We have to stop the impulse to get caught up in White folks superficial and transient issues and remain focused (or most often; develop a focus) on African issues, we need to (begin to) focus on Revolutionary Pan-Africanism.
Every time Whites embark down some ridiculous road and divide themselves up we feel we need to pick a side with one group of White folks or another, when we should just leave them to their bullshit and continue to build.
We should not pick sides among Whites or be drawn into their bullshit because no matter how their shit plays out, we still end up being exploited and oppressed in the end.
Just look at…
1. The Civil War
2. The Women’s Suffrage Movement
3. The Prohibition Era
4. The (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th) Great Awakenings
6. The Cold War
7. The Women’s Liberation Movement
8. The Abortion Fight
9. The Culture Wars
10. The Gun Debate
and yes, even…
11. The Gay Rights Movement
All of these movements and conflicts divide/d White people and got them all riled up, I could list a hundred more, but the thing all these movements have in common is that Black people were oppressed at the start, and they were oppressed at the end, they didn’t change shit for African people in any real way. Yes, that holds true for the Civil War too, we just went from chattel enslavement to debt slavery on the same damn plantations.
In all the White movements/conflicts Blacks picked one White side over another instead of just focusing on our issues and our agendas, we keep getting distracted and divided by White conflicts.
My great Grandmother used to always say; “That’s White Folks Business,” when she’d hear about the crazy shit going on out side the Black community or in the White political arena, she kept her distance and focused on her community and family. That’s what we need to do on a global scale.
Do you think Whites pick a side in our conflicts? Do you think one group of Whites are siding with the Crips over the Bloods, or the Hutus over the Tutsi? Hell Naw!
When we conflict, they don’t pick sides, they stay on their side and observe how to best exploit the conflict to their advantage. When Whites conflict it ain’t because they’ve pick one group of Blacks over another, they keep their shit internal.
But we got Blacks out here attacking other Blacks because they don’t follow the same group of Whites as they do.
Example:
I’m attacked by Black Liberals for refusing to support the Gay Blacks in their alliance with White Gays in the Gay Rights Struggle. I’m also attacked by the anti-Gay Blacks and being called “a pro-Homosexual” because I refuse to embrace the right-wing Christian anti-gay positions, and I don’t support the African nations who are outlawing homosexuality because I see it for the corrupt political pandering that it is. I’ve literally had Black people shun me for being homophobic and others for being pro-homosexual! SMH.
My motto on such issues is: “When the Lion and Cheetah Go to War Who Should the Antelope Root for?”
I’m not saying we shouldn’t study our enemies, we should study all things and understand all that we are capable of understanding, but we shouldn’t feel obligated to pick sides, to join one mass of Whites over another, to fight with each other over who picked the right group of Whites and who didn’t.
Our focus should be on how our enemies attack and subvert us, not on their petty squabbles between each other. When we look at who’s oppressing us or profiting from our oppression it includes Whites who are Gay, Straight, Feminist, Sexist, Communist, Capitalism, Christians, Humanist, Liberals, Conservatives, Pro-Choice, and Anti-Abortion, etc.
Del Jones lamented how we were hacking each other to pieces over White ideologies in the last century, and we are still doing it today.
