Have you ever felt the hot flash of the evils of racism run through the veins of your body?
Imagine having to feel this horrible and horrifying impact everyday of your life in today's world.
The story begins with one of my Brazilian students telling me this... "Kwame, I hate it so much being a black woman in Brazil today" Trust me when I tell you..ok?? You won't understand what I mean today but someday somehow you will.
That was what she said to me on Saturday just when we were about rounding up our English class for the weekend.
I could very well relate to her story of racial abuse and the big gap of racial discrimination and isolation in Brazil. Because I had faced just a similar ordeal when I was a young boy in a German Public High School in 1998 when the hippy boys in the school and in my class will usually touch my skin and feel their fingers to see if they will have black stains on their fingers as they touched me. But they felt nothing of such.
And in anger, they will burst out in German
" schwarzer Nigga" (meaning The Black Nigga) or worse likened me to a foody by calling me "Der Mensa -Junge"
(meaning The Cafeteria Boy) simply because my middle name is "Mensa" (meaning the third child in the Ghanaian Twi language) was derogatorily changed to Mensa, (German word for Cafeteria or Canteen) just to shame me.
Just try to imagine the emotional trauma I had to go through as a young boy in that school everyday for almost 3 months.
My German friends, Christopher, Jana, Bijarne and Franceska who voluntarily wheeled me around everyday in my wheelchair around the campus wrere not spared from the insults either. Haaha funny story, one weekend right from school ,
I visited my dad in Hamburg then and told him.. Dad, I want to change my name from Kwame to Derrick. That's how bad it was for me folks. Just imagine that.
Here is the chilling part of my student's story; You know something Kwame, my grandmother burnt my father's bed he used to sleep on into ashes in his room just because he refused to marry from his own race, a white woman, but instead chose to marry my mother, a black woman.
After she finished talking, I just told her your father's love for your mom must be really deep for him to go through such a trial for her. She paused for a few seconds and said yes Kwame. Very deep.
My grandmother does not talk to me and my little brother. She hates the sight of us. So, in retaliation, my father, his own son does not talk to her too. He hasn't visited her for many years. And I don't think he ever will Kwame.
She said.
But there is the other black on black racial side to this ironically, blacks racially abusing people from their own black race. Tell me, isn't that sickening??
I say black people, ourselves are more racist than the white people we have been blindly accusing for centuries.
Lastly, let's look at the economic side of racism, how much power do black people have economically, politically, in education and power by societal standards around the world. Can you tell me huh??
How many rich black folks or Africans for that matter have invested a million or a billion in higher proportions of wealth in the poor neighborhoods and the communities they grew up in? How many??
I'm not talking orphanages or just schools but a black or African owned company where money and wealth can exchange hands between black people around little communities to around the world. Are there black- owned banks and Hospitals where black people can save money and invest their money or receive proper healthcare for that matter.
Check this out, it's proving that Jewish people and their communities in America exchange money and wealth among themselves "18 times" so they can help spread wealth rapidly in the Jewish communities. In simple words, a Jewish person will prefer to buy a box of chocolate for example, from a Jewish shop rather than any other shop in America.
The Asians and Indians are fast copying the same style of building wealth and financial freedom.
Black people and Africans are busy wallowing in self gratification, I'm the richest black man this or that, I'm the first black woman this or that. That's petty if you ask me.
We can empower our own black people by lifting them up not by cramping them down because of one black man's wealth.
Greed and Selfishness is eating us up inside like worms as black people. Yet we are so blind to see.
Next time, we shouldn't be so surprised when we see more white people on the Forbes richest list.
Black on black lives matter. Chant that instead!!!!
I rest my case.
Kwame Sarpong
Freelance Writer
kwamesarpong25@gmail.com
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