Universally Speaking
Rahim Islam is a National Speaker and Writer, Convener of Philadelphia Community of Leaders, and President/CEO of Universal Companies, a community development and education management company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Follow Rahim Islam on FaceBook(Rahim Islam) & Twitter (@RahimIslamUC)
Rahim Islam
What is the real perception of Black people generally held by white people, and how much of this is passed down from one generation to the next? How many negative and racist stereotypes are there of Black people and where did they come from and how do they continue? With just a little investigation you’ll find, like I did, that these stereotypes date back to slavery and have monopolized public opinion ever since and they can be seen in every known medium that delivers content in America.
I’ve always professed I’m neither a scholar, historian, nor journalist. I view myself as a student of the struggle of Black people in America and I have a number of teachers (i.e. Frederick Douglas, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Hon. Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Rev. Leon Sullivan, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin and many others). All of these teachers have inspired me to see the struggle of the Black community, not only the internal challenges that the Black community faces from within, but with the goal of challenging and fighting against a racist segment of America that continues to oppress and suppress Blacks based on their racist beliefs – there might not be physical slavery but economic slavery most definitely exist. During my studies, I’ve come across so much information that guides my thinking and nothing is more definitive than the negative impact that nearly 300 years of chattel slavery, 75 years of Jim Crow and KKK terrorism has had on Black people, their psyche, and their current socio-economic conditions (this is not about some pity party – this is factual).
Every group has had issues including the white community. Unlike any other group that has been discriminated, oppressed and abused in America – none has experienced racism like the Black man nor is the discrimination enforced with such a viral appetite and holistic sting. This is largely due to the idea that race in America is based on physical characteristics and skin color (YOU CAN’T HIDE YOUR BLACK SKIN) – this has played an essential part in shaping American society even before the nation existed independently. I contend that, for the atrocities of slavery and the structural and institutional racism to continue, the Black man must continue is to be portrayed as sub-human or less intelligent. This is primarily being done through the media. The perception of Black people has always been closely tied to their social status in America. Therefore, you’re enslaved because it’s a better treatment of you than to allow you to be free; you’re poor because you are lazy and your economic condition is fitting of your capacity.
The more I study, the more I learn of the massive amount of physical, psychological, and spiritual pain inflicted on Black people since being in America. When you take all of this into consideration, you come away with a better appreciation of the resiliency of Black people, and you should come to the belief that if given the right tools Blacks could really excel (I believe that there is a segment of America who fears this). However, I’m convinced that the Black community has been harmed severely but what is more appalling is the cavalier attitude of many White Americans who treat this issue as some meaningless event that Blacks should just get over. The trivialization of the Black holocaust is not only sinister but it’s pure ignorance (it’s just wrong). In addition to the American institution of slavery, which was crippling in itself, every American system and institution (i.e. judicial, financial, legal, governmental, banking, business and commerce, social, medical, etc.) has been rooted in the oppression of Black people. Even today, Blacks still have to fight for the basic rights afforded to all Americans.
What’s even more saddening is how the victim (Black community) has been made to be the villain and put in the defensive position (always having to justify and defend its status) which will never allow the truth to surface especially when the Black community is leading the effort (there you go again). America, led by its media, has done a masterful job to paint a picture of Black inferiority and has used all of its systems and institutions to control and manipulate the inferior outcomes that they professed are associated with Black people (self-fulfilling prophecy). This is just another example of how the victim is made to be the villain. Malcolm X once said that the American media is the most powerful institution in the world because it can make a right man wrong and a wrong man right. The American media has portrayed Black people in very hurtful terms, which has helped lay the foundation for the continual oppression of Black people.
Many of the negative outcomes that we see today are to be expected when an entire group of people have been enslaved for nearly 300 years without any compensation (Blacks still only inherit poverty. What is to be expected when Blacks’ growth has been suppressed at every level, even denying civil rights and access to equal public education? Thousands of Black people have been murdered, lynched, and terrorized for attempting to right some of these wrongs. Blacks have been robbed of their culture and history, which has been replaced with black inferiority and white supremacy. With families being broken apart there was no way to transmit history from one generation to another. In protecting their children, mothers taught their children to obey, respect, and love the slave owner even at their own expense.
There are just too many issues that handicap Black people that America can’t just continue to ignore this reality. Not to mention poverty and lack of capital – there is an overwhelming percentage of Blacks living at or near poverty and Blacks have little or no capital (some have describe having no capital in a capitalistic society like being in a hatchet fight with no hatchet). Why is it so difficult for White America to understand and acknowledge the legacy of slavery? This is why Black people remain so frustrated with white people; there is a deep and bitter fear and/or hate that White people have of Black people that also has its roots in the legacy of slavery (this must be reconciled). Today, many White people say they don’t carry these prejudices but nothing could be further from the truth – how else do you explain the treatment of Black people in this country now and for such a long period of time.
In spite of the overwhelming challenges that Blacks have faced and continue to face, I still believe in the concept of America and its core principles We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I also realize that, like the many great Black leaders before me, if America is to fulfill its promise, the legacy of slavery and its impact on nearly 45 million Black people must be addressed. In addition to the structural socio-economic issues that threaten Black people, the negative stereotypes regarding Black people have historical foundations created and supported by the media and help to shape public opinion about Black people and why there is not more understanding and responsibility in support of the conditions that Black people face.
