Christianity is the worst thing to happen to Blacks in America

Christianity Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Blacks In America

Christianity Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Blacks In America. It stole their will to fight for themselves against the forces that oppressed them; and that unwillingness still obtains because of it.

At the time of the introduction of Black slavery in America, slaves were not christians; they knew nothing about Christ, or for that matter what a church was. Their spirituality, such as it was, was limited to what witch doctors practiced back in the day. And they were fresh from a war that saw them lose and be sold by the victors into slavery. They were angry and required unbelievable cruelty in order to beat them into submission into slavery and to maintain that relationship.

Whites were almost exclusively christian: Church-going, ever evangelistic. However, they did not want to invite the slaves into the church. Slaves were unkempt, lacked church wear, and after all, even if they were shaped like humans, were not more human than cattle.[1] Good workers, but "not one of us". The solution, appoint one of the slaves' number to carry the word of Christ to the heathens.

They appointed slaves as ministers to the slaves, and taught them what to teach. The slave preacher's ministry was only to slaves. They did not then, nor do they now minister to white people. They were compensated and encouraged to do good work then by a greater allowance of food; less field work and a better shack to live in; just as it is now. A church was built for them. Slaves were taught that these ministers were special; different from the ordinary slave; akin to the witch doctor only better because he had the blessings of white slave owners. They were to be respected in what they taught the slave about Christianity and civility.

The slave preachers were taught what to teach, especially to look to God for salvation from their predicament and to leave the matter of revenge and retribution for the extreme cruelties they endured and indeed enslavement itself for God to deal with in the "Great getting' up mornin'". The word to be given was not to resist enslavement or cruelty, but to simply not sin.

Freedom from sin was to be taught to be more important than freedom from slavery. Obey the laws of Christianity; the 10 Commandments, etc. They were taught by these ministers, and are still are being taught by the descendents of these ministers to ignore the theological contradictions to their circumstance, like "love thy fellow man", "Thou shalt not kill", etc. There was and still is no biblical justification for slavery or the cruelties associated with slavery. But that did not matter and was not to be discussed; as it is not today. Nothing was to be done about slavery or cruelty by them; even now. They were to endure both and wait for everlasting respite in heaven, as now.

Christianity became a tool for control of slaves, as it is today for Blacks. It is the single most potent philosophy that kept the slaves from kicking the butt of the slave masters thus potentially ending slavery in 20 years instead of 300. Slavery would not have endured if there had been a free reign for violent resistance to slavery. It was those who counseled restraint in the name of god that stood in the way. Whenever slaves began to resist or became restless or angry about their enslavement or the cruelty inflicted by the slave owner's staff, the slave owner would roll out his Black ministers to quell the slaves' furrowed brows with "prayer"; like horse whisperers: they became "Slave whisperers". "Let us pray" became and still is water on what little fire remained in the hearts of slaves and Blacks even today.

Even on nonviolent matters like race discrimination in public accommodations in recent times, when Blacks were beaten by angry white crowds at lunch counters or beaten or hosed down in the street during civil rights marches, Black ministers did their "slave whispering" dirt and counseled non-violent submission to the beatings and became unwitting, if not volunteer instruments in relieving the pressure on the white establishment to the everlasting detriment of the Black predicament.

For instance, in the 60's Blacks began a peaceful civil rights march across a bridge in Aniston, Alabama and were cruelly beaten by police officers back across the bridge. Blacks later became determined to go back and cross that bridge at all costs and began to cross the bridge again. Half way across the minister leadership, led by King and Abernathy, stopped the march, started prayer, turned around and cancelled the crossing directing the marchers to return to the church and pray.

When Blacks became enraged by a senseless shooting of a Black man by a racist police officer in 1968 and rioted in Los Angeles, whitey roll out his "Slave whisperers" . Whenever Blacks were unmercifully beaten by police officers (can you say Rodney King) who were later exonerated by the courts, and Blacks rose up in anger, the Black ministers jumped to their stations to whisper, to lead prayer, and the Blacks crawled back into a state of quietude.

