Blackness Studies

A Blackness Talk

given by Prof. Ivan Nikolayev, Black Professor of English at Harvarbigot University

Folks, today I want to talk to you on the subject of Blackness.

Who invented Blackness? And what is it for?

America today is still a nation divided. It is divided in spite of a thousand laws forcing us all to be equal and to regard each other as equal, whether we are or not. Not an easy task, as in order to know which individual you have to approach for the purpose of reassuring it of its equality, you first have to know whether or not it already is equal because otherwise it might take great offence at your assuming you have to treat it equal if it already is equal. Sometimes, treating people as equals infers that they are actually inferior, and this must be avoided at all costs.

There are different theories on who invented Blackness. Some say it was the first Arab to venture southwards into what was then called the Dark Continent, not because people knew that dark people lived there, mind, nor because it wasn't sunny. The reason for calling it this is unknown but scientists agree that it way well represent the first manifestation of racism, Arabs deciding that whomever they encountered in this continent would henceforth be regarded as slaves. This school of thought suggests that Blackness came into being when this Arab person ventured forth and saw a person not of the same colour and exclaimed "Good Allah! It's a black person!" whereupon the black person looked down at itself and thought "bloody hell, it's right! I never noticed that before!" And so, this consciousness of the state of being black came into being, though it was not until much later that it progressed into what we today call Blackness. This latter transition, as we shall see, only came about in the second half of the twentieth century, when it was realised that Blackness as a state of being would bestow great benefits at no cost.

But this will come later. First I must elaborate a little on the terminology I am using today. The word it will take the place of he and she as the inference that a dominant male or dominant female is the subject of discussion must not be allowed to be drawn. At all times it must be understood that it refers to a person of either male or female persuasion, or neither, and not necessarily straight in sexual orientation, quite possibly a gay or lesbian, healthy or handicapped, retarded or bright, not speaking a particular language which may (or may not) have any kind of ethnic connotations which might give offence to anyone not speaking that particular language. No religious or political adherence is inferred in any way, even though I graduated from Moscow University. We must visualise the people mentioned in this talk as just beings of no particular appearance or persuasion with no particular abilities, a reflection, if you will, of the sum of the students in this revered hall. This is the way we do things in this revered haven from learning - if all are to be equal, none must stick out above the low water mark. Now to continue -

The evolution of Blackness was a long and complicated one. After the initial discovery of its blackness, the black person returned to the place where it lived with other persons of no particular sex or religious beliefs, and imparted its new-found knowledge. It was difficult to conceive of this colour business as there was nothing to compare it with and no frame of reference for it to be put to advantage. How do you know you are black when there are no white folks around, and what use is it as an excuse?

And so life went on as it had always done in Africa. Persons were taken as slaves in raids and traded back and forth, and no-one thought anything of it, because all were black and there was no advantage to be had in inventing a black race. One black could hardly say to another black "you're discriminating against me and enslaving me because I'm black, you evil black devil!" It would have no clout.

And so it was not until white persons were encountered that the concept of Blackness began to slowly take form, relying for its definition on that which it was not.

Scholars generally agree that Blackness came into being in the period of colonisation, when black persons first felt the need to distinguish themselves from the new wave of customers for slaves. Whereas before, and still today, the majority of slave traders were themselves black persons, with the advent of white customers a definite advantage was realised in creating what we today call Blackness.

Initially it was simply a system whereby black persons could ensure the perpetuation of their life style even when transported to America - they could continue to live, work and breed as they had done in Africa as slaves or slave-owners, without the need for development, responsibility, civilisation or the hundreds of other elements which seemed so confusing about white civilisation. They could just live the simple lives they had always led, without the wheel, or writing, or factories or any of the things that cluttered white lives. They could point to their Blackness as the reason. It was the reason. There were complications, of course, black persons who also owned slaves in America, black persons who fought for the Confederacy, black persons who achieved something, but these could be dismissed as cross-overs, a minority which had somehow missed seeing the advantages of Blackness.

By the nineteenth and twentieth century, when white persons had outlawed slavery (much to the dismay of black persons in Africa who saw this as an infringement of their traditional rights) and fought and died to free the existing slaves in America, it was realised that something had to be done to ensure that the traditional uncluttered way of life could continue. And so it was that black persons invented the concept of racism, an invention that was to become the foundation of modern-day Blackness.

