, in a rap duel with Hitler (inspired Art!—-he literally made my artistic dick hard! I laughed out loud and at the same time was impressed with the parameters of the video and the hilarious tropes he played with.).
More interestingly he, just a normal dude, Jewish and with a German fraulein in dress and ponytails (but not skimpily dressed (a send up of Black rap videos with scantily clad women doing the booty shake))—-then he plays against Nazis in a basketball game. Then he rap battles, insertion himself into Hitler footage, and the lyrics are creative and funny and referencing and he even uses German sausage when he makes sexualized innuendo about the German girl.
But it’s funny and smart and self-effacing and at the same time winking at Nazism, war and more importantly, Black rap/rappers and Black culture in rap videos.
It’s a sharp play within play around culture, from a Jew, similar to say Eminem…but you know what he never does?
Denigrate Jews or women…or even himself.
He doesn’t use any racial slurs about himself, his culture, his people, women, society—-and the violence/war he shows is actual footage of World War II.
I searched for Jews, Jewish rap, knowing Matisyahu but sure that there were others, pushing the envelope. And still no self-denigrating/hating (I actually hate how often the word hate is used to describe what people do or think or act towards themselves—-it’s often too broad or simplistic.)
But again, back to our cultural layering—-Jews have been oppressed and gone through all kinds of natural systemic shit for centuries too.
However their cultural framework, their cultural framework designed by Jewish people, Jewish individuals, doesn’t have as an artistic expression calling themselves niggers and hoes and bitches and killers and thugs, as artistic expression.
Huh.
No, really think about that. Because what that thought, unpeeling that culture onion suggests, is that a people, a culture of people, can go through centuries of shit and not self-flagellate itself, for entertainment.
Okay, now I’m going to leap into why Black culture/people do this, because a culture is just a mass of people—-a small family or a nation of millions, who agree to norms and habits and rituals.
Black people, in America and expansively, brown people throughout the world, were taught A is good, and you, B, are not good. Racism is predicated, the very foundation of it is based upon Superiority v. Inferiority (based upon….fill in the melanin blank or the cultural norm).
We, Black Americans, were taught we were Inferior. Now one assumes that when we opposed this context, probably as soon as someone so called Superior (White) suggested it, we refused it. But no—-Black people have done something that only occurs within biological organisms—-we have adopted the cancer alongside healthy cells in our mind-bodies. We have adapted to that which we reject as diseased ideology. We are in fact the existence of the duology of racist foundational thinking—-Superiority and Inferiority—-at the exact same time. (We’re like that Star Trek black white checkered aliens episode—-which is what made it so startlingly insightful.).
Now imagine people with this psychological duology started making Art, and Art always starts as self referential and then incorporates the surrounding reality. So now, we’re representational of This AND That ideology.
Now, let’s burrow a little deeper—-let’s say we, Blacks, are separated from White oppression in the form of our private spaces—-homes, families, relationships, enclaves—-why do we still maintain this duology ideology?
In teaching about racism, to get people to understand their experiences, their own minds, we often talk about the Little White Man in all people’s heads. Pointedly inside of Black (minority) folks heads. It’s more popularized now as the White Gaze. Essentially a pervasive psychology/ideology—-ultimately a product of hegemony—-that is constantly permeating our thoughts, ideas, ideology, ideals, relationships—-even when away from the prime source of that oppressive ideology.
Kind of like throwing yourself to the floor and jamming a dildo up your butt…because you were raped. But now you do this often. Alone. Or with your family and close friends. (Yeah, let that imagery sink in.)
That’s what Black people are doing—-self-flagellating themselves to varying intense degrees or even worse, and we do this personally, and now you can see we do this with our Art/entertainment—-we flagellate each other with this oppressively ideology-White Gaze-Little White Man.
Kyle In Black Groups (Always a Fun Time)
So sitting in a Black book club, reading the deep tracts of Washington and DuBois and such with Black people—-in the 21st century—like a few years ago—-I suggested to the group that we were studying the wrong things. We were studying Then while we occupied Now. Now, separate from my time allusion—-is very important—-that’s another self-destructive cultural norm, particularly Black people possess—-living in the Then rather than the Now.