When police officers in New York rammed a broom handle up the rectum of a black arrestee who had never been to court for the crime he was arrested for, Sharpton and other Black preachers corralled as many Blacks as they could muster, and the white press, ever the protector of the white majority, supported his call for a "march" and it occurred. The officers were never convicted of any crime and neither they nor any of their supporters, the white majority of NY suffered any pain. All that happened was that Sharpton calmed the Blacks down, marched them down the street and prayed for the souls of the errant police officers. It happened again recently in Queens, NY where an unarmed bridegroom was shot 41 times on the eve of his wedding.

Things are as bad for Blacks now as it was for them 75 years ago in comparison to european-americans. Black families, as of October, 2008, earn just about half what white families earned in 2008. That translates into half the chance for Black families to enjoy the fruits of their labors to the fullness available in this country. It translates into half the political power of whites if you accept the proposition that money is the mother's milk of politics. It means that a Black child has half the chance to escape the educational rape of the public school system in the Black community and find a way to a private, meaningful education. It means that Blacks have half the chance of escaping the confines of the physical ghetto and moving to a neighborhood where you do not get shot at the dinner table by a rampaging gang.

King, who while on the wrong road to freedom for believing that moral embarrassment would change the evil ways of whites in this country, at least was willing to contest that establishment and to call blacks out for a fight. When he started his campaign, the established leadership of the Black religious community, the christians, were not impressed with him; in fact they were resistant to any change in the status quo that had them as the head "slave whisperers". This young upstart was not going to get them in trouble by standing up to the man who appointed them to the positions they held since slavery. As dynamic and forcefully correct as King was for resisting the continued oppression of Blacks, he was not given his due in the Baptist sect into which he was ordained. He had to form another group, the SCLC in order to gain organizational structure. The Black Baptist, Methodist and other sects, shunned his leadership because first, it did not originate from within their established ranks and second because it spelled trouble which they had been charged by the slave master from day one in this country to place themselves in the way of. They were the "slave-whisperers" of choice.

Elimination of racism in public accommodations as a first step was great, but did nothing for the greater predicament of Blacks in this country. It does not matter that you can take any seat you choose in a restaurant if you cannot afford the food. This is a capitalist country where only money counts in self-determination. As Black families we have half what our white counterparts have and nothing is being done about it by the Black christian leadership, anywhere in the country. Instead, the Black christian leadership, at least in Los Angeles is simply preserving their status, for instance, spending $75 million on a new Black church/auditorium on Crenshaw, while Blacks suffer the indignities of having to live in their ghetto even one more day. When King died, the effort for freedom that was in play died with him and the usual slave whisperers were again in charge and prayed the Blacks back into a state of conformity and prayer; thus relieving America from its greatest fear that Blacks would become socio-economically their peers. Europeans killed King when he turned his attention to money matters, like equal wages.

Despite all of this negativity going on in the lives of Black citizens, the people who have the ear of Black people, who have the education to see the light of the predicament of Black people, who have the moral responsibility to counsel and protect the lives and liberties of their flocks, and who offer the best hope for leadership out of this darkness, the Black, christian ministers, do little but pray and maintain the status quo. "Slave-whisperers" to the end. It is the version of christianity that the slave preachers were ordered to teach the slaves, principally to protect the slave-holders from physical retribution, that prevails today. It is their guiding light whenever Blacks appear to rise up against the injustices inflicted upon them with impunity. It is a version of christianity that only Blacks follow because the Black ministers preach that version only.

Whenever violent acts of war occur against the greater white, christian community, war occurs with christian chaplains praying American soldiers onto the battle field with Jesus' blessing. Witness Boston Massachusetts in 1776; Fort Sumpter in South Carolina in 1865; and Pearl Harbor in 1945. When socio-economic acts of war occur against white, christians they fight back with unrelenting ferocity with embargoes and sieges of entire countries. As far as white christians are concerned, the consequences that are heaped on the aggressors against them are deserving, the immorality of warfare biblically, be damned.

But in the Black community, the christian story is different. It has been so since christianity was introduced in the "quarter". Violent retribution against the most heinous of acts against committed against them is unchristian if you listen to the Black preachers. For them, they counsel prayer as being sufficient, and god will do the rest.

