Fake-ass liberals

Self-Appointed Saviours of the Black Race

By Ambra Nykol

Not too long ago, I came into a new depth of understanding in regards to the social decay that is American liberal thought. Surprisingly enough, I have Michael Moore to thank for this. Despite commonly held beliefs, the man is indeed good for something. In a bold pre-election address on November 1, 2004, Moore wrote the following on his website:

“To African Americans:

First of all, let’s just acknowledge what you already know: America is a country which still has a race problem, to put it nicely. Al Gore would be president today had thousands of African Americans not had their right to vote stolen from them in Florida in 2000.

Here is my commitment: I will do everything I can to make sure that this will not happen again. And I’m not the only one making this pledge. Thousands of volunteer lawyers are flying to Florida to act as poll watchers and intervene should there be any attempts to deny anyone their right to vote. They will NOT be messing around.”

After I dragged myself from under his patronizing high-fallutination*, I came to three conclusions (in no particular order):

Listening or even giving credence to anything Michael Moore has to say is like giving an audience to a special-ed monkey.
Liberals, (white ones in particular) think more highly of themselves than they ought.
There is a certain segment of progressive America who remain unaware of their sub-conscious convictions that black people are complete idiots.

The arrogance of Moore’s missive runs deeper than his own narcissicism (which in and of itself is at Grand Canyon-sized proportions). Every day of the year the events taking place in America confirm suspicion number three.

Let’s begin with the recent controversy provoked by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and their recent halt to their “Animal Liberation” campaign which cleverly involved the juxtaposition of images of black slaves being shackled and branded with those of elephants and pigs in similar predicaments. The campaign wasn’t complete without a manipulative video to really stir the pot of confusion. In light of such events, it’s extremely coincidental that I received the following email:

To: Ambra Nykol
From: “Sandra”

Dear Friend:

I just came across an old blog of yours castigating PETA for its views on animals [Ambra’s note: I trash PETA quite a bit ’round these parts]. If they sound insane, just think: in slavery times the same thing was said about those who advocated rights for blacks! I recommend an enlightening book on the subject: The Dreaded Comparison by Marjorie Spiegel, foreward written by Alice Walker.

Peace.
Sandra

I’m not prone to publishing emails, but certain degrees of spoon-fed ignorance need to be nipped in the public bud so as to stop the sickness from spreading.

For starters (and this goes to both PETA and Sandra), black people are not animals; we are people. We didn’t come from monkeys, apes, or any other primate. We are not the ancestors of homo erectus nor did we arrive on the scene via some chance happening of events or racist evolution theory. We are human beings, and thanks to the sins of some men with too much power, we are probably related to you.

Whether it’s fish amnesty, the plight of the baby seal, Thanksgiving turkeys, or the extinction of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, one thing remains: no animal’s predicament can even venture into the vicinity of the suffering endured by American slaves so please stop the madness.

Alice Walker’s “famous-black-person-permission-slip” notwithstanding, blogger Baldilocks eloquently handles this bogus endorsement:

Alice told PETA it was okay to compare black humans to animals even though we’ve been insulted in that manner nearly from the first European-African contact. Why did Alice do that? Because it’s perfectly okay to allow leftists to use black people for any purpose as long as it’s against the oppressive, right-wing, Christian, heterosexual, meat-eating MAN and his lackeys.

It should also be noted that Alice Walker is a lesbian and a feminist which puts her right in alignment with the opposition being that last I checked, PETA had a sizable monopoly on the the lesbian-boho-anti-armpit-shaving crowd. (Remind me to talk about how the black community glosses over the sexuality of its prominent figures because yes, Luther Vandross was indeed gay and although this has little to do with the topic, I just needed to say that thank you very much).

Elsewhere in America, the battle over Ebonics-based education ensues.

My thoughts on dialect and vernacular aside (my propensity for making up words should clue you in to where I stand on the matter), I remain a member of the angry Bill Cosby school of thought which believes that at the very least, the public education system has a responsibility to equip students to reign in life and be productive members of society.

If you live in America and wish to be successful you have to learn the societally agreed-upon Standard American English. An educated approach to deviation is inappropriate for secondary school. Can we please just graduate kids with some sentence structure?

There are studies and theories flying around that “Ebonics” is “genetically-based.” In fact, The Oakland, California school board actually had the audacity to declare “Ebonics” the genetically-based language of black students. The fact that so many people have even considered this theory is simply reprehensible.

The list goes on. Even affirmative action zealots begin to speak of themselves as though they were saviors of the black race.

The danger of this all isn’t that the black community won’t be able to overcome the shortcomings of the past. The danger is a supposedly supportive liberal constituency whose followers don’t believe black people are capable of much.

Ambra Nykol is a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Soundpolitics.com, Seaspot magazine and Modestly Yours. She owns and blogs at nykola.com

Please e-mail comments to comments@thenewblackmagazine.com

Post Views: 1,747