Since I started this blog in late July, I have had to take a hiatus because of minor knee surgery which was done in early August. 

For many weeks my energy focused on healing, and as such, my limited energy was spent on that process. 

This also being the last lap of the presidential election season, I spent a lot of my waking hours being entertained by the political parties’ projects that, for the most part, are sometimes brilliant and some times dumb satires of themselves. I made a list of examples to write about (when feeling better) but I was overwhelmed by the ludicrousness of the candidates’ words and actions – unintended I’m sure – but nevertheless funny in a sad sort of way. 

I realized that there are scores of physically healthy bloggers who comment on the politicians‘ silliness so, I decided to forego political commentary.

So, I was at a loss for something to write about in my second blog until a couple of nights ago when I received a forwarded e-mail whose subject line was: “Back When We Were Negroes.” The e-mail’s original writer yearned for simpler times (1950s) when African American families in the United States had a much lower rate of single-parent households and fewer – comparatively speaking – unwed mothers. The source of this statistic is given as “The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies,” a book allegedly written by Kay Hymowitz who reportedly writes about African-American health, voting, education, current youth clothing styles, the state of churches and the rejection of biblical and “normal anglo names” – in exchange for monikers made up out of whole cloth.

Finally, the e-mail lists a few names by which people of African genetic makeup have been called by others or have called themselves as a group: “ Black, African-American, Afro-American and Negro.”  The latter term preferred by the e-mail writer.  I want to add a word that has been in use since at least 1619: N****r or N***a. The epithet coined by the English colonists in Jamestown and widely used since then, not only in North America but around the globe as well. 

In 1958, while in uniform (USMC) I was cursed by a Libyan civilian who liberally peppered his insults with the N-word. Of course, having grown up in Chicago, I had heard the word on several occasions from a rainbow of mouths, usually followed by physical aggression which resulted in more than a few lips being busted (sometimes mine). Most of the insults were made up of words that had nothing to do with my African ancestry; that is, they were English words or words in some other European language, never utterances from Motherland tongues. And that is my point. “Negro” or any other alien word has nothing to do with a people’s behavior and lifestyle, although in western former colonial and “slave” societies, the people’s behavior has been profoundly impacted by the colonizers which might account for some of the behaviors the e-mail writer finds prevalent among “Blacks,” and  “African-Americans” ... descendants of Africans from diverse Motherland cultures who were thrown together with little regard for their cultures, and made to surrender their lifeways including their languages through beatings, and worse. They were literally tortured into accepting the oppressors’ tongues and behaviors in so far as there were benefits for the slavers. Of course, Africans are not the only ones who had to deal with the colonizers here in the U.S. The First Nations’ peoples had to learn to speak the colonizer language that was for the most part hostile to their existences; the Africans sought out other words of the inimical language by which to call themselves: “colored” was the word until “negro” came into vogue. 

None of the words fit well, so the people changed them for other words: “Afro-American” and after a few short years “African-American.” The original hateful “N-word” has persisted and shows few signs of irrelevance. And as I mentioned before, no word has anything to do with our behavior unless we give it the power. It is impossible to return to the 1950s, no matter how hard certain politicians and their supporters try to make it so. Who wants to see “Whites Only,” “Colored Entrance In The Back,” “Negroes Not Welcome” signs again? Who wants to surrender the right to vote, accept less than a 2nd class education, return to the days of Housing Segregation, step off of the paved sidewalk so that a “white” person’s path will not be obstructed? Who wants to teach their children that they are less than other humans who walk the earth? Who? 

There ain’t no turning back. “Back in the day” is a skewed memory. Those who want to project themselves into the fictional past are mentally putting themselves into an unending rerun cycle of a distorted nostalgia that never was.

yaY