AFRICANS VS JAMAICANS (A WHITE MAN'S INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT OF THE PERENNIAL SLANGING-MATCH) OR 'GET MAD' VS 'GET EVEN'

Some of my best friends are black people! To be more precise – they are Jamaicans and Africans. So how, you may ask, has this white man learnt to tell these black people apart?! Easily enough really, because they’re always fighting one another with a vengeance - and I could never help wondering why? After all, aren’t there enough white people with whom black people could justifiably pick arguments?

In fact, this dispute is very important because it revolves around the vital question of how black people should deal with white people and the distinct difference between the African approach and the Jamaican - due to seismically different experiences of the same white racism. Jamaicans often feel embittered by the fact that they were the ones to have been completely enslaved whilst Africans were not - and feel that this raises them above Africans on the podium of racial suffering. On the other hand, Africans feel that Jamaicans have been infected by the white man’s immorality and are, therefore, in a cultural sense, lapsed (ie inferior) Africans. But who has suffered more pain? The black man who has suffered, abduction, followed by direct enslavement, rape and murder in the white man’s house, or the black man whose house has been forcibly invaded and occupied by the white man and who has suffered the rape, murder, abduction and enslavement of his family (not to mention the theft of his material valuables)? This is impossible to say, of course - especially so, when both sets of people continue to suffer such suppression to this very day.

But it should not be a question of ‘quality’ of suffering-by-white-man (who seriously wants to be viewed the more emotionally disturbed?), and nor should it be a question of African cultural credential - when, to-date, African cultural credential has been severely degraded by an historical continental subjugation at the hands of white men (or to put it another way, I’ve never put details of ‘when I got mugged’ on my CV). Surely, the question should be one of degree of black people’s success rather than black failure. But how should this success be measured?

The adage goes ‘Don’t get mad, get even’ and this is where the black reaction to racism differs so much - because Jamaicans tend to concentrate on ‘getting mad’ (emotionally angry) whilst Africans tend to concentrate on ‘getting (financially) even’. This outcome is not surprising, since Jamaicans have no period of ‘normal’ cultural history to which they can equate an experience of ‘even’, whereas Africans do - also, given that, these days, white people do not directly, physically suppress black people in Africa (they pay other Africans to do this) and the exploitation is for monetary gain, ‘getting even’ makes sense only on a monetary basis and the violence of ‘getting even’ is between Africans. Exploitation of white people’s economy by Africans (and other non-white UK immigrants who are far more industrious and have far keener business minds than white people) is inevitably leading to white economic decline and white people suppressing and fighting each other over the remains. On the other hand, despite being more commercially aware than the average white man, Jamaicans, never having known the loss of cultural wealth and freedom, and generally not therefore inclined to think as ‘big’ as African businessmen, have largely sought to ‘even’ matters up on an emotional basis - by making white people feel as guilty as Jamaicans feel angry about having been enslaved.

Black/African politics are divided into the same two camps as general global politics - those who support white power (racism) and those who do not; it is a consciousness of the guilt associated with aiding and abetting white racism, which causes the antagonism between Jamaicans and Africans. Africans see Jamaicans as working mainly in white government departments, white corporations (striving for promotion from white people) or unemployed and engaged in violent street-crime, whilst they themselves are more commonly to be found in self-employment, working for African businesses, or unashamedly making a fool of the white man by defrauding his stupidly inefficient bureaucracy (without any apparent fear of being sacked or imprisoned); Jamaicans see Africans as being too ‘soft’ on white people and treating them with undue courtesy, whilst they themselves are openly expressive of their hatred of white people; Africans see Jamaicans as too culturally close to white people, whilst Jamaicans see Africans as too emotionally close (although, I must add that I find black people, as a whole, to be far more (positively) emotional than white); both groups see each other as collaborating with white people and a mutual hatred for each other’s collaboration derives from each group’s unwillingness to come to terms with its own collaborative behaviour. I do not, of course, ignore the fact that there is a prevalence of violent white crime and fraud in the UK - much of which is committed by white people who wear suits and uniforms; in the end, a violent criminal is a violent criminal, whether he be from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean or the Far East.

It’s a shame, but just as it took deaths in Birmingham (as a result of clashes between black and Asian people) for many of us to be incited to examine the futility of such (unjustified) racism, so it has taken death on London streets (resulting from hostility between Africans and Jamaicans) for me to be roused into examining this particularly desperate intra-racial hatred.

Ultimately, getting ‘mad’ and getting ‘even’ must both be wrong decisions which resolve nothing, because, in either emotional or material terms, both strategies require black people to measure themselves against white - and when white culture is in complete decay, such measurement is worthless. Playing by white people's immoral rules will take black people to the same destination as white - nowhere. Like any other member of the human race, black people must measure their success individually against their own individual human standards, for success to have any meaning.

For personal inspiration, I would like to meet a black person (well any colour person, frankly) who has worked vengeful motivations out of their emotional system and is motivated to perform their white institutional job from a sense of professional satisfaction alone - although, I’d reckon that a black person who manages to ‘fit in’ fearlessly to a white governmental department, and meantime still be motivated by a genuine love of that job, not by revenge, would definitely be a rare gem…Should I place this paragraph as a lonely hearts/contacts add?!

The manner in which many black people parade the same material status-symbols as white is evidence enough of how black people buy into white culture and is the reason black people continue to be exploited by white racism. If gold had not been the base of white people’s currency (and diamonds so highly valued by white men), would Africa perhaps have been less attractive to white colonialists. Without wishing to belittle the devastation to African human resources caused by the slave trade, were Africans (who did not originally value the shiny elements to the extent that white people did) really robbed of their material resources? Well, the answer is “Yes,” of course, but the theft would not have been immediately noticed – in the same way as the general population of a country like Nigeria could never have realized the significance of its oil reserves at the point when they were first being siphoned off by Western companies, in collusion with a small number of powerful Africans.

Africans and Jamaicans should choose ‘something else’ on which to base their currency and ‘something else’ on which to base their cultural values - ‘something’ which white people do not value...?


Traditional African Currencies:

http://www.standsforart.com/artefacts.html


(*Or How A White Man Can Make Himself Extremely Unpopular By Lecturing Black People About Their Own Business!)