by Gregory Thrasher
In America life for Black folks has always been fought with various degrees,realties of racism and oppression. The ebb and flow of contempt for our very essence and being has often been like the wind sometimes the gust is strong sometimes it is a mild . The one constant theme of life in America for Black folks is the reality of racism and all of its wicked incarnations.
In the post industrial era instead of the heavy gust of slavery, segregation, and the like for many Black folks in the nation what we confront now is the specter and culture of ‘negrophobia’. It is a a derivative pathology of racism not novel in substance just different in application and behavior. Often ‘negrophobia’ is a civil disdain cloaked in a non verbal activity or reactionary behavior. It has the distinct stench of racism but it lacks the venom and vulgar virulent demeanor of hard core bigotry.
In the gentile terrains of an office environment or the mild contours of an restaurant or even in a plaid elevator gathering the presence of ‘negrophobia’ is a reality that is far to often present in the space of Black folks and others( read whites and of late even other people of color). From the nostrils and vantage point of many Black folks often one feels that he or she is germ or some kind of disease that people seek to avoid or when they are in our orbit and presence. We have become in many circles an inconvenient truth.
Usually when ‘negrophobia’ is in effect communication,dialogue and authentic displays of normalcy are absent. A surreal reality takes over and quite often the Black person in the equation is the odd person out. What is really insane that even in the ‘ age of Obama ‘ the presence of “negrophobia was returned to the nation’s landscape with a vengeance. White politicians have become embolden with verbiage that incites racial angst. Media outlets fill the their platforms with racial changed crimes. The nation’s zeitgeist is packed with themes of a civil rights fatigued white majority tired of the claims of victimhood and grievance from ‘those people’.
Yet also placed on this stage of “negrophobia” is the role of Black folks and how our behaviors and activities foster and give rise and in some circles validation to the pathogen of ‘negrophobia”. Far to often our ignorance and depravity lends itself to the introduction and application of angst and reactionary forces within white america. It is quite true that Black folks are underdeveloped and perfect props for the narrative of an empire in decline on the brink of anarchy.
Many in our community enjoy the role of being docile and losers. Far to many Black folks have abandoned our collective pride to chase the arrogance of selfishness and ego. In many venues of the Black community we donate our personhood with glee and bravado to be insulted and ridiculed. We sometimes write the scripts of ignorance and then we cast ourselves with a twisted sense of pride and glee.
Some of us understand and recognize and have no hesitation to acknowledge not only are we our own worst enemies but we are also eager in this role of self destruction and decadence. There is a hard core collection of Black folks who are predators and eternal miscreants and cultural deviants. This bandwidth of destructive Black folks loathe civility and they basked in dysfunction.
Of course the nation of oppression for centuries has created wounds and a fractured community often unable to heal itself . We have to often surrendered and retreated to the passion of defeat and despair. We have been willing props in the ‘negrophobia’ revival in our nation. Yet despite this truth for Black folks in America like the wind it can change and we can change with the wind at our back.
The interactive winds of ‘negrophobia’ don’t have to blow in our direction anymore.
Gregory Thrasher is a blogger and the director of Plane Ideas. You can reach him at planeidea@msn.com.
“Yet also placed on this stage of “negrophobia” is the role of Black folks and how our behaviors and activities foster and give rise and in some circles validation to the pathogen of ‘negrophobia”.”
From this point on the piece becomes yet another blame the victim screed. People don’t like black people because we can’t act right.
sigh!
After years of searching for a black presence online that doesn’t fall into the trap of turning outsiders hatred in on ourselves – I thought I finally found it here.
Someone has lead by example and start showing unconditional love for our people.
come better than this.
Not everyone is fawning over wanting to be loved or accepted by others.
Is this an agreement or a dig?
Coz I can’t see how my statement can be construed as me fawning over wanting to be loved or accepted by others.
I was actually stating the opposite of that, which was to say, I couldn’t care less whether non-blacks look with disapproving eyes at some behaviour among blacks that they deem unacceptable.
If it’s an empowering coping behaviour I support it and probably do it myself, if it’s a disempowering coping behaviour, I don’t blame blacks for it.
Interesting banter..
BTW “justanotherpeasant” I write fiction and feel good tales for children in other venues. I create political and social narratives for venues like VOX UNION.
More importantly when I compose a non-fiction essay or commentary, truth and reality are core to my constructs and themes.
The construct of “negrophobia” has history in reality and Black literature also the laws of nature acknowledges there is a yin and yang in the universe . Is one really a victim? Do the car hit the boy when he cross the street or did the boy make it happen? Are there really any accidents in the universe?
