|
Busting the bubble of ‘His-story!’
|
by Mikel Kwaku Osei Holt
“Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.”
How do you get White folks interested in Black History Month? To some, the point is moot; to others it would be a giant step toward racial conciliation.
Still others see White acceptance of history from our perspective—true history versus ‘His-story’—is crucial to a nationalistic cultural cleansing that would open the door for a true racial dialogue, a conversation that will unshackle Whites from their ignorance, and Black Americans from their deeply entrenched ignorance and feelings of ethnic inferiority. (Don’t buy the hype that we’re Black and proud, most of us are lack[ing] and scowled.)
Whatever your take, true Black history has the power to finally remove us from under the cloud of a psychological slavery, and White Americans from their misguided and universally harmful belief that they are guiltless in our predicament and the various sins of this country, from the annihilation of Native Americans to the exploitation of third world nations.
If history is truly the interpretation of the author, and not necessarily fact, American history as offered and defended is a major culprit of our self-destructive behavior and inferiority complex.
As ironic as it may seem, force feeding White America ‘our’ history may open their eyes to the truth and thereby redirect their path to one that is more in tune with teachings of the New Covenant, as well as the tenets of the constitution they hold so dearly.
Thus, our history lights the road to universal brotherhood, but only if we can somehow get White America to accept another interpretation of history, an unbiased version that is not corrupted by hidden agendas.
In contrast, Black History without examining the role and agenda of those with the power to shape our world, is at best disingenuous, perpetrating the big lie that we are an genetically and culturally inferior people, even though a handful of us rise above our status and exhibit exceptional intelligence and unique talents aside from dancing, singing and running faster than the speed of light.
Adding footnotes to our history within the context of the larger American culture would not only clarify what and why, but just as beneficially, force an accounting, and eventually lead to a rewriting of the fantasy we currently accept as American History.
Obviously, White America is comfortable with the lies and half-truths that dominate their history books (if for no other reason than it justifies their actions and validates their conquests). It empowers them, fueling the ‘theology’ that they are in fact the superior ethnic group, God’s chosen, directed through manifest destiny to rule the world, by any means necessary.
Few question the authenticity of their ‘His story,’ and as a result are complicit in a sham that has enslaved us to repeat history, over and over again.
But anyone with common sense, sound research skills and an inquisitive nature can bring the truth to light. The task is to force feed the truth to the majority. And as the saying goes, the truth will set them free to prosper and enjoy themselves alongside their brothers of another color.
Part of the problem in achieving this Herculean task is that while White American are ignorant of the truth, Black people are victimized by our stupidity and clouded by the veil of lies.
Maybe we need a neutral third party to rewrite history. Someone of creditability who can shift through distortions and hidden agendas to write a history book based on true facts, with a chapter or two on the ramifications of scripted behavior.
As it currently stands, His-story perpetuates the lie, and Black History, as taught in our ‘public’ indoctrination chambers—aka schools--perpetuates the lies, maintaining the natural order of things.
As provided today, Black History is sanitized, and thus complicit. It has become commercialized by corporate America, and sanitized by the schools. It has become superficial, focusing on a handful of accomplishments, a few extraordinary people of color who ‘achieved’ and an occasional hero who died, more likely to afford others freedoms and rights he himself could not obtain.
Sadly, few White ‘historians’ and theologians do not question the half-truths, nor do they link the lies to the agenda. Indeed many of them, like Pat Robertson who recently claimed the Haitian earthquake was God’s payback for disrupting the natural order of things (Black independence), take the lie to another level, using Christianity as their justification.
Obviously, Black ‘American’ history is shaped by a Eurocentric agenda, philosophy and even a false theology. While we focus much of February on Black accomplishments ‘in spite of,’ we often ignore how the ‘spite’ shaped and directed our actions.
For example, Rosa Parks’ orchestrated arrest after refusing to sit in the back of the bus was a result of racist laws and covenants that maintained a system of apartheid that was similar to what Americans criticized in South Africa. Our schools focus on her bravery, and not the system and agenda that sparked it.
So, is the real theme of Rosa Park’s actions about her courage, or the racist system of apartheid that prevailed in the south because of racism and a misinterpretation of Christianity?
What if our history books focused more on how and why White Southerners maintained the system, versus the battle to destroy it?
Why did the U.S. government feel comfortable conducting sphyhilis experiments on Black Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama? Research that fact and you can see through the veil to a mindset that is not only hyperbolic, but also contrary to the teachings of the religious tenets this country was supposedly founded upon.
Similarly, it’s nice to tell our children that Charles Drew invented a new mechanism to store blood, but shouldn’t we also tell students and their parents how and why he died, and the mindset of those who denied him access to his invention?
