|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The American Code of Silence on Black Issues
| Article
# : |
10709 |
|
|
Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1986 |
2,112 Words |
| Author
: |
Claudio Campuzano
Claudio Campuzano is a nationally published writer of news
analysis and commentary in both English and Spanish language
publications. He lives and works in New York City. |
What if I told you this about Africa?
"NO amount of explanation can exonerate the continent from its own catalogue of miscalculation, misdeed, and sheer waste. Rarely in history has political leadership wreaked havoc as in Africa; rarely has poor management of everything from basic agricultural production to organized distribution of essentials, from infrastructural development to utilization of human skills, been witnessed on the scale and dimension of Africa."
Are you still with me? Or have you given me up as a hopeless white racist?
Just testing. Word for word, what you have read was written a few months ago by Njeru Gatabaki, publisher and editor-in-chief of Finance a journal in Nairobi, Kenya. Mr. Gatabaki is black.
Now, I wouldn't blame you if your internal thought police had been already rushing through the corridors of your mind bent upon wrestling to the ground this "racial slur." The way we have been conditioned lately in America the question is not if a judgment involving blacks is valid but if it should be voiced.
Mr. Gatabaki is alive and well (and quite well-known) in Africa. If he happened to be white and writing here in the United States his opinion would be considered "without redeeming social value" and would be seen as an obscenity, fit only to be circulated surreptitiously through the mails in a plain brown wrapper.
But that's the good news.
The bad news is that any black who chose to be as outspoken here, as Mr. Gatabaki is in Africa, might become an outcast or be threatened with death, depending on whose black turf was invaded, Randall Robinson's, for example, or Louis Farrakhan's.
Mr. Robinson, kingpin of the movement against apartheid in South Africa, and his followers, have seen to it that any black who questions their views is labeled an Uncle Tom. Death is the punishment that Mr. Farrakhan--the shaker and mover of his own "apartheid" movement in the United States--thought appropriate for a black reporter who had honestly disclosed Jesse Jackson's lapse into anti-semitic statements.
It would appear that for most of
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
