This being the beginning of the New Year, I thought it a good time to clearly state, with appropriate resolve, my purpose for this column. The still Burning Bush is not only for religious issues. In time, I intend to address, from the perspective of the whole black person - religious, social, political, economic, psychological, biological - every element of black life through critical analysis.

As this column progresses, it will develop into a well-rounded, fully comprehensive weapon specifically targeted with nuclear capabilities. I plan to seek out and destroy the indifference, complacency, and self-destructive tendencies deeply routed in the minds, hearts and souls of my black community. I intend to break the back of the oppression that so paralyzes us - fear - and leaves us standing wide-eyed like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

To that end, let me start with an issue close and dear to the hearts, yet far from the minds of all blacks - Niggerosity. Of all the issues, social and otherwise, taken up and preached against by black preachers and teachers from the ancient pulpits of the yesteryear South to today's beautifully appointed, intricately ornate platforms of the North, East and West, the one most overlooked yet unquestionably the most important is the issue of the Nigger.

Niggerosity, the result of the process of Niggerization, is the shared identity of those who have been niggerized. Niggerization is the strategy of destroying the self worth and esteem of any human or human group in the eyes and minds of that person, group, or the larger society.

The strategy includes, but is not limited to, such dehumanizing and devaluing techniques as slavery, denial of rights and protection of laws, institutionalized discrimination, denial of citizenship, and the creation of artificial barriers such as race, income, social class, skin color, ethnicity or religion to segregate so-called desirable groups from so-called undesirable groups.

Often expressed in terms like classism, racism, sexism, sectarianism or some other term indicative of one person or group seeking to elevate itself above another, Niggerization often results in war, poverty, and isolation of both parties.

The persistence of Niggerosity is the one reason we black Americans have failed to achieve any sustainable level of control, prominence or influence - Period. Everything else is a symptom of this root cause. It's one thing to be self-effacing, as many comics are, when they laugh at themselves.

It's something else entirely when one thinks of oneself as less than, unworthy, worthless, deserving of hatred, accustomed to poverty, ignorant, valueless, incapable - in short, a NIGGER! Thus, Niggerosity leads to the kind of self-inflicted, slow, painful, torturous death we've witnessed over the last few decades in the black community.

We have failed miserably, and will continue to do so until we stop seeing ourselves as niggers, a change that will be reflected when we stop referring to ourselves as niggers. As long as we continue to refer to ourselves in this term we will continue in our failing ways. Clearly, we see ourselves as niggers because we call ourselves niggers.

Niggerosity is in our music, our poetry, our literature, our movies, our everyday conversation, and yes, even in the sermons preached in our churches; Niggerosity is pervasive.

Those of us who would break free of the wide-sweeping, deep-reaching net of Niggerosity cannot, because it's everywhere we go. When we go to church, it's there. When we go to school, it's there. When we go to work, it's there. It's there when we wake up in the morning and when we go to bed at night.

We are reminded of its existence when we go to the movies, watching the news, cartoons, almost (and I do mean almost) any TV show or commercial, listening to the radio, even in the sermons preached on Sunday mornings and the bible studies of Wednesday nights. Instead of taking this matter head-on, our so-called community servants (pastors and such) have tried to hide from Niggerosity under the cloak of Christianity, ever hoping that the blood of Jesus will wash away our sin of being born black. When one pulls back the religious cloak all you will find is a huddle mass of scared black folks, still Niggerized and clueless.

There's a scripture in Proverbs that goes something like this: "As a man thinks in his heart, so he is." We think we're niggers, we call ourselves niggers, therefore we behave like niggers. Here's a bit of news for you: a nigger will never be president. Not just president of the USA, but a nigger will never be in charge of his or her own destiny. It is impossible for a nigger to control his or her own life, family, community, state or nation because niggers have no value, no power, no worth, no ability, and no potential.

I have often heard us complain - I am also guilty - that the word nigger is defined in Webster's dictionary. Yet, we hypocritically allow our own black brothers and sisters to liberally use the word descriptively in movies, music, literature, and in our everyday conversation. The word nigger, along with its close companion Niggerosity, is present in our everyday lives thus it is present in our everyday thoughts and actions. It makes me sick.

Spike Lee derided Quentin Terrantino for his excessive use of the word nigger in the film Jackie Brown, but brother Spike has used this word repeatedly in many of his films. Brother El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) asked what one would call a black man with a college degree? The answer - nigger. He used the word in a teaching sense, to exemplify the level of hate the majority of whites had (and many still have) for us back in the '60's.

Many black Americans at the very top of social, economic, cultural and political achievement, not all but certainly most, use the word nigger themselves. I refuse to believe that they don't feel a twinge of shame each time it slips out of their mouths. I refuse to believe that they have totally forgotten where that word comes from, who made it and why, and what it means.

