There is no such thing as a Black culture.
Culture broadly is defined as——
- the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively."20th century popular culture" Similar: the arts the humanities intellectual achievement(s)intellectual activity literature music painting philosophy
- the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group." Caribbean culture"
Ethnicity is
- the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. "the interrelationship between gender, ethnicity, and class"
But culture in relationship to ethnicity/people is defined as three simple precepts:
- language
- country of origin
- rituals
In order to be classified, recognized, as a culture/ethnicity, a grouping must possess all three. The problem with this is that it works for say Jews (Hebrew/Yiddish, Middle East/Africa, Seders, Yom Kippur, etc.)
Now we could on to a dissection of the authenticity of the 3 point evaluation system as it is from a Westernized ontology, epistemology—-though it really helps to define more of the non-Western world—- than all of the Western places. But to demonize a construct because of the issues with the construction architects is specious and doesn’t take into examination that the system might work/have a point.
Language-Black Americans have a language that is not formalized. (Yes we have Ebonics and Gullah and Creole, etc.——but you can’t get far in Nigeria speaking that, nor is it a language that is recognized and present elsewhere in large formalized ways. Meaning there are people speaking French in Finland but probably not Gullah. Now this has a lot to do with segregation and discrimination but all cultures discriminate against one another—-the examination here is formalized, adopted, living language. The again mix and match adoption of Black American languages and the fact that all of us Black Americans don’t speak one of the various forms, pushes them to language vs. dialect.)
Language is:
- the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture" a study of the way children learn language"
- a system of communication used by a particular country or community. "the book was translated into twenty-five languages"
Dialect is:
- a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group.
"this novel is written in the dialect of Trinidad"
Black originating language would fall into dialect at best and not be recognized wholly as a language. It could be recognized as a language if millions of us spoke it or the other 2 precepts of culture were met. The problem is again segregation, we were segregated from each other so that we didn’t possess a uniform language so the languages we might have made universal, even amongst Black Americans, was diluted and eradicated to the point of non-formal existence.
Country of Origin-Black Americans have at best a biological ability to genetically trace country of origin but the vast majority don’t have a direct knowledge of that history, land, ancestry nor family in that African place.
Country of Origin is
- Generally speaking, the country of origin is the country of manufacture, production, or growth where an article or product comes from. Country of origin is not to be confused with where the product was shipped from as this may not be the same as where it was originally produced.
Rituals-Black Americans do have rituals that are a hodge podge of African rituals passed on from various African peoples/their ancestors of the past or viewing African rituals in the present and adopting them.
Rituals are
- a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order. "the role of ritual in religion"
adjective
- relating to or done as a religious or solemn rite. "ritual burial"
We’re not Black, nor African Americans-Language
The above demarcations and breakdowns are why it is so difficult to define and focus a group of people who have African ancestry, and melanin, in common. We diverge on the 3 Precepts depending upon the individual but don’t coalesce as a mass to fulfill the 3 precepts. Segregation caused definitional fracturization.
You can be different kinds of Jews but still default to being a Jew. People of African origin who were brought mainly to South America and the Caribbean and then North America and Europe, were forced within a year to assimilate to that enslaving culture’s cultural norms, languages, rituals and by placement, country of origin mores. Therefore to bring the identity of their preceding generations to halt, a cultural chasm of Before, Assimilation/Disintegration, and then finally, Adoption.
Yes, there were Africans who arrived in the Americas who were not originally slaves and had knowledge-memory and were able to eventually write about having language, country of origin and rituals to create a known culture—-unknown to the present day mass of Black folk (famously Olaudah Equiano)—-but they too by virtue of minority to majority, had to forms of adoption-defaulting to the dominant culture.
One of the big defaults is English. We defaulted to the language spoken in the land of wherever we were in the Americas. Non-enslaved Africans were able to hold and maintain their origin language but the enslaved had to default—-which is where dialects sprouted from—-as both an combining, accommodation, translator, and individuation—-though done all in levels of enclaving and secrecy.
We’re not Black, nor Africans-Country of Origin
Most, well over 90% of Blacks/AAs don’t know which African country they have an ancestral lineage to. Some do. Those who were free and never enslaved, those who were able to record oral history and those who were educated—-or some combination of the three, make up those with ancestral-lineage knowledge. Most don’t. Most Blacks/African Americans don’t know who or what they are or where they’re from beyond 1–3 generations previous.
Luckily, that can now genetically be researched and change that. But most don’t/haven’t done so.
