The Obama Years: The Beginning of the End

There is no “Individualism” Under White Supremacy

President Obama’s presence proved to the world that “individualism” over “collectivism” is the biggest myth the United States of America ever put out there.

White America got nothing that it has by or through any Individualism. Absolutely nothing. President Obama didn’t even get to be President by being an “individual” about it.

“Get an education.” “Work hard, you will succeed.”

Right. Sure. — Not.

There are even white folks out there that will tell you that hard work gets you goose egg jack shit nothing. They teach hundreds of thousands of seminars and closet sessions on ‘working SMART,’ not hard.

Yes, we do need Education.

Without it we would all be sitting around staring at one another with a bad case of the “d’UHs.” Nobody knowing nothing at all doesn’t help our collective or individual causes.

Yes, we do need to work.

But not for that kind of a system. Our hard work only empowers white supremacy, and emboldens and encourages it to stay ‘as is’ The only bad news is that we were taught capitalism the wrong way with the wrong ideologies and the wrong interface, and in a language that is not indigenous to our own ancestral inheritance.

Westernized capitalism is the wrong way to do business. We’re looking at the results of it and there is no amount of “bling” that can be used to sweep that dirt under a rug.

Yes, we do need to succeed.

But whose definition or version of “success” are we are talking about?

If success is the BIG monstrosity of a house, the BIG monstrosity of a car, paying oil barons and Arabian sheiks, or “putting on the ritz” and being surrounded by lots of materialistic “stuff,” then we’ve defined success by three words: steal, kill, destroy. There will never be enough stuff, or enough upgraded better brand new improved stuff. A capitalistic system designed to tip the scales of justice and economic power over to one side at the expense of another is not a system any of us should want, or that any of us need.

If success means the financial endowments and economic inclination to bring about good solid change through investments, it is a good kind of success. If success means recycling community and nation-building where the individual succeeds as a whole when the group does, then success is self-defining and designed to enlarge the individual as well as the collective whole. The two run together, and there is no separating them.

As individuals, what is the big picture and the point of improving our position within a racist society and its systems?

From civil rights to affirmative action to equal opportunity, there were never any laws that were put in place to improve the lives of former slaves or disenfranchised Black Americans in a completed act. The coat hanger laws that are in place now were loosely held tack-ons to a 200-year old highly antiquated Constitution. Those couple of fist fulls of laws were meant to go underneath white supremacy – not to cleanse or purge what was already in existence.

The only cure for snake bite is snake venom, and the snake that bit don’t like getting bit back.

However, the bite wound is too deep and festering to turn a blind eye to it and pretend it’s going to go away if we just keep ignoring it to death. There is no getting rid of a cancer by acting as if it doesn’t exist.

***

Herein lies the definition of “individualism” vs “collectivism” under white supremacy: Epic fail.

It fails as both a principle and as a root social theory. The root of this individualistic supremacist society is that they gang-banged to get it this way, and only a gang-bang is going to resolve it. This system brings with it a set of beliefs that say “Forget them, focus on yourself.”

Ditto for us. But who is “us”?

We got Black people saying they aren’t Black (they are Black-ISH), arguing over who, exactly, they are and what to call themselves, denying that afrocentric features are what they are, mean-mugging one another over complexions and hair textures, arguing and doing drama-speak like we’re all some television reality show stars, and if we ever get past that 150+ year old hurdle that our ancestors hauled off the plantations with them, then …

We (Us) will have at least another 150 years of meetings just to be scheduling more meetings in order to define what are the goals and objectives of this collective and who is in charge of it before we ever get around to designing this social system to benefit and uplift Black and Afrocentric Americans, so …

The rest of the world will be on to interplanetary travel long before we have a banking system in place to finance land acquisitions and business mergers, let alone to enhance and empower Black businesses.

Why?

“Big I’s and Little U’s”-syndrome.

Everybody gots to try and prove something about who THEY are instead of forming a collective initiative that says NONE of us are going to be able to get anything done alone. Mr and Ms “Such-n-Much” are trying so hard to set an example of being Afrocentric that they forget to BE Afrocentric.

Individualism was nitpicked out of the dialogue on social order so that it could provide a falsified idea about what can be done with it. Unlimited reach and outreach as an individual is a lie.

Individualism has limits and its limits embrace selfishness and breed greed and conceit, something white people don’t even do to one another when it’s time to “get ‘er done!”

The protocol is: From the bottom to the sides to the top builds a house, it does not start with the roof.

–PART 6–

A great conflict was about to come off between the Birds and the Beasts. When the two armies were collected together the Bat hesitated which to join.

The Birds that passed his perch said: “Come with us”; but he said: “I am a Beast.”

Later on, some Beasts who were passing underneath him looked up and said: “Come with us”; but he said: “I am a Bird.”

Luckily at the last moment peace was made, and no battle took place, so the Bat came to the Birds and wished to join in the rejoicings, but they all turned against him and he had to fly away. He then went to the Beasts, but soon had to beat a retreat, or else they would have torn him to pieces. 

“Ah,” said the Bat, “I see now,

Moral of Aesops Fable: “He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.”