A THOUGHT FOR NOW - BEWARE OF THE 'BLACK EXPERT' WHO PRESUMES TO KNOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE 'BLACK RACE.'

Whatever 'race' or 'ethnic group you belong to, all experiences 'the light and the dark.'

If there is one thing which might cause me to want to kick a computer or television screen, it is the 'self-styled black' person who presumes to know 'what is wrong with the black race, why it is as it is.'


Yes, granted that I am a person of a certain age, and that people of a certain age, providing they are learning and growing, will always have a tendency to have their perspectives influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by the battles of living which they have fought and won or lost. By the same token, I imagine, the perspectives of younger people might be more in the form of being painted 'black and white', as it were, with little or less room for shades of grew.

Because of this, the views of the younger generations, to the ears of the older generations, might have a certain de ja vu feeling, stringency about it. This might be because he/she had already been there, done it and came through it with whatever bumps and bruises they have had to endure. It might have the feel of, well, what are you going on about; we have already fought those battles and have moved on, and now need to have greater accommodation between people. They might be thinking that  'black and white divide, has been narrowed, and there really is no need to be speaking in the harsh language of 'them and us' anymore.

Now, I do acknowledge that each generation, unfortunate as it is, seems destined to fight or re-fought the same battles which earlier generations had fought. I am not sure if this is a similar situation to that which seems to suggest that the young have to learn from their own experiences and not those of the older generations. Or, whether there is an imperceptible law which decrees that, the fruits of battles won at a given point in time, will, at some point in the future, become lost and had to be fought for again.

I can appreciate some of these factors which could be at play. But what I struggle with, is the self-appointed 'black expert' who presumes to know all about why the 'black race' is as they are, and what they needs to do to recreate what they would present as 'the lost golden age of black civilization.'

It iitates me, and, I would imagine, many people, not least because the 'BE' appears to perceive of 'the black race' as a homogeneous malleable mass which can and/or will allow itself to be moulded into a 'a super race', which the 'Black Expert' presumes to have been the original state of the 'black race.'

So, not surprisingly, whenever I hear the Black Expert' having a discourse, which does tend to be an uncritical one, about how the 'black race' needs to come together and work together to realises their true potential, I find myself think, give it up, because it is not going to happen. Life and living today is too complex for such simplistic solutions. If it was going to happen, it would have already happened. And if you are going to imply or assert that it had happened in the past, then why did it come to an end?

And so it seems to me that the 'Black Expert' is not only wasting his/her time - unless they are getting paid for their impractical prescription - but they are, more importantly, doing a disservice to the black young people who might be persuaded to believe and try to give effect to their rather fanciful dialectical discourse on the presumed 'condition of the black race.'

At every stage and age of a struggle,  the objectives of the struggle and those fighting it are best served by using the tools and equipment which are best suited, in terms of time and space, to realise the goals for that period in time. The 'Black Expert' needs to realise that it is not the case that members of  'the black race's primary identification with each other, is the fact that they all belong to the different ethnic groups comprising the general classification of being labeled 'the black race.' 

The fact is that, in terms of their identification, there basic human needs are the primary ones which they share with all other 'race/s.'


Accordingly, if the 'Black Expert' wants to have relevance, including to the present, he/she should stop talking as if there is complete or even a high degree of conceptual, perceptual and socio-political consensus between all or most black people, or even that it is desirable for such a state of being to be attained.

Concentrate on enabling people to achieve their full potential, first as humans, and you could assist them in doing so as members of their own ethnic group.

Endeavour to realise the maximum development of your potential in your life, and, in so doing, strive to assist others to realise theirs, but never forgetting that the true meaning and purpose of your life, of every life, is that it should be enjoyed.  The fullest realisation of your potential is that you attain a state of happiness for as long as possible.

We are one, though divisions have been sown within us, and makes the challenge of our time that of regaining our original state on oneness.