Even the option of socio-economic warfare against the forces that account for the fact that Black families earn half what white families do is out of the question for Black christian leadership because that contradicts their principal charge: to keep the Black calm. Christianity, as taught in the ghetto is the single most important tool in white America's arsenal for keeping Blacks where they are, and the soldiers who stand ready to give their all in that cause are the Black christian ministers who owe their all to THAT America. The sooner we set aside the rule of waiting for the great, getting' up morning before we can achieve our rightful place in this country for whom we have enlisted and died in all of the wars fought on our soil and elsewhere in America's name, and take the bull by the horns and insist that the Black christian leadership either lead or get out of the way, the sooner the overall predicament of the Blacks in America will achieve some measure of equality. WE NEED A PLAN THAT DOES NOT RELY ON CHRISTIANITY July, 2009 Henry William Sands, Esq. (Ret.) sandshs@sbcglobal.net For a plan see.

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[1] See the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in The Dred Scott Case.

The Black Attack

Rationale: This is a capitalist country. Money, or the power to affect money is key. With money, you control politics. When you control politics, you control the laws and policies that govern society in general. Nothing else matters as much. The reason Black people are treated as second-class human beings by America, is because we have no money, and so far, have not organized themselves to affect the flow of money. Any plan by Black people to achieve some modicum of power must have as it's root money or a mechanism to affect the flow of money.
Blacks earn one-half what european-americans do for the same work, are out of work at twice the rate and when out of work remain so for three times as long as they are. If that were reversed, or at least balanced, Black income would double, the unemployment rate would be cut in half and the interval between jobs (which allows for some measure of family stability) and Ghettoes as we know them would disappear, and with their disappearance, ghetto ways.

The cause: The cause of this Black dilemma is corporate america. It is corporate american policy to perpetuate these injustices in the name of maintaining a cheap source of labor, magnifying their profit margins in the process. To change those policies, we must affect their bottom line. You could create a picket line from here to Singapore and those policies would not change. You could riot until there was nothing left of your community and those policies would not change. You can pray with all the zeal you can muster and the result would be the same: no change. Corporate american does not want to change those policies because that would create power in the Blacks that they could no longer control. There is money in racism. We have power we are wont to use: buying power.

The Plan: First, we must do our homework and identify all of the worst offenders in corporate america; those with the worst race record. These number are readily available through the Departments of Commerce and Labor, and are public information. We must then sort them into industry groups. Next we select the top offender in each industry group as a target. Only one will be targeted at a time, it's easier to remember the target of the month. We then stop doing business with that one offender and with all of the people associated with that target. We stop buying that target's products and services; stop watching TV programs and movies sponsored by or during which their product or service is advertised; stop reading newspapers who accept their advertising. We do this for a dozen or so industries across a spectrum that encompasses what products and services Blacks purchase.
We must maintain a no-buy policy with that target company until we see results; I don't mean signing a PUSH Covenant, because that has never done the job. I mean we keep on until we see empirical data showing a policy change and an improvement of the financial condition of it's Black employees. We show no mercy; a war of social and economic attrition. When we are done with that target, we then go down that industry list and target the next worse offender, and repeat the process.
We will need a watchdog agency to monitor the results, receiving no corporate sponsorship in itself. And it cannot be any of the traditional Black civil rights organizations because they have become too dependent on the very targets the Plan would go after. Moreover, we should not affect the bottom line of these rights organizations.
All of this must be conspicuously done, widely disseminated in as newsworthy a fashion as we can generate. Lists of the target companies must be constantly published in Black media and online, so that any Black consumer could know that his dollars are not lining the pockets of the offender/target de jure. Awards must be created for prompt, effective changes by target companies.
Funding for the agency must be found from Black community and organizations without ties to any potential target company; charitable foundations.

The moral of this plans is, to paraphrase: when you have them by their bottom lines, their hearts and mind will follow.
Six months of this plan will do more to change the economic face of Black america than anything yet devised. No picket lines would be necessary. Blacks would not need to contribute anything or go anywhere and listen to long speeches. They only need to follow the Watchdog Agency's published list to see what not to buy.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

The Imus Incident

I have another take on that brouhaha about Imus. It is a waste of good, valuable and scarce Black energy. Our "leadership" marshals all of the mighty forces and prestige of Black America to take on a seedy cracker who uses a colloquial expression we use all of the time while racist America is still sticking it to us up the economic butt.

