Sneak Peeks – Ain’t no Black or White
…Eventually, the objects of such persecution tend to assume the identities of the persons they had to be to deserve their fate. The Irish experience in Northern Ireland, the Jewish experience in Nazi Germany, the Arab experience in Palestine, the African American experience in the United States of America, and the experience of those exposed to European imperialism illustrate that a constant reminder of one’s inferiority usually leads to an assumption of personal, national and racial inferiority.
Such oppression is justified in comparisons of the oppressed with animals in need of guidance and restraint by their masters, as children are to parents. Stereotypes developed where African peoples were seen as submissive, light hearted, amicable, ingratiating and imitative of animals in need of a shepherd; the Irish, as a nation of lazy, idle, stupid alcoholics; Asians as cunning, stingy, deceitful and passive and not much different from the Jews, who were greedy, opportunistic and mercenary. In rebellion, ‘blackness’ became symbolic of the most despicable, shameful, frightening and dehumanising characteristics; and like their companions the world over, many ‘black’ people came to accept the image impressed upon them as real. There is no doubt that a constant echo of a man’s inferiority, more often than not, leads to contempt for the self and those who represent that self. This syndrome is known as ‘horizontal hostility’…
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