Acting White: The Paradox of Blacks and White Stuff

I have owned BMW cars for 30 years and would hardly consider another maker. I briefly had a Volvo R850, but came to realized that the Swedes, unlike the Germans, build cars to run into trees, regardless of how quickly they accelerate prior to impact. In any event, my subject is that blacks are more than just reluctant consumers of things white, even while the group laments behaviors and attitudes of the people and culture that exploits and marginalizes them.

So why is it that on one hand black folks rail about Euro-centric influence in America, but they turn around and go into debt to have the finest Euro-goods that money can buy? Women and men drape themselves in all manner of European style of Italian and French clothes, shoes, eye wear, German cars, Swiss watches and chocolate, never mind technology. From Beyonce to beyond, tinted, dyed, and braided blond black women abound. Even more curious, blacks purchase Japanese, even though this group is notorious in their anti-black attitudes. This black consumption is not reluctant, but rather conspicuous and proud, and incongruent with the rhetoric. Why is this not hypocritical?

I’m not saying that because whites or Asians make stuff that black people want that this gives them the right to abuse the group, quite the opposite. Alternately, should blacks not feel a little twinge that white people do, in fact, make everything, while Asians make it cheaper? Should it also be a surprise that people who make everything, also score better in intelligence? Of course, the flip side to all that intelligence is that it does not always come with the common sense or moral fiber not to war or pollute each other or the planet into oblivion.

The other day I suggested to two black educator-friends that European Jews might have a brain physiology advantage, and you would have thought I tried to repeal MLK day. They were fascinated by talk of sickle-cells and malaria, but repulsed by similarly described interactions of sphingolipid brain enhancement/disorder.

What I’m saying is that as much as I marvel at black American inventions like jazz, or athletic prowess, I also see how much blacks are dependent and benefit from the scientific leadership of whites. I do not see this leadership as an accident, nor do I feel bad about blacks, who as a group have contributed abundantly as well to humanity. Hell, it was Africans who collectively overcame more than 100,000 years of their harsh continent to ultimately explore the planet, way before there was any white stuff to be had.

James C. Collier

READ MOST RECENT POSTS AT ACTING WHITE...

Technorati Tags: Acting White: The Paradox of Blacks and White Stuff, Disparity, Euro-centric, Jazz, Jews, Acting White