I will offer though that it is an inherent system built into the flagellation of that White Gaze, dildo butt cramming culturally, to repeat the cultural rape. Part of a taught by White society and reinforced by Black peers, family, lovers, culture is flagellation—-internalized and expressed inferiorization of the Black/colored,
Here’s what I suggest: we, in that book group, all under 70 years old were never slaves.
Now hold that thought for a moment and let’s bring back our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Consider how Jews acknowledge and fortify AGAINST genocide/oppression and concentration camps but they don’t Now identify with it in the sense of reminding you or I or each other—-”You could be killed at any minute in an oven for being Jewish.” They fortify against oppression but don’t interiorize it.
I’m going to let you in on a Black secret: We CONSTANTLY remind each other, even in book clubs, even in the group think, intellectual pursuits—-that we were (are) slaves. Even those of us who have never been in chattel slavery. (Now before you go all jellybean on me, I fully acknowledge that we are in Pink, if we measured the Black racial experience from direct chattel enslavement, to know—-near absolute freedom—-near, not complete—-having had over centuries the Red of Slavery diluted through social and legal means. But we ain't in harsh Red—-like our ancestors were. Perhaps we’re in Pink in this Now time signature.)
But we keep asserting to each other, reminding each other, quantifying each other and reality, as Intense Red. (And now you understand my color swag, yeah multi-level inception, baby!)
I brought this up in the book club that perhaps in the Now time signature, instead of assiduously turning to our left and right and reminding each other—-”You is, was, ain’t nothing but a slave, in this reality.”—-we start studying and perpetuating the psychology of NOT being slaves. That instead of studying the EXAMINATION of slavery and oppression—-we study the examination, written by anyone with some sense and study—-the eradication of individual and cultural brainwashing. But it fell upon (enslaved to a dildo) ears.
And that’s what rap is and how it originates. And why it’s both positive from some mentalities and equally, broadly, destructively, negative and self (Black) flagellating, from others.
We Black people like to fuck ourselves, because we were taught for centuries we were the people to be fucked, in all ways, so we are perpetuating that brainwashing——we glory, identify and take identity FROM the historical cultural rape—--even in our entertainment and Art.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
That is really good to read. Speaking as a Jew, from my POV, I wonder how much of the difference is that Jews have a culture to reach for and hold on to that goes back about 2,500 years. I know it’s a joke (someone tried to kill us, we survived, lets eat) but it is true that we’ve got rituals perfected over 1000 years at least, to mentally resist internalizing outside oppressors gaze (Hanukkah, Passover). Passover in particular - You’ve probably been to a Passover Seder, I’m just guessing since you live in New York, and seek out cultural and spiritual experiences from what I can tell.
So whatever buttfuckery has been thrown at Jews for the last 400 years, culminating in a nation created out of PTSD (damn that’s a good description of Israel), there’s millennia of culture behind it that was created independent from the events from 1600 onward. Even the Holocaust was just one (genocidal) decade, not four centuries of slavery. I’ve got prayers memorized that I can trace back 500, 1000 years. I don’t know how much of African-American culture can be directly traced back to different parts of Africa 500 years ago.
Very different histories of oppression, and very different reactions to that history. As always, I value your insight on this topic.
The Jewish Phenomenon: Seven Keys to the Enduring Wealth of a People
The Principles:
1. Real Wealth is Portable: It's Knowledge
2. Take Care of Your Own and They Will Take Care of You
3. Successful People Are Professionals and Entrepreneurs
4. Develop Your Verbal Confidence
5. Be Selectively Extravagant but Prudently Frugal
6. Celebrate Individuality: Encourage Individuality
7. Have Something to Prove: A Drive to Succeed
I recently ordered the above book, as I’ve been exploring the question of cultural influences and history to the individual success and self-perception.
Bluntly I can tell you, a thesis I’m working on for a larger project/class—Slavery Worked. Further Blackness, as designed in a Westernized context, American ideology, to expansive world racial context—-Blackness is a prison, an ideological and psychological prison and even within culture, difficult to navigate.