Clearly the shelflife of racism and it’s derivatives such as ‘negrophobia” exists and continues because Black folk are moving parts and contributory factors..
BTW please visit my blog http://planeideas.blogspot.com or http://voiceof detroit.net for some fiction and short stories which express the love and bliss for Black folk..
Cheers
GT
My commentary captured the totality of ‘negrophobia’ including our role as Black folks in the mix. I have written other essay’s which chronicle the beauty and affirmation of our people but in this forum I enjoy the art of political expression via the written voice .
Mr. Thrasher,
Your words are so moving and full of passion. How can we read more? Do you have any novels or websites? Do you do any public speaking?
@Greg Thrasher
Dude no one’s denying you your right to express whatever you got on your mind, but I am assuming that you acknowledge the right of others to feedback to you their impressions about what you say.
I think the piece brilliantly articulates a feeling I’ve had for some time, that there is a new hostility in the air towards blacks. I hadn’t been able to give name or form to it, but thanks to you I can, now.
Negrophobia is the precise term to describe it.
However the piece was spoiled a lil – for me, when you rolled out on the old “we need to do better than this” mantra.
That was my only “criticism”. .
Nobody’s fawning over anyone. Certainly not me.
So True!
Hell, give examples….your too general
Insightful this author is the best on this site !
This is so real and true I sense this attitude in white society now with Obama as president.
Negrophobia is a awesome word good article.
I admit sometimes when I’m in the presence of a African-American more so a young male and even around woman I get a bit nervous and distant. I think it is just a reaction of not knowing instead of some bias but then again perhaps it is?
You do know that a great majority of people who visit this site are Black. If you are Black, then I don’t have much to say if this is your attitude toward your own people. I guess I would wonder, do you scare yourself in the morning when you look in the mirror. But if you aren’t Black, what exactly did you think you would accomplish by posting this comment. It really added no value. Next time you get apprehensive around a Black person, you should ask yourself, “have Black people ever hung, slaughtered and maimed any group of people on the planet in modern times?” If you think real hard, your answer will be no. So your apprehension is based on a narcissistic position (believe me, your not that serious, if you go around Black people, believe me, they probably really aren’t worried about YOU)bigoted stance based on stereotypes. Whatever crime Black people commit, don’t worry, if you’re white, it won’t be against you. Your people have whopped, beat, and mind damaged us to the point where we’ll forego our own interests to PROTECT (not harm) you!
Zari, you don’t think blacks ever hurt whites in modern times? Do you not have a TV? Let me direct you to a site that shows what they do, every. single. day.
http://southafrica-pig.blogspot.com/2012/02/farm-murders-in-south-africa.html
When you look at that, try and remember those whites were born in South Africa.
These things happen when you rest on land stolen. You act as if Cecil Rhodes and Boers in general just popped up peacefully in Africa and Africans in turn slaughtered them. You may have been born in Africa but the reason that’s even a possibility is based on strife and genocide. In America if Indigenous people of this land were to rise up and take back what was theirs to start with, they’d be justified.I’m not one to cry racism when Europe engages in it’s nationalistic bloodletting, (which they do often) to me it’s a natural conclusion for them and part of their nature. however Africa is not Europe and if Europeans could contain their blood lust to their own borders the world would be much less polarized and maybe, just maybe the violence wouldn’t be necessary.
I have no problem with anyone having reservations about my views .I think your angst is with David who posted you were ‘fawning ‘
Nevertheless I can understand how you viewed some of my essay as recycling an old tired trope . I try to make my work organic but it may have failed your standards
I do agree with you about ignoring the drama from the usual suspects who never marvel at our essence
For those of you and this being your first time hearing the term “negrophobia”, grab my man Head-Roc’s 2005 album “Negrophobia”. DC’s finest! I am sure others have used the term even before my man heady, though.
Go to know about Head-Roc’s work..I encountered the term decades ago in reading Harold Cruse’s awesome novel ‘The Crisis of the Intellectual Negro’
I remain open to all influences wherever/whenever/however/whoever.I’m a follower of observation, absorption,silence, etc..
I love the human voice in all of it’s incarations from singing, sounds, chants and of course the written voice which I have tried to master in my political written voice essays and commentaries..