One of the reasons is prohibitive costs and it’s not entertainment based. If you got an ancestry test for free with Mercedes, BMWs, Nikes, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, a Jay-Z cd or watching BET—-literally half, if not all African Americans, would know where they genetically originate. Some consumer products have permeated deeply into Black-AAs, whether for good or ill, right or wrong, but there hasn’t been a long-term vision, past to present or present to past, incentive to include origination with those objects/experiences of entertainment/consumerism.
Maybe some day some billionaire will set up a trust where ancestry can be paid for just by application, Hmmm?
It’s not such a pressed idea among Black and AAs because we have the flattened idea of Africa, Africans as an origin, not understanding the power in country of origin.
(Now if your country of origin were designated on say your tax forms for a rebate…well…)
We’re Black, African American And Slightly African-Rituals
This is where we excel because it is ephemeral, malleable, enduring, social and personal. We could practice the majority of rituals, and pass them down by generation, whether indentured, free or enslaved. But because it was literally a game of generational mailbox, with people as a majority denied education (it would be wonderful for people who identify as Black/AA to explain WHY education was denied and the effect it has had upon their family line. Honestly, what we’re pressing at and demanding in unity and equality and equality—-is that we’re NOT equal because we were hampered—-but we never define what the hamperings effects are, present day. Ironically because enough of us don’t have the education to dissect the reality with critical thinking or metacognition to illuminate our limitations’ origin.)
We have less because less of us could think, compute and amass so those Blacks and AAs reading this, received far less from their ancestors in America than comparable White(ned) Americans. We’re not less then by segregation simply marginalized, less exposed, limited en masse.
How many of you own books (not the Bibble—-that is the Indoctrination Manifesto) from your grandparents, your great-grandparents, and so forth, back?
Indoctrination not knowledge of how to do things was passed down to you then. Bluntly then, we Blacks/AAs have less smart/educated people in our families because we don’t have internal social systems for cultivating knowledge, knowing as a (intellectual) ritual. Jewish people have Yeshiva and Talmudic studies—-which teaches not just history and religion and moral codes but also how to read, write, reason, critically think. At 12/13 boys and girls, Bat and Bar Mitzvahs, of Jewish faith stand before a large assemblage and relay, in another language, knowledge and cultural-historical knowledge that they’ve studied.
How many Black and Latino kids do this of not the Bibble (memorizing another culture’s values—-indoctrination) but any, African in origin, in an African country’s language of that person’s country of origin?
Blacks and AAs think the ramifications or limitations are the worse of discrimination, no, it’s the inherent disabling, subtly, generation after generation, and indoctrination—— currently, 93% of Blacks and AAs doing it now (I’ll explain how they’re doing it at the end.) But it’s the issue of indoctrination, alienation from knowledge and adoption of a Culture Disruptor—-the avoidance of current education.
Blacks and African Americans Avoid Not Just African Education but Education Itself
Something happened. As a teacher for decades, an educator, someone who enjoys education, learning, reading, writing, studying, who came from parents and grandparents and great-parents who (Black, White, African, Scottish, Irish Narragansett Natives, West Indian, Southern American) loved the same, I think it happened within Civil Rights Reform—-approximately 1955–1970. Before the full Amendments and Reform, prior to 1970 that adult generation was limited very directly by segregation—-between 10–15% of Blacks/AAs being beyond high school educated. Which is where we get the push for voting rights, recruiting voters, Septima Clark, education, grassroots activism to educate for political and social power, Ella Baker, Thurgood Marshall, Freedom Riders, etc.—-in order to achieve the end result of the CRA—-Blacks had to be, greater numbers, educated, about reading, writing, government, to be able to pass voting tests, become activists, assist in CRA. There was a mass group necessity for education to move to the “next level” in a segregated society—-education was then of the Talented Twentieth or Twentieth percentile a cultural/community responsibility not just for yourself but for your neighbor, your family, illiterate folk down South, folk on the front lines. Education was community based and necessary so the educated were supported in learning not deriding , like now, or accused of being White for being educated.
Often Black people look wistfully and twistedly, at segregation, at Jim Crow, for the positive, a sense of unification that it brought. It didn’t so much of bring unification as it brought No Choice. By that I mean if there are 50 of us in a jail cell and food and supplies are brought in, we must negotiate, navigate and perhaps even create systems of barter within that cell for everyone to survive and not devolve into anarchy. By that metaphor, in segregation, freed ostensibly from direct plantation slavery, 10 years of Reconstruction to catch our collective breath, before peonage, sharecropping, Jim Crow, prison chain gang-workers—-we had to build systems, as we were excluded from the mass White cultures systems’, outside of our social “cells”.
Fast forward that ideal of segregation to Now.
