THE JOKE CALLED BLACKMAN

To be a man is no day’s-job: it’s a contract, for life. To be a Blackman is a mission. A look around the world would reveal salient facts not apparent to the unobservant eye. The African-American is either quick to the defensive( the man of honor who has imbibed Western culture), or differently hurls back or shrugs off all insult on his person, blaming his woes on his color(the muthuth-f**kin’ hustler). The American black is a hypothetical scientific curiosity

TuPac speaks:
‘wake up in the mornin’ and I ask myself
is life worth living should I blast myself’

Question: if you blast yourself do you solve the problem or add to it?
50Cent runs himself down, calling himself a PIMP and the world lifts him all up. Most love him with passion, basically, for success as a survivor of bullet wounds.

I feel a lot safer restricting this research analysis to the black African. This, of course, does not aptly extend to some South Africans, like the great Mandela, for similar reasons of effective exposure to Western value system.

Born close to nature, the Blackman was destined to rule in wisdom. As closest companion to the elemental spirits, he possessed the power to unlock the mysteries of all puzzle and sickness. Unfortunately, his fate differed succinctly from his destiny. Before he had the chance to prove his mettle, fate nipped his potentials in the bud.

Someone preached that the longest curse in the Bible subsists in the generational curse of Ham by his angered father whose nakedness he had mocked in his drunken stupor.
‘Cursed be Canaan.’

Things would have been different had the curse alighted on Ham himself rather than his generations to come.

A renowned professor on African studies (Prof. Allot)once observed that to the African, the concept of sin exists only in the act of being caught. Nigerians will best appreciate this reality in the paradox of propriety of a military coup d’etat. With success comes power and privilege; with failure comes the death sentence for high treasonable. The implication here in everyday life suggests the absence of conscience and equitable standards in a repugnancy test.

Consciousness of equitable standards bears little persuasion to a family in need of a grandchild. The African goal of life is procreation, not union; it is irrelevant to them by no fault of hers a bride is sterile: up and run, she must go. ‘Take a walk.’

The Whiteman may be a bit detached and impersonal, but it helps for progressive strides: he doesn’t need to know you to help you. Specialization entails separating units for improved efficiency; even God does this. The masterly touch of a maestro is detached.

Not so the Blackman, he is warm but egocentric: maturity entails that he helps his own alone. I, me and myself. The easy-going Unoka, in Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ would have been an open-handed success in the U.S., appreciated only for his musical excellence rather than be faulted on his laziness to farm. Kanu Nwankwo can’t be much of a farmer with his wiry frame: yet, none speak of him as lazy. The inviting villages did not pay a good price for Unoka’s skills.

In the same vein, many-a-rural African Queens are burned out in their villages by their virile overworked counterparts. Little appreciation is given for her vital statistics as a virtue worthy of notice. I remember the celebration of Oluchi, the Face of Africa and even the Hall-of-Fame, Jane Kennedy, who made Black Beauty legend at a tender age.

Sad to say, in all his artistry, the Blackman lacks a sense of aesthetic appreciation.

To peak his many shortcomings is the fact that the Blackman is inherently lawless by nature. Endowed with a natural ability to tap into the forces of nature, he manipulates his way to possession of a diabolic fetish. His inability to abide by laws, characteristically, would lead him to violate the expected rule of the fetish. After destroying his next-of-kin, he gains possession of his family estate alone. Stopping at nothing, he will eventually cross the borderline and offend the charm to irrevocable doom. So he will die and go, leaving behind no knowledge of the technology he so acquired and abused to his demise.

With the Whiteman, the fetish fares differently. He inherits it from the Blackman; though he knows not how to tap into such resources from nature, he cherishes what he stands to gain from it. He satisfies it and follows its laws. By fulfilling its needs he enslaves it by its addictive need, thus subjugating it under his control. So by following after its law, the Whiteman is able to generate and draw power from the fetish for his use. His orientation is progressive, not destructive.

A soldier goes and another comes. Leaders are chosen from among the people, so the problem perpetuates itself. From a common orientation stems the problem of leadership of black nations. The poverty syndrome called ‘poverty mentality’ survives the trappings of success, if not carefully managed it could course one’s path in pilgrimage right back to the nativity of his origin.