In Response to a Post

Someone made a good point on my comments concerning the last topic I wrote about "Making Self-Investments: Giving Blacks A Dose of Medicine". I'm addressing the comment below and clarifying a point that I made:


No...I'm not saying that they have a right to be racist. In fact, I'm not drawing any conclusions at all. I was bringing up questions that have crossed my mind that I have yet to find an answer to. I do not know why the world view of blacks in general is the way it is. I brought up those questions because I was curious to know what other people think is the reason since I haven't got a clue.

I also know that if you are a person and the majority of your friends say you act a certain way, then more than 9 times out of 10 you do act a certain way. I'm not making any concrete assumptions because I do not have all the information (i.e. why Asians think the way they do towards blacks) but I am raising the fact that it is a possibility that the black community needs to start taking responsibility and that it is a possibility that we need to work on our value system.

I also want to clarify what I regard as the black community. When I talk about blacks, I am talking primarily about blacks in the US. We are even looked down by Africans and black Caribbeans. The question is why are we the world's most hated?

Yes racism/prejudice is bad but, just like we have self-righteous reasons for certain actions or inactions that we undertake, is it possible that the other side has self-righteous reasons for thinking what they think?

It is always hard to solve problems when you make one-sided arguments. The best way to overcome a problem is to look at it from multiple angles and then find a common ground. Most of the time when we examine race relations, we look at it from a national perspective (i.e. whites vs. blacks) and forget about global implications (i.e. the world vs. blacks).

On a national level, we are very much oppressed and have been undermined, devalued, and misunderstood. The source of this has always been slavery. But globally we are undermined and devalued...the only positive thing is that they like our "look" because they think we are exotic. What is the source of this?

I think that the black community is nationally oppressed but that does not mean that we do not have a lot of work to do culturally. Our value system has a very fragile foundation. And that's another question that needs to be looked into...why is the value system in the black culture so fragile? The more "why"s we answer, the better we can sustain our culture and become a successful and productive race.

Then again, there are some that may argue that race is relative and may wonder...Why is race important at all? Especially those who wholeheartedly believe in individualism.

Now that I have mentioned individualism...maybe that is a source of the problem with our value system. Americans in general, regardless of race, sets it's principles on individualism. But there is a possibility that the black community are more individualistic then anyone else. The more a culture values individualism, the less they value collectivism. Extremes on any scale is usually a bad thing. There has to be a trade off between the two.

Blacks are seen as having strong spirituality....but how effective is spirituality when it's not practiced. It makes us a culture of hypocrisy. Our words and actions never match. Anyone who has taken a class on philosophy or ethics should know that hypocrisy is irrational. It is our hypocrisy that may be the reason as to why the world looks at us the way it does...to them we are a culture of irrationality.

Once again, I'm not making any conclusions I'm just entertaining possibilites. Nothing I'm saying is my personal concrete way of thinking.