The Art of Hating Your Friends and Loving Your Enemies

Racial Superiority (Inferiority) is a Fraud

Basil Waine Kong

In response to the story: “Brownings Please” (Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011),reporting that when placing trainees from "HEART", some employers specifically request non-black employees, a reader who chose not to be identified wrote: "It really breaks my heart to see poor blacks damaging their health by bleaching. It breaks my heart to see that the content of a person's character and ability is judged by the colour of his skin. It breaks my heart to see that education, intelligence and ability have taken a back seat to the lightness of a person's skin colour."

We delight in pledging to become a united nation with the plethora of people who call themselves Jamaicans---"Out of many, one people." People from just about every corner of the world call Jamaica home. We run the gamut of personalities from those who love themselves, love their country and always work to make things a little better. Then there are those who hate themselves, bent on tearing down our country and always treat and value others better than themselves or others who look like them. Is this behavior an expression of self-hatred? Self hatred describe people of low self esteem who dislike themselves as well as the national, racial or ethnic group to which they belong. Who is the cockroach who must know their place in: "Cockroach have no business a fowl dance."

Buju Banton sings:"Mi love mi car, mi love mi bike, mi love mi money an ting/But most of all mi love mi browning."

”Di gyal dem love off mi brown cute face!
Di gyal dem love off mi bleach out face.” (Vybz Kartel and Tarik Russian)

While an enlightened Ms. Louise Bennett said in a television interview that when she was growing up, nearly everything black was bad: bad hair, that black people bad and patois bad, she nevertheless wrote:

“Donkey tink him cub a race-horse;
John Crow tink him pickney white."

A derogatory rhyme is repeated much too often by African Americans:

"Niggers and flies;
Niggers and flies;
The more I know Niggers,
The more I love flies"

Even more disrespectful in Jamaica is the phrase used to describe replacing the political party in power: "swapping black dog for monkey." or "Nutten black no good."

Because human beings generally strive to better themselves; improve their financial status and quality of life; as well as aspire to be respected and honoured; we sometimes become prey to a negative frame of reference. Often we look to others with power for affirmation, which if your are looking to people of European ancestry, requires that you submit and subjugate your values to coincide with those of white people. People of colour are bombarded with images of European values regarding beauty, intelligence and success.

We are forever strapped to the ball and chain the British stamped on us over the last three hundred years. While we are an independent country, it is impossible to declare our independence from our deeply entrenched colonial mentality. I am personally thankful to the British for cricket and golf, afternoon tea, the English language, the wonderful poetry and literature, a stiff upper lip and all that. My advocacy is not for the wholesale rejection of everything British but our continued dependence of things that obviously does not work for us. Jamaica no longer need to copy British traditions wholesale. We should take the good, reject what is senseless or even harmful and develop our own out of this mix. Good old Jamaican values of love and respect for each other should be paramount. Everything else emanate from this central value.

When a black person accomplishes something great there is a feeling among whites that this is not right. There must be something wrong as this level of success is reserved for whites. This is the basis for much of the attacks on President Obama in the United States. Lady Musgrave was so disturbed by the success of Jamaica’s first black millionaire (George Stiebel) and his opulent eleven acre house and gardens that she could not bear to see it as she traveled down Trafalgar Road so she insisted that the Governor of Jamaica (her husband) build an alternative route so she did not have to be reminded that there was a successful black man in Jamaica. The Governor complied and it is called “Lady Musgrave Road” to this day. Nothing Black people do is ever considered good enough to be accepted so blacks are constantly being called on to prove themselves. One slip and they are rejected. “I knew he was not worthy and is just a fraud.” It makes blacks feel insecure and increase their need for acceptance by whites so they act the way they believe will be acceptable to whites. You must be an Englishman to be accepted. This poison is then digested by the general population and become manifested as “You cannot depend on black people to do anything right. Only white people can do things professionally.”

Many Asians and Caribbeans carry umbrellas and wear long sleeve shirts and blouses, not as protection from the rain, but as a shield from the sunshine so they will not become darker. Advertising can at times be racially biased and instead of uplifting our spirits, they serve to tear down our concept of who we are. We then arrive at the preposterous conclusion that we are unworthy of love and become haters of ourselves, our neighbors and anyone who look like us. Self-hatred is destructive and does not serve us well. This is true badmindedness. So, let’s reject these corrupt values.

"This above all; to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, sc. 3

If you take the case of Michael Jackson, no amount of success could change his obsession with becoming white and having white children. Tiger Woods do not want to be regarded as black and calls himself caublasian, married a white woman and demonstrating some of the same traits as Michael. We recognize their self hatred, hope they will one day get over it but love them anyway. Or maybe we love them because we recognize ourselves in them.

