Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino-Zimpapers Politics Hub
BLACK history month is an opportunity to fight racism. Racism is something that was made up, socially constructed and invented to build Western society and its incorporation to maintain economic, political and social relationships.
These relationships that are racist, are part and parcel of what blacks have lived through over the historical epochs. Therefore, to describe something or someone, as racist is socially significant.
Blacks, or people of African descent, have for a long time been living under a racist system. It is this system that has stolen their significance, their worthiness and imperatives because the social, political and economic relationships have been restrained, restricted and denied them equality of being, in particular by the Europeans.
It is no secret that any form of racism against black or people of African descent are an immoral excuse to benefit white privilege.
A study by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2023 found that people of African descent routinely face racial discrimination, harassment and violence in all aspects of their lives.
Some subtle forms racism in Europe, according to the FRA, include blacks never getting responses after job applications; being unsuccessful when searching for a home; being targeted for random stop-and-search procedures.
In 2016, former Manchester United striker Dwight Yorke pointed out he was not being called for managerial interviews despite having the qualifications.
At one point, legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson recommended Yorke for a managerial job at Aston Villa, yet he was not even called for an interview.
This has been different with former English footballers like Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick or John Terry. Their prime currency is not that they are exceptional, but the ticket is the colour of their skin.
Racism does not only steal opportunities for capable black people, it also affords opportunities to whites, not based on their competences, but based on the colour of their skin.
Black man’s miseducation
The biggest misfortune that has been done by racism is the miseducation of the black man or people of African descent. Miseducation of the black man is in essence a racist instrument that has been adopted to systematically erase, distort and minimise the contributions of black individuals to science, medicine, history and societal development. This has helped to create a false narrative about white superiority and black inferiority. Both whites and black have been socially conditioned and engineered to accept some harmful stereotypes.
The inventions and achievements that blacks have done are not known because no one wants to teach about blacks excelling.
Schools have for a long time taught that Thomas Edison invented a light bulb. Yet, it was Lewis Howard Latimer, a black man who invented the carbon filament to allow lights to continuously shine, not Edison, whose filament was paper made, meaning it did not give a lasting brightness. This is not taught in schools because at the centre of this achievement is a black man.
In 1721, a Ghanaian slave who had been sold into slavery to the Boston pastor shared with his master, Cotton Mather, information about the practice of variolation to cure small pox which had become an epidemic in the United States. This slave’s names at birth are not known, but he was named Onesimus by his slave master.
Onesimus told Mather that from his knowledge in Africa, they cured small pox. The procedure he described was variolation, which involved rubbing pus from a person with smallpox into an open wound on the arm of an uninfected individual. This process has been replaced by vaccination.
Unfortunately, very little is known about Onesimus because of the colour of his skin.
Children, both black and white, cannot be brought up in a society like this, where history is taught based on what is convenient to the teacher, and a certain group that controls the social hierarchies of society because of the colour of their skin.
There is need for people to go back in the past for the education of the entire human race. And until that effort is done to educate the entire human race, this will not stop. To keep saying there is nothing like white privilege is an old, boring song which in an era of modernity is being played on a gramophone.
Epistemic dissidence
History is written by the conqueror, not by the vanquished. History is written by the people, who do the harm, not by those who get harmed. And we need to go back and teach both sides of history.
In most cases, what is considered black history, or Africa’s history, are written stories and events that passed through European gatekeepers, who in turn have largely omitted the essentials of what truly transpired. The way the black man has been disparaged and dehumanised on the global stage means there is need for a revived consciousness among the African race to fight for an end to institutional racism and for meaningful education on black history.
Europeans, or Westerners in general, are scared not only of achievements by blacks, but are also scared of the Africans themselves because of their exceptionalism in mathematics, inventions and discoveries. Many Europeans have historically taken credit for African achievements. At times, the achievements have been belittled or made inferiorvto give Westerners centrality, giving birth to the problem of Eurocentrism.
Blacks need to be intellectual rebels and dissidents who are capable of intellectually deconstructing the deeply embedded assumption that European history, culture, and values are the universal standard for human progress, knowledge, and civilisation. This intellectual endeavour seeks to move away from viewing the world through a single, Western-centric lens and instead give recognition to the plurality of histories, philosophies, and knowledge systems, including the superiority of black excellence.
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