Imagine what would happen if this neutral third party wrote an unbiased history book that everyone was forced to read. If I was the publisher, I’d entitle it, “I hate to bust your bubble...” Or maybe: “How the truth will set you free,” with a subtitle, “how to get the monkey off your back so you can live a guilt-free life.”
My books would include a reexamination of such renowned figures as George Washington, the father of our country, and why he more accurately should be described as an atheistic bigot who represented a mindset that set America on the wrong course and made the declaration of independence a mockery. Big George was an interesting character, who has essentially been caricaturized by American historians.
He did not have wooden teeth, but instead was the recipient of implants taken forcibly from the mouths of his African slaves. No wonder he had a taste for greens.
George was a military genius, but historians admit that he probably could have won the revolutionary war six moths earlier if he had not opposed the induction of free Black Americans in the military. In fact, the only reason why he ultimately agreed, and then segregated them, was because the British offered freedom to any slave who joined their army. The British had seen the light and ended slavery decades earlier.
Thomas Jefferson was another of those so-called stepfathers of our nation. In many respects a brilliant man, but one who when put to the test succumbed to political pressure to bastardize the constitution and his principles. He supposedly detested slavery, but caved in for political expediency.
Jefferson wasn’t a Christian, or his hypocrisy would have been an affront to Biblical teachings. Jefferson was a Deist, as were other framers of the constitution like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Deism is a religion that acknowledged the existence of God, but essentially theorizes that the Supreme Being does not engage in the day-to-day actions of mankind.
It is based on logic and according to the Deist teachings, good and evil are both necessary to balance the universal order of things; everyone has a preordained role, a part in a play that concludes based on a script influenced by precepts beyond our understanding.
That said, Jefferson, a self-described abolitionist who owned slaves, allowed the dichotomy of his philosophy to forge a nation in his image and as defined by his religion.
Where would America be had Jefferson stood up to his principles? Could his tiny footsteps in the sand change the course of the mighty ocean? How could we have changed the world if Jefferson had done the right thing? How many wars would have been avoided?
Had America believed in the principles it fought the British over, Native Americans could have become the cultural and religious example for harmony and peace, instead of the victims of genocide.
African contributions to the world order would have been accepted, and the universal order would have been altered. Asian inventions like gunpowder would have been used for good, versus destruction. Far fetched. Not really.
An unbiased history book would pose the question of whether Jefferson was a patriot or a hypocrite.
Truth is, Jefferson believed Negroes were genetically inferior. He was a political pragmatist whose true ‘color’ was revealed when he refused to intervene in the Haitian slave revolt, which led that country down a path that contributed to the death of hundreds of thousands in last month’s tragedy.
Instead, Jefferson turned his back on the Haitians to appease Southern slave owners who feared supporting that uprising would reverberate in America and elsewhere. The course of the world was altered by his pragmatism.
President Abe Lincoln wasn’t the first to issue an emancipation proclamation. In fact, one of his generals did so two years earlier, but Lincoln rejected it. He also endorsed a plan to send Black freemen and slaves back to Africa, and his writings included such descriptions of Black people as ‘niggers.’ Which is not to undermine his eventual contributions. But the civil war would have ended a year earlier had he truly been less ‘pragmatic.’
Until Roosevelt, it was the Democrats who helped build and sustain the walls of apartheid in this country, including former vice president Al Gore’s father. Kennedy implored Martin Luther King not to lead the March on Washington, and then told him to make sure the marchers were out of town by sundown.
The author of the ‘real history’ could do several chapters on White theft. African American arctic explorer Matthew Henson doesn’t get the credit for being the first to set foot on the North Pole. Edison really didn’t invent the light bulb. A Black man conducted the first open heart surgery, and if you want to go back a few centuries, the Greeks were not the father of medicine; it was practiced for decades in Kemet. Truth be told, Greeks and Romans sat at the feet of Africans like Amenhotep and then claimed his teachings as their own.
I could go on and on. But you get my point. Truth will set you...or them...free, not only from living a lie, but also elevating us to a position of equality in the realms of invention, science, medicine and math.
The truth could have the same effect as chemotherapy, cleansing the Eurocentric body of the cancerous cells of ignorance. It may also provide a light to follow for people of African decent, a light that could lead us out of the shadow of slavery. (Yeah, those of us who don’t consider ourselves slaves, yet still act like ones.)
Imagine, how the world would change if history were rewritten, and accepted as truth. We can free Europeans from the lie they have lived, bring equality to the world, and force a new course for human development.
So let’s get it started. And let’s start with chapter one, which busts the most important bubble of all: That Jesus the Christ looked more like Barack Obama than Rush Limbaugh.
Hotep.