Over the last 500 years or so, the nations of the West have deliberately and systematically demonized and dehumanized those whom it wishes to destroy or to exploit and to control. In this effort it has used every aspect of its culture ranging from its Judeo Christianity to its laws and education systems, to its news media and its entertainment industry. The West has successfully indoctrinated most of humanity, including many people who have never lived in the West, with a deep belief in the truth and reality of White supremacy and in White entitlement. It has also successfully taught the world that Black inferiority is an unchangeable given. Anyone who believes that this will be changed by Blacks who cater to other brainwashed peoples’ biases and bigotry by spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort trying to make them feel “comfortable” by “acting right” doesn’t really understand what is going on. One cannot fix things by accepting other peoples’ racist and pathological world views as legitimate just because the White West says that it is so. Most Whites, Asians etc. do not spend much time worrying about how Blacks feel about them, or or about their cultures, or about their behavior harms Blacks either as individuals, as a culture, or as members of a nation state . Black people need to learn how to return the favor. We need to work on gaining enough power so that other people’s opinions, biases, and perceptions have no impact on us. We need to get out from under the power of the universal White veto, which checkmates every Black person from the lost men on the corners all the way up to so-called Black leaders in America, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Two Major polls exist in negro thought, one of integration and the other of separation, two goals with vastly different manifestations. On one side, your auditioning for a role as a professional psychiatrist with Stockholm syndrome and a terrible case of love Jones. This tendency is normally marked by optimism no matter what objective events occur to the contrary. On the other side of the spectrum, your sole aims are Nation, Sovereignty and Power. This tendency can be characterized in many ways. One of the ways such a tendency is expressed is by defensively projecting outward xenophobia towards attacks on the group. This can move to another stage of preemptively radiating the more directly offensive forms of xenophobia. The outlook grows into cementing the shared experiences of an already categorized group. From that vantage point the source of the attack is identified and rejected. When this happens through conscious politicization, you have the necessary amount of schism to put a rift in an already divided society or group, paving the way for secession or ostracization of a group or individual. This tendency is often characterize by its opponents as pessimism. The proponents of such thought call it realism.
With all that out of the way I hope my gripe was clearer as to where I was coming from, as I’m about to make several more.
I’d ask Mr. Thrasher, are we really in this mix or are we just merely the objects of someone else’s long-standing prejudice?
Also can you be more specific as to what you mean by, “Many in our community enjoy the role of being docile and losers” I’m not asking you to defend it, just explain it?
This statement needs some defending or more explaining, because though I agree we play a role this is, “Some of us understand and recognize and have no hesitation to acknowledge not only are we our own worst enemies but we are also eager in this role of self destruction and decadence.” irksome and a Red Herring. I certainly don’t agree with channeling Michael Eric Dyson’s wavelength with “we are our biggest problem” rhetoric. I personally wish we were because it would imply that we have a level of organization and resources that are not visibly present at the given time. The rhetoric sounds good, (I’m guilty of that) like we have the power in ours hands but glosses over very real retarding factors that are structural with no intention of being fixed.
Last thing I wanted to say was, no one really transcends race no matter how much they “act right”, “look right” or whatever else they do right. To make my point, I’m sure recently you’ve heard the gesticulations of the Nation against “Arab Savages” killing NATO soldiers. There’s a whole population of Arab individuals over here “acting right” yet that doesn’t avail them into societies endearment, even if they criticize or condemn the perpetrators.
David,
Interesting comments allow me to engage you and try to address some of your questions with regard to my prose..
You write that 2 major polls exist in negro thought: integration and separation. I would opine there are numerous themes besides just these two.One of those being origination which is the creation and development of an entire new threshold of thinking free and a thinking that is a work in progress or like improvisational jazz..
With regard to your questions we are in state of pause as a people .We are trying to determine how to navigate in the new world order of economics and the post industrial reality of culture and race.
In America we created the civil rights humanity culture but now having achieved this we are stalled and we must move on.
With regard to your question about loser and victims clearly many in our community take pleasure and recognition and a sense of being when they act out self destructive behaviors as gangsters, bullies, deviants, etc..
As I noted this post industrial era has created a reality where new models of being have been created including a fixed underclass, sliding middle class and the growth of the extreme upper ruling class. The ‘occupy movement” is a reactionary force to this development.
In summary the question remains in the presence of ‘negrophobia’ and the realities of a post industrial world what is our course of action??
Hi Mr.Thrasher,
I’d have to disagree with the characterization of origination being like improvisational jazz. Improvisational jazz done right is complex and the artist has to already have a solid foundation with which to improvise. If the musician is without grounding you’ll most likely produce a result that is equivalent to random noises.