As children, we adopted the traits and beliefs of our parents in the hope that we will enjoy the power and privilege that we perceive that they enjoy. Did we adopt the traits of our slave masters in the process?

Do you compulsively compare yourself with others and always conclude that you don’t measure up?
Do you respond negatively and aggressively to criticism?
Do you encourage abuse from others and rationalize that you don’t deserve any better?
Do you start fights you are sure to lose because you deserve to be battered?
Do you relish compliments and attention from whites but do not value kindness from people who look like you? (In fact, you don’t even pay them any mind.)
Do you automatically find yourself only hiring white people when you need a doctor, lawyer, accountant, builder or repairman?
When you do work for whites, do you go out of your way to do a good job but when working for a black owned company, you slack?
Do you believe that anything foreign is better than locally produced products and services?
Do you believe that ice being sold by whites is colder and is of a better quality than ice being sold by Blacks?
Do you believe that white politicians will do a better job than people who look like you?
Do Black people frustrate and make you angry because they can never do anything right?
Do you place unreasonable demands on yourself to be perfect because you believe this is the only way you can get respect and make yourself lovable?
Do you have the courage to be imperfect?
Do you hide Uncle Joe and dark complected family members from your uptown friends because you believe they will embarrass you because they talk bad and don’t know how to properly use their knife and fork?
Do you dread weddings and funerals when everyone will find out about your relatives?
When you look in the mirror do you only see your flaws?
Do you constantly criticize members of your family, belittling and ridiculing them?
Do you engage in reckless, self destructive suicidal behavior like over eating, consuming dangerous drugs, driving recklessly, and engaging in promiscuous behavior?
Do you make comments characterizing being black as ugly around your children and buy them white dolls?
Have you ever broken off a really great relationship in favor of being with a really bad person? (Do you go out for hot dogs when there is pea soup at home?)

A substantial effort continues to be made to brainwash our people into believing they are physically unattractive. Who came up with "The Black sheep of the family" to describe the family member who did not meet the family expectations? Why is there a market for hair weaves and bleaching creams? Some may arrive at self-hatred because everywhere they look, the people with dark skin are at the bottom of the economic ladder and want to identify with the winners. This process takes place for any child that feels the powerlessness of their diminished circumstances compared to the broader world. They consider themselves losers who lack resources (intelligence, personal connections, money, and influence).

When our police delight in giving white looking people and professionals a break and harass people who look like themselves, it is self hatred. When civil servants ask white people to step to the head of the line ahead of Black people, it is self hatred. When you vote for political candidates because they are white, it is self hatred. When teachers favor a white child, advance him or her and hold back a Black child, it is self hatred. When you only invite “respectable people” into your living room, that is self hatred. If you don’t have the courage to be imperfect and cannot accept the imperfections in your neighbours, that is also self hatred. Why do we continue to treat family and friends badly and save our best for guests and strangers? Why is it that the people we care about the most are the ones who hurt our feelings?

"When God looks at mankind, He doesn’t see us as different races. He doesn’t see different social standings. He doesn’t see color or creed. God looks past all the superficial things that our culture seems to magnify — what we wear, what we drive and what we look like — and He sees us all the same; not black or white, just His beautiful creation. Not upper class or lower class; just one big family." (Sharon Jefferson)

In genetic terms, all human beings, regardless of race, are more than 99.9 percent alike. What that means is that modern science has confirmed the common humanity that we first learned from the Bible and our skin tones are only skin deep. Over the centuries, we have intermarried so much so that Black Jamaicans are often more different than our ancestors in Africa. Regardless of how much black skin correlates with poverty and the opposite with whiteness, there is nothing inherently inferior or superior about skin colour and stigmatizing one group and glorifying the other is what makes it so. According to Dr. J. Craig Venter, Head of the Genome Project: "We all evolved in the last 100,000 years from the same number of tribes that migrated out of Africa and colonized the world."

If I am Black, why would I want to be white? I am Black and I am proud. I am Black and I am beautiful! As opposed to hating ourselves and our neighbours, we are admonished by God to love our neighbours as ourselves. But to do that, we must learn to love ourselves first---the greatest love of all. Let us shun self-hatred. It is counterproductive. You are a child of God, made in his image and embody the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are a valuable human being who was mysteriously and wonderfully made. Our self-worth is not based on what other people tell us about ourselves. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Your rights and privileges as a citizen of this great country are no more and no less than anyone else. In the words of Bob Marley: “Stand up for your rights” and learn to live comfortably in your own skin. Don't look at others reflections but look upon yourself. If you do so you are truly admirable. You are God’s valued and special possession. He knows everything about you and He gave you special gifts and abilities for a purpose. Whoever you may be, walk with pride and you will walk good!

Do not envy the oppressor; And choose none of his ways.
Proverbs 4:31