NIGGER OR NIGGA?
I happened to overhear a conversation today among a group of teenage schoolboys that started me thinking. The boys were reasonably articulate, probably post CXC. In the course of the animated conversation every sentence was punctuated by the inclusion of the word “nigger” It was “Nigger, you watch Fast Five yet? Nigger, that sh** was hot! etc.” This reminded me of something I had read some years ago. The American rapper, Tupac made the following remark:
"NIGGER- a black man with a slavery chain around his neck. NIGGA- a black man with a gold chain on his neck."
Are our bright young men in Barbados seeing themselves as Niggers or Niggas? Can they recognise the difference?
I believe we need to examine the history of the African in Barbados if we are to gain any insight into the mental state of today’s future leaders. The next three (3) paragraphs excerpted from THE AFRICAN INFLUENCE ON BARBADIAN CULTURE by Historian Trevor G. Marshall October-2003, does an excellent job of setting the background.
In 1640, there were only 1,000 Africans in Barbadian society, a society of 10,000. Society increased eightfold and by 1690 Barbados was over-populated. It had 80,000 persons and whereas it had a ratio of 9 to 1 in 1640 in favour of Europeans - Englishmen, Scotsmen, by 1690 that ratio was overturned. Barbados now had 60,000 Africans and 20,000 more or less whites - Euro-Barbadian, British, English-Barbadians. By the end of the century there were about 90,000 people in this society and about 75,000 of them were African-Barbadian.
Over the next two centuries Barbadians coalesced (in sexual terms), to produce what was described as half-castes. That grouping was called "mulattos" , European in features, phenotype hair etc. but having African genes. They had quaint and queer terminology "mulattos" suggested that they were "little mules" in that they come from a donkey (which is an African) and a horse (which is a European) and that they could not reproduce normally and that they had to return to the matrix, either a full blooded African or a full blooded European to produce. To carry that joke a bit further, where you find a European and a African mating the product was a mulatto; a European and a mulatto mated, the product was an octoroon, one eighth white; if that octoroon mated with a white, the product was a quadroon, a quarter white; if a quadroon and a white mated, the product was a mustee and if that mustee and a European mated, the product was a mustifino, or seven eighths white (or as they said seven eighths human) and that process was called "washing the blackamoor white". In Barbados therefore one can move from African to white in about three or four generations.
Victorian ideology argued that there was the Darwinian process of evolution from beasts coming up from the swamp lands and evolving into Australopithecus, Java man etc. and becoming Homo Sapiens and at some point there was a "missing link" between man and the monkeys, chimps etc. and that was the African. So at the time the African came to Barbados and other places, the propaganda was that he had nothing but brawn and a pint-sized brain and that his society had contributed nothing to the noble heritage of mankind. This was part of the reasons used by Christians and others for enslaving him, because he was, after all, not a human being, he was a sub-human. All Europe from Portugal to Russia became involved in the slave trade, enslaved Africans and brought them to this region.
They subscribed to the notion, at least officially, that Africans were sub-human, but as we see, sexually, Europeans did not subscribe to that belief. It is hard to believe that Mr. Phillips, my Great Great Great Grandfather, a white Welshman, thought that he was committing an act of bestiality when he copulated with my Great Great Great Grandmother those many years ago thus giving me the genes and surname that I so proudly pass on to my children.
The African was not supposed to come from a society that had reading, writing or had contributed anything of major scientific note, and although Egypt is extremely firmly situated in Africa, it was argued by scientists (and is even argued today) that Egyptian civilisation is not African, it could not be. Africans could not produce the pyramids, those great temples at Karnak, papyrus writing etc. It was established that the typical African was in the Bantu-speaking people, of West Africa with woolly hair like mine, jutting jaws, thick lipped, and that they had not either the brains, intellectual tools or else to create a major civilisation.
It is unfortunate that over 170 years after the abolition of slavery in Barbados, our children know next to nothing about the achievements of Africans and people of African descent. Little effort has been made to dispel many of the deliberate lies told to us by our former European masters. The result is that today they see nothing wrong with referring to themselves as niggers. It would take many pages to list the many misconceptions that have been taught openly or implied subconsciously to our children. However, I have included the following link which conscious readers may find interesting. Personally,I do not endorse all the sentiments expressed but it illustrates the extent of the misinformation that we as black Barbadians need to correct if our children are to understand and realize their true heritage and by extension their true potential.
http://www.africanholocaust.net/html_ah/black%20out%20white%20wash.htm
In our effort to heal the injury that a hundred years of slavery has inflicted in our conscience and sub-conscience, it is not in the the best interest of the young Black Barbadian to continue to perpetuate the inflicted self loathing masterminded by our oppressors, by the repeated use of derogatory terms to each other. It is a fact that we have been brutalized, branded and humiliated by people who did not appreciate us. We have been failed by governments that never sought to make our education system relevant. We have also been fooled by churches who promised us a heaven that is for after we are dead rather than showing us how to make the most of life.
In 2011, In Barbados, we can still have a black politician apologising for another referring to a group of white elitist as "white elitist". In England we have a noted white personality publicly proclaiming that the break down in law and order can be attribited to the adoption of "black culture".
However, the power lies within each one of us to start making a difference. Talk to our children, try to instill in them a sense of pride is who we are and where we came from. We must teach ourselves so that we can teach them. We do not have to wait on the schools and chuches to do it for us. A black man now stands as the President of the most powerful country in the world and our youth still see themselves as niggers...or is it niggas.
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