A Nigga' is what you see.......

I must first apologize to everyone for the delay in my posts. The access to my blog was surreptitiously compromised but I’m back. Perhaps the break was needed as many – and I mean many revelations have come into fruition. Where should I begin? Kwame made his state of the city address and cut up. Should I start there… Or should we talk about a former police clerk substantiating the mansion party swearing to a deposition earlier this week. Or should I talk about the awarding of city contracts illegally found via the text messages by the administration? Kim Worthy announced today that she is postponing action from the prosecutor’s office for another couple of weeks. Based on my sources what this really means is that Kim is preparing additional charges on top of what she was already planning to issue. She’s coming down hard – very hard. The action of Kwame hiring a high priced New York defense attorney further substantiates this fact. It’s not that he will be forced to resign. The real question is will he stay out of prison.

But let’s talk about the tirade last night of what a friend of mine eloquently stated as coming from a delusional man. If you have followed this blog the primary question and impetus for our dialogue has been can African Americans govern themselves? Allow our white readers to eavesdrop on a pointed conversation that I’m about to have with black folks. I’m going to be real about this and make plain on why this episode says more about the lack of political and intellectual acumen of black people than it does the transgressions of one Kwame Kilpatrick. Furthermore, it highlights the miseducation that has plagued our community for the greater part of four centuries. Please bear with me while I share some excerpts from Carter G. Woodson’s “Miseducation of the Negro” published in 1933:

…The problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary…

Let me share something with you. Specifically, Kwame Kilpatrick is a dangerous man. A Judas in the midst who is not far from the failed leadership of Adolph Hitler or Jim Jones. Now you may consider that harsh but understand this – both individuals were passionate about what they did leading the masses to great turmoil. Both believed they were delivered from God to rule over the minions and both committed suicide choosing to accept death over accountability. Time will tell if that surmise will be Kwame’s ultimate sacrifice but we shall see. The tirade at the end of his speech was his swan song. A farewell designed to impart that the “man” did him in. That this was really a battle of “us” vs. “them”. A tactic to solidify the caustic racial environment prevalent in the Detroit community. A systematic plan to once again implore Detroiters – black people - to accept the rule of racism over accountability. What’s sad is that in 2008 when we have a man named Barack Obama who just may be the first African American to hold Presidential office we have the Anti-Christ Barack Obama – Kwame Kilpatrick who stands for everything that is wrong with Black America. Yes, this is about us. This is about how we feel about ourselves as a people and as a race. We don’t love or value ourselves. We rather accept the idiocy of someone being out to get Kwame Kilpatrick than facing reality and eliminating those of our same skin tone that exasperate failure and fear.

…The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worthwhile, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples. The Negro thus educated is a hopeless liability of the race…

Are we comfortable with this type of leadership or are we comfortable with mediocrity? Or is it that we are so used to having nothing that excellence and the pursuit of love of thy neighbor simply does not exist in the intellect of Detroiters? Are we able to weed out traitors in our midst or do we look aside as our consciousness would like us to do better but we simply don’t know better? These are the real questions that we face. And as an African American male for the first time I’m ashamed of my people. To have a stable nourishing environment you have to have a barometer to build upon. Without any cause and effect, without any checks and balances you will fall for anything. It’s safe to assume that if Kwame was white he would have been gone long ago. And why is that? Is it simply because he’s black or is it simply because black people are so miseducated that they are blinded by their skin tone to accept anything – even if it means that that failed leadership is the virus of our black existence on this earth. Yes, ladies and gentleman – it is that serious and I venture into an area of black psychology that the misinformed or uneducated never knew existed.

What I do know is this – regardless of if Kwame somehow miraculously survives this situation and continues as Mayor the negative psychological ramifications on Black people in this city has been exceedingly accomplished. Another generation trapped in the abyss of governance ineptitude. And to anyone who reads this dissertation and disagrees with my analysis I state – How you think about Kwame Kilpatrick is how you think of yourself. Don’t expect anyone to save you or impart sympathy when it’s obvious you don’t care about yourself enough to course correct. And by the way, white folks ain’t thinking about you. Why destroy those who destroy themselves? It’s such a waste of energy and time.

…If the “educated negro” could go off and be white he might be happy, but only the mulatto now and then can do this. The large majority of this class, then, must go through life denouncing white people because they are trying to run away from blacks and decrying the blacks because they are not white…

To all who read this column I wish peace to you as we await the decision by Kim Worthy. And yes, the hammer will be coming down. Hard – very hard.


KE