Before and after the civil rights movement we earned and still earn one-half what whites earn for the same work; we are unemployed at twice, and in the case of young Black men 5 times the rate. We are unemployed on average 4 times as long before we get another job, wrecking our saving, our credit and our marital relationships. Our death rate from stress related disorders is 3 times the national average. Our suicide rate is triple that average. We live in stinking ghettos with bars on our windows, while the white guy sitting in the next cubicle, doing the same work makes more money and lives on a beautiful, tree-lined street and sends his kids to schools that care about his kid's performance.

Our "leadership" makes noise about the minuscule things that impact Black-American lives like the N word and pants that sag a little too much while neglecting those issues that keep us in second-class environments, unable to fully enjoy life as our counterparts do no matter how loyal Americans we are. "All men are created equal" still does not include us 231 years later and our "leaders" just hit around the fringes: white's who still call us nappy-headed. We are not where we are in the heirarchy of citizenship because of the way we talk and act. There are other forces at work to accomplish that; institutional American racism.

Maybe our "leaders" are not our leaders. Maybe they are just nigga whisperers in "our leader" clothing. These "leaders" have always been the ones the white power structure runs to when the Blacks get riled up about this injustice or that. When an unarmed Black man is shot 51 times in the vestibule of a building, or when Black men in a car are shot at 41 times coming from a bachelor party on the eve of one of their number's wedding, or a young man named Emmett Till is massacred; or when a white man says that you cannot drink out of the same fountain as I do; and Black get pissed off and erupt in a violent confrontation, whitey rolls out his "nigga whisperers" (usually the Black ministry) to calm the Black multitudes down and to confine the outrage to the Black community, with the result that no retribution is ever inflicted upon the culture that breeds, if not encourages this unjust behavior. Unfortunately, when the matter de jour cools down, these "nigga whisperers" retreat to their ghetto caves and await the next injustice; like fire engines waiting for the bell to clang.

What we need from our leaders is fire prevention as well as fire dousing, i.e., economic disparity prevention and remediation. America is a capitalist society. Power comes from the ability to amass or manipulate the Benjamins. If you have no Benjamins, you have little power unless you manipulate your dollars to affect the behavior of those holding their hands out. We have always had fewer dollars than whites and therefore less power to affect our environment.

We started off working 300 years for nothing. When we finally got paid for what we do, we still got less than the next white guy. We still do. This is what should be important to our "leaders".

We have untapped power that is not being used to better our predicament. Our ability to affect white America's behavior was demonstrated in this incident. We are great consumers. If we become selective consumers, we could direct the policies of most if not all of the Fortune 500 companies that allow this economic disparity to prevail. When the sponsors of this cracker's radio show thought for a minute that Blacks might stop buying their products, they and the media he speaks through said this cracker has got to go.

Remember, if Black earned the same as whites, ghettoes as we know them would disappear, and the ghetto attitudes along with them. Moreover, crackers like Imus would be terrified about saying what he did about those charming Black women for fear of economic if not social ruin.

Someone needs to pull the coats of our "leaders" and tell them that the fire bell is clanging for a more important cause, our economic well-being.

Audacious Europeans

I never cease to be amazed by the audacity of Europeans when it comes to their social and political intercourse with the Black and Brown people of the world: Africans, African-Americans, Mexicans, Middle-easterners, and the peoples in the near east: India, Pakistan, etc.

The execution of Saddam Hussein takes the whole cake. When was the last time that a Head of State was hung for being cruel? Milosevic, Pik Botha in South Africa? No way. The Europeans in this country not only lied about Hussein as a pretext for invading his country, then they created a law that did not exist before the invasion and accused him of violating it. Then they created a court to try him for violation of this ex post facto law. Then they installed judges who had no respect for his being the Head of State, or even an individual entitled to justice, even dismissing a judge who did just that. Then they hung him only after the puppet court had finished the work that the European-Americans charged it with.