When you take this type of theory to trains of thought no matter which poll they belong to, there all born of reaction. Macro elements of the world we are born into and subsequently live in influence our thoughts and perspectives. The only way free thinking can manifest itself as to not be a derivative of environment or macro currents of history, is to stand at the beginning of time as its creator. Something I know that I surely can’t do. New paradigms can be created surely but the necessity of their creation is reaction. An example is if a Lion bites me (assuming I live) and I find that I either don’t like it or I like it, did I originate the idea of thinking or the history of lions biting? I say this simply to say nothing is really free of much of anything.
In response to, “With regard to your questions we are in state of pause as a people .We are trying to determine how to navigate in the new world order of economics and the postindustrial reality of culture and race.
In America we created the civil rights humanity culture but now having achieved this we are stalled and we must move on.” I’d first start by saying that the post industrial era is fallacy unless were just describing the society we live in and not the world and its relationship to it. Globalization makes America’s postindustrial realities possible. I’d continue by saying that culture and race have not changed in any substantive way as so to usher in a new paradigm in the labor industry or the types of service industries on a hierarchal and macro level. The types of direct vulgar violence interactions that most associate with the term “race relations” have been transformed on a micro level to one of mere tolerance. The violence on the macro level has been transformed as well, from one of high-intensity direct genocide to one of low-intensity genocide. This type of transformation to low-intensity genocide is one that most people wouldn’t normally be able to comprehend or associate with violence due to the vulgar mass violence that is iconic of this country. Without the likely trappings of direct and vulgar violence you’re left with an explanation that doesn’t explain much of anything, a situation where the cause is the effect. To bring this home on the question of stagnation my personal opinion is that the civil-rights culture is much like fighting for political prisoners in this country. The actions we associate with progressivism are similar to being on a treadmill. The type of treadmill that keeps you running in place addressing the micro symptoms of macro problems until you die. The treadmill isn’t really a problem until you realize you’re not moving and the society is instead moving around and on you. The society has made the civil rights culture that was once radical into an acceptable norm for pushing out temporary pacification in the form of even more temporary concessions. Well before my time but in the days of the legendary Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach you may remember their political cover of “Freedom Now”, in today’s terms it has been turned into “How much Freedom are you willing to give me”. The cumulative result of ideas deemed acceptable by the society is precisely why we find ourselves in such a rut of stagnation.
My response to this, “With regard to your question about loser and victims clearly many in our community take pleasure and recognition and a sense of being when they act out self destructive behaviors as gangsters, bullies, deviants, etc..” is simple, we are literally watching the fruits of a sustained amount of psychological as well as physical violence. The very essence of the type of self-destructive behavior you allude to is the likely outcome of several external factors. No one who isn’t already on the outs or the margins of society would take pleasure in their own degradation. If you’re consciously and sub-consciously indoctrinated with images and ideas about whom you are and what your expected to be in society you’re likely to become it. Mix the indoctrination with very real concentrated poverty a drug economy and a bunch of negros on every media outlet billboard and wall poster telling you 24/7 this is what I did to live well. Then popularize oppression and criminality as a way of life by making its repetition popular and you have your losers and victims you mentioned. Regardless of all those murky waters many have to travel through to exist, if you don’t confront the cause of the problem the situation continues and is compounded by other obvious factors like the government, courts, corporations and prisons. The very fact we don’t control these institutions in our own lives is at the core of the culture of failure and begging. However out of this comes a reality that you’re not part of the nation but rather an entity outside of it. Though much of the character of aversion to the society ends up serving it due to the guiding mechanisms of profit motives, media fixation and catchall institutions like prison. This rejection can be cultivated into something useful instead of self-destructive reaction. However it must be politicized and organized under guiding principles.
To move forward we have to be honest about where we are, what challenges we face and who our adversaries are, sparing no hurt feelings. The time of entering into a lover’s romance with classroom debates around theory and philosophy has to be over. Cry-outs masquerading for action have to be over. I personally don’t see this period of time as a new beginning but rather a philosophy that has proven statistically time and again to not work and is furthermore being driven into a corner where it can go no further. The contradictions of the society are bubbling over. The rift between class and race is becoming more evident. However as, “White Rights Movements” such as the Occupy Movement and their kindred spirits in the,” White Power Movement” are beginning to masquerade their “conservative” politicians in the open. Mostly this tendency is embodied in the likes of Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. We find ourselves sitting on a domestic powder keg chasing a dead end idea, all while powerlessly hoping that this time will be different. To go where we claim we want to go is going to require changing course and charting the nationalist path because we’ve reach the end of integration. Our condition speaks to that reality. Having a nominally African president with no change substantive change worth noting speaks to that.
