Showing posts with label self-preservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-preservation. Show all posts

Sunday, August 9, 2015

#BlackLivesMatter = NWA “Straight Outta Compton” & Self-Respecting African-American Black Women Need To Boycott BOTH Of Them


Until now, I've remained publicly silent about my suspicions and concerns regarding the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but looking at the photo above was the last straw for me. The Black female fool who was screaming at a frail looking and elderly progressive politician named Bernie Sanders probably has no clue just how horrible this photo looks.

As I said in this post:

IN A PATRIARCHAL WORLD, DEFEMINIZATION HAS SEVERE CONSEQUENCES FOR WOMEN

Halima, blog host of Black Women’s Interracial Relationship Circle, is holding an extremely important discussion about how many Black women have been programmed to cooperate with being defeminized. On a patriarchal planet, defeminization has severe consequences for women. As Halima points out, defeminization by becoming un-women means that a woman won’t receive what she identified as the four main manifestations of male protection: courtesy, concern, consideration, and concessions.
As I said in another post:
It’s defeminizing for a woman to brawl publicly with men. When an African-American woman does this it reinforces the negative, repellent image of African-American women as belligerent she-males and un-women. She’s also validating broken and damaged Black men’s slander of African-American women as “Sapphires.” All in all, cyber-brawling is an extremely bad look for Black women. [ . . . ]

OTHER TYPES OF WOMEN KNOW BETTER THAN TO LOWER THEIR IMAGE BY BRAWLING IN PUBLIC. THEY FIGHT INDIRECTLY BY HAVING MEN FIGHT OTHER MALES ON THEIR BEHALF.

Other types of women know better than to be seen doing anything like that in public. They know better than to be seen publicly fighting with males. Other women know that it’s much better to have a man fight other males on their behalf. This way they preserve their image as feminine, desirable women. As opposed to making themselves look like she-males. 

   

When you look at the HEAVY damage they're doing to African-American Black women's image, #BlackLivesMatter = NWA

Regardless of whatever the Black women involved in the #BlackLivesMatter movement THINK they're accomplishing, they are really acting as a Trojan horse that's damaging African-American Black women's interests.

To borrow a concept from systems theory, The Purpose of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID).
POSIWID (the purpose of the system is what it does) is a way of thinking about complex systems, giving us a different perspective on a range of social and political issues. When we understand the complex loops that maintain the status quo, we are better equipped to make positive changes in organizations and society.
The origins of POSIWID thinking
The term POSIWID was coined by Stafford Beer. It was picked up and developed further in a trio of books written in the 1980s by engineer Bill Livingston.
Approach
The POSIWID principle applies a kind of backwards logic to systems thinking – from effects to causes.
If a complex system produces a given outcome, or if a given outcome emerges from a complex system, then we may assume some purpose linked to this outcome. This is a useful guide for investigation and interpretation. Ignore the official purpose of the system, ignore what the designers and custodians of a system say, and concentrate on its actual behaviour.
(emphasis added in bold)

Violent Black male criminals and predators (such as the BW-hating and woman-beating creatures in NWA like Dr. Dre) —
— and their unwitting enablers such as the misguided foreign-origin BW who are several of the founders and primary participants in the #BlackLivesMatter movement —
— don’t have to be involved in a conscious, deliberate conspiracy in order to separately act in ways that create ONE overall result: the destruction of African-American Black women’s image. The Purpose of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID).

The Purpose of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID). And what these #BlackLivesMatter women activists are DOING—regardless of whatever it is they think they’re accomplishing—is destroying African-American Black women’s image. 
Reasons why self-actualizing African-American Black women should be suspicious of #BlackLivesMatter:
(1) Heavy Command And Control of #BlackLivesMatter By Foreign-Origin Blacks. Cofounder Opal Tometi is the child of Nigerian immigrants. Tia Osu, who disrupted the Netroots Nation Presidential Town Hall, is half-Nigerian. This is significant to me because I don't trust outsiders to protect African-American interests. I don't trust them to do it because the historical pattern is that outsiders don't protect African-American interests. I talked about this in terms of our Black foreign "cousins" at length in the post, Charity Should Begin at Home, Part 1: "Study:Universities prefer foreign black students"
The core problem is our general refusal to properly understand our unique history, our unique struggle, and our unique situation within this country. Many African-Americans refuse to understand that other so-called people of color (including many of our foreign Black cousins) are actually RIVALS for many of the resources and opportunities that our people's struggle created. We want to believe that we are in "coalitions" with other people.