This is not about defending the conduct of Hussein. He was a rat. He slaughtered his own people without just cause, he committed clear acts of genocide against the Kurds. He had some atoning to do. No doubt about it. But he should have been sent to the Hague where genocide trials are conducted under international scrutiny; a place where a fair trial is assured by international treaty. If he was convicted there, he would have been punished according to international law.

Instead, the European-Americans, under the direction of a first-rate, second-rate President had the audacity to make a mockery of any notion of justice and race this Head of State to his doom in the name of democracy. God only knows what they would have done if the court had aquitted Hussein.

If a Brown Head of State cannot receive justice, what chance does ordinary American Black and Brown people anywhere have?

Shame on European-Americans. Shame on America.

De Facto School Segregation

As of yesterday, December 4, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to abolish the distinction between de jure segregation (segregation mandated by state law) and de facto segregation (segregation that occurs in the normal course of urban, residential patterns) in public schools. Brown vs. The Board of Education, in 1954 (347 U.S. 483)dealt with the former. It ruled that states do not fulfill their obligation to treat its citizens equally by state mandated segregation of children in public based upon race irrespective of a finding that the schools are otherwise equal in buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers and other tangible factors. Separate but equal is inherently unequal, it said. Brown outlawed state imposed segregation. However, since then, when left to their own devices and the natural tendencies of America to short-change Blacks socially and economically, American segregation in schools has become as rampant now as it was in 1954.

Whether segregation is mandated by State law or is permitted to exist on some other basis, such as residence or economic status should be equally condemned. The Brown court recognized the evidence that modern authority has clearly established that "Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of seperating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system" Page 495. To paraphrase, segregation by any other name would smell as bad. W.S. Plans to negate de facto segregation should be given great leeway by this Court even if it means that school assignments must be made on the basis of race. Integrated education is a political obligation. The Brown Court found that "Today (1954) education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. ... It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces...It is the very foundation of good citizenship" 347 U.S. 483 at page 493.

How then can states and local governments (including local school boards) fulfill this responsibility if they do not mandate a system of distribution of students based upon race to assure that de facto segregation does not occur, even if it means that such distribution might inconvenience some for the benefit of others.

So why is the Supreme Court struggling with a situation where a school district tries to prevent creeping segregation from occurring by auditing the racial makeup of its student population and meting out slots in a way to assure a racial balance. If the plan is designed to fulfill it's responsibility to Black students by making sure that they have as equal an opportunity to attend high performing schools as white students, what is wrong with that? I'll tell you what; First, because white parents are upset because their children must go to a more distant lower, performing school (usually in a minority neighborhood) so a Black child would have an opportunity to go to a high performing school (the one in the complaining parents' neighborhood) and Second because the pivotal Supreme Court Justices are conservative, Republican appointees, including Justice Clarence Thomas, a "Black" man.

Everyone knows that Republican conservatism has historically shunned concern for Blacks' full participation in this country. Most of the old Dixicrats, Senators from confederate states, traditionally Democrats, changed parties to the Republican Party or voted for Republican candidates when the Civil Rights Movement came along, because the Republican Party's attitude towards equality of the races more closely fit the southern, racial "traditions". (Can you say Strom Thurmond?)

Double standard? You bet. Will this Supreme Court require that white parent's child to attend a majority Black populated school some distance away so that some Black child, who would otherwise get a poorer education at his neighborhood school could come into that white parent's neighborhood school where school performance is high and have an equal chance at success? No way. But that's vintage America. The white parent calls it racism. Duh?

It's about spin. American will never be race neutral.

Bush and Courage

I can respect a man who makes a mistake and owns up to it. We have all made mistakes. Shit happens and spoils the best laid plans of many. But it is a sniveling coward who perpetuates mistakes that cost men's lives and countless billions of dollars that could be used to better the lives of living Americans by continuing on a path that is doomed to failure and was the wrong path to take to begin with.

Every indicator shows that we should not have gotten into the Iraq war from jump street. The reasons deliberately advanced for that action were bogus. The strategy for concluding that action was non existent. The government now in place was hand-picked by us and lacks the will, integrity or ability to control spiraling civil war that has resulted from the vacuum created by the capture by us and trial of Saddam Hussein for actions that did not violate Iraqi law when they were committed. Can you say ex post facto? American lives are still being squandered in a plan hastily conceived in the panic of 9/11. The whole thing is a mess.

