Are we as Black people a lost cause?

We have come from a long way to go. In this I mean we have worked to free ourselves from the legal restraints that kept us from being discriminated against from an apartheid level. However, the mental state of Black people around the world is fractured, broken and lost. Lost in a maze of not knowing who we really are. I fully comprehend people know they are from Brazil, Bahamas, Tanzania, United States, Zimbabwe, Jamaica or Canada. But, these labels should not become a badge that creates a riff to divide us or a banner to wave other Black people off with disdain, because they don’t fall under your flag. We all must remember and never forget that the borders as they exist today, the borders that define our particular nations were created and recreated by the white European for domination and control over you and your resources.

It is a shame in 2007 that we Black people have not overcome the illusion of borders, nations and flags. In no way am I advocating that any of us denounce our individual cultures as this is the richness of our people, but to dismiss other Black people on the basis of your given nationality. This brings me to the issue at hand.

While listening to Real Talk with Jeffery Lloyd on More 94 FM, out of Nassau, Bahamas, I listened to the venom spewed about people that are of Haitian parentage living in the Bahamas now. The Bahamian people are upset about the migration of Haitians to the islands much as the population of the U.S. are about the Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Mexican migration northward. Three guest were on the program, born and raised in the Bahamas spoke of the discrimination by the Bahamian people against them and each and every one of the guests says they have been discriminated against by Black Bahamians many times to the point of violence!! Violence, not in the course of self defense, but violence based on nationality against another Black man or woman. And, yet I am told there are some places that are still “whites only” in the Bahamas.  This is where the fight should be. 

Black on Black violence of any kind is destroying us, however mental violence can be just as terrible. This form of national bias that’s occurring in Black people is mental violence. Now I have a friend visiting me as I write this. She was born and raised most of her life in Zimbabwe, later attending college here in the U.S. Upon graduation, she attained a job working in Ethiopia in East Africa. She has experienced a type of national prejudice, in that she being from Zimbabwe, considers herself to be a Black woman, however the Ethiopians don’t consider themselves to be Black.  So she is treated with the same national disdain as the Haitians face in the Bahamas. A big factor in this “so called” national pride is the fact, that Ethiopia was never colonized like many other African countries. The Ethiopians love things that are NOT made in their country yet make beautiful products they will not wear and should an outsider wear their products they are castigated for “trying to be Ethiopian when you’re not.” This is one of the many symptoms the Ethiopians don’t recognize as colonization of the mind!

It’s a sad shame that we as Black people have not learned to see beyond the veil cast by governments, big business and other entities. With all the access to information, knowledge and wisdom we still persecute ourselves for those forces wishing to compromise us. Never think they want to destroy us, only to subjugate us as their pawns. In a conversation over at the Charcoal Link blog, Aulelia advised that to speak English rather than the native language, shows one is educated. How can this be in 2007? Until we can light a path we will continue to be lost in a maze.