Newspapers / The AC Phoenix News … / Aug. 1, 2013, edition 1 / Page 5
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Pages ;4ie ifou ieu(f pnl Go6d¥umi (im ittow zJfc*,' We represent the world's largest producer of pure, stabilized, certified Aloe Vera Products! We represent the greatest opportunity in the world! You can now lose weight and feel great! You can now enjoy total financial freedom! ^(M (16e (^iad tfm did! Visif us at: j0hnraye.myflpbi2.com (336) 782-8383 John Raye & Miss Rosie Life-Wellness-Business Coach Stroke/Cancer Survivors Nigger vs White By: Dwight Jones Dwight Jones “If history holds true, slavery can only be recorded as the Black's bur den and the White man's shame" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The word "White" in the context of race is a political construct fabricated to elevate one race of people to a lev el ofsupremacy while demeaning an other race of people to a base level of inferiority. Europeans did not know what "Whiteness" was before they came to America. In fact the term white was not used contextually to group the various European identities into a single race. Previously Europe ans considered themselves as English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Polish or Ger man before they came to America. Also they fought and killed each oth er in wars over territory, religion and trade years before they ever heard of America. Generations of Famine Irish were mostly Abolitionists in Ireland before they came to America. Now some of their descendants have be come racist like most of the Fox News talk show hosts. Flow do we account for this change in attitude after com ing to America? That answer will be forthcoming later in this offering. By contrast, regarding race, the word black is derived from the Latin word Niger. The word Niger became a verb in the English language to describe a Negro (black person). In modern French Niger became Negre and later Negress, the feminine word for black woman. Later, word substitutes such as Negar, Neegar, Negaer, and Niggor developed into the true version of English lexicon. From that point most historical references indicate that the word "Nigger" is a phonetic spelling of a White Southern mispronuncia tion of the word Negro. When black is used as an adjective, it indicates negation by modification of social conditioning, status or charac teristics. Black/Negro when applied to natural person implies objects, or subjects of commerce and trade, not pedigree identity. Moor is the true identity and pedigree of those en slaved and uneducated persons who have been brand as Negroes, Blacks, and Coloreds. Now that I have endeavored to sim plify the origins and definitions of the words nigger and white as the terms relate to people and race, for this writer it is necessary to rely on a conventional literary writing tool, iro ny, to debunk this senseless subject matter that restricts so many African Americans from reaching their goals. Of course in the aspect of writing, iro ny is a figure of speech in which the words express a meaning that is often August 2013 The clifecf opposTte^df the intended meaning. Essentially Whiteness extends into a shared investment that constantly reaps dividends of extra privileges for white people through entitlements; while non-whites are taxed with the accusation of always wanting extra privileges through those same en titlements. Furthermore this white sense of entitlement dates back to the 1490's and is indicative of Chris topher Columbus ill treatment the Arawak Indians in the Caribbean this attitude also motivated the first Euro pean settlers in North America. After arriving in the late 1500’s, immediate ly the new settlers deemed the native Indians as problematic and needed to be dealt with accordingly rather than appreciating the hospitality that was granted to them as new neighbors. Consequently it was an attitude of White entitlement initiated by the Pilgrim Fathers that envisioned a providential "Shining City on the Flill," which is partly responsible for such a warped set of ideas and thoughts still existing in America today. Ironically the word providential evokes the guardianship of God which suggest righteousness, and, under the New Testament:"love the neighbor as thou love thyself." However in order for that city to materialize, the American Indian, the original land owner, had to be defined as savage, then driven by force to desolate tracks of land la beled as reservations for the purpose of control. The Indians desired a cross cultural exchange of ideals where arning and respect for one another could take place, but the new settler's state of hubris and intolerance would not al low the process to occur. The Native Americans lived in harmony with na ture. Europeans had hostility toward nature. As a result, after the some of the new settlers failed to follow the Indians way of how to plant corn and other crops that were necessary for survival, during the starvation cold winter 1609-1610, the new settlers, yes the new settlers, resorted to can nibalism in Jamestown. Yet they con tinued to call the Native Americans savages? Over all what really separated the parties was the fact that hungry set tlers wanted land to be privately held while Native Americans believed in sharing the natural resources that ex isted. So as more Europeans arrived, they pushed west and clashed with the Indians. This resulted into count less treaties being made and broken from sea to shining sea. By the time that the so called Founding Fathers had gathered in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention to ratify the Constitution in 1789, the Native people who lived west of the Appa lachian Mountains had no idea that their way of life would soon vanish. NIGGER With the native American driven to ward extinction, as well as having land-in-hand but not possessing the knowledge, courage, and fortitude to build the country (which Whiteness The AC Phoenix so dearly loves, evident by the cur rent cry of ("we want of county back") a more honorable person of wisdom, vitality, and determination had to be imported to America by means of brute force. The world was the same after a Dutch ship carrying twenty Black slaves referred to as "negars" anchored on the shores of Virginia in 1619. At the time, the status of Black people in America was quite fluid. Some Blacks were free, after serving their indentures, and others were slaves. Some of those who became free could and did become landowners themselves. Blacks as well as whites served as servants for five to seven years before being granted their freedom along with the promise of receiving a gun and some land from their masters. However some masters cheated their servants and they walked into a new life with nothing. But gradually after Bacon Rebellion which took place in Virginia in 1676, the status of Blacks changed into slav ery for the nearly the next two hun dred years. During the rebellion, poor Whites, free Blacks, slaves, and people that owned small sections of land, united against the rich and laws were passed to separate whites from the black masses. Whites ceased being used as servants while blacks became slaves for life. White skin became a shield of protection and entitlements. Black skin came with a boatload of suspicion, punishment and degrada tion. Subsequently the word nigger be came a household term in America to maintain the chattel enslavement of Africans which brought about an en tirely new set of laws entitled the Slave Codes. These codes excluded blacks from regular society. As whiteness was elevated as blackness was put down. Poor whites were encouraged to think of themselves as better titan black because they had white skin and further diminished the chance of a class-base rebellion. Using the word nigger as a wedge was a neces sity to make poor Europeans believe that they were a member of the same White team as the elite and rich. The word nigger was not only spoken ver bally but it appeared all over America in print showing up on toys, ashtrays, detergent boxes, fishing lures, covers of children books, and postcards por traying Blacks with bulging fire-red eyes and gigantic oversized lips. As late as 1874 the McLaughlin Broth ers of New York produce a puzzle game called "Chopped Up Niggers." Four years later a Nigger Hair Smok ing Tobacco was produced by the B. Leidersdory Company. Magazines ads copyrighted by Morris & Bendien showed a Black child drinking inx with a caption that read "Nigger Milk. I could go on forever but hopefully I have made my point. Also everyday usage of terms such as: nigger lips, nigger lover, nigger rich, nigger luck, nigger shooter, nigger killer, nigger steak, and of course I could go on- and-on listing all of the way in which the word nigger was constantly used promote White supremacy while de grad ing people with black skin into a low level state of subservience. [continued on page 20]
The AC Phoenix News (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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