The next time the phrase "do not blame the white man" is heard, ponder the statement instead of allowing it to insert personal conviction. Today's trendy jargon has blurred what is actually true and what is merely trendy jargon. The act of placing blame rightfully is being upstaged by the catch phrase "personal responsibility" in today's society. To place blame actually means that whatever is being blamed is the cause or source of something, for instance, "the storm was to blame for the power outage."

However, if trendy jargon is applied to this obvious fact, one would tend to believe that the power outage has no right to blame the storm simply because of the power's "personal" responsibility to stay on. It is this type thinking that distorts people's ability to think for themselves; in other words, people would rather believe trendy jargon than argue the truth after thinking the situation through.

When Black leaders, white critics, or the person next door uses the language of trendy jargon to challenge the personal abilities of Blacks in the Black community by applying "do not blame the white man" philosophy, think the situation through carefully by pondering these points.

First, Black America can never, ever be considered foreigners who come here to make a life in this "great country". Who start from scratch in the slums and work eight jobs with no sleep, save money for college, and end up successfully owning a grocery store in the Black community. Blacks were brought here as property, considered as nothing more than subhuman.

Second, who says that Blacks are happy here in America? Under the rules of personal responsibility, should not he who is responsible for taking in the pet be the one who feeds, shelters, and teach the pet? And if the pet wants to leave, should not the owner be responsible for finding that pet a good home? (Unless the owner is cruel and tosses the pet into the streets to fend for themselves).

If Blacks are not wanted and are considered social burdens, underachievers, and misfits, we are not responsible for getting us where we want to be, the ones who brought us here are. And if the argument that the whites today are not the same ones who brought us here so they cannot be responsible, then Blacks today should not feel they are not wanted by the current whites, and should not be treated likewise or experience any of the similar prejudices that the Blacks who were brought here experienced. Nevertheless, do we?

Third, there is an extreme difference between individual responsibility and collective responsibility. When Black America is considered in mainstream America, we are considered collectively, as "African Americans." However, in the context of the argument of personal responsibility, each individual Black then has to "hold his own." When this distinction takes places, it is hypocrisy because of the confusion of jargon and beliefs.

In America, no Black person is different from any other Black person. Some people may think there is, but they are really not and this is an illusion that needs overcoming: once Black, always Black. One Black may sit on the Supreme Court and another may stand on the corner, in the eyes of America, they are still Black and are subject to prejudice just as if they were standing next to one another.

Considering this ideology, Black people cannot blame themselves for being Black; they must blame the white man for seeing Black, and only Black. If white men saw otherwise, there would be no laws distinguishing Blacks from others. Would there? However, there are laws that make Blacks, Black.

Because America's laws have always included Blacks as Blacks, then the white man must be blamed for the situations of Blacks under those laws. Therefore, of any circumstance that becomes of those laws, whether positive or negative, whites must bear responsibility. How can a Black person take responsibility for their actions when the laws dictate those actions?

Black people cannot be blamed for their situation, any situation, because this is a white man's country, laws, and Constitution. It is his economic policy, his military strategies, his educational academia, his banking institutions, his money, his tradition and his culture. If Blacks do not function under the regulations as expected of whites, are we to be blamed because either of these regulations is naturally contrary to who we are?

Individually, a Black person can agree to all the regulations and abide by them till death; however, as long as he is Black he is subject to the consequences of the regulations set aside for Blacks. And if a Black person does not agree to abide by these regulations, they are doomed to the consequences long established for him anyway, poverty.

Though we (Blacks), are sentenced to the white man's fanatical fantasies, and are subjects in his kingdom of gods, we will not be judged and sentenced, as he will be. He knows that he has a judgment awaiting him because he has established his own god and savior and his own rendition of what the perfect heaven is and will be. What is written is his own sentence yet his denial drowns this reality.

The Black man should never worry about his own personal responsibility as defined by the white man; the white man should worry about his own responsibility to humanity, righteousness, and justice. When walking beside "this man," no Black person should measure himself against "this man" because the mile the white man has walked can never compare to the historical travels and travails of the Afro Black man and woman.

© 2004 by Afromerica