Not just black Americans but non-whites outraged against ‘white privilege.’
Dr. Teddy KamauA Message to White America: Stop Kneeling
White Americans are in a state of confession. They are looking for every way to make black people happy. Not just black Americans, but anyone who is not classified as white Anglo-Saxon or of European heritage has joined in the outrage against so-called ‘white privilege.’ For instance, Mexicans are now demanding that white Americans apologize for ‘stealing’ Texas. They claim that Texas belonged to them and it was taken by force. With every media group airing the evils of white people, many white Americans are kneeling down to show solidarity with black people.
If black lives matter, why is it that in the United States abortion among black women is almost five times that of white women and white people are the majority? The argument by many black pastors who oppose abortion is that the reason why black children are aborted is because of, “aggressive marketing by abortion providers to minorities” (Cohen, 2008) in the Guttmacher Policy Review Vol. 11, Issue 3. If black lives matter, why are black people killing black people in Chicago? The idea that white people are responsible for the decadence we see in the black community is laughable. Even black pastors agree their people are responsible. The black pastors have encouraged black people to marry and stay married, young people to avoid having children out of wed-lock and to avoid extra-marital sexual behavior that results in children growing up without fathers or leaders.
The sad thing about the screaming and shouting currently taking place in America is that it is being echoed by African countries, with some calling on Black-Americans to migrate to Africa. Migrate to Africa? To do what? Fetch water in the Congo River? Use leaves for toilet paper? Walk barefoot to school. Or, ride while pregnant on a boda boda to the hospital when having labor pains? Really, will that save black lives? Why do black Americans think millions of Africans have migrated from Africa? Because Africa is wonderful? No! It is because despite having great resources, many Africans live in poverty. Black lives in Africa do not matter to the corrupt and greedy black leadership.
But Africans do not want to accept the fact that they have very little in common with black Americans. And black Americans want black people to universally join them in their struggle, which is unique to black Americans. It is true that colonialism was oppressive and can be related to the Anglo Saxons. However, to be fair, Kenya got independence from the British in 1963 but instead of advancing as one of the best pieces of land on earth, Kenya has constantly run itself to the ground and depends on nations that are majority Anglo-Saxon to rescue it through aid. The difference between Kenyans and black Americans is that at least we know whom to blame. Even our president, Uhuru Kenyatta has accepted that his administration is corrupted: black stealing from other blacks.
Even on the issue of racism, Kenyans are realistic about multi-culture tribalism. The Kikuyu, being the majority, have been accused by the other tribes of ‘black privilege.’ The other tribes claim that Kikuyus have taken all the good land, they have all the money, they have all the good jobs, and they have ruled the country 3-1. I am a Kikuyu by the
choice of my parents and I do not apologize for that. I rejoice in the Lord, always. Should I apologize for democracy? Like in America, majority votes determine who rules. That is democracy, the system that both Democrats and Republicans in America espouse as the best system of government. It is this system that made Barack Obama president. I wonder why Obama did not solve the black problem in America. Oh, “The white people would not let him” they say. Really? A majority of white people voted for him too.
Those white people who are kneeling to black people are participating in idiocy. I would argue that they are betraying their own identity. No one should apologize to another if the other person is responsible for his or her own misery. America has great opportunities for every one. Even the Bible is clear on personal responsibility. St Paul says, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12, NIV).
Why are the majority of healthcare workers in American retirement homes Africans and other immigrants? If an African can migrate to these United States of America and earn a Doctorate degree, what would stop a black American from doing the same? White people?
Teddy Njoroge Kamau (Ph.D.)
HTBluff Associates
Diaspora Messenger Senior Columnist
Cohen, S. (2008). “Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture” Guttmacher Policy Review, 11(3). Retrieved from https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2008/08/abortion-and-women-color-bigger-picture
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat
Not just black Americans but non-whites outraged against ‘white privilege.’
To my Professor,
I just completed reading Palmer, Parker. (2007). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass. As your student, I needed to respond to the excellent writing.
That was some good read!
Just a little bit of “something, something” as they say, in response.
But I think the kneeling has to do with bringing to an end the systemic oppression that has continued to oppress the black community and people of color. Society in the way of kneeling and following the movement began by football player Collin Kaepernick is demanding an end to this oppressive system evident in the police and prison department sector, banking sector, the housing sector, and the healthcare sector among others.
The African American community may have some problems just like any other community but the system seems to be set to make it difficult for their survival and success.
I do not think we as Africans having grown in Africa can ever understand the plight of the African American people in these United States. There is way that their Psychology has been affected and in the midst of their challenges they try and try again but somehow, it becomes very difficult at times. Their path is so different from our path as Africans in the Diaspora.
In Africanity Redefined, Ali Mazrui writes about Africans being denied opportunities based on the writings of philosophers like David Hume (whom you know much about) David Hume made the assertion that “among people of color are to be found on ingenious manufactures… no arts, no sciences.”
The lies about the potential of the African people was perpetrated right from the early 1300’s and continued to be the philosophy that supported the slave trade in western and eastern Africa.
It was no less a person than Thomas Jefferson, the American founding father, who had the following to say,
” Misery is often part of the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks there is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love (the love of blacks) is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion, indeed has Phyllis Wheatley, but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.” That is the founding father whom we attribute to the saying that ” We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the poetic phrase, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” had concluded that black people were incapable of writing great poetry, a myth that was and is dangerous to African literature as a whole.
One of our very own western-educated scholars and a great poet he was, Leopold Sedar Senghor, the former president of Senegal wrote that African epistemology begins NOT with “I think therefore I am” (which is a Cartesian formula) but with “I feel therefore I am.” Leopold Sengor insisted that “emotion is black… reason is Greek.” This fallacy in education and in theory was wrong and continued to be perpetuated amongst the white ellitest of the day.
Indeed it was just before Kenya’s independence in 1963 when the European missionaries were beginning to flock into Kenya’s white highlands that the then Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, Hugh Trevor-Roper, was writing and exposing the westerner to African history.
This is what Roper at Oxford University was writing about Africa to the incoming missionaries, “Maybe in the future, there will be African history, but at the moment there is none… There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness, and darkness is not a subject of history.” Ouch! Do you think this statement may explain the attitude of the western missionaries in Africa?
Well, back to the subject at hand. There is “systemic oppression and a perspective that needs to be changed. That is why my fellow brothers and sisters are kneeling down. They are saying stop it now for enough is enough and Mississippi seems to have finally gotten it right. Lower that flag and send the monuments to the museum where they belong instead of fronting them on our faces every day.
Son of Mativo, your cousin, with no national privilege!
Nonwhites are just the nations given to the devil at Babel and their behavior and attitude towards God’s chosen White Western Christian Israel is proof of this. Revelations is in play and things will get sorted out before