Umm. . . No. What has happened is that other ethnic groups have harnessed our energy and resources in support of their agendas. When African-Americans participate in coalitions, we allow others to capitalize off of our unique history and the unique debt that is owed to us. Resources that should go to us as restitution for the specific harms that have been done to us in this country are siphoned off by other groups. The African-American Civil Rights Movement created resources that should have been used as restitution for the centuries of slavery, followed by the century of official Jim Crow segregation that our people have suffered right here. Instead, these resources have been converted into vague "diversity" programs that benefit everybody else.

There's a story entitled, "Study: Universities prefer foreign black students" from the March 7, 2007 issue of The Daily Princetonian. Here's the link:www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/03/07/news/17622.shtml

The story describes the current situation. Here's the money quote:

"Blacks at Ivy League schools are over three times more likely to be immigrants than blacks in America's general population, a study published in February's American Journal of Education and coauthored by Princeton researchers suggests. Within the United States, first and second-generation black immigrants make up 13 percent of the total black population. In contrast, data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen found that international black students---either first or second-generation---made up 23 percent of blacks attending public universities and 41 percent of those attending Ivy League schools." (emphasis added)

This is just the beginning stage of this trend line. I could compare it to the point in the 1960s when the Moynihan Report came out warning about the rise of single-parent Black families. We ignore this situation at our own peril. Many of us depend on set-aside programs to either pay for, or to get into, much of higher education. If these resources created by our civil rights martyrs continue to be systematically diverted to other people, then we're in a lot of trouble as a group. Any future depends upon access to higher education.

What will we do when the percentage of immigrant-origin Blacks among Black college students reaches 51%? Or 75%? Or 90%?

It looks like we'll do something similar to what we do in terms of Latino immigration. We stand and watch while legal and illegal Latino immigrants work at construction jobs in Black residential areas. Soon, we'll be watching our foreign Black cousins and their children go off to college while we remain behind in our slums.

Here's another money quote from the story,"What to do with the conclusions of the study depends on admission officers' definition of affirmative action, Massey said. 'If the purpose of affirmative action is to redress past wrongs and redress former slaves and people victimized by a century of Jim Crow, then you want to favor native blacks perhaps,' he said. 'If the purpose is to reflect the diversity of American society, then you want to favor immigrant blacks.'"

This ties into why I have extremely ambivalent feelings about Black immigrants who are pushy about claiming the label "African-American" for themselves. Other people re-defining our category to suit their needs helps to obscure situations like the one described in the article. After all, how does one measure or track this situation if immigrant-origin Blacks are claiming to be "African-Americans"? I also start to wonder if some of them are so quick to claim this label when there's nothing to be gained from calling oneself "African-American." Do they call themselves "African-American" just to reap the benefits of our struggle? Or do they do this out of a real sense of solidarity with us?

I've met a number of Black immigrants who stand in sincere solidarity with us. I've met a number who do not. I've also run across those who only claim any connection to us when there is something to be gained.

The story ends with a quote from an African student stating that he doesn't feel that Africans are overrepresented at Princeton. He goes on to add that, in economic terms, African children are disadvantaged compared to African-American children. I see nothing wrong with him saying this. He's just looking our for his best interests. I would be saying similar things if I was of immigrant origin.

