Intraracialism

OK so this guy gypped me today, had one of them tampered with meters so the price of my 8 block cab ride in no traffic was more than it usually should be. If anyone knows who I should report this to, or can report it please do. Seconds after I began this blog entry, I go to look up the word gyp– not exactly sure how to spell it or even what letter it began with– I would of went with “jipped”, but the lovely Micki informed me that it was gyp, short for gypsy, as in being cheated by a gypsy. This makes this blog entry all the more interesting, you’ll notice the irony later. I had no clue that “gypped” was one of those words like “Indian-giving” that basically is a derogatory term derived from an overgeneralization and or prejudice, and would attempt to not use it. My soul intent on writing this blog entry was to explore my own thoughts on a group of people and what I will call intraracialism. Now I am going to piss off some folks in this entry, I mean even me and Micki agree to disagree on some of the points I will touch on.

Although this entry is about my own personal prejudices I will jump right out there and make my claims: #1 I believe that all white people are inherently racist in some way shape or form, if or how they exert their racism is what causes concern. All white people are racist in the same manner that all men are sexist, in that regardless of how open minded we can be –or even gay– there is always an instilled belief in our superiority over women. If someone walks up to me and says “you hear about that girl that dunked on Shaq”, my mind is not going to immediately conceptualize how that could be a possibility. I may after further explanation concede, but immediately my mind or any male mind will say “hell no”. I’m not saying that all white people think that they are superior beings and want to wipe out inferior races or anything radical, I just believe that societal brainwashing can not be undone. I don’t have a problem with inherent racism, that immediate harmless unintended mental response on racial issues, that we all as humans endure.

Which brings me to my second claim: #2 Black people can not be racist. We can be prejudiced, biased, discriminatory, bigoted, anti-semetic even dead wrong, but we can’t be racists. Any definition of racism includes an institution of power. Now you may think that I’m blowing smoke up your ass like Slick Willie Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, but hear me out. Sidenote as I typed that it came out “I didn’t not have sexual relations with that woman”–someone check that, it may have been what he said. Despite the semantic schemata of my claims, any open minded thought will assure the validity or open minded discussion of my allegations. Since any definition of racism must include an institution of power, even if I believed that white people are inferior to Black people, (which I don’t) I could not be a racist. My education tells me that this would be coined “racialism”, which basically is like rooting for the home team.

As I digress, the point of this blog was “intraracialism”. A google search turned up no results and stated: Did you mean: interracialism . Which apparently is marriage between different races. There has to be a term for the concept of which I speak of, at this time I’m not aware of it, if anyone knows the term please let me know. What I am referring to is prejudices and hatred between members of the same race, for example, totally hypothetical: French Caucasian vs. English Caucasian. Now I don’t hate anyone, and hate everyone at the same time– I’m an equal opportunity hater– I hate ignorant people, regardless of race. I do unfortunately have prejudices that I am wholeheartedly ashamed of. In college I was labeled homophobic (I further digress) because I totally didn’t like homosexuals. I never understood the term because “phobic” means “in fear of”. One of my favorite profs and favorite people period, Dr. Sam Richards put 6 or so students in front of the class and they basically said who they were, what they majored in and what they did for hobbies. After this monologue the prof alerted us that they were all gay. He asked for comments. People were supportive– everyone said nice things. So the prof was like “that’s not exactly what I was looking for, anyone have any other feelings?”. So me being the collegiate rebel I was, raised my hand and basically berated everyone on the panel. This caused explosive discourse which the prof desired and a more mature upper classman friend of mine defended me. He told the class that the reason I didn’t like homosexuals was directly related to my negative interactions with homosexuals in my life and the perception of homosexuals growing up in the ghetto. Sidenote: this is very interesting considering the state of homosexuality in the Black community today vs. 1993?– coming soon to a blog near you. Even after his defense I rebutted, “no, I just don’t like them” to which one guy on the panel says “but I’ve had drinks with you at the bar, you were cool when you didn’t know I was gay”. And I very negatively responded “well not anymore, you either suck dick or you don’t”. Going further a decade, I tell this story to all of my homosexual friends, and my classmate was right, I never saw them as humans or even in good light until I became an adult. I don’t condone homosexual behavior just as I don’t condone eating pork, you do what you do, I do what I do, and that is my position on homosexuality.

