Ozodi Thomas Osuji
It is really amazing how one idea leads to another. In the morning I
wrote a review of Carter Woodson’s book, the miseducation of the Negro. I
grappled with his tendency to locate most of the problems confronting
the Negro in white men. He has what psychologists call external locus
of control as opposed to internal locus of control. That is, he felt
that the external world was in charge of his (black folks) life as
opposed to him being in charge of his life. I typed the essay, as is
generally my wont, straight without stopping (it took about four hours
to type the twelve pages two part essay).
Thereafter, I began reading Yosef Ben-Jochannan’s book, Africa, the
Mother of Western Civilization. It is a huge book, 700 pages. I read a
few chapters and decided to go do some exercise.
I jogged for two hours. I was so pooped that I wished that I had
taken my wallet and called a cab to take me home. I simply did not have
the energy to even walk. I sat down and rested for a while.
Woodson’ tendency to blame it all on white folks reentered my mind and I
deliberately allowed my mind to do word association, just let that
thought provoke other thoughts and go with them. Here we go.
Every year many young Americans kill themselves in suicide. The
teenager who is likely to kill himself is generally a white or Japanese
teenager. He is likely to be the top student of his class. I used to
wonder how come African American teenagers seldom killed themselves (but
instead killed other black folk).
A Japanese man who has lost social face, feels humiliated easily kills
himself. If a Japanese Chief executive officer does something that
embarrasses his people, such as miss manage his company, tries his best
to fix the problem and could not fix it he feels that he is a failure
and feels shamed. He could leave his house and go into a bush and plunge
a sword into his heart and die.
(Nigerians who run down businesses merely laugh and blame their failure
on other people; killing themselves is out of the question; they say
that they love life too much to kill themselves.)
If
a white man experiences failure, such as lose his money in bad
investments he feels so bad that he might put a gun at his head and pull
the trigger and blow out his brains. White women often take over dose
of sleeping pills and die painlessly in their sleep.
(Mental health professionals know many things that they keep to
themselves and not bother the public with such facts; for example, if
you go to a high school graduation, you pretty much know that in a few
years two percent of those smiling kids would become schizophrenic and
or manic and many others would suffer depression, some of whom would
kill themselves. Yes, two out of every one hundred kids in a school
will become insane in a few years.)
The Chinese say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one-step
at a time (the Igbos say: Nwayo, nwayo ka eji na racha ofe di oku, you
eat a hot soup slowly and before you know it you have eaten all the
soup...meaning that all you have to do is start somewhere and before you
know it a difficult task is accomplished).
So, there is no point sitting there daunted by the prospect of walking
almost ten miles to my house. I took the first step and began walking
home. I did not get home until 8PM.
As I walked, naturally I thought. I had a Eureka moment, a flash of
insight as to why black folk do not commit suicide. It suddenly dawned
on me that there is correlation between their tendency to blame external
others for their fate and their tendency not to kill themselves and
tendency to kill other people.
When black folks experience problems they quickly locate the cause of
their problems outside them. It goes like this: First, they blame white
men for all their problems.
(As an aside it is interesting to observe that generally the white man
does not see himself as responsible for black folks problems; to the
contrary, he sees himself as their benefactor. African scholars blame
the West for their problems but the West sees itself as the one that
civilized Africa. How? Until the twentieth century no African country
by itself had formal elementary and secondary schools and universities;
it was the Europeans who built those for them. So, if they were as
civilized as they claim to be, how come they did not even have their own
schools? They usually talk of the university at Timbuktu, Sankore,
which existed before the white man came to their world but all the books
there were written in Arabic meaning that it was stimulated by Arabs.
The point is that by themselves they did not have schools; white men
gave formal schools to them and since schools are the primary means of
civilizing children thus feel like they civilized them.)
When Africans are not blaming Europeans for their problems they blame
other tribes; each tribe blames other tribes for its problems. In
Nigeria Igbos blame Yorubas or Hausas and those blame them for the
rotten state of their country; no tribe takes responsibility for the
fallen house that is Nigeria; it is always others fault that something
is not working right in the country.
Within the tribe each clan blames others for their issues (for example,
within Igbo tribe the various clans: Owerri, Onitsha, Ikwerri, Ika,
Wawa etc. blame each other for their problems).