Now despite being told by his most senior advisers and every committee ever created on the Iraq situation that we should get our hat and split, (for the uninitiated that means leave, vamoose, amscray) Bush throws the onus of withdrawal on the current puppet regime with the simple phrase : We will stay in Iraq until the "job" is done and until the people of Iraq no longer want us to remain". That is a shameless display of lack of courage. He has a tiger by the tail and lacks the will and courage to let go and withdraw.

Our presence, in the first place is really a result of Eurogenia; see my earlier Blog about whites' irresistible urge to control the lives of Black and Brown people. Bush should take a cue from Lindon Johnson. LBJ inherited a quagmire in Vietnam, by the way a war that was also started on a bogus premise (a fabricated story of an attack on an American ship in the Tonkin Gulf). It was obvious to him that there was no graceful way out, and he had the courage to admit that he did not have a solution and withdrew from public office rather than be responsible for wasting any more American lives. That took courage.

Bush should have the courage to admit that the Iraq civil war will only get worse if we stay and that he was wrong and order withdrawal. It is no longer our fight, if it ever was.

Niggas

I am pleased to see so much dialogue occurring in national media about one aspect or another of the Black predicament. However, much of that dialogue is misdirected and marginal and a waste of the few moments that Black opinion is allowed to be showcased on national media. The hubub about Michael Richards' use of the word nigger, or as Blacks say, nigga, is just such a waste. It ranks up there with the Cosby diatribe about Black conduct within its community.

How high Blacks wear their pants, and how many books they carry home from school in their book bags, and how many children they father and fail to support and whether they do or do not use the N-wordhas no material bearing on the Black condition in America. That behavior, and the use of the word nigga is not the reason for the racial disparity that has Blacks in 2006 earning one-half what whites earn for the same work; that has average Blacks unemployed at twice, and in the under 25 year old males class five times the rate of their white counterpart; that has Blacks who are out of work taking 3 times as long to find another job; that has the average Black high school graduate reading at the 5th grade level and has Blacks being gunned down in the streets during an Execution in Blue. These are the important issues that Black leaders need to seriously address not whether nigga is a legitimate word; or is endearing or perjorative; or appropriate for use in a mixed audience. Or whether Blacks should let their underwear show.

Black leaders, Jesse Jackson principally among them have snow poles for backbones and seize on these marginal issues to appear to be concerned and doing something to improve the lot of Black people in this country and elsewhere. Snow poles? That's one of Jesse's favorite metaphors. He suggested, long ago, that Blacks have snow poles for backbones. When things are cool, those backbones have Blacks standing erect, proud and determined. But that when confronted with racist America and the heat is turned up, those backbones melt and whither and their owners stand stoop shouldered and submissive. I love that thought. As it turns out, however, and to the everlasting detriment of American Blacks, he and the current crop of Black leaders all suffer from that affliction.

None of the Black leaders are confronting the American institutions that account for the economic disparities attendant Blacks in America. This is a capitalist country. Money is everything. Either you got it or you don't. If you don't, you are powerless. It is even more fine tuned than that. If you simply have less than the next group, your group is less influential than that other group on a political and social level.

While Blacks do not have the wealth of whites in this country, they have enormous consuming power; enough to tip the economic health of any one company, in any one industry over and down near the bottom of his counterparts' listing should that consuming power be microdirected away from such companies on a scheduled and selectively targeted basis. What Blacks need is some serious warfare against these corporate institutions that perpetuate American racial, and more importantly economic disparity. If the numbers were leveled off, and Blacks earned the same as whites in this country, i.e., twice what they now earn, the Black Ghetto as we now know it would disappear and with it, Ghetto attitudes that the Cosbys and Waters of America seek to denigrate.

The Cosbys, Waters, Sharptons and Jacksons are overly concerned with the quality of life in the hole, when they should direct all of their attention to getting Blacks out of the American Black Hole.

Bottom line: Black leaders should spend those precious media minutes going after those institutions that cause the important problems in the "Quarter". They are shooting at the wrong targets and wasting precious resources in the process.