I said all that to say people can come full circle, and what I wanted to address four paragraphs ago is hatred within a single race– what I call intraracialism. Well almost. I’m referring to hatred amongst Black people and I don’t mean that light-skinned dark-skinned 400 year old argument that failing journalist seek to make a story to pay their Deer Park bill monthly. I’m referring to prejudices between races, which reflects directly back to the cab driver who swindled me today. With reading the cabbie story above every one of you conceptualized a cab or cab driver– what color was the cab, what color was the cabbie– what was his race/ethnicity to you? Sidenote: going a TOTALLY different direction with this. If someone told me that story I would immediately picture a fast talking, barking, arrogant Nigerian. Let me first state that I have nothing against Nigerians and don’t want to, but will make the traditionally racist adage that some of my best friends are Nigerian, there are good Nigerians, blah blah blah. We’re back to the my experience with a group of people thing. If 90% (a totally hypothetical exaggerated for emphasis number) of the Nigerians that I encounter try to swindle me in some way or include me in some swindle, I am going to feel some type of way about Nigerians. That in turn means if Sue Focker in Money Mississippi only knows one Black person on her church choir and every story on the news she hears about Black people is negative– then what is she going to think about Black people? So, I don’t dislike Nigerians, I dislike Nigerians that: try to defraud people, think that us Americans are: stupid, weak, non-business-minded, etc., etc., etc. I went into business with Nigerians a few years ago and a Kenyan alerted me: “be careful when you mess with the homeboys, if you know what I mean”. I knew what he meant and although I thought I was on solid ground, he was right, and what is noteworthy once again is he was native African.

My problem further lies in some Nigerians perception of Black American’s and other Black Non-Americans perceptions of Black Americans and vice versa. These perceptions are primarily based on experience and or total hypothesis. A large matter of this has to do with we as Black American “Frankensteined” our culture, not retaining enough of our residual heritage that we could determine yourself from any particular country or region in Africa. There are several issues that are included in this “intraracialism”. Native Africans looking down on Black Americans for their history of slavery. A fictitious example of this occurred in the movie Sugar Hill starring Wesley Snipes, where an African wouldn’t partner with Snipes, a very accomplished Harlem drug dealer, because he couldn’t do business with what translated to “a Black American cotton picker”. This intraracialism doesn’t only occur between Native African and Non-Native African Blacks in America, this also includes South American Blacks and West Indians. I’ve found myself more often than once saying “Jamaican’s come two ways, hard working or straight killing”. Very prejudicial remark, but that is my experience with Jamaicans. If someone says a new world record was broken in the 100 yard dash, I picture a Jamaican, if they say someone broke the New York Marathon best time, I think a Kenyan– inherent beliefs from experience. The more I write on the topic the more I think about “excuses” I make for myself and my peers: people are only products of their own environments. If Nigeria’s biggest commodity is the “Nigerian Scam” what can I expect from the tutelage of Nigeria? If the majority of Black people in America reside in the ghetto, what can be expected of Black people? People learn what they live. Mathematically the percentages favor total negativity when in fact there are positive Black Americans and Nigerian Americans.

An indication that intraracialism is a valid ism, is when a top selling rapper (50 cent) has a nationally televised “beef” with a South African rapper over first class seats on an airplane. Cultures clashing. After seeing the movie City of God my mouth dropped. How could the same exact story I knew growing up happen on a totally different continent? Although not totally ignorant like G.W., I knew little if nothing about Blacks in Brazil. I still don’t. This lack of knowledge leads to prejudicial treatment amongst people all originating from a native continent. My brethren. What further alarmed me about the movie was Brazilian Blacks mimicking our culture. Then reality hit me. Young urban Black culture is mimicked throughout the world everyday, by many people that love to hate us.

Apendix I:

“Do you have blacks, too?”

- Bush to Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso as reported in Der Spiegel. Condoleeza Rice interceded explaining that Brazil has the greatest number of black citizens of any nation outside of Africa.