I refuse to accept that they find it an acceptable adjective by which to describe their own fathers, mothers, grandparents, siblings or children. I refuse to believe that they are unaware that each time they use that word they are furthering the spread of Niggerosity, keeping it alive.

Basketball players, football champions, track stars, successful attorneys, brilliant doctors, hard-working factory personnel, military professionals, preachers (to include bishops, pastors, apostles, prophets, et al), academy award winnings, multi-millionaire movie actors/star vehicles, bus drivers, salespeople, entrepreneurs, prison inmates, police officers, pimps, hookers, crack heads, winos, writers, journalists - the one thing we all have in common is the Niggerosity we all live with each and every day here in America.

It spreads to our children with the birth of every new generation. I even hear African immigrants use the word nigger. And the only reason for all of this Niggerosity is we have believed the nigger lie.

The white American slave master created the most hated and reviled name in the history of mankind. No other group in the world has a name so filled with the ability to debase, humiliate, poison, and literally kill the spirit of a person than the word nigger. The fact that we use it on ourselves is tantamount to taking the gun from the hand of a would-be assassin and shooting ones self in the head.

Or worse: taking the rope from the lyncher, throwing it over the nearest tree limb, climbing on the horse, tying the noose, placing it around our own neck, whipping out a knife, dropping our own pants, performing self-castration, then spurring the horse and hanging ourselves.

Let me put it another way: to use the word nigger as a self descriptive is tantamount to walking into a KKK rally full of white-hooded Klansmen and saying, "Here I am. I am nobody, nothing, worthless, so come on and kill me. I don't mind. And look, I even brought my own rope."

With every generation, the effects get more and more entrenched and destructive. We have tried to absorb its sting by integrating it into our culture, giving it all latitude and longitude. We thought that by niggerizing everything we might bring some sort of pride to niggerhood; make it popular, envious, a thing to be desired.

And although most black children and some whites have aspired to achieve the height of Niggerosity, this strategy has back fired miserably, succeeding only in ruining our attitude toward ourselves and gaining new levels of contempt from others.

Instead of moving beyond slavery and the slave mind to reach higher and see farther than the bonds of that system would previously allow, our children have been raised with expectations of living in poverty, dropping out of school, going to prison, or being shot dead in the streets either by the cops, another black person, or the likes of Bernard Goetz.

We made a feeble attempt to apply it, in principle, to any and everyone we judge ignorant and foolish, but like a boomerang, it always finds its way back home to us. I've heard so many say; "I'll call a white guy a nigger if he acts like one." Poppycock! I have never seen or heard any black call a white a nigger. It's the sorriest excuse for continuing to do the wrong thing, or for refusing to do the right thing I've ever heard.

Furthermore, Niggerosity sticks to blacks like Napalm sticks to kids. Niggerosity is like a deep, moist, steaming pit of shit that the African American has fallen into, or was pushed depending on your point of view. It's gotten on our hands and feet, under our nails, in our hair, on our backs, in our eyes, ears, nostrils, and even in our mouths.

It is caked between our teeth, has slipped down our throats and is currently choking us to death. Its putrid odor emanates from our every opening and oozes from our pores. It has infected our blood and we rot from the inside.

Yes, I know. We have been fooled into thinking that this is such a small matter. The use of the word nigger seems to have become more and more widely accepted. Even white kids throw it around now, and in the company of black youth! What we don't realize is that the use of the word nigger is equally proportionate to the destruction of the African American.

The more it's used the more we die. What to do about it? The intellectual knows that the liberation of a person starts with that person's realization of his or her own potential. The consistent use of the word nigger reaffirms a complete lack of potential, inherent failure and innate powerlessness.

Voting won't save us, money wont save us, and drugs don't allow us to escape. Even Jesus Christ cannot save the nigger. All niggers are bound for the flames of hell, eternally damned, hopeless. The African American, however, in spite of lying on the sickbed, can and will be healed once the demon of Niggerosity is excised and sent back to the swine from whence it came.

With African Americans in such a state, most would either call for a doctor or God to help raise us up. Instead, I call on the intellectual. I do not call on the preacher, for they share the affliction and are just as sick as the black community at large. All others are forsaken in favor of the intellectual, the only person capable to reason our way out of this mess.

The intellectual is the only one with the vision to see beyond the obstacles and pitfalls to plot a safe course for the entire community. The intellectual is the only person in our community with the mental depth of a counselor, the knowledge and skill of a physician, the savvy of a street hustler, and the philosophical understanding of a shaman. The intellectual has it all, being a collective rather than a single person. The intellectual body of African America contains both the depth of knowledge and breadth of experience to encompass all aspects of what it means to be black in America.

End of Part One. Please write directly to me at: essaysfromchurch@edincorporated.com to respond with your comments, questions, and/or suggestions. Thanx

© 2005 By Dan Hardman

Part Two >>>

Brother Dan Hardman will be keeping the Black community informed on issues concerning the church and righteous living. Visit regularly for new information that could help you overcome and make the best of your everyday experiences.

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