The Panacea

For a Myriad of Black People's Problems

     Having recently celebrated 50 years of being proud and aware of my Blackness, I have been reassessing.  'Does militantly asserting my right to be defined as Black benefit me?'

     I do believe I was less assertive in integrated company before I was Black.  I  was often intimidated and had an inferiority complex around Whites. Indeed, my Blackness cured that, Fa sho'. But, is there any negative price for forcing the world to call me Black? Isn't there some baggage, also.

     What if I could tell you how to get everybody who is not Black to drop every negative connotation bein' Black has? What if I could tell you how to get any job you are qualified for and want, badly.  What if I could make everyone you encountered but did not know have high expectations of you?

     Naw, but you would not do it.  Even though you know what I say is true, you won't even attempt it, even though it's not illegal, immoral, or physically taxing.

     Think deeply about what I am suggesting.  The next time you fill out an application or questionnaire that asks your race, put "Negro". If the boxes are "African American" or "Black", cross them out and write "Negro".

      If questioned, say you are proud to be a "Negro" because everyone knows Negroes are dependable, agreeable, and will work twice as hard as everybody on the job or team for that matter.

     Jackie Robinson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Duke Ellington, and a plethora of renown others were Negroes and proud of it.  If you proudly represent yourself as a Negro, the positive traditions - the struggles, the achievements connoted in that no longer despised name, qualify you for special treatment that you don't even have to demand.

      To be delineated from N*gg*s is worth it in itself.  There are no Negro Crips, Bloods, terrorists, drug dealers, pimps, or prostitutes, and it's unusual for a Negro to go to jail or abandon his/her family. Almost all Negroes are devoted to The Almighty and love to read.  They are industrious and assets to any organization.

      Yes, in fact, I'm going to insist on being addressed as a Muslim Negro rather than African American or Black which, generally, imply (whether we like it or not) racist tendencies and an angry history.  And, most definitely, the terms do not concoct positive imagery to Whites or Blacks, or even other Muslims.  Bilal ibn Rabah (S.A.W.) was a Muslim Negro and a spiritual icon in Islamic history, nevertheless, we, still, disdain the term "Negro". 

      Whereas, African American, Black, and certainly, N*gg*  are no longer positive descriptive appellations for us, it is time for a change. And, I believe "Negro" would be a most effective and easily adapted to alternative.