Jun 10, 2014

The Beast Within






I have to admit, over the past few years I have consciously avoided the topic of internalized racism ( loosely defined as the internalization by people of racist attitudes towards members of their own ethnic group). Not that I have anything to hide or be ashamed of, but I find the topic depressingly pitiful and stupefying.  Plus, in my college days, I was quite the firebrand but became exhausted over the years trying to reason with the misguided ones. I have heard the most dumb-ass statements uttered by folks regarding the "dark skin/light skin" conundrum. Needless to say, this problem doesn’t just arise out of nowhere. It’s a direct offshoot of a white supremacist ideology that values whites over people of color and equips Caucasians with what’s known as white skin privilege. This fire-breathing Beast stomps the world and destroys people from the inside out, disfiguring their self-concept & history. From Iraq to India, Brazil to Jamaica, Africa to Japan, people have been/are being traumatized. Some resist the onslaught but a good number allow themselves to get dumbed down as they loathe critical thinking for the most part or lack critical educational resources to know any better.

We credit ourselves with the power of reason / rationalization. Indeed, the human brain is wired to categorize information & make sense of it. And because we're easily influenced, the natural process of categorizing can easily become biased when we allow outside factors to alter our thinking (advertising/movie/music/gaming industries loom large here as powerful external factors ). Being bamboozled all the way into adulthood is big business and keeps things as they are - you know, fucked up.

I noted at a very young age how society had this caste-like system where light-skinned people were favored over dark-skinned people, especially in the field of entertainment/fashion. I did not accept this as the most outstanding people I met at the time had rich, dark-brown skin which all the tourists who visited my island aimed to get by tanning for hours under the sun. I also noted how all the dark-skinned chaps were in demand by a variety of women which made me want to get darker as well when I became a teen! When we first received American programming on my island, things started to change after that. We wanted to be "Superman" and  Charlie's Angels became the desired fruit.

 On the other side, we all know how white slave owners frequently molested the dark African captive  women who they could not resist. They left their white wives in the big house to go out back to terrorize an African beauty. This alone speaks volumes. It reminds me of one of Eduardo Galeano's books, Upside Down, where he brilliantly exposes the truth of Western culture and observes how we have accepted a 'reality' we should reject.

Today, our young ones are surrounded by so much racist garbage passing as fact/truth. The belief that dark skin is not as attractive as light skin or of natural hair not as pretty as relaxed hair is rampant and accepted as fact.. To belabor the point - Blue/Green eyes better than brown/black? White people more intelligent than people of color?  --this shit is insane, but you do see the pattern. That teens/kids run around boasting of their light-complexions or of wanting light-complected girls/boys or wishing that they were light-complected only illustrates how deep and insidious white supremacy is....Its force is devilishly undetected on the conscious level but shreds the dark body to pieces in the labyrinthine corridors of the subconscious. I know people who mention only their light-skinned parent and throw heir dark-skinned parent behind the curtain like he/she has an unsightly deformity. White supremacy is truly the plague of our times robbing countless numbers of their human dignity.

In India, the darker Indians are at the bottom of the socio-economic pole--they call them "untouchables". Many Indians feel their country’s disturbing obsession with fairness has been compounded in recent years with the invasion of European and American retail outlets and widespread access to information via the Internet. As a result of colonial rule and its brutal racism, Indian society suffers from  a very rigid & deep-seated caste system/color bias whereby certain professions such as aviation, films and many other white-collar jobs, are filled by people with fair skin. Skin bleaching products sell like hot cakes.

In Iraq, the darker Iraqis are at the bottom. They are prohibited from interracial marriage and denied even menial jobs.

 In Japan and many other places in east Asia, dark skinned Asians are looked down upon. Everyone strives to be white skinned-- every skin product has whitening in it and everyone stays out of the sun. A fucked up mess.

I listen to music a lot and its power over people's consciousness is not to be taken lightly. I remember a line by Lil Wayne back in 2011 on the song “Right Above”. Folks got heated over the line “beautiful black woman, I bet that bitch look better red.”  Lil Wayne is a first-class idiot and a danger to impressionable minds who only see his wealth & fame. What is even more sad is having folks repeat his stupid lyrics and believing it. The record labels are also to blame as they green-light this crap which repeats throughout the day on urban radio. It is no wonder then that our darker brothers and sisters feel so devalued & maligned. Many resort to drug and alcohol abuse to dull this existential pain. Some commit suicide.

Of course, many white/light-complected people buy into this mess because it is profitable & makes them feel superior so why would they criticize it?  It is really up to us people of color (and progressive white folk) to detox ourselves and our loved ones from this fuckery, and it starts with awareness & education. As the great Caribbean scholar Frantz Fanon once wrote, "...There are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it.”

OneLove

:::MME:::

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