Pan-Africanism : panafricanism?

Simunyaa ... Thanks for responding. You've said nothing "wrong." You are as entitled to your opinion as the rest of us. I appreciate you feeling comfortable enough to join and share ... and doing so in such a peaceful way.

:heart:

Destee
 
Originally posted by simunyaa
first of all: thanx to all of u for ur reply.

NNQueen,

what a nicely packed but envy reply! i know that many blacks could tell similar stories i just want to brake the "suscription of racial harrassment" to blacks. i think racism against blacks and whites can differ in many ways. but i would like to find out if it is still like that if u brake it down to an individual level. what do u think?

i think i made it clear already that i see a need for change and support the idea of panafricanism so this is cerlainly not "a group's imagination."

u also ask me who the enemy of the panafrican movement is? shouldnt u ask someone who regerds her-/himself as part of it?
two of ur statements i did not understand. firstly: "blacks r not colour blind nor stupid". i agree with u in both cases: a black person is as racist as any human being. but what do u mean by stupid? did i ever give the impression that i think so?
and then u ask me to get out of the way. how do u mean it? in whose way am i standing in ur oppinion?

As I read your questions and see your confusion to what I've written, my thoughts are--if your struggle was the same as my struggle as you are trying to imply, you wouldn't need to ask these questions nor would you be confused about what I meant.

See, I think you prove an excellent point. Yes you're white and you claim to be oppressed by a racist Black group. But it becomes obvious to me that you still see the world through a different set of lenses than I do. Now true, this may just be a result of cultural miscommunication, but in America I've seen how whites react to being called racist for the first time and I get the impression that you're reeling from the same impact--shock, horror, hurt feelings, confusion..."who me?" syndrome.

See simunyaa, my personal view of racism is the same as I view rape--it's about power and control. A person who has real power can be racist. Perceived power is not the same. White people have real power therefore they can be racist because they can take freedoms and privileges away from others for any reason. A Black person who claims not to like you because you're white doesn't necessarily have power over you that way so how can they be racist? True, they can be prejudice against you, they may even be able to discriminate against you, but I doubt they can be racist.


Answer this...you claim to be living in Berlin, Germany now. Do you still feel oppressed as a White person or did your oppressive state of existence suddenly end the moment you crossed the border of Africa and entered an environment where there were more people there like you AND who were in control of their destiny?

But let me join my Sister Destee in thanking you "for responding. You've said nothing "wrong." You are as entitled to your opinion as the rest of us. I appreciate you feeling comfortable enough to join and share ... and doing so in such a peaceful way."

Peace!
 
dear NNQueen,

i am sorry to say that i am still not sure if i get what u r saying but anyway.

after reading ur reply i switched the computer off and wrote a letter to a good friend of mine to discuss the issues u brought up. now the disatvantage of a letter is that u dont get a reply emidiatly. on the other hand i could order my thoughts. i have never seen racism a issue of power in the first place.
to be quite honest, i still dont think so. to me EVERY HUMAN BEING IS RACIST. and that is nothing bad. i rather see it as the fear of the unknown. this issue only becomes a serious matter when someone -directly or indirectly- is being harmed. and it is then when power comes in.

when i came to germany i was introduced to the terms "positive" and "negative" racism. to explain it on an example: negative is when i say: "BLACKS ARE STUPID". positive is when i say: "Blacks can dance very well" (AND FOR THAT THEY R THE BETTER PEOPLE) or (BUT THEY R STUPID).
that just to make clear on how i define racism.

however, back to the issue of power. this is what i actually ment when i was asking for the difference between "black" and "white" racism os it was actually very kind of u to make this perspective clear to me.

now u were asking about germany. about being "on the other side". obviously i dont feel oppresed in any way. what i find very shoking is on how foreighn and especially black people r treated here. not by indeviduals but politics. the way on how asylum-seekers r treated here is more than horrible. i alway wonder why a state officially recognized as being democratic can force people to live under this conditions. in my oppinion here is a clear contradiction to the human rights.

i wanted to bring up another issue. i dont agree with u when u say "whites have power, blacks dont". that is bacically because i am not looking from a black-white-perspective but from a south-north one. u were saying something against dictatorship and social injustes. how many black americans would not agree with u? however, still most r using cars, electricity from not regenerative sources, go to mcdonalt's and to the wall market, buy philip morris' products.... racism is also about not allowing the same standard of living to everybody else. but all those products and labels i mentioned and many more are involved in childlabour and /or into a poluted planet and /or support dictatorships and/or poison their own workers.........................
everybody who is supporting those things cannot claim to be not racist.
 
I find it interesting simunyaa that you feel whites should be included in black power movements, and solving the damage that slavery & colonization did to blacks in America & Africa respectively. Specifically what I find interesting is that you (like most white people) don't seem to realize that whites WERE the cause behind the overwhelming majority of these conflicts. Your pointing out Zimbabwe is a prime example. How do you see blacks taking back land that was stolen from them decades ago as a problem?

I ask you, were blacks consulted during the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, when Africa was divided among the European powers? Were they consulted during the scramble of Africa and the beginning of African Colonization? The answer to these questions are obviously no!!! Europeans (white people) created much of the trouble of modern Africa by displacing blacks from their land, subjecting them to low paid jobs, and creating artificial boundaries (forcing them to share land with groups they historically did not get along with). From 1884 to the mid 1960s whites were not concerned about the well being of black Africans, yet now that blacks in Africa have achieved some degree of political power, they want to become part of the solution to Africa's problems. The question is why would any black African in their right mind trust their former oppressors?

So your father was happy that apartheid ended. Well what exactly does that mean? That he was glad his maid would have a better place to live, that she could now visit the beautiful beaches where her ancestors used to fish? That is nice......but meaningless. The true question is would your father have supported the ANC? Would he have voted for Nelson Mandela as president? Would he have voted for Mbeki to succeed him? Would he suggested that blacks be granted stock in De Beers? The question is would he have supported blacks having power? Because that is the real issue. Plenty of whites in America were down with the Civil Rights Movement when they thought all blacks wanted was to eat in Woolworths, but when they realized we wanted the same jobs they wanted........it was a different story. Whites have not been, still do not, and more than likely never will want to share economic power (the true power) in Africa and because of that they have NO BUSINESS.....NO PLACE....in Black Power Movements.

Your inability to understand this shows you limited knowledge of the black struggle. Being born around blacks does not make you a partner in our experience, as your life in Germany demonstrates.
 

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