OPED by Clifford Jackson
Malcolm X at a speech in Selma Alabama , per the invitation of students at Tuskegee and SNCC on February 4, 1965, talked about “ the house negro and the field negro”. This invitation included Coretta Scott King appearing. Dr. King was in jail in Selma ,at the time of Malcolm X’s speech, for fighting American apartheid .
What Malcolm X expressed in reference to that statement was a profound sense of understanding the impact of colonialism. The “ House negro “ was a slave who because of the total obliteration and destruction of his or her humanity would hate him or herself and love their master no matter how evil and inhumane the master was. What he was talking about was the destruction of a people where their history, language, culture, and identity has been destroyed. That has happened to African Americans and people of color around the world from centuries of slavery and colonialism by the white western world.
Organized religion, especially the foisting of white Christianity, has had an effect that cannot be overstated as far as making white supremacy the unwritten law and subconscious rule that governs people in this country and around the world. On the slave plantations in America, as Malcolm X articulated, “ the house negro would love his master more than the master loved himself “. He would have a level of self hatred that was inflicted upon his fellow slaves, many times being the overseer of other slaves for his master.
The field negro was treated the worst. These were African American slaves that were raped relentlessly by their white masters. They were forced to breed with other slaves on breeding plantations. They as, Malcolm X stated, “ hated the master”. They were more frequently whipped, had branding irons barbarically applied to their face and genitalia.
Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Paul Robeson,Lorraine Hansberry, Medgar Evers and many others were Field Negroes who were a demonstration of the best of black people.
“House Negroes” have a long history in this depraved culture and have aided and abetted white supremacy. Carl Rowan was a glaring example attacking Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson and saying that “ Malcolm X” was mentally ill. The lawyer Gloria Toote was another as well as Pearl Bailey, Fernando Lamas and many other people of color of my parents generation.
Thomas Sowell is an extreme product of the self hating malaise from colonialism that to this day denies systemic racism exists. Examples of this malaise in a different way from a social psychological perspective were Anita Bryant and Phyliss Schaffly. These were conservative white women who said overtly that “a woman’s place was in the home”. Schafflys attack on passage of the ERA( Equal Rights Amendment) was an expression of how she and Anita Bryant, with her perverted white Christianity, were white women who were conditioned to think like white men.
That type of sickness is ubiquitous today in the black and communities of color as far as mayors, doctors, judges as well as well as the criminal elements in black and brown communities. That house negro mentality is what Malcolm X understood that the black man and people of color around the world have had their indigenous culture and identity destroyed by western civilization which has indeed, along with white pathological violence that has been economic as well as physical, has created crime dens in Chicago, Camden, New Orleans as well as many other places because of generations of segregation and dehumanization of these communities.
Frantz Fanon, the Martinique psychiatrist, who fought against brutal French colonial domination in the 1950’s wrote two books that point to what Malcolm X understood about the pathology of colonialism: “The wretched of the earth “ and “black skin white masks” which dealt with the domination of white people over people of color world wide and all of the psychological and subliminal conditioning that foster white supremacy.
As well as the right of colonized African, Asian and Latin American people to fight colonialism by any means necessary. Eric Adams and Congressman Ritchie Torres are a disgrace to the legacies of Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon and are glaring examples of modern day “House Negroes”. Adams perverts the legacies of John Lindsay and certainly The honorable David Dinkins with his searing ignorance as well as ingratiating demeanor to the white wealthy class in NY, that Adams says” “they pay most of the taxes” which is a lie in proportion to their asset base vis a vis black and brown people living in nyc who pay a higher portion of their incomes in taxes.
As well as the white wealthy elite that he is a sycophant to that have been raping NYC for generations. He is too ignorant to understand what Tammany Hall did for 150 years in NYC which laid the foundation for the Astors, Rockefellers, and the racist impact of Robert Moses that created the poverty rate of 50 percent of children living in NYC that still exists today. He is a disgrace to the legacies of John Lindsay and certainly David Dinkins, who knew who he was. Adams certainly does not.
Adam’s Disgusting and prefabricated image of the greatness of the NYPD, ignoring the history of violence especially from Irish and Italian officers that Frank Serpico talked about, shows that he is the poster boy for colonialism.
Richie Torres is also a pathetic display of the effects of white supremacy and colonialism with his ingratiating and pecuniary priorities when it comes to AIPAC, as well as his racist and despicable ignorance concerning the genocide of Palestinians. His racism, or should I say self hatred, as Malcolm X understood, denies the slaughter of Palestinians daily by the Israelis while he explodes with disdain for people attacking Israel, in his ignorance, and he labels it “antisemitism“.
He is certainly a perversion of the legacy of James Baldwin, and he is a whore and not representative of the human rights activism of thousands of people in the LGBTQ plus community. The consequences from this is like many other aspects of the domination of the white world. How we treat each other interracially and intraracially has been stewarded by this pathological behavior. White males reading this, including the editor, notwithstanding instances of hatred and disdain from women of color, should ask yourselves why more often than not women of color ingratiate, and in many cases give you more respect than your black, brown or Asian counterparts?
Clifford Jackson, Larchmont
