Have you ever asked yourself these questions?
- Why is wealth a racial matter? Colonialism, racism, slavery?
- If we are aware of its racial matter, why is it that we are so learned at emotional level but not what has made the other races wealthy?
- Why is it that we black people are the entertainers of the world through sport and music but all of the stars are coached and managed by Caucasians?
- Why is it that the availability and supply of books to be successful are in abundance but as persons of African origin, we are still hewers of wood in the world economy?
- Why is it that African households are full of musical tapes, CDs and DVDs than books?
- Why is it that we seek and mourn about how Caucasians are organized but we are not organized if that has made them successful?
- Why is it that African societies are inherently anti-capitalism and built around a “strong” leader?
- Why are we sophisticated barbarians i.e educated in the Western ways but have not reached the levels of Western capital accumulation and value creation?
16 comments:
Mind boggling questions.
The underlining truth for me is that Africans love chasing after shadows than the real thing..we revel in so much darkness,untruth and fallacies and enmesh ourselves in the dirty politics of colonialism.
Like Fela said in one of his songs..Black man with Black mind..we seek for all that is wrong and junk in other climes and professionalise it to a form of acceptable standards till it becomes a norm and an act,sadly.
The average african mind thinks of no less than to pull a house down rather than figure out how it was built.Follow leaders like sheep destined for a slaughter slab than dwell on how to make leaders--
I sometimes think that our minds were not ready for the westernized education thrust on us at a time we were still searchin for who we were as a people..
Lol i agree with Trybes.
Some may say that we africans are ultimately cursed. But Blasphemy, I would say that africans are the ultimate example of what our world view is. Very selfish and always greedy to the point of insanity.
That mindset is just not ingrained within us lol, that's why u can see ppl who've lived abroad for so long, go back to africa and still practice the same madness.
I agree with trybes
@controversy nice point
You asked if I have ever asked myself those questions?
1. Yes. But of course the answer is quite simple. Africa was the colony and Europe was the beneficiary.
2. Yes. Its because centuries of negatives cannot be overturned by decades of partial positives.
3. Yes. I believe its simply because it was the only way for such a long time that black people could have any impact in society. See #2.
4. Yes. See #2.
5. Yes. However, this is something I noticed in many houses I've visited but not mine. I also have a few friends who grew up with the same situation and I plan to continue it when I start a family. Books are awesome!
6. Yes. To be organized would mean working together, and we should all know by now that not every African is capable of this.
7. No. I guess its just history?
8. No. I do not think we are "barbarians" plus this recession has shown that the Western world's method of capital accumulation may need some tweaking.
@edj
1 please re read dis question again
2 Its because centuries of negatives cannot be overturned by decades of partial positives again the question how does this answer the question please be more elaborate
3 the question is why do we allow caucasians to manage our talents why can't we take our own destiny in our hands
4 ???????
5 books are awesome we all know but and like you alluded you have books but how many of them are non academic ie books that help in your personal development!
6 why are you implying that as people of african origin or africans we are not capable of organization if so y do u think so?
7 history how?
8 The word "barbarian" comes into English from Medieval Latin barbarinus, from Latin barbaria, from Latin barbarus, from the ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (bárbaros). The word is onomatopoeic, the bar-bar representing the impression of random hubbub produced by hearing a spoken language that one cannot understand, similar to blah blah, babble or rhubarb in modern English. Related imitative forms are found in other Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit barbara-, "stammering" or "curly-haired."
Depending on its use, the term "barbarian" either described a foreign individual or tribe whose first language was not Greek or a Greek individual or tribe speaking Greek crudely. The term is also historically used to describe the Vikings[2] and Goths; it is a common label for the "Normans" during their invasion of England and for the Goths during the Gothic revolt that put an end to the (Western) Roman Empire in 470 A.D. and began the so-called Dark Ages.
I totally disagree with TRYBES. If I were still Catholic I will spiral-bind and cast him to the lake of fire! I don't subscribe to overly broad stereotyping. It achieves very little in a sane conversation.
Blasphemy, your questions are so difficult to answer because there is level of ambiguity in almost all of them. To the best of my understanding of your questions, I seem to be siding more with EDJ on these issues. But I must admit he is doing a lot of oversimplifying.
1) I'm not sure I understand the question clearly. Are you asking why wealth is distributed disproportionately amongst races or are you asking why humans exploit race to make wealth? If you are referring to the former, then I think EDJ is somewhat on point. On the other hand, if you are referring to the latter then I think the answer is rather simple. Wealth is not only a racial issue, it is an exploitative issue. Just like in the jungle the strong exploit the weak, in the economic jungle the capable exploit whatever is exploitable to make more wealth. International arms merchants exploit the lust for power to make money, pimps exploit sexual lust to enrich themselves, High Frequency Traders exploit computational speed to gather wealth, the Education industry exploits ignorance to blossom, etc. Race is just another exploitable artifact under the scrutiny of greed. Race does not stand alone.
I'm still not sure if I answered the right question.
2) I don't understand.
3)First all, I don't have data that proves unequivocally that the distribution of Caucasians managing blacks vs blacks managing blacks is ridiculously skewed when compared to the population ratio of blacks to white. If it is indeed true then I guess that's a good question. I won't claim to know the answer but I I'll hazard a guess. In spite of the Utopian ideal of racial equality, we still live in a white mans world. Let me explain. A lot of folks, unjustifiably, attribute value to the color of the skin. For this reason, a white manager of a black artist walking into a bank for a loan could possible milk those prejudices in his favor as opposed to a black manager that might suffer because of it. That's just a specific example but reasons like that can favor the natural selection of white mangers in the evolutionary game of artist managers.
