Racist white “scientists” elaborated theories to prove Africans’ inferiority and provided a “logical, reasonable, and objective” foundation to why our ancestors needed to be enslaved.
Their pseudo-science started to feed off of itself with absurd eugenic and darwinian theories based on natural features such as the shape of one’s head or the length of one’s arm. Our whole body became a somatic expression and reflection of mental and spiritual inferiority and degeneration. Thick lips meant we ate raw meat because we didn’t discover or master the use of fire and the fine culinary art. Oblong genitalia meant promiscuity (think of Saartjie Baartman) and so on.
So many centuries passed since these doctrines were formulated, but they have been internalised by Black people, white people and other non-Black peoples. We start believing for ourselves what we’ve been (mis)taught and we perpetuate those beliefs.
We were made to believe that as Africans, as Black people, we are naturally and inevitably mentally inferior to anyone else. So our libraries were burned down to show we didn’t have any history, science, culture. Oral tradition became second place to written tradition. white people set up racist ways to measure one’s intelligence (IQ and SAT tests) and created institutions such as universities to corroborate that.
If, from a very young age, you’re told in explicit as well as subtle ways that you’re not bright and you can’t find historical or even fictional representations of smart people who look like you, you will believe the lie. Treat me like a criminal and I will start acting like one. Tell me I’m dumb, and eventually I will be.
Conversely, we’re also taught that we’re naturally musically inclined and because of our physique we excel at sport (just as our bodies were perfect to work in sugar and cotton plantations). There’s nothing innate in that. The system only allows us to thrive in the fields of music, acting and sports, that is to say entertainment. Why? Because entertainment isn’t threatening and it doesn’t scare the power structure. So long as you shuck and jive and make the audience feel good, you are allowed to become the best singer or athlete in history (although the industries must stay white-owned and you need to occasionally let non-Black people appropriate and make huge profits from your art).
Entertainment has one great function: make the entertained feel good.
The entertained with the most spending power and influence in the mainstream is the white audience. If they see Beyoncé happy on stage singing “Single Ladies” while the audience goes “oh oh oh”, or Lebron James shooting a ball and scoring the winning point, we’re all happy.
Singers and athletes do what they love, they earn millions, what’s there to complain about? They certainly aren’t oppressed, right? If those Black people aren’t oppressed because they’re happy and rich, then oppression against Black people is non-existant and white people don’t need to feel guilty about slavery, colonialism and the ways in which they benefit from them (maybe contributing to their great spending power). Entertainement and happy Black people ease white people’s conscience.
When Knowles, however, sang “Freedom” with Kendrick Lamar, that was a different story.
If your art speaks about the ills societies throws at Black people, be prepared to be censored and called ungrateful for the great opporunity you were allowed to have. Forget talent, “they” made you.
If you speak up like Muhammad Ali expect to be sent overseas to get yourself killed in an imperial war or your titles taken and white-listed. It’s really no coincidence that Ali was only rehabilitated by the white establishment after he retired and when he became sick with Parkinson’s.
They want Black artists, who may be economically emancipated but still Black, to distract from the horrible realities that Black people face. They want them to ignore racism and never talk about it. Athletes should stick to sports and not become politicised (or whatever Zlatan said). And they need to keep themselves busy entertaining the world.
Distract. Ignore. Entertain.
Die.
Farafinna 