I am close to a number of African-American and African women, and many of them have horror stories of how they were treated by gangster types. These people claim that they are the true black identity. They are not. Black people have made great progress in entertainment, military and sports, and these people deserve to define the black identity a lot more.
The gangsters are in many ways worse than white colonists. The way they treat their own black people – especially the women – is a disgrace. I would like to see more black women in the police. When a white man busts them they can say that it is the white man, and when a black man busts them they can say that he is an Oreo. But when a black woman – the kind that they feel justified in knocking around – is busting their ass, they are getting exactly what they deserve.
Because of the behavior of the gangsters, many white people have a stereotype of black people as lazy and brutal. I used to work for a majority-black food place at University of Virginia, and these people worked hard enough. I am a part of majority-black poetry readings in DC, and these people are neither brutal nor lazy. These people deserve to define black identity a lot more.
Now there are many situations in which criticism of anyone black is portrayed as racism. I, for one, am not racist at all. I want to see black people do well, and I treat my black friends as brothers. A professor once said that in the South it’s “you can get as close as you want for as long as you don’t get too high” and in the North it’s “you can get as high as you want for as long as you don’t get too close.” I have been close to black people who were quite high, including writing a biography of the daughter-in-law of Tanzanian independence leader Julius Nyerere (https://sites.google.com/.../the-crying-queen-of-africa...).
What I have to say is this. Black people deserve a better identity than the gangsters. Gangsters do not deserve to define what it means to be black any more than do Nazis deserve to define what it means to be German or than Netanyahu deserves to define what it means to be a Jew. Social groups deserve to be represented by the best and not the worst among them. And it is an insult to black people for gangsters to claim that they are the true African Americans.
I want to see better influences in the African American community. People such as the ones at the DC poetry readings are much better representatives of black people than the gangsters. If you are black: Stop looking up to the worst people among you and look up to the better ones. And see things improve for black people all across the board.