Is 'Black' Really Beautiful?

Is ‘Black’ Really Beautiful? The identity of the African Person

The statement ‘Black Is Beautiful’ is always proudly flaunted by Africans and people of African descent. This simple sentence has been so much vested with power of pride so much so that the possibility that such a statement could mean something negative, and racially counterproductive, is never contemplated.

So when I ask people questions such as “Is ‘Black’ Really Beautiful?” the immediate answer I get is YES. However, this statement and its ‘yes’ answer have always bothered me. I’ve tried as much as I can to understand the meaning and the idea behind the statement. The more I tried to understand to get used to it, the more I realized the repulsive implications and the more I realized that the people who utter the statement don’t actually think much about it.

The Dying Optimist in Me!

The Dying Optimist in Me!

 

The capitalist tsars in the West want to maintain the way things are. And that is, they want the poor to remain [poor] and the rich to continue to get rich. They employ the lower classes who work 40-60 hours a week to make the capitalists wealthy. Still, these poor workers are called lazy!

Yet still, we look towards Europe and America for guidance and goodwill. Then we wonder why Africa is still mired in the indescribable. Our poverty and political mess only help them remain wealthy.

 How about Jubers! Nea! The hopeless me better not say!

I know all of us have been or are now being schooled in eurostandardized world. Our thoughts, our view of ourselves and our ideas are such that they have to be in line with what Europe has already standardized. This is required in some cases, however, there are cases where following this dug snare and ditch becomes our political and economic stagnation. Am I supposed to be optimistic?

I recently published a book: Is ‘Black’ Really Beautiful? This book looks at Race, Color and Racism from an African perspective you can’t find in our contemporary euro-literature and scholarship. However, from the subject of the book, it’s very easy to see why such ideas are not addressed in the manner in which they are supposed to be handled. Most of us think “Black is Beautiful?” However, many of us don’t actually see the fatuitous insinuation in the proposition. So buckle up!

People scratch their heads when I ask them what you call a person who is proud of his or her race! They don’t have the answer! Why? Because Europe has decontextualized and instrumentalized the appropriate word.