By Kingsley Omose
The fact that African Americans were the ones enslaved for over 400 years and whose free labour built America and by extension, Europe’s capitalism is at the core of the American Sense of Reality.
In the midst of that you will find African Americans in America who have bucked this trend and have partaken of the American dream but the vast majority of them are hobbled by this sense of reality.
And this American sense of reality that is ingrained with racism can be changed but it will take a process that will require authenticity on all parts to reset that reality.
Yes, Nigerians and other Africans have come to the United States and prospered, but they do have a sense of history and can at least point to where they are coming from and what they have come to do in America.
The same applies to those from Asia, and the difficulty or inability of Caucasians in America to appreciate that the sense of reality on which their existence is built is White supremacy, is at the root of the problem.
In South Africa after the end of Apartheid, they had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to tackle this, and though the country is still a work in progress, it allowed for nation building to start on the right note.
In Germany where White supremacy was the driving force for World War 2, the Germans owned up to the evils and atrocities they committed especially to the Jews and this is taught in their schools.
America is still in denial keeping the evils and atrocities of slavery from it’s education system and refusing to acknowledge that the capital that constitutes the very foundation of the nation came from slavery.
It is about setting American records straight, incorporating this in the education system and giving due recognition to those whose labours built America and giving them equal opportunities as well.
The imperatives of American traditions that constitute it’s current sense of reality can be changed through answering this very straightforward question: What type of American do you want to have in another 30 – 50 years?
Once this is properly articulated to for instance exclude skin colour as a definer, the next step is to have an education system that can produce this type of American and train the teachers to deliver on this goal.
Up to the age of 6 or 7, children are not conscious of skin colour, the key is to have an education system that empasises this much overlooked conciousness that results in the definition of people according to their skin colour.
If an African American family lived in say France and had children there, the attitude of those children were they to relocate to the US for their university education would not be to define people according to skin colour.
This tells you that no one is born racist, it’s an acquired imperative that is environmentally influenced that produces the sense of reality, and that is what is ingrained in humans, the intangibles that define human actions.
That’s what the problem is, White supremacy that is visible is a non issue, the real danger is the invisible one that defines the sense of reality of Caucasians, in this case those in America.
Imagine if the wealth African Americans generated during the 400 years of slavery was retained by them, they would constitute the wealthiest Americans and probably also the wealthiest generationally in the world today.
The most valuable community in terms of contribution to the American dream has been it’s African American community yet for majority of them, attaining this dream remains an illusion, that is the tragedy.
When you read about what happened in Tulsa and Redmond in the 1920s to prospering African American communities that were razed to ground, you will realise that fear still pervades how they are viewed in America today.
When you regard what African Americans did as slaves when they were offering their labour for free under inhumane conditions, imagine how that will further transform the US when their full potential is harnessed.
So the rest of America needs African Americans to unleash their full potential and it will take a process to address this although immediate action such as police reforms and justice administration reforms are required.
Initiatives such as the 1619 Project have to be embraced and embedded in the American education system so as to change the narrative and celebrate the contributions of African Americans to what the world today knows as the American dream.
Kingsley Omose, a public policy analyst contributed this artilce from Lagos
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