The Very Definition Of Slave Mentality

So yesterday I was crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge and observing the construction of it's replacement. I am always awed by the construction of such objects. It takes the cumulative efforts of many generations to get the technical knowhow to build such things. It takes precision and attention to detail. If construction is not done properly lives are literally at stake.

When I was in Tuskegee a professor Fluker used to tell us that Africans will only be respected when we:

build a plane that can go 3x the speed of light.

Now warp 3 may be a rather high goal but I think that his point was that Africans would need to develop among themselves the abilities necessary to create and maintain a [future] modern society. You can call for reparations and the like all you want, but if you cannot produce, eventually you are surpassed and bypassed by those who do.

The other thing that he used to ask is whether a student had an inferiority complex due to race, gender, economic status, etc. This was usually brought on by self-deprecating comments or behavior said or done by a student. He recognized, as I recognize now, that those who have inferiority complexes are already defeated and are not motivated. As Carter G. Woodson said (more or less, not a direct quote):

A man who believes himself inferior does not have to be barred from entering the front door, he will find the backdoor himself and if there isn't one he'll create one for himself.

Persons with inferiority complexes not only position themselves in inferior positions, they become resentful of those they see as superior to themselves. That resentfulness can often lead to violence. If they cannot directly lash out at the object of their resentment they will lash out at that which they deem to be symbols of their superior. Therefore when we see black folks rioting in burning "their own communities" it is because they, as James Baldwin pointed out, do not see it as "their community". Rather it is simply someplace they live. They know they didn't build any of it. They know that if anything breaks, that the people actually capable of building and maintaining it, will have to be called. For these individuals their whole entire life is essentially a wonderment like the new bridge crossing the Hudson.

How is this much different from when the African came into contact with the European "Ju-ju"? The smarter African leadership recognized that in the European they had met their technical superior and sent their sons and other higher ups to learn from the European. The smart Africans, when they saw the power of the "fire stick" didn't turn to the witch doctor, but they got their best smiths to try to recreate gunpowder (failed). But the rest, transported across the Atlantic found themselves in an inferior position where they essentially lived and died at the whim of the white population. In essence black employment in America has been the result of white employers. Where black people are unemployable, the government steps in with various programs. But dependency is dependency. Many black people know it, resent it, and will lash out in various forms if able. Which leads us to this fellow below:

Do not think for a minute that he's the only person who thinks this way. Do not think for a moment that he doesn't represent the mainstream of "mainstream" blacks.

This what happen because they not helping the black community

They? They who?

Like you know, the rich people got all this money. They like, you know, not trying to give us none

"Give"? This is the central problem. "Give". Other than those who were born into the top wealth, those who are "rich" worked for it. And even among those who inherited wealth, they got it because their parents did the work. Does this guy think that if he won a $500 million lottery and died that his kids ought to get nothing at all? I doubt that.

But more than that it shows the slave mentality. Once again, the slave depends upon his superior for his living because he cannot provide it for himself. Those who ask for a handout have already admitted his inferiority. Had this fellow had the mentality that he was equal in ability to those "rich" persons, he would have said 'we have been denied the opportunity..."

Lastly, I like to point out to folks, particularly those in the US. that generally speaking, this country was built from nothing. Europeans may have exploited enslaved African labour but they still built it. Most of us alive now, black or other, have little to nothing in the way of economic hands up via slave labour finances. Most of the companies we depend on and live with weren't in existence at any proximity to slavery or Jim Crow. Continuing to use JC and slavery as the explain all for black issues shows a level of desperation and yes, inferiority complexes that no amount of yelling and protesting can hide. It is only because white people in general are but a shadow of themselves and having a civil war among themselves have black folks been even able to get away with the juvenile antics.