Within clans kindred’s blame other kindred’s. Finally, individuals blame other individuals for their problems.
If you go to Igbo villages folks are always fighting each other. One
would accuse the other of causing his problems and they fight. They
would have a dispute over their lands and go home and take up their
machetes and go attack each other.
The point is that Africans and black folks in general tend to blame
other people for their problems and attack those they believe are
responsible for their problems.
They generally do not attack white folks for they know that the white
man has preponderance of fire power and would not hesitate in wiping
them out if they attack him...white America has an overkill of weapons,
including nuclear weapons and can wipe out all black Americans and
Africans within thirty minutes if they want to do so. Black men aware
of the military power of the white man do not attack them but sit on the
side lines blaming him for all that is wrong with their lives.
White conservatives say that they are not responsible for black folk’s
problems; they say that it is Negroes lack of intelligence that caused
their poverty.
White liberals feel guilty at black folk’s poverty and want to help
them but do so from the position of superiority not equality. You see,
even white liberals feel superior to Negroes; they may talk about racial
equality but would not want their children to go to the same schools
with Negro children for they think that Negro children are dummies and
would dumb down their own children. When Negro families move into white
neighborhoods white families run away, they move to as far away from
Negroes as they could for they do not want their children socializing
with black children which leads to intermarriage, a situation they dread
for they think that it would result in offspring that are not
intelligent. On the other hand, they know that in measured intelligence
Asians are smarter than white folks so they do not mind if their
children married Asians for the offspring would become as smart as
Asians (no one wants to be close to perceived dumb people).
HEURISTIC HYPOTHESIS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
My hypothesis is that Africans seldom commit suicide because they
locate the source of their problems externally. Europeans and Japanese
locate the source of their problems internally and take responsibility
for their problems, feel depressed and kill themselves.
Africans think that other people are the cause of their problems hence
merely feel angry at other people and if they could attack and kill
them.
Let me illustrate how this works. The other day I was downtown. I was
walking and, as usual, was unaware of my surroundings. I am usually
preoccupied by some thought and often do not see where I am going.
Apparently, I must have bumped into this man and he began yelling at the
top of his voice at me. In a minute he must have called me every put
down name within his limited vocabulary. As my training disposes me to
do, when another person raises his voice at me, or is appearing to want
to attack me, I keep quiet. I am trained in anger management and know
that if the other guy is angry that you do not want to exacerbate his
anger by talking back to him or defending yourself. You do not want to
make it seem like he is the cause, not you of whatever makes him angry;
so, you just allow him ventilate, talk his heart out and say nothing.
Thus, I stood there as this angry black man cursed me out. “Can’t you
watch out for where you are going, you son of a black bitch? Why did you
bump into me, you mother fucker, you cock sucking nigger”. In a few
seconds what came out of that man’s mouth was incredible. When he
finally calmed down, I said I am sorry and walked away.
I then reflected on what happened. The man was probably already angry;
something else already made him angry and he was displacing his anger at
me. Perhaps, he was made angry by white folks and he could not talk
back to them and when he found a black man that seemed to have wronged
him he attacked him verbally.
Black America is aware that white America is screwing it royally but
knows that it can do nothing about it and live in smoldering anger. When
another black man offends them they vent their rage at that black man.
These way black teenagers kill other black teenagers. Those who only an
hour ago were calling each other my hommie, my home boy, my hood buddy
blow each other’s head off upon the slightest provocation.
Black on black crime is very high (and so is black on Mexicans
crime...they always attack the weak but not the powerful, white folks,
for they know what the man is capable of doing to them...bring his army
into the hood and raise it down; the man after all is heartless; they
didn’t call him psychopathic for nothing!).
Black folks are each other’s worst nightmares. All the white man needs
to do is sit back, kick back, grab a can of beer, relax and “watch them
niggers wipe each other off”.
Let me reiterate: black folks locate the cause of their problems
outside them and attack the source not themselves. They feel angry at
external others not at themselves.
Black folk seldom feel depressed because they do not see themselves as
the cause of their problems. Instead of depression, they feel paranoid.
A paranoid person is a dangerous person for he believes that other
people caused his problems, made him seem imperfect, and attacks them.
Paranoid persons are always murdering those they think caused their
problems.