When are we going to start looking out for our best interests? When are we going to use whatever influence we have with any of these college admissions officers to ensure that African-Americans get at least a proportionate slice of the resources that our martyrs created? Let me be clear: I'm not interested in blocking anybody else's advancement. I just want to make sure that my own group gets our slice. I've got some phone calls to make. I hope you make some calls too.
Now, back to Opal Tometi and Tia Osu: Both of them are members of the Black Alliance For Just Immigration. In fact, Ms. Tometi is the Executive Director of BAJI. Essentially, these women and their organization want to bring more immigrants into the U.S.
Bringing more immigrants (including more Black immigrants) into the U.S. does NOT help African-Americans' interests. In fact, it HARMS the interests of African-Americans. Dr. Claud Anderson of the Harvest Institute has warned African-Americans about this for years. Please read the Harvest Institute Alert article from 2006, How Immigration Harms Native Blacks and Advantages Immigrants.
(2) There are reasons to suspect that #BlackLivesMatter activists are cat's paws for Hillary Clinton and/or the Democratic party establishment.
From what I can tell, I notice that so far the only gatherings these #BlackLivesMatter women activists seem to be disrupting are Bernie Sanders' appearances. Cui bono? Who benefits from that? Who benefits the most from that? 
You can weigh the points raised by the following articles and come to your own conclusions (I don't buy into everything said in the following articles, but they raise interesting points to consider):
When you really want something to stop, you have to STOP feeding anybody and everybody who keeps it going.

As I said in an another post,

YOU DON’T NEED A RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AGAINST PEOPLE WHO DEPEND ON YOU TO FEED THEM. IF YOU’RE FEEDING SOMEBODY AND YOU DON’T LIKE WHAT THEY’RE DOING—STOP FEEDING THEM!

Most of the African-American males who demean and degrade Black women in public are being fed directly or indirectly . . . by Black women. African-American women buy their “music,” see their films, read their books, follow their blogs, agitate in support of them getting tenure, and so on. African-American women control most of the money within the African-American collective. We’re the ones who are making most of the consumer purchases that prop up the African-American males who hate us. The short-term answer is simple:
Stop feeding the Black men who hate Black women. Stop feeding the Black women who persist in supporting these Black men.
Today I'll add another point:

STOP feeding and supporting the Black women activists in #BlackLivesMatter who persist in destroying African-American Black women's image.

Monday, August 24, 2009

The Mass "Gaslighting" Of African-American Women

This essay is contained in my new book. I'm delighted to announce that The Sojourner's Passport site has launched! You can visit it at http://www.sojournerspassport.com/.

Everyone, I can't thank you enough for your ongoing encouragement and support; I truly appreciate it. Your support is what made this possible. And here's a special shout-out to my web designers at Educo Web Design. They're nice people to deal with, and they do outstanding work!

Peace and blessings,
Khadija Nassif

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Charity Should Begin at Home, Part 2: Black Folks' Mass Suicide by Coalition

African-American leaders are feckless and foolish. Most of them have an uncompromising commitment to mediocrity and political fantasies. One such fantasy has been the notion of a rainbow coalition. And we've been fools to buy into this fantasy. Most of us never developed the simple (yet life-saving) habit of asking, "What's in it for us [to support x, y, z position]?" Many of us still don't understand that what our (mis)leaders call "coalitions" and "alliances" actually consist of other people capitalizing off of our unique historical struggle.

Our lack of political common sense has already cost us. Dearly. In terms of political empowerment, we've already slit our own wrists. Our (mis)leaders encouraged us to support Latino and other non-White immigration, and to cry copious tears over the "plight" of various categories of illegal immigrants. We were encouraged to assume that non-White immigrants were somehow our natural, and automatic allies in the quest for justice.

Umm . . . No. People generally come to the United States to get paid. Period. There's nothing wrong with that. Like I said in Part 1 of this series, it is normal, natural, and fair for people to look out for their own interests. I would like to see more African-Americans acquire this mental habit. Somehow, we got it in our heads that other people of color are naturally inclined to help us in our struggle. NO. Helping us is not part of most immigrants' mission profile. People come here to find a better life for themselves. Not to join our struggle.

