Racism and Conformity

Racism isn't something Africans really understand until they leave Africa. It's always that strange way of treating others (non-Europeans) they see in the news and frown. However, many Africans don't actually relate tribalism to racism. They see no link between these two discriminatory forms even when they know they are all based on assumed sense of superiority, and exclusion.

However, it's crucial to understand why Africans don't see similarities or even 'sameness' between the two. In a sense, there are many reasons. One is the fact that discriminatory parameters or practices that come from 'us' are usually things we assume from birth; so that they are bad isn't something Africans think deeply about. We turn to overplay others' bad deeds but justify our own. The second reason is the manner in which racism is rationalized and critiqued by the media and in the academia, especially in America. That it's a nonscientific, social construct like no any other.  The third reason is that Africans leave Africa only to realize that their internal continental or tribal differences pale in the face of discrimination based on race. 

A magical, voluntary brotherhood/sisterhood unifies Africans as Racism displaces Tribalism. A Nigerian, an Angolan or a Ugandan, are 'inferiorized', placed in the same compartment, and then colored like chicken and goats.

So Race has been placed and critiqued as this unique, monstrous discriminatory exclusiveness with a universal ideology behind it. G. M. Fredrickson's, Racism: A Short History, underscores this idea. 

Even when Africans know that they discriminate against one another using tribe as a discriminatory parameter, they still see racism as not only unrelated to tribalism, they also see tribalism as a lesser evil than racism. These new realities make Africans forget about some African realities and embrace the new realities. They now have one fight against the 'white man.' Luo vs. Kikuyu; Jieeng vs. Nuer, Yoruba vs. Igbo...all become irrelevant as they [Africans] become 'black!' and in the same boat.

One of these realities, which worries me the most, is the manner in which Africans fall into an ironic conformity. And this conformity is the transition from being a cultured human being to a colored phenomenon (entity  - BLACK) whose virtuous realities are either nonexistent, inconveniencing or irrelevant. What makes this conformity very sad is the fact that it's followed by complaints that "we've been forced to conform." However, one gets to wonder: If everyone finds it expedient to conform to socially constructed realities in Europe and the Americas, then who's supposed to help change things?

A Nigerian, Ghanaian, Sudanese, Togolese, for example, simply become 'black' in North America. Instead of resisting this coloring of people's identities, Africans find it expedient to conform to this 'blackening' of their cultural identities. However, the most exacerbated thing is that they still complain that they've been forced to become black. Why would you conform and complain about conformity? Why do Africans always  consider themselves powerless,  victims, even when they have a capacity? 

There are those who say "Forget about being African, you're 'black' here baby!" But can society force us to be what we aren't and don't want to be if we resist? We are given identities that are denigrating and we accept them. But then we complain that we've been given constructed identities when we accept them and even defend them. 

When people say "well, they control everything what can we do?" I ask myself if there's ANY ONE PERSON who controls mental production. Socially constructed ideas, while they need monetary and political power to disseminate, it's true to say that no one can force things into your mind. It's easy to be discriminated against if you can easily be controlled. And conformity is an effective tool in racial discrimination as it helps the discriminators effect their programs.  

Let's remember that conformity is part and parcel of racialization machinery!

Terror in Belgium!

Many non-Westerners always complain about western solidarity when they [westerners] are attacked by terrorists. These complaints are genuine concerns because we see many unreported terrorist attacks in places like Yemen, Nigerian, Syria, Turkey, and other countries. However, we don't see the same level of outrage we see when any western target is hit by terrorists. 

Should terrorist attacks in Nigeria outrage Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin or London in the same manner terror does in the case of Paris or Brussels? It's an unrealistic expectation! We give westerners more credit or blame than they deserve.

It should be clear by now to non-westerners that the use of the term 'west' to refer to Western Europe and North America isn't an accident. It's what sociologist Paul Gilroy would call 'an index of differentiation', a self-consciousness derived from the idea that the 'west' is a logical continuation of the Greco-Roman civilization. This 'in-group bias' is a universal phenomenon so we need to put these terrorist attacks and the complaints against the 'west' into a very clear context. Why exactly should westerners care about what happens to people outside their delineated compartment?

We can resort to morality and say: 'because it's the right thing to do!' However, westerners have shown to the world time and again that they don't care much about what happens to the rest of the world. Since the days of transatlantic slave trade and colonization, they've shown time and again that their interest lies where their benefit is. 

They care less about what doesn't affect their political interests, or their citizens. Terrorists attacks are only relevant if they lead to deaths of westerners or threaten western geopolitical interests. We see grim reports of Saudi Arabia using stone-age legal methods to hang their citizens like goats and chicken  but no western 'moral' leaders speak out a word against them. Palestinian civilians in Gaza are killed and their houses demolished by IDF but western 'moralists' support such Israeli heavy-handedness.

It's indeed possible to protect the interest of Israel and its innocent civilians without subjecting Palestinian civilians to immoral brutality. However, as history proves it, Palestinian civilians are the sacrificial lambs being used to assuage the 'western' historical guilt from the brutal treatment of Jews over many centuries.

The 'west' has told the Rest of the world that "we'll care for our own!" Why can't the Rest do the same?

While I see the moral rationale in the complaints, it's time for Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners to initiative methods that can protect their citizens from terrorist activities. Why expect something you don't expect?