Among those who have spoken out on racism and white supremacy since the Charleston, South Carolina massacres is hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco. On June 21, Fiasco delivered a thoughtful reflection on the bankruptcy and futile nature of white supremacy in human society reprinted here.
(Instagram) – Things are created in collaboration and in tandem with other cultures, knowledge structures and movements and more important, People. I mean if those Muslims didn’t catalog all that Greek philosophy for research we might not even know who Plato was. Now whether this collaboration is forced, which is seen so much but not exclusively throughout human history, does not take away the fact that it is done with the help of somebody else.
We are supreme as a spectrum of colors in collaboration. One color does not dominate the other nor can it. Sure Steve Jobs was white. But the guy who built the computer was probably Chinese. And the girl who wrote the programs for the computer is probably from Mumbai. And the raw materials that were used to make it where probably first pulled out of the ground by somebody in South Africa. And if you take this highly collaborated upon piece of high technology to an indigenous tribe in the jungles of Brazil they’d probably use it as a boat paddle. And we can go on and on down or up the rabbit hole all day long and you’ll always find a regular somebody relying on the abilities of a just as regular somebody else that another regular somebody doesn’t even care about.
White Supremacy is a lie white regularists tell to themselves in hopes that they can get a one way ticket to the top and hope we other colors overhear it. Here’s the bad news, ain’t no top. Here’s the good news though, ain’t no bottom neither! It’s just the regular ole middle where nobody is safe from being influenced by somebody else’s extreme regularness. Is your swastika flag printed in Mexico? Did you know the swastika is originally from Asia and the subcontinent? Did you know black people had slaves in Africa too? Did you know in the world your considered a minority too? I mean you call us niggers and beaners but you gotta ship all your formerly Native American land, backwood sourced ginseng to China to get money to support your meth habit. Meth that’s made with chemicals produced in India. I mean Hitler hated everything about the Jews expect every possession they had.
It’s funny how the things you hate so much you have to rely on the most for your survival.
Photo: Lupe Fiasco performs in Sydney, Australia, in 2012. (Eva Rinaldi/CC/Wikipedia)
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