The Self-brainwashing, Self-victimizing and Self-destructive Nature of Racism (Part 1)
The Tri-stage Cycle of Racism: The Self-brainwashing, Self-victimizing and Self-destructive nature of Racism on the People of Africa
By Thiik Mou Giir, Melbourne, Australia
Friday, April 26, 2019 (PW) — Being subjected to racism, studying racism, understanding racism, and struggling against racism often happen simultaneously. One approaches the subject thinking that racism is something normally carried out by the majority against the minority people. Although this is true at the preliminary stage of racism, it is not the case in a more advanced stage of racism.
In the more advanced stage of racism, the victims of racism; namely, the black people themselves, start to practice racism against themselves. They become self-brainwashing, self-victimizing and self-destructive people. In any place, in any region, and in any country, where racism exists, white supremacy enters into the popular consciousness of the oppressed, the black people.
For instance, you observe your daughter’s skin is getting lighter and lighter and you suspect right away that she is applying some whitening creams on her body. You get disappointed and no matter how much you try to dissuade her, she is determined not to give in. You tell yourself that she is only a girl; she is immature; she is weak; she wants to become a Kawajia.
When this vogue is over, she will stop applying these whitening creams on her body. She may not stop because the white people are not vogue; they are not fashion. They are human beings and they will always continue to be white.
So, she continues applying them on her skin even after she is married off. She gives birth to a baby-boy who takes the colour of his father, not hers, bleached. The baby-boy is born into a lie and he grows in a lie as far as her mother’s appearance is concerned. The baby-boy waits thirty or forty years, the time his mother has become wise enough to decide not to apply the creams any more, before he learns his mother’s colour for real.
He observes the transformation of his mother’s skin colour from white, to zebra-like, and to black. He then lives through periods of repulsion and attraction of his mother until his attitude towards his black mother is finally established. Thus, does racism confused children, the grown-ups and even the elders.
In Sudan, at the time when Sudan was under Arab-Islamists’ rule, some Southern Sudanese elders, politicians, wise men, strong men, men of various ages competed for favours by pledging their loyalty to Arab-Islamic racists. Southerners had learned that often what was required in order for any Southerner to get a political position and to keep it, was not for them to have skills and expertise that would enable them develop Southern Sudan.
What was required was to show loyalty to their masters, the racist, Arab-Islamists. To prove that he, for example, would is loyal to them, John started using sweet-talking strategy; that is, by saying the right things that the Arab-Islamists would certainly like to hear. As the result, John got a lucrative job.
He would be surprised later when, Peter, who worked as his junior, was promoted and now he was his senior. “How come Peter has reached this higher rank than mine and he is now giving me orders!” John wondered. John then concluded that Peter must had done more to prove his loyalty to Arab-Islamists than the mere sweet-talking he had previously employed.
He was right; Peter converted to Islam. So, John decided to outplay Peter. In those days, in Sudan, rumours were spread that some Southerners had taken some drastic measures to prove their loyalties to their masters, the racist Arab-Islamists. John decided to do exactly that. He had not only converted to Islam, he also consented to have his private part, his buttocks, be tattooed.
In other words, he allowed an Islamic text be carved on his buttocks. And so, it was done. He was promoted to the highest position possible. A few South Sudanese were said to have borne those texts on their buttocks and in the meantime the majority resented the inhumane practice.
South Sudanese, then as now, know that they have always grown up experiencing racism. It is evil and because it is evil, South Sudanese must resist it.
Thiik Mou Giir, Bachelor Degree in Education from the University of Alexandria, Egypt; Post Graduate Diploma, from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He can be reached via his email contact: thiik_giir@hotmail.com
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