Depressed persons, on other hand, think that they caused their own
problems and attack themselves (depression is anger redirected at one’s
self; suicide is self-attack).
The Black man seldom becomes clinically depressed (feel that life is
not worth living, and give up on life) and self annihilates; instead, he
sees other people as the cause of his problems and kills them. Black
husbands think that their wives caused their problems and verbally
attack them.
On the other hand, white folks are likely to feel that they are
responsible for their problems, feel depressed and blow their heads off
with a shot gum.
The cumulative effect is that black folks live despite their awful
situation. One would think that given their horrible poverty and poor
living circumstances that they would be killing themselves at a higher
rate.
Now I get it. They tolerate their shitty situation because they see the
cause of their problems as outside them and feel angry at it, not
themselves. They live (if they did not kill each other) because they do
not accept responsibility for the cause of their problems.
Nigerians live in amazing squalor and do not commit suicide. This is
largely because Nigerians blame other persons for their problems. Some
even say that they are the happiest people on earth. They are probably
happy for how else do you account for their rapid breeding? They have
gone from a small population to 160 million and are projected to hit 200
million soon!
(A cynic friend of mine asks: what are they happy for; what are they
really living for? They do not contribute to science and technology so
what are they living for? Is it enough to just be alive? Well, they
have oil money to keep them alive and when oil runs out starvation dawns
and they die off. I bet that when they no longer have oil money more
than half of Nigeria’s population would die off within a few years;
nature would return the country to what its land could support which is
no more than fifty million people. Thomas Malthus where are you!).
Black folk blame other folk and as a result do not easily feel
depressed and kill themselves. This is the secret of their survival in
the face of abuse and sorrow.
I blame myself for everything wrong in my life. I have internal locus
of authority and take charge of my life. I do not blame others for my
problems. Like my mother I have a tendency to depression (dysthymia, not
clinical, major depression).
Unlike us, Africans do not feel depressed; they tend to paranoia and blame other folks for their problems.
I tried to get Africans to blame themselves for their problems but did
not realize that if they followed my advice they would become like me
and my mother and develop the capacity for depression. But they do not
want to be depressed so they must blame other people for their problems.
I had better leave them to be where they are at, for depression is not
a positive feeling. However, I also know that those who blame other
folks for their problems cannot develop themselves.
As long as black folks blame other persons for their problem they would
always be last in everything human beings do. They have to learn to
take responsibility for their lives if their lives are to improve.
Any way, it is not my function to make them take responsibility for their problems.
From a therapeutic point of view, it is pointless blaming one’s self or
blaming other people for our problems. It does not matter who caused
our problems; what we need to do is solve them without blaming ourselves
or other selves. Who cares who caused our problems, just tackle them.
Study human problems and solve them regardless of who caused them. I
don’t care whether white men caused my problems or not I just want to
solve them.
DISCUSSION
I bet you that one of the reasons that African leaders are unable to do
the right things by their people is because they deep down do not see
themselves as responsible for their people’s welfare; they probably do
not believe that they should care for other people. This probably
accounts for why you do not see pain on their faces.
Nigeria has over 50% youth unemployment and amazing poverty but you do
not see pain from identification with their peoples suffering on their
leaders faces. Indeed, you do not see them age (in offices Western
politicians quickly age apparently from the weight of the offices, which
includes worrying about the peoples welfare; a year in the white house
generally makes American presidents hair turn grey).
Clinically we know that those prone to depression tend to be more
mature than those prone to paranoia. Those prone to paranoia tend to
remain more or less immature (if you blame other people for your issues
as paranoid persons do you are immature; if you take responsibility for
your issues as those prone to depression do, you tend to be mature).
Because black folk tend to blame other people for their issues and
tend to be more paranoid many observers say that that is one reason they
tend to be immature and flippant in their understanding of phenomena
(consider seeing the whole race’s issues from a sociological perspective
only, as black studies folks do, and ignore the role played by biology
and existential matters).
My God, what am I doing? I am beginning to do what I have always
refused to do, stereotype the races. Many white psychologists see black
people more different from white folks (for example, that black folk
have lower IQ than white folks); I am beginning to fall into that trap.
I just hope that my observations in this essay are wrong for if it is
correct that there are differences in the races, then there is no hope
for the black race (for example, if black folk can only blame others for
their issues and do not take responsibility