Here we are in 2014, and we're still struggling with an issue that has kept the black community divided since the white man set foot in Africa.
While embracing the fact that the black race offers so many different hues would be beneficial to our community as a group, instead, we choose to disband ourselves and continue to engage in a prejudicial battle that was created mostly through rapes and forced relationships by our former enslavers. Sometimes I wonder what it is that doesn't click for us psychologically. I understand that people should have their preferences when it comes to choosing a mate, but creating a new form of racism to breed a new subculture within the black race is detrimental to our development.
Our children should not be dealing with issues that our forefathers dealt with on the plantation. The House Negro vs the Field Negro philosophy should be abandoned. To be quite honest, the House Negro has carried all the different hues within our race, in order to advance his career politically. It's not the same house or field Negro anymore. Do the names Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain ring a bell? Some black people are born to sell their souls for their own benefit. There's simply nothing we can do about that. However, when people are forced to waste their breath discussing Zoe Zaldana's not being black enough to take on the role of Nina Simone, it just seems like we're taking two hundred steps backwards. When has Hollywood ever done a biopic using a black actor that looked remotely close to the person being portrayed? I can't recall any. Malcolm X was affectionately known as Red to his friends on the streets of Boston, because of his red hair, freckles and light complexion, but nobody complained that Denzel did a great job portraying him on the big screen. I'm not gonna go tit for tat and list every black biopic that has been filmed in Hollywood by an actor or actress who didn't fit the physical description of the legend portrayed, but I do find it sad on our part that we can't let go of that separatist state of mind among black people. It's bad enough that we have to deal with racism from white people, and prejudice from every other race. We need to use that energy to strengthen ourselves as a people, not weaken our community through division.
If light and dark skinned blacks are having issues, what would then become of the honey complected black folks? Are they gonna be lost like the mixed children who struggle with identity crisis most of their lives? Wouldn't it be stupid for a child born from two black parents to have to deal with identity issues because he or she might be light brown? I'm starting to feel stupid even writing about this bullcrap. Maybe I need to stop before I fry any more brain cells.
It's time for us to wake up and unite, in order to deal with the real issues that impact our community daily. Stop the madness already!