In general comparison to Jewish or other oppressed cultures—-African Americans though separated initially from African cultures of origin, have established a culture here in America, and in many ways integrated bits and pieces of African culture. One of the things I suggested in a Black group was we all do Ancestry or genetic testing/tracking—-that we get a direct country or general origin for each member. It might even be a wonderful thing to make it available to all African Americans through a government Reparations series of programs.
But the problem is that African Americans have absorbed the White Gaze ideology and negated a complete interest in African Americanism—-if that makes sense. Not all of us want to be further away from Western/American (read: White) because of the above duology psyche.
Yes, I’ve been to Seders and enjoyed them as well as other Asian, Native, Indian, Latin, etc. cultural events because, yes, I enjoy exploring. I like the diversity of people on Earth.
But Again, African Americans default to an enslaved mentality/culture. We too, with ancestry tracing could locate our countries, histories, rituals of origin but on one level—-AAs don’t want to offend the Little White Man in their heads, the White Gaze or in reality. White people aren’t as consciously aware of the duplicity and caution that Black people act with to avoid upsetting the grace of White people—-again acting in a slavery mindset/slavery brainwashing working.
The problem is we, AAs, re-teach each other/children, this enslavement mentality without the intense control of White people. I often teach that we have had racism/racist practices subcontracted to us in historical slavery. Frantz Fanon decades ago wrote about Black Skin, White Masks-—that we have psychologically absorbed being oppressors of each other because we didn’t void oppression.
In many was this is why we have issues with equality and equity because we don't’ have a clear picture, beyond our projected/fantasized image of White lives as to what it would look like. Our greatest desire is…to be White?
I’ll illustrate further from the book club—-a disturbed Black man, still in his hospital gown, wandered in—-yes, this happens in upper Manhattan. He sits in the circle of 20+ AAs, ranging from 20s to 60s, and proceeds to babble on about—-a variety of things, because he has an audience. Now I’m sitting there—-fascinated—-not just by him—-though I listened to see if he were decompensating—-as I've had clients/students do and if I should “professionally” intervene. But I also wanted to see how the group, super duper Black empowered, handled this. Silence, awkward, unsure of what to do and then he got up after about 20 minutes and left. As the group sighed in relief and tried to deconstruct what had happened I brought up that he was proof of what we, as a study group needed—-we don't’ need to review DuBois, X, King, Washington—-we need to expand our toolkit and studying how to psychologically help each other—-even if it comes from non-Black clinicians. Our neighborhoods/families, need us to have layman skills to deal with such folk in our lives. For all the high intellectual wannabesness in the group, they didn’t know how to help/deal with 1 Black man.
In several of my classes, non profit programs I’ve suggested, due to the statistic of 60% of Black and Latinos dying en route to the hospital—-because Latinos and AAs aren’t trained in CPR—-can’t stabilize each other before the paramedics arrive. I did this twice for my mother, she died the second time but I revived her the 1st time.
Even to GED/TASC students of color—-”we” need these skillsets in our families and then slowly build, build, build because unfortunately I know, I’m CPR/First AID/AED certified but I’m 1 in 100. I’m also O+ so I regularly give blood, red cells, plasma, etc. and a coworker’s son has Sickle Cell—-which is why I donate blood. We haven’t normalized ourselves ASIDE from White people/ideology particularly to basic psychological skills we need to counsel each other in families and relationships.
These might seem like left field points but a culture of people is built by caring for each other, being able to help each other—-and we’re incapable as a movement/mass to help each other as AAs with the slavery mentality/mindset.
While I agree that Israel is the PTSD capital of the world and many of it’s current issues have to do with a reaction to a deep cultural attack, those other rituals, cultural factors, even language supports the millions of Jews in the world NOT self-flagellating or “agreeing” with oppressive imagery.
We need not just a museum but a think tank, like the Heritage Foundation where WE, not White people analyze AAs. We have enough museums.
AAs will survive, but our “healthy” folk numbers will be reduced. I honestly think only about 50% of us will make it—the rest will be in a permanent underclass, addictions, poverty, etc. because bluntly again, slavery worked on all of us but some of us have done things consciously and unconsciously to dismantle that flagellating brainwashing.
No comments:
Post a Comment