We are now reaping the consequences of foolishly supporting non-White (legal and illegal) immigration to this country. We are being displaced. We are being physically displaced in many areas of the country. This physical displacement leads to political displacement. Many currently Black congressional districts have large and growing Latino populations. NO Latino districts have growing Black populations. I've read reports estimating that this demographic shift will cause Blacks to lose 6-7 congressional seats after the 2010 census redistricting.

One example of this was last year's battle for the traditionally Black 37th Congressional District seat in Southern California. This district covers an area including much of Long Beach, Compton, and Watts. The death of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald led to a special primary election. A May 8, 2007 article from Politico.com talks about this political race. Here's the link:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/3888.html

An African-American candidate ultimately won the seat. See the July 3, 2007 article from the Los Angeles Times entitled, "Racial issues take a back seat in 37th - Multiracial support has Laura Richardson poised to represent a largely Latino district. Her take: 'We are a new America, very diverse.'" http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/03/local/me-congress3

However, it is important to note that Rep. Richardson won a Democratic primary with 10 other candidates running. She then went on to win the runoff election against 3 other candidates. This is not an example of a strong, solid victory. It sounds quite fragile. Decades of believing in a "Black and Brown Together" fantasy helped make this vulnerable situation possible. We enabled our own political disenfranchisement by supporting non-White immigration. We slit our own wrists.

As a side note, Rep. Richardson is half White. She has an African-American father and a White mother. I don't know if she emphasized this fact during her campaign. I also don't know whether or not she self-identifies as "Black" or if she's highly invested in indentifying as something distinct from Black, such as "biracial." The media refer to her as African-American. Her parents divorced, and she was raised by her White mother. http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002573713

The displacement and disenfranchisement of African-Americans in California's big cities is fairly obvious. What's not so obvious is that this process is being replicated in small towns across the South. Legal and illegal immigrants are overrunning rural towns all over "Dixie." Praise God, some of us are starting to wake up and see this for what it is: NOT in our interests. A Los Angeles Times article from August 31, 2008 entitled, "Immigrant raid divides a Mississippi town" mentions the variety of reactions to an immigration raid.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-raids31-2008aug31,0,219718.story

The above story talks about the employment angle of illegal immigration. What about the political repercussions? What happens in these towns (and the South in general) if illegal immigrants are given amnesty and the ability to vote? Answer: The same thing that is happening in California. Blacks will be pushed aside in our traditional population centers in the South.

Miami is a sneak preview of what will become of Black folks' political fortunes across this country if we don't change course right now. Looking at Miami, it's clear that living under the heels of Latino political overlords is not a pretty picture for African-Americans.

An article from the Winter 2008 volume of City Journal entitled, "The Rainbow Coalition Evaporates" also describes how some of us are belatedly coming to our senses. http://city-journal.org/2008/18_1_blacks_and_immigration.html

I just hope that this realization hasn't come too late. We've already slit our own wrists, and the blood is flowing freely. There's still time to bandage some of the wounds, but only if we immediately start looking out for our own best interests.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Charity Should Begin at Home, Part 1: "Study: Universities prefer foreign black students"

Common sense and a healthy instinct for self-preservation dictate that charity begins at home. And it does. For everybody except African-Americans. We're too busy sharing what we don't even have, and putting other people's interests before our own. Before I get too far into this topic, let me make it clear that I am not advocating resentment against any other group of people. It is perfectly natural (and fair) for people to look out for their own interests. I'm simply pointing out a trend that is not in our long-term interests; and the fact that we need to do a better job of self-preservation.

Let me also make it clear that when I refer to "African-Americans" in this post, I'm exclusively referring to the people who are descended from those Africans who were held in slavery here in the United States. In the context of this post, I'm referring exclusively to the people whose struggle and dead martyrs paved the way to progress during the Civil Rights Movement. Before somebody says "us too," I'll note that there were others who participated. Like Panamanian-born Kenneth Clark (who conducted the doll study involved in the Brown v. Board of Education case). However, the overwhelming majority of the people who created, supported and died in this struggle were African-Americans.

We engage in self-oppression when we refuse to look out for our own interests. This is a large part of why African-Americans continue to suffer as a group. Our self-defeating behavior is part of the reason why other ethnic groups, including foreign Blacks, have been able to advance while we fall further behind. The only thing that remains constant is our position at the bottom of almost every measurable social index.

