Yall can let it drop or let it ride, but I'm gonna say this...
I'm tired of the house negro getting a bad rap.
Much as I love MX, and I understand people's purpose by talking about the house negro in a bad manner, it's not good. To continue to talk bad and down the house negro is to undermine and dismiss the forced position they were in, what they had to do, and their contributions to black rebellion.
The field negro are the ones always looked upon with compassion, the one seen as hard working, rebellious, and taking the chance to escape or go against the master.
The house negro is seen as the appeasing loving pet of the master, who is used as a pawn in the division because s/he is used to spy on the field negroes and come back to tell master. This then gains her favor with the master and access to more scraps, materials, and handout that the master bestows on him or her, and s/he continues to want to be in the masters good graces, never rebels, and tries to quell all form of rebellion by telling the master everything about the field negroes.
Most of it... I believe... a lie.
As a daughter of both house and field negroes, it's time to set the record straight on house negroes.
I'm proud of my house negro heritage (aka mulattoes and light skin blacks). They don't get enough credit. People think that because they were light skin and in the house where they served the master coffee and rubbed his feet and since they weren't in the fields picking cotton and sugar cane they had it easy and thought themselves better than the darker skin blacks or 'field negroes.'
But this wasn't the case for many of them. They knew they were black too. They knew that they fought against a system of oppression that sought to divide and conquer on the basis of race, skin color, and gender and a host of other things you would find in a Willie Lynch manual. And if you think being the target of constant rape, suspicion and ridicule by blacks, and used by the master to go against your brethren is something to be proud of.. then you are sorely mistaken and perhaps a little soft in the head. You're blinded by your own degradation at the hands of the system.
'House negroes' fought out against their oppressors, ran away, and wanted freedom just the same as field negroes. They poisoned their masters, helped other slaves run away (many were seamstresses and sewed run-away maps on quits), and often brought undiclosed information to other black about the world from the house they served in. That information is how many blacks found out that they were free at the end of the civil war - by the information they got from blacks working in the house. If house or light skinned negroes were chosen for a position because of their light skin, they often took the position and used it as a chance to hire other blacks or to look after the interest of blacks.
It is undeserved to blame and use all house negroes or mulattoes as the basis for black race traitors because of the few who prized their light skin and white bloodline over field negroes or darker skin unmixed blacks.
To this very day... it vexes me that we still live in a state of divide and conquer as we as fight and distrust each other over skin color and hair texture. We have to realize that we are all BLACK, and part of the CHOCOLATE RAINBOW that varies from blue-black to vanilla. We have to realize that we all contribute to the interest of black people now... and then... regardless of our position or skin color.
So stand up for your house negroes, and realize they should have a more respected and honored place in your history than you currently give them.
