Thursday, November 20, 2008
Al Qaeda channels Malcom X
FP Passport squints at al Qaeda's "house Negro" video and wonders whether it is an attempt to pander to racist Arab Muslims, citation of Malcom X notwithstanding. Maybe. Either way, the Field Negro is none too happy:
Here is the thing Ayman: you can't just go throwing out the house Negro field Negro references out there. That is my job, and I take that shit seriously. (BTW, thanks for all the web traffic, now that you have every white person in A-merry-ca googling house Negro) I study this thing. You have to know your subjects and what brought them to house Negro or field Negro status. The O man is not a house Negro. In fact, the closest he has ever been was to the patio. Yes he will be living in the (really big) house, but he is not a house slave; he runs that shit. He answers to no one. He is massa. To call him a house Negro would be missing the entire point of just who a house Negro is, and what he represents. And another thing: we field Negroes helped to elect him and put him in the house, so we have no problem with him being there. In fact, we wanted him there. So when you call him a house Negro you are calling all the Negroes who put him there house Negroes as well. That is not cool. If you are trying to get black folks and Muslims in A-merry-ca to sympathize with your cause, this ain't the way to do it, you are only alienating some of the folks here. Have you ever heard the word Obamaholic? (emphasis in original)
Heh.
2 Comments:
By 
Unknown, at
Thu Nov 20, 01:21:00 PM:
I suspect that it was indeed an attempt to pander to racism. A few months I went to talk about black bedouin in Israel. The speaker grew up near one of their communities.
According to him, the term Abid (or Abeed as I saw it transliterated) literally means slave, but its connotations are closer to the N word.
The speaker said he was taught as a boy never to use that word in reference to black people, it was considered a grave insult.
Given my limited knowledge, I can only suspect racism. It would be nice to get an opinion from someone with first hand experience.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Nov 20, 07:33:00 PM:
Seriously, what makes people think that Ayman meant it in the American sense? He probably doesn't even *know* the American sense.
Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in... 1972. When Malcolm X went to Mecca on Hajj, the slavery of blacks had been outlawed for about a year. (a fact of which he apparently remained blissfully unaware) In Mauritania, it wasn't outlawed (technically) until 1980.
There is a whole other world of anti-black racism out there.
Aside: The African slave trade was WAY larger going to the Middle East than to the Americas.