Maybe I'm wrong and its because of the fact that as a race Caucasians collectively have had a head start economically and educationally. Or maybe its because of some subconscious prejudice against our own kind, like a surreptitious Freudian inferiority complex or something of that sort that has a grip on the majority of black artists.
4) Simple question but the effect does not have a monocausal explanation. If I read this right then I think its related to 8)
5) That's not applicable in all African households. And in applicable households, chances are that the reasons are not directly attributable to a genetic predisposition to be illiterate or disinterested in self development but perhaps dominant cultural forces forged by a difficult history that only time can heal.
6) I disagree with EDJ. If you look at it abstractly, its equivalent to asking why can't westerners be disorganized? Culture is a very powerful thing. It is like Newton's first law of motion. A culture would tend to stay in its current state in the absence of applied force/influence. If as a continent African cultural values have always detested being organized, it would take a while for that to change. The reverse is applicable to Caucasians. Syncretism can not happen overnight and especially without a carefully designed systemic cultural influence/force.
7) Cuba, Venezuela, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, etc. These countries all have the strong man syndrome. It is not an African disease. However, this is one symptom that can be blamed on the west but that's another story.
8) The answer to this question is very complicated but I'll give an oversimplified big-picture opinion.
Wealth is a zero-sum game. As a country, you earn by exporting. Everything else you do internally accounts for intra-national wealth distribution. So besides selling resources, exporting the produce of human capital means you've got to compete with everyone in the global marketplace. As a result, it is not enough to be educated in western ways, you've got to out-compete the westerners. And guess what? There are several enablers that make this possible but are overtly absent in Africa. To name a few; world class education, matured industries, sound academic-industrial partnerships, not just good governance(which btw is absent) but strategic governance, bootstrapping capital and friendly foreign governments not tempted to exploit our easily exploitable condition (which is paradoxical because being a zero sum game, our progress, no matter how minute, is their decline)etc.
Wealth creation is a multi-headed beast of a machinery with oodles of components that have to be in place for it to function. Western education is but one tiny component.
Blasphemy
I just recalled something that i heard once.
If u want to hide something from african people. put it in a book. That's why u see somany africans ignorant and not knowin shit. Only those who've taken a stand to enlighten themselves have non academic books in their house. In my family, we have a library, my gfather had one, my dad has one. I will have one.
@Blasphemy
1) My answer still stands. Or are you not asking why wealth is more prominent in certain races as opposed to others?
2) I think blacks know why other races are wealthy but it is only recently that blacks have started to use their knowledge to advance themselves or have even been given a chance to use their knowledge. So it is going to take a while for this effect to be seen i.e. centuries of negative can't be overturned by decades of partial positive.
3) OHH, well in that case, I again ask you to see #2. It is going to take a WHILE for blacks to catch up. I think somewhere like the NBA, you can kinda see more black coaches creeping into the sport as older black players retire. Or black millionaires buying up sport franchises (like Jay-Z or the Williams sisters). It is going to be a slow slow journey.
4) Maybe you have to specify what you mean by "hewers of wood in the world economy"
5) When I said books I MEANT non-academic books. I don't keep academic books around, I give them away or sell them. Books I keep ARE for personal enrichment as opposed to schoolwork.
6 Lol aren't you also implying that ppl of african origin are unorganized? This can also be related to #7. With the "strong" leader syndrome the masses have no need to do any organizing because one person is in charge. I think if Africans had as a long history/culture of fighting/rebelling/whatever as the western world then being organized, working together for a common goal would be much easier.
7) By history I meant that African societies (to my knowledge) have always been built around a strong "leader" system. Take America, the country was created BY common men seeking to make their own way and escape the rule of their "strong" leader, the British monarchy. However, Africans for the most part have always been content to have a "ruler" control everyone else while nobody complains. Rebellion/uprisings seem to be a relatively recent concept in Africa.
8) I am not sure why you decided to share the etymology of the word "barbarian"
@Enoch,
I am not a guy, and I am OFFENDED that you assume I am. (:-P
Lol i was going to correct Enoch about that EDJ lol.
Lol america was not created by common men o lol. Those men were rich, Thomas Jefferson was rich, Ben franklin was rich, GW was rich. Those were not common men
Lol i was going to correct Enoch about that EDJ lol.
Lol america was not created by common men o lol. Those men were rich, Thomas Jefferson was rich, Ben franklin was rich, GW was rich. Those were not common men
@Controversy,
Well, we all know that they were still considered lower class in England because they weren't party of the monarchy with fancy titles in their names.
I really wonder what it would be like to grow up in that kind of society where a woman is only worth the dowry that's paid for her, and having titles was more important than personal character, etc. I wonder what my price would be?
(Sorry off topic I know)
wow this is deep but im just going to say this .. in this world we live in we tend to live by what other catagorize us as like black people are known for entertainig or playing sports.... and some cases its true . but what people have to realize is that we are floowers not leaders and you only get noticed when you lead and not follow... yes its a shame that diffrent races are known for certain things but if you live up to what is being addressed then your proving ignorant people right ..
Lol well they did not leave in england EDJ, they lived in the USA.
@ Eniola
Yes u are right, but u can't fault ppl for tryin 2 succeed in those areas that usually stereotype their own race
I have two words that answers all of the questions " HISTORY" and "REALISM"
Lol look @ u sacred.
U put two words out there and suddenly they answer all the questions? Expantiate joh
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