The core problem is our general refusal to properly understand our unique history, our unique struggle, and our unique situation within this country. Many African-Americans refuse to understand that other so-called people of color (including many of our foreign Black cousins) are actually RIVALS for many of the resources and opportunities that our people's struggle created. We want to believe that we are in "coalitions" with other people.

Umm. . . No. What has happened is that other ethnic groups have harnessed our energy and resources in support of their agendas. When African-Americans participate in coalitions, we allow others to capitalize off of our unique history and the unique debt that is owed to us. Resources that should go to us as restitution for the specific harms that have been done to us in this country are siphoned off by other groups. The African-American Civil Rights Movement created resources that should have been used as restitution for the centuries of slavery, followed by the century of official Jim Crow segregation that our people have suffered right here. Instead, these resources have been converted into vague "diversity" programs that benefit everybody else.

There's a story entitled, "Study: Universities prefer foreign black students" from the March 7, 2007 issue of The Daily Princetonian. Here's the link: www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/03/07/news/17622.shtml

The story describes the current situation. Here's the money quote:

"Blacks at Ivy League schools are over three times more likely to be immigrants than blacks in America's general population, a study published in February's American Journal of Education and coauthored by Princeton researchers suggests. Within the United States, first and second-generation black immigrants make up 13 percent of the total black population. In contrast, data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen found that international black students---either first or second-generation---made up 23 percent of blacks attending public universities and 41 percent of those attending Ivy League schools." (emphasis added)

This is just the beginning stage of this trend line. I could compare it to the point in the 1960s when the Moynihan Report came out warning about the rise of single-parent Black families. We ignore this situation at our own peril. Many of us depend on set-aside programs to either pay for, or to get into, much of higher education. If these resources created by our civil rights martyrs continue to be systematically diverted to other people, then we're in a lot of trouble as a group. Any future depends upon access to higher education.

What will we do when the percentage of immigrant-origin Blacks among Black college students reaches 51%? Or 75%? Or 90%?

It looks like we'll do something similar to what we do in terms of Latino immigration. We stand and watch while legal and illegal Latino immigrants work at construction jobs in Black residential areas. Soon, we'll be watching our foreign Black cousins and their children go off to college while we remain behind in our slums.

Here's another money quote from the story,"What to do with the conclusions of the study depends on admission officers' definition of affirmative action, Massey said. 'If the purpose of affirmative action is to redress past wrongs and redress former slaves and people victimized by a century of Jim Crow, then you want to favor native blacks perhaps,' he said. 'If the purpose is to reflect the diversity of American society, then you want to favor immigrant blacks.'"

This ties into why I have extremely ambivalent feelings about Black immigrants who are pushy about claiming the label "African-American" for themselves. Other people re-defining our category to suit their needs helps to obscure situations like the one described in the article. After all, how does one measure or track this situation if immigrant-origin Blacks are claiming to be "African-Americans"? I also start to wonder if some of them are so quick to claim this label when there's nothing to be gained from calling oneself "African-American." Do they call themselves "African-American" just to reap the benefits of our struggle? Or do they do this out of a real sense of solidarity with us?

I've met a number of Black immigrants who stand in sincere solidarity with us. I've met a number who do not. I've also run across those who only claim any connection to us when there is something to be gained.

The story ends with a quote from an African student stating that he doesn't feel that Africans are overrepresented at Princeton. He goes on to add that, in economic terms, African children are disadvantaged compared to African-American children. I see nothing wrong with him saying this. He's just looking our for his best interests. I would be saying similar things if I was of immigrant origin.

When are we going to start looking out for our best interests? When are we going to use whatever influence we have with any of these college admissions officers to ensure that African-Americans get at least a proportionate slice of the resources that our martyrs created? Let me be clear: I'm not interested in blocking anybody else's advancement. I just want to make sure that my own group gets our slice. I've got some phone calls to make. I hope you make some calls too.