Davis,
Sorry but your explanation for orgination is lacking and does not ring with sound reasoning.An original premise does not require being at the beginning of anything. A reactionary impluse is not always a derivative occurence nor does it follow that there must be something before there is something else.
It is possible that orgination is present just waiting to be discovered. Again my premise is your options preclude the option of creating a new narrative which can exist despite intergration or separation.
Now with regard to your others comments I have noi quarrel with them..
I was mainly trying to highlight that what informs our ideas already exist around us. A stronger example would be if some oppressed group has an idea that they will build a spaceship and fly into the sun in order to escape oppression. The very idea is informed by the will to escape oppression it doesn’t inform the outcome just the action. If your saying that the premise of flying into the sun is origination then I’d agree. The time analogy was poorly phrased, I was trying to say that nothing stands outside of the world as some type of alien concept undiscovered by man. What were engaged in is very old.
David,
Now we are on the same page. I agree with your statement that “what we are engaged in is very old:..
I also postulate that we live in a ‘multiverse” and not a universe so that what we experience is also being experienced in another plane..
Thanks for your feedback. BTW look forward to my next commentary where I explore the need to return to the ‘psychedelic’ of Black ethos.
@David and Greg
thank you both for a very lively discussion. I enjoyed it a lot.
Especially since it seems we are all on the aame page, agreeing that we need to be more sensitive in our judgements about the role “we play” in incurring outsiders negrophobia.
That’s the starting point for me, regardless whiohever ‘ism’ or ‘is not’ you follow, let’s start by showing some tolerance for ourselves.
I arrived at my conclusions oddly enough, by way of black on black negrophobia – my own participation in it.
Despite being fully conscious of all the hostile forces that loom over black life, I still held blacks disproportionately responsible for our condition.
To give an atypical example of self destructive behaviour that aggrieved me -
black actors who allow themselves to be used as kill fodder roles in the film and tv roles they are given.
Why do they do take degrading roles that allow whites to act out their genocidal fantasies?
The black actor pissed me off – not the entertainment industry, which is an institution that has always dehumanized blacks. Not a system which forces us to do things against our own interests to survive.
I’m not blaming blacks for what they do under that kind of duress anymore.
I’d still rather they didn’t do it, and they should be shamed when they do it, but whitey will be blamed when they do it.
Every person has the right to define how they wish to confront racism. I don’t live my life concerned with the views of another.
I am a free Black man….
@Greg Thrasher
hmm?
well coming up against racism is almost inevitable if you’re black in a white majority.
I guess it’s up to the individual to decide if they’ll confront the racist or confront the victims of racism.
btw I’m a black man too and I excercise the freedom to confront anyone who tries to blame me for causing racism.
We share the same principles ! I value your views .
Hi Greg,
Good to see you fired up again.
I don’t have time to read everything here but I believe that dialog is good.
Recently we are in a period where certain words were subtly outlawed from use. I hope this one is. As you know I married a Black Woman, loved her dearly, wailed when she was killed, would love another so as to not disrespect her and our loving relationship, and have been raising our adoptive daughter, her niece for the past nine years.
Megan is in college now and I helped her get a job at Lafayette Foods which is about a half block away on the other side of Chrysler School.
Two weeks ago as she got off she stopped at Dollar General and was texting her cousin and some young guys came in.
When she left she discovered that 2 of them were following her. They caught up with her, pulled out a gun and stuck it in her stomach and took the iPhone. One of them lingered and dug into all of her pockets and bra. He managed to get 67c.
The Police captured them in less than 4 hours. Yesterday at the arraignment Megan transformed and spoke clearly and directly. The Judge remanded them and set the trial date for next friday. Bail Bonds set at $500,000 and $350,000 respectively.
And on the way home Megan said, “now, I’m a snitch. I quickly countered that she did the right thing and that she most certainly is not a snitch.
And I commented that that was a Black youngperson word and Fuck that Bullshit!
What do you say Greg? I hope that you are aware that there are white shit for brained people like Rush Limbaugh just like these young shit for brained black kids.
b
Bill,
Why is it with people who feel compelled to provide me anecdotal incidents as a means of some measure of racial equivalent .
I hope Megan is ok and justice prevails ….
Groo
There is carnage in every venue on the planet my themes are focused on racial relations here in America.