Debate Magazine

Systemic Racism If Black Lives Really Matter...

Posted on the 06 October 2021 by Doggone

 I mentioned the Senegalese Series "Wara" on my blog. It's about corruption in a fictional Senegalese city of Tanasanga. While the show is fictional, I think the portrait of African society is pretty realistic.


I mentioned this quote in another post:

It’s a cheap shot to blame Jamaica’s economic malaise entirely on the evil white bogeyman when successive post-independence administrations have overseen an economy with annual growth of less than 1% for the past four decades and a currency in freefall. Social dysfunction is rife, with murders ballooning 20% so far this year and youth unemployment nearing 40%. 

Jamaica – and the wider anglophone Caribbean – must come to terms with the inconvenient truth that, though the British slave masters were barbarous, when polled a couple of years ago the majority of Jamaicans said the country would have been better off if it had remained a UK colony. That indictment lies at the feet of Jamaica’s black governing class.

While it's great to pound on the  "Western, "White", "Imperialist" bogeyman, is it really fair to do so when the post-Colonial/racist societies still have problems? As I have pointed out frequently, how can one say the system is racist if "people of colour" are  a part of that system While some blacks like to call themselves "African-Americans" they are about as much "European" as the average "white" American is (not at all/pas de tout).

What's lost in this nonsense is the history of Liberia:

Liberia began in the early 19th century as a project of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born people of color who faced social and legal oppression in the U.S., along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia.

So, there is (was) a place for slaves to go to in Africa however this is yet another bit of the puzzle that is left out of the "critical race theory" nonsense. Maybe because the CIA Factbook describes Liberia as:

Liberia is a low-income country that relies heavily on foreign assistance and remittances from the diaspora. It is richly endowed with water, mineral resources, forests, and a climate favorable to agriculture. Its principal exports are iron ore, rubber, diamonds, and gold.

The thing is that places like Liberia aren't the only African Countries with post-Colonial Societies that are resource rich, but poor as heck. The Democratic republic of Congo comes to mind.

Anyway, my opinion is that Wara is pretty typical of what African Societies happen to be like, which is why there aren't a lot of African Americans who want to really go back. it's also why it's hard to blame "systemic racism" when blacks are a part of the system.


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