Say we were still sharply segregated, where as now we’re intermingled/intertwined but not truly mixed, and segregation meant that Black society was different and lesser in resources and systems than White societies.
Say it was 2022, Black segregation existed and only White towns, cities, governments, institutions, families, had the internet, or access to it?
Say it was 2022 , Black segregation existed and only White towns, cities, governments, institutions, families, had access to food distribution systems from meats to grains and vegetables—-Black towns had to rely upon small farms for food/meat.
Say it was 2022, Black segregation existed and only White towns, cities, governments, institutions, families, had phone service, local and international, or access to it?
See if we were wholly segregated as in some Black and AAs fantasies, we would be sorely limited——healthcare disparities already highlight by COVID among Blacks and Latinos, HIV death rates with or without antivirals/PRep, no wholly owned and funded hospitals in the United States of Blacks/Latinos.
We are still dependent upon access to White cultures expanded, non-limited, resources and technologies and therefore their created systems of military, social support, distribution and technological advancement,, to survive and prosper.
This is the ramification of less education and the focus in and after CRA, of being free but not becoming capable, comparable, co-partners in the industry of America. Blacks and Latinos couldn’t easily survive without White people because there aren’t enough of us with high level education to take over the maintenance and management of the systems that run the country——even if we could surmount White's being 5 to 6x more in population. Disregarding Whitney Young’s negotiating with the government and Big Business, MLK settled for a a watered down right to vote but not true progress. And later, he admitted this.
But that critical time, say 1970 to 1990, we didn’t storm schools and universities—-didn’t do a mass “catch up”, we simply continued on. And without a Whitney Young government guarantee by population—-13% of the US government jobs to be held by Blacks—-and so on for Latinos, Natives, Asians—-at a minimum, we could be soft discriminated against:
“Our company of 10,000 employees isn’t discriminatory—-we have 100 Black janitors and 1 Black Manager. See!”
vs.
“Our company of 10,000 employees isn’t discriminatory—-we have 1300 Black employees, by federal mandate, at a minimum distributed through the 3 tiers of positions from entry, managerial to senior managerial at the government mandated 13%—-we have to hire or promote every year according to the USA demographics or pay a tax penalty. See!”
Now what that would have done is that of say a round 50 million Blacks currently and about 60 million Latinos—-13/15% —-15 to 20 million of them——would be in government jobs, the same in private sector jobs—-and therefore that would severely cut into the approximate 50–70% poverty rates of both currently (20–30 million in total)—-which would in turn increase the GDP and GNP because more people working, having money, need to buy more things so innovation, industry, manufacturing are necessary in country, rather than shipped internationally, for capable and cheaper labor.
Racism and segregation has tipped the apple cart so that a lot of our American apples spill overseas. But because we opted for the right to vote/tokenism freedom rather than the right to progress-money advancement-equity (different than equality) we have two generations of Blacks and now Latinos who are not as intellectually prodigious as folk in India and China, and ironically, Africa. We are not any where's near the mass of STEM learned folk they are.
Blacks and AAs leaned into the idea of equality rather than the leverage equity would have given us long-term. And as of last month, 93% of mellinated folk self label and identify as Black. Nearly all of us agree to a limited, ephemeral designation-connotation, literally created by White people.
We have no power. In media, in industry, in commerce, in international relations, in medicine, in universities, in politics nor private business. There is no Black organization that can stop, halt, or derail any of the 11 Industry Sectors of America.
At absolute best, we could slow down entertainment, Facebook and TikTok videos of singing and dancing and buffoonery…but not for long.
Black (and Latino) culture—-as an aspirational, delusional virus (much like the social construct of race), has been injected into mellinated folk in the Americas, and beyond, to teach us to serve an ideology—-whether by whip or minimum wage; to not seek or wield power, and to eschew intense, rigorous education in our households by at least 50% of our current populations.
Blacks have been duped by the creators of culture—-who then back it up, support it with reparations, governmental support and land—-to others—-as sort of a brass ring just a hair’s inch out of the collective Black and Latino validity grasp but instead as a condescending box to entrap minds, hearts, futures and Human Capital within, without any of the 4 Pillars of true power of a community/culture—-businesses, schools, politicians and media/education nor homeland—-under our autonomous control.
Now, dear reader, reflect on Jews, Asians, Arabs, Indians, even some Latino groups and ask——do they have 1,2,3,4? Language, ritual, country of origin?
And how many of the 4 Pillars and 3 Cultural Precepts do Blacks/AAs have?
Black culture, like the delusion of race, is yet another dog chasing its tail distraction constructed for the Blacks to do, dance, sing, preach and extol and laud on about——circumstances not having changed by much in 100 years.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
