That’s exactly where I draw the parallel.
There was a great book about the Rwanda Genocide called “Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa” written by Keith Richburg, a liberal black American reporter writing for the Washington Post who spent three years in Somalia, Rwanda, and South Africa covering events there.
He was in Rwanda during the genocide.
As a black American, he had preconceptions about Africa that were completely wrong, and it was very disillusioning to him. He thought, as a black man, that he would be able to mingle in the general population of black people and be accepted as one of them.
He was distressed to find out that even though, to a greater or lesser degree, he shared skin color characteristics with both the Tutsis and Hutus, that what was absolutely vital was to not have the wrong bone structure in your face, and he unfortunately had faint traces of the “wrong” facial bone structure, which put him on the “wrong” side in a population of people who were being hacked to death alive with machetes because they looked different.
He was very much in danger, and he knew it.
He realized then what a precious, precious privilege it had been to be an American his whole life. He saw REAL racism, where the things that were called “racism” in America were not worth a penny of worry in a country where if you had the wrong physical characteristics that put you into a different tribe, you would get worse racism than someone who looked at you nervously.
You would get people who chose to murder you slowly by chopping off a hand, watching you bleed and scream, then chopping off the arm, then the feet, and the legs, and if you were lucky, your head.
When he came back to America, he said publicly “Frankly, I want no part of it” and “Thank God my ancestor got out, because, now, I am not one of them.”
He was excoriated by American blacks who had the same silly fantasy about their “ancient heritage” in Africa that he once held, but did not have the experience he had, which was that people regarded as racists America were quite different from the racists he saw in Rwanda, and he got taste of the real racism in a continent he thought would be free of it to an American black man.
Thomas Sowell wrote about this man’s experience for the Hoover Institute, and Keith Richburg ended up, he says, hating the Somalis “because they betrayed me” and hating himself “for having been so wrong, for setting myself up for the betrayal.”
And in the end, he realized just how wrong his typically American childish fantasies about Africa and Africans were all wrong, and he was disillusioned to realize that racism wasn’t just a “white” thing (many blacks, including him, naively believed that it is impossible for blacks to be “racist”) but came to fully understand that not only could blacks be far more virulently racist than any white person he had ever seen, they were racist for the same reasons...on the basis of the “shade” of the skin, or the bone structure in the face, and worse, they were inclined to express their racism in open, horrible, violent murder.
One can imagine how he felt, coming back to America, the fabled land of racism, and realizing just how non-racist it in reality the USA really is. Worse, to realize the truth that blacks are no better, and may be far, far more worse in their racism, and how they express it, something that made him an “Uncle Tom” to many American blacks and white liberals when he voiced this truth.
This man’s journey though Africa destroyed a lot of his personal totems and sacred cows many black Americans (though not all) have about Africa.
i lived in Africa in the late 80’s and there is tons of tribal/ skin color conflict among the locals.
interesting to see for sure.
I also lived in the mid East in the early 90’s and no one wanted blacks there either.
I have heard a real African joke from some guy from Sudan.
The only real African joke, I have ever heard!
A Sudanese came to visit America. They took him around and then he asked - “It is great, but where are the Blacks?”
“Just look, they are all over the place. Here, there, ..”
“No, these are not Blacks, those are the Arabs!”
explanation - Sudan is (was) a mixed race nation. in the North, there are people of mixed African and Arabic heritage, speaking mostly Arabic. so internally called “Arabs”. In the South, especially now, within the South Sudan, there the real Blacks live.
And as to "America, the fabled land of racism, and realizing just how non-racist it in reality the USA really is," I think without doubt that the American Left -- from Congress to the White House now -- are busy selling the "fable" and as such are the true racists of today.
Interesting. Thank you for taking the time to share that!
“He realized then what a precious, precious privilege it had been to be an American his whole life. “
Muhammad Ali famously said after getting a good look at Africa that he was glad his ancestors had been snatched up and put on a ship to America.
Thanks for taking the time to write that, RL. Those are excellent and revealing insights from Messrs. Richburg and Sowell. I never knew that facial bone structure was a key factor in African racism. That’s as nonsensical as whether you worship God or Allah.
Africa has all four underlying factors at work causing wholesale slaughter — skin tone, bone structure, religion and tribe. Of course, the first three determine which tribe you belong to.
The liberals, leftists and communists have worked hard the past few decades to utterly destroy the tradition of American unity around the founding ideals of freedom and self-governance and make us all warring tribal members. Victor Davis Hanson has been pointing this out for a long time.
Thanks...good info!
A lot of people in this country regardless of race are completely ignorant as to how absolutely blessed as well as spoiled they.are to live in America.
One main reason being they’ve never lived abroad and experienced other cultures even for a short period of time.
They think their rights and freedoms extend past the CONUS to everywhere else in the world and nothing could be further from the truth.
As an example I submit brittney griner......after her realization the Russia didn’t give 2 shits about her percieved protected status she finally understood that all the crap she’d been fed about how racist America is was total BS......know how I know? You haven’t hear a peep out of her since she got back and the media completely dropped it.
As an example
Very interesting and insightful article you wrote. Seems to hold true wherever there are multi tribe societies such as Afica, Middle East, American indians of yesteryear. Now it applies to the red/blue split in modern America..there is no path to reconcilliation.
Excellent post. (As usual...)
Thank you for mentioning this story.
Is that all together on a web page that I can steer folks to?
I have black friends that I worked with and still keep up with. They are good standard people but do have some delusions about Africa.