Ayinde and Yan … (and others …)

Blessed!

I have enjoyed reading this thread.

I support what you wrote completely! I think your views are from the perspective of the average Black person/Afrikan, which is one thing I think many people forget: What it MEANS to be Black, whether Rastafarian or not! … I think the problem many whites make is thinking that they truly understand the problems Blacks -- or Afrikans -- face today. Whereas Whites may need to be Rastas to feel they can feel what Afrikans feel, Afrikans don’t need to be Black to know what it means to be on the receiving end of racism … (and on the receiving end of all those many “isms” fabricated and made in the West).

In my limited experiences, I have learned that many fair-thinking Whites, or those “aspiring” to be so, either overly underestimate the devastating -- (psychological) -- effects of (LARGELY) White racism, bigotry and supremacy, INCLUDING ON THEMSELVES{!!!}, or they over-estimate their own faculties capable of dissecting and understanding the problems raised by racism: Racism in their schools and on their streets, the racism at the market or (perhaps?) even in prison ... I must repeat that whereas Whites *choose* to join ranks with Blacks/Afrikans/Rastafarians to fight the devious set-ups of White Supremacy and bigotry, Blacks never make that choice, don’t even have to, since they’re born into the rot!

Whites are prone to quickly making presumptions about anything anti-racist a Black person may raise, or say, but easily forget their White System caused and CAUSES the problem! They may glibly say “Oh! How good and how pleasant … to live in Afrika!”, but some refuse to understand the Afrikan feelings of those with whom they’re joining ranks. They can say a black here or a brownie there is racist or “anti-Rastafarian” (for *merely* saying something ANTI-WHITE and true), but I wonder what we should call the beastly behaviour of Whites on their ANTI-BLACK websites with their endless RANT, where they can easily use words like “coon”, “kyke” etc. and expect you to giggle with them!!! [Sometimes, they even forget to weigh their English words!]. For God’s sake, if we cannot say “White Racism” -- referring to the structures built to cover our eyes and tower above our heads -- what should we say then? What is wrong -- or racist -- in saying “repatriation is for blacks alone”? Personally, I see nothing wrong, and nothing at all racist. People must remember that whereas almost all whites today can easily walk into a foreign embassy and get the visa for a foreign country of their choice, including Afrikan countries, Blacks (still) don’t have the luxury to choose any land they wanna fly to, even when they may have the money in their pocket! That’s part of the rules and regulations of the game called “White Supremacy Incorporated”! Blacks are still shackled in chains and I personally find it insulting for a White (Rastafarian) to ignore all this.

But I ask: “To go to Afrika to do what?” To “help”??? … That, to me, is part of the syndrome many whites have -- I have come to term it “The Help Syndrome”, and believe me, it’s something I know like the back of my hand: that unlimited kindness and limitless readiness to help as long as the recipient is Afrikan, or darker-skinned, or as long as the ARENA is Afrika. I say: No! White Rastafarians could do well by healing their lost brothers and sisters on the European Motherland, for they alone can be the most effective weapons to destroy this greedy System. But I’m really not saying White Rastafarians or Whites in general should not be welcome and given a chance to settle in Afrika. I think Whites, or white Rastafarians, anyone -- pure in heart and devoid of that diseased spirit which slaughtered and slaughters The Afrikan -- should be welcome to Afrika; and especially if they have any talents -- anything -- that could best be used specifically in Afrika for Afrika and the upliftment of her peoples, then why not?

The only problem is that at least some whites -- and including some so-called Rastafarians -- would resettle with false imperatives and, in my opinion, would only get homesick and be unable to coexist with other Rastafarians, in the final analysis. Perhaps due to lack of experience, youthful adventurousness (for some), smoking weed, feeling high and the explosive impact of Reggae music alone, some whites think too romantically of racial co-existence: as if it’s a “made-in-Eden” thing, something like a road leading to “Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs”! But realities are different on the ground, and yes, Whites have to heal themselves before they should even think of challenging the Repatriation issue. We, as a people, have suffered TOO MUCH, and this shouldn’t be another theatrical gimmick!!!

Ayinde and Yan: Again, I think you are right in saying whites have the erroneous, fairy-tale image of “One Love” in Afrika (or something to that effect). The reality is VERY different and will continue being so, as long as (MOST) whites stick to their snobbish mentality of thinking they own the world, that they are “God’s Chosen People”, refusing to see fault in their own race and face, and their very bloody history (plus the brutal machines STILL killing and ripping the Earth apart!), if not in themselves!!! Stubbornly insisting that all is well as soon, or as long, as we can call each other “brother” and “sister”, or as long as all of us can agree that all of us -- black or white or whatever -- can repatriate to Afrika, is shallow, pretentious and wrong! In fact, it is ignoring the hard racial issues (still persistent) in Afrika etc, and other more serious issues … In Afrika, the reality is different. Especially in Africa, Whites apparently develop a hard-to-understand mentality of “superiority” once they’re there … and, believe me, I have seen it many times with my own two eyes; some whites -- ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES RASTAS, especially if they lack experience -- even CAN’T fit in or acclimatise to new realities …

A good friend of mine -- a German -- once told me that he had earlier not thought about it, but that he was “uneasy to be alone in a sea of black people” -- (his own words) -- for the very first time in his life when he visited Senegal (which he then still referred to as “Senegambia” when I first him) in 1997, his first time to be in Afrika. Now, this guy I’m talking about -- Stefan is his name -- is really a great guy, likes Reggae, smokes weed, plays guitar and he can sing, is even seriously planning on marrying a black girl, but he told me that he realised the difference between “Afrika in the head” and “Afrika before the eyes” … He realised -- and I also had noticed this about him before, somehow -- that he still had many miles to go, before he could get out of that “complex” completely … When he told me these things, honest as we are to each other in our friendship, I told him I was grateful that he told me this, for I know very well that especially such (NEGATIVE) feelings are what whites can be very good at concealing … (from themselves, though!) …

… I am simply saying that whites should STOP that attitude of “we are brother and sister” without even attempting to UNDERSTAND why Blacks -- Rastafarian or non-Rastafarian -- complain about the same race thing when they -- White Rastafarians, that is -- apparently fail to understand the same Rastafarian thing the other Rastafarians complain about …

I have realised that, on many such sensitive issues, Whites and Blacks generally think differently, differ. I think the reasons are generally rooted in history, race, education/mis-education, life experience/non-experience and domestic training/upbringing (or the lack of these) ... I think such marked differences are mainly due to the complexes in which most of us are trapped or grew up in: The trappings of Babylon … WE MUST RESIST the System with full force and not serve two masters … I mean that in the spirit sense and apologise for any misunderstanding (cuz I’m not the one to judge who is devilish and who is godly, or who is clever and who is a goon).

But I will ask YOU: Haven’t you noticed how a white person BEFORE YOU would easily -- and READILY -- discuss issues like AIDS, Starvation “in Africa”, even Repatriation, and yet, on other issues they shy away: issues such as Reparations???

Just wondering …

PS: Whites must not always expect Blacks to “play second fiddle” to them. It is time they learned to do that, especially in Afrika!