As I asked in the beginning of this article; what is the real perception of Black people by white people, and how much of this is passed down from one generation to the next. I know some Black people will say that what white people think of Black people shouldn’t matter. While I’m a do-for-self Black person, I contend it’s very important that we challenge White America about what they really think about Black people because the last time I checked, they owned it all and owning all allows you to implement your prejudices (racism). Not all white people are racist – that’s preposterous to think. But we all, Black and white, have prejudice thoughts and beliefs. However, after nearly 400 years of entrenched negatives beliefs about Black people, what we have now is INSTITUTIONAL RACISM based on a value system that fundamentally devalues Black life. There are just too many examples that this opinion is felt by many white people (i.e. failing public education in urban cities, ballooning of young Black boys in prison, Black on Black murders, 1980 & 1990 epidemic of crack, Katrina, the current AIDS epidemic, etc.). Institutional racism allows callousness to grow and develop causing the racial divide that we currently have in this country – much of this is fueled by the media.
Starting in 1665 with the first English speaking newspaper, the media has grown to include not only newspapers, but radio, music, television and now the internet. How has and how are Blacks portrayed? While much has change – the images and the negative stereotypes of Black people in the media remains the same. Remember, Black people were not convicted of any crime; they were not casualties of war; yet they were captured and sold and became property of their owners with no possible way of ever being freed. The numerous state and federal laws, politicians, public opinion, religious leaders, and America capitalists upheld this institution to the fullest and watch this atrocity unfold representing the worst acts of mankind against mankind. . I believe it was the depictions; the stereotypes, the bombardment of negative images of Black people that fuel this economic windfall for America. Yes, this was about economics, but it was also about white fear and hate of Black people which was supported by the media. What are the early stereotypes that laid the foundation for the justification for enslavement?
While there are so many stereotypes that portray Black people in such a negative light: criminal and dangerous; primitive or simpleminded; prone to drugs and addictions; lazy and shiftless; addicted to handouts and won’t work; enjoy excess versus being in control of oneself; dirty and unclean, and sex addict with no responsibility to family life (i.e. motherhood and fatherhood) – none is more damaging than the portrayal of Black people as subhuman animals (without a soul). This was perfect for the religious conservative. As long as Blacks lacked a soul, they couldn’t be considered human and it was OK to treat them like property. To achieve this, the media had to portray the home of slave Africa as barbaric and savage. African Black people were usually depicted as primitive, childlike, cannibalistic people who live in tribes, carry spears, believe in witchcraft and worship their wizard.
White colonists are depicted tricking them by selling junk in exchange for valuable things. Sometimes Black Africans are depicted as pygmies with childlike behavior so that they can be ridiculed as being similar to children. How many images of African Black people dressed in lip plates or with a bone sticking through his nasal septum or bare chested Black women with large breasts and notably fat buttocks. Even today, if you ask the average Black person what his/her thoughts of Africa are they will refer to these stereotypes.
Starting very early on within numerous publications, enslaved Blacks were portrayed in books and early newspapers as animals, mainly gorillas – this placed fear and lack of compassion for the plight of the slave. There were numerous advertisements for the sale of slaves and/or notices of rewards for runaway slaves (these ads were the financial foundation for the growth of daily newspapers). The bombardment of descriptions and ape like images help to sooth the conscious of the White man for what he was doing or not doing. Crude historical depictions of Blacks as ape-like may have disappeared from mainstream US culture, but much research on this topic suggest that society was more likely to condone violence against Black because it was believe that they were animals and they were dangerous – you couldn’t appeal to a ‘beast’ – there is only one way to handle a beast and that’s with force.
This hateful association between Blacks and monkeys or apes gave White Christians, especially slave owners, the right and justification of slavery and because they had no SOUL (no self-evident rights or freedom). In my studies, I’ve come across so many laws that described the status of slaves as property and what was allowed and what wasn’t allowed (not much wasn’t allowed). Most state laws allowed torture and death of the Black enslaved if that person, disobeyed, escaped, or was perceived as threat to the owner – there are a very few cases where slave-owners were charged with a crime for killing and/or maiming a slave. When rare convictions were achieved, the penalty was a citation or some obscured and light penalty. There were no protections for those that were enslaved (there was no judicial court or body to appeal for mercy). The only relief for slaves existed when they practice complete submission or could ‘trick’ the slave owner to believe in such (even that wasn’t 100%). Thousands of Black children were murdered by the wives of the slave-owners for impregnating one of his female slaves. Those slave owners who didn’t sell those babies would rather kill the child then live the shame of seeing this bastard child on a daily basis. The general premise for most slave laws is that the slave owner would do what’s in the best interest of his economic reality (as property you would do what you needed to keep your asset in good shape) and that was the only protection that slaves had (it rarely worked).
The general acceptance of the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin was easily twisted into a means of identifying further “evidence” of the primitive status of Blacks. There wearer numerous cartoons that portrayed the connection of Black people and apes. In addition, Black men were made to be feared for their animal like (brute) strength and sexual appetite (stud). This stereotypical was promoted by White slave-owners that Black male slaves were animalistic and bestial in nature and didn’t have the capacity to have the passions, emotions, and ambitions like human beings and are wholly subservient to their sexual instinct. This construction of the oversexed black male parlayed perfectly into notions of black bestiality and primitivism. These types of descriptions were common place in promoting the marketability of the slave; however this cut both ways. Yes, it sold the Black man as a physical specimen able to mate with Black woman and produce numbers of offspring which benefited the slave-owner. This phenomenon grew exponentially once the importation of Africans for slaves was abolished around 1807 – American slave-owners not only had agricultural commodities to sale and trade, for some, his slave became a bigger commodity and the depictions and descriptions became more mainstay.
In my upcoming articles, I will continue to describe these stereotypes after slavery and the growth of movies and music and how they manifest themselves today.