Being free and having to compete with white persons in a modern society meant becoming educated and having to work for a living instead of for a master who would see to one's food and clothing and provide a roof. It meant having to survive independently and this was not the tradition of Africa. The old excuse of "Hey, not me, no way, I'm black" was no longer sufficient to relieve one of all responsibility for becoming equal. And it was the fact that whites noticed this reluctance and began to assume that black persons really were incapable of keeping up that provided the revolutionary idea for racism and ultimately, Blackness.

A theory was developed whereby the blame could be laid entirely on skin colour and thus divert attention from such minor facets as lower intelligence, an absence of morality, excessive breeding, reluctance to work, an inability to learn beyond a certain stage, disregard for individual value and rights, corruption, high crime rate, in fact all the characteristics which made up the roots of the black population and were still prevalent back home in the paradise of Africa, where people could still exterminate and enslave each other with impunity and not bother about such hard work as inventing statesmanship, philosophy, human rights or the wheel.

It was a breakthrough. White persons could be accused of discriminating against black persons and keeping them disadvantaged purely because of the colour of their skin and not because of the characteristics that were associated with black skin. It meant that a black person could be a lazy employee and still complain that white persons earned more because of their colour. Black persons could spend their time in college listening to rap music and smoking pot and then complain that they were not presented with degrees because they were black. And following that complain of not being made director of General Motors because they were black.

But of course there was still the necessity for "earning" a living without earning one and so the resulting high level of crime among black persons had to be explained away satisfactorily and this was therefore also attributed to discrimination on the basis of skin colour. If repeated often enough white persons could actually be made to feel guilty that black persons had to resort to crime to avoid earning a living.

So what, then, is the essence of Blackness? It is that particular state of being a person of colour (any colour except white, that is) who:

and who, at the same time and ignoring all of the above, attributes all the ills and evils of life to, complains of discrimination by, and professes a deep hatred for the entire culture and civilisation of... you guessed it, whites!

The state of Blackness is one in which all the faults and blame belong to whites, thus providing the ideal excuse for avoiding responsibility for lack of education, high rate of crime, lack of morals, high rate of one-parent families, etc, etc. In short it is "everybody else's fault but mine!"

Prime examples of Blackness are those self-appointed leaders of the black community, people whom no-one voted into office, who enjoyed a Marxist upbringing, but wear expensive suits, drive big cars and have seven-figure incomes; who hate white culture, but enjoy its privileges mightily; who hate the white administration, but wouldn't mind becoming president; who hate white big business capitalism, but earn big bucks off it as fast as they can, etc, etc. In America, these are the Jacksons, Sharptons, Farrakhans et al. In Africa these are the Mandelas, Mbekis and Mugabes, all of whom hobnob with the foulest Marxist dictators of the world and claim Cuba, North Korea, Libya et al to be their shining examples, at the same time claiming that the evil whites are holding them back from freedom and equality...

(We should not, of course, be surprised by this, for the great hero and example was Martin Luther King, a person who was educated and surrounded by communists while professing to espouse freedom and democracy, earned a degree, wrote books and speeches by plagiarising the works of other scholars and preferred to spend its time in bed with white prostitutes rather than its own kind, paying for their services with embezzled money from the SCLC.)

It is the belief that although the first slaves in America were white, many thousands of them, only blacks may belly-ache ad infinitum about being descendants of slaves.

It is a status of "no matter what, I am the eternal victim, and whatever goes wrong, it is always your fault, even if I did it... If you brought me civilisation hundreds of years ago and I can't cope with it today, it's your fault. If you brought me medicine, education and laws hundreds of years ago and I have wasted them all, it's your fault. If you built cities with every amenity and I changed them into poor ghettoes, it's your fault. If you stopped me from wiping out a rival tribe when you arrived in Africa and I reverted to genocide the day after you left Africa, it's all your fault..."

For Americans of colour, except white of course, it is also the state of "you are to blame for taking me away from my beloved homeland and my roots, even though I wouldn't go back there today for a million bucks! I hate America and all it stands for, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I just loooove Africa and all it stands for, but I sure as hell don't wanna live there!"

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