I Hate Black People
…that’s what flashed thru my mind while sitting in the backseat of someone’s car. What a harsh thought! Especially coming from an African-American… I regretted it – not immediately (it took awhile for the hate to seep out of me), but I was back to normal in about five minutes.
What provoked this? A piece of fried chicken…
I was offered a ride home & the driver said they wanted to stop at Church’s Chicken. Immediately I start an attempt to dissuade her. “Their chicken is abnormally large, don’t you think? It’s alleged they’ve been pumping their chickens with steroids to make them bigger.” She seems unfazed. We pass by several places. “There’s Harold’s. What about KFC? You know they have grilled chicken now and their fried chicken has no trans-fats!” She paid me no mind. Sometimes you have to leave people to their vices and this woman wanted her some Church’s Chicken. Really, I was going to leave it alone until, here’s the kicker… she turned around and said to me “I just want to check them out now that they have opened back up again. They were closed by the public health inspectors for a rat infestation…”
Let me tell you now, if your restaurant gets closed for a rat infestation, I’m not coming back. It doesn’t matter if you are Gibson’s, The Signature Room on 95 or Spiaggia, I’m not coming back. I’ve stopped going places for far more minor infractions than that.
She parked the car, turned and asked if I wanted anything. I balked, my words choking me in my throat… I shook my head firmly, with as much disdain as possible. She went in, leaving me in the car.
I was boiling. As I sat there silently fuming, I thought to myself the words listed in the title. When I cooled down, I tried to figure out why I even let that cross my mind.
I traced it back to awhile ago when I came across a blogspot account that belonged to a black Republican blogger. That in itself is not astounding, but what shocked me to my core was his blatant use of the “n” word (the -er version). Dismayed I tried to figure out why he had such a perspective about his own people. His background said it all. A black man who had been told he’s not black enough one too many times.
I know what that feels like. It’s self-destructive. You hear it enough you start believing it. Not that you’re white, but that you must be deficient. That something must be wrong with you. It hurts, real bad. You don’t quite understand it, so you find ways to cope. Some folks can just brush it off their shoulders and move on, like President Barack Obama. Others tell themselves that they are better than others. This is how I presume the self-hate manifested itself.
So what was the point of this anecdote? Just a little insight into what the process looks like through the eyes of another person. Maybe if you can see what I did wrong, you won’t be so quick to make my mistake. Don’t let the actions of one person be the reason why you typecast an entire race. Ignorance (or incompetence in this case) is not a singularly unique identifying factor for any one race. Additionally, I allowed myself to ingest another person’s pain, let it linger inside of me & fester like a sore. That’s exactly what hate does. Hate is a vicious cycle and every time you or I feed into the stereotyping and the race baiting, as long as we keep trying to quantify a color, then we help reinforce & keep alive the very system of oppression that we ourselves are fighting against.
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[...] but something interesting happened to me… I had a nigga moment. Yes, I went straight from “uppity Negro syndrome” on Tuesday evening to a “nigga moment” Friday morning. Before I take a stab at [...]
Just a little clarification…
There was no justification whatsoever for trying to tell this woman where she should spend her money. The point I was trying to draw out was that I got caught up in a notion that “I’m better therefore I know what’s best for you.” I allowed myself to fall prey to what I like to call “uppity negro syndrome”
Very nice post with excellent points.
Recently, I’ve been afflicted with Uppity Negro Syndrome.
Sometimes it leads to me wanting to break up with black people as a group.
I get very frustrated with people who don’t know (or care to do) better.
I’d like to agree with you that it’s a bad disease, but…I don’t.
Hate is one thing. Knowing that we as a group can do better is another. For example:
The 7 year-old who was just recently gang-raped by men who paid her 15 year-old sister for access.
Although the people involved are black, this problem isn’t race-specific. But, honestly, I care about “my people” first because I just do. So I would like this kind of nonsense to stop. Immediately. And if it takes me ranting/railing/mentoring to do it, then I will.
Because I know better.
And knowing brings a responsibility with it.
You were right to worry about the sanitation and health of that chicken restaurant.
And you’re also right to question your blanket thought about an entire ethnic group based on what one member does.
But when that one member becomes 100, 1000, 10000, 1000000…at what point should we start judging and condemning?
I think that we have all felt that way at sometime, which is why I felt comfortable enough sharing this post & putting such a bold, provocative title on it. I didn’t get to touch on it as long as I would have liked to, but what really drove me to write this post was the black conservative blogger who seemed to genuinely hate his own people. Where did it start? It started with our own people pointing the finger and ostracizing another because of some insecurity they were feeling. Seeing the full extent of that vicious cycle full blown makes me want to caution others not to go about defining what makes each of us black. It’s not an honor we bestow on others, it’s embedded in the way in which we choose to self-identify, and no one should be allowed to take that away from anyone else.
RE: the 7 yr old who was gang-raped
I believe @DiggsWayne said it best on Twitter: ” I’ve been trying for several days to not deal with the fact that a 7 year old girl was gang raped in New Jersey.”
It’s too horrific to even fathom. I felt so sick. I just cannot.
I feel so helpless. It makes me want to give up on “us”
RE: when 100 becomes 1000000
I think we need to come up with constructive ways to create open dialogue without judging & condemning. Look at how this election turned out. The liberal elite of the Democratic party won and started telling the GOP how wrong they were (which they were) and how they should all listen to us because we know what’s best… Now look what happened. We created a backlash, resulting in the formation of the Tea Party which is even further to the right than the GOP themselves. Sarah Palin makes me reminisce of the good ole days with GWB!
Another good example: the black divide on Tyler Perry. So many have jumped up to define his brand of comedy as coonery that I’m sick of it. We don’t need another Cosby Show. Can’t we be entertained without having to worry about what others are going to think? I just want to laugh dammit! Even white people like Tyler Perry’s stuff, and I have yet to meet a white person who thinks that Madea is anything other than a made up character. My point is, I’m sick of watching other black folk (I’m looking at you Spike Lee) try to deride him and bring him down. Tyler Perry needs a lot of help in the writing department, but we can’t deny he has a good heart and has done a lot to raise the visibility of black actors & actresses who weren’t getting a lot of work through Hollywood, and for that we should be a lot more respectful of him.