EDITORIAL 20
OCTOBER 5, 1992
Don’t Sweat the Technique
Think before you speak.
1 haic Carolina is try in’ lo get
y’all! Protest marches, Black
Power, Spike Lee at UNC, what is
(bis world coming to? Butpeople—
mypeople—I’vegotafew problems
with all this. This movement’s been
leal inspirational and all that. I even
noticed a few more people speaking
to each other (smile). Some of us
are probably “Blacker” now than
we’ve ever been. But we have got to
stop all this name calling and fmger-
pointing among ourselves.
Now r m not talking about “ho,”
“dog,” or “freak.” I ’m talking about
■ames like “oreo,” “house-nigga”
ad "Uncle Tom.”
I know we’re all guilty or at least
know someone who is. I know I am,
^cause I’ll call a someone an oreo in
aminutc. Butin these troubled times,
k’s really not the thing to do. As
kard as it is to stop calling those
chocolate-covered white people
“cweos”(and as much as they act,
talk and dance like while people),
we need to be trying to enlighten
these people instead of alienate
them.
Itwon’tbeeasy. Youmightcome
upon one of “us” who says, “1 mean
gosh, why don’t you guys just, like,
take the multicultural center?
You’re just causing all this racial
lension! I mean, like a lot of my
friends are like, feehng the de facto
separatism and so am 1!”
Please don’t hit ‘em. Just say
“Hey brother or sister, 1 don’t mean
to alarm you but... you’re black!”
Of course they’ll get defensive and
say some of their favorite relatives
are black and that it says so on their
birth certificate so they don’t need
you to tell
them and that
we need to
learn about
white people
(as if we
aren’t
inundated
with their
history and
culture daily,
hourly, etc...)
and the usual.
Well, you can
at least try.
I person
ally feel sorry for those who don’t
hang with us, chill with us and re
late to us. I think they miss out on a
lot. Parties where only a fourth of
the people are drunk as opposed to
all of them, actual dancing as
opposed 10—whatever it is they do,
being able to laugh at Def Comedy
Jam because you understand the
jokes as opposed lo wailing to see if
they’re supposed to be funny—the
list is endless.
Like 1 said, I’m guilty on that
account, but these other terms,
“house-nigga’” and “Uncle Tom”
are not in my lexicon. (Look it up).
As usual, I will be stepping on some
toes but as I always say: 1 don’t
point fingers and I don’t name
names, and 1 damn sure wouldn’t
do it in front of 7,000 people in the
Dean Dome.
We will not get anywhere as
long as we continue lo publicly la
bel our own people with names spe
cifically designed
to degrade and de
fame black people.
“House nigga?”
Just what is a
“House-nigga?”
Let’s see here, a
slave which
worked in the
massa’s house, got
special privileges,
and was represen
tative of the
massa’s wealth.
Well I hate to
break this to y’all, but we are in a
white school, living in residence
halls named after white people and
living in white-owned apartment
buildings. We also get special privi
leges, ‘cause don’t think for one
minute that if we had been a group
of residents from the ‘hood march
ing on somebody’s house we
wouldn’t have been in jail with a
quickness. “But Hardin’s house is
public property,” you say. Yeah, so
was that street on which they com
menced to beat Rodney King ’ s a%$.
“Well, we don’t represent ‘the
massa’s’ wealth,” you say. Think
again. How much government
funding do you think this school
can get without a nice healthy black
population? Wow, we all a bunch a’
“Rebuilding Our Foundation”
UNC Black Alumni Reunion Weekend
Black Alumni invite you
to a discussion on: Financial aid concerns,
career networking opportunities and more.
Join Us After the Football Game
4-6 p.m. Sat. Oct. 16
Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center
House-nigga’s! Feels kinda funny,
don’t it? You know what they say:
Point one finger, and you got three
more pointin’ right back atcha’.
As for this Uncle Tom business,
aside from the fact that you can be
sued—yes, sued, as in a court of
law—for calling someone an Uncle
Tom, you would want to watch it. If
you remember reading Uncle Tom ’ s
Cabin^ that is, if you ’ ve read it at all,
you’ll find that Uncle Tom was a
very big, powerful black man who
could have gone upside Simon
LeGree’s head once and laid him
out But he chose not to react and
refused to resort to violence in order
to retain his integrity and good
standing with the Lord. Hmm...
sounds a lot to me like—^gasp!—
THE Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King!
“LIES!! Martin Luther Kir
An Uncle Tom?” Why hello, r
for the meaning it’s taken on m
any other way—’cause I ain ’ l try
to get sued!). Some of us ii.
think about that before we go aroi
slandering people and jeopa> ii/,:
our own cause, especially it
not sure of what we’re sayint’
Find out who’s really behi
this movement for yourself. If >
don’t, you ’re justas guilty as peo>
who assume we have no his:,
simply because they never bo the,
to go look it up. Besides,
Tom was a strong black man
try and “roll over” the wrong ‘
Tom,” and your”Uncle Tom” mij
have something—excuse r
French—for yo’ ass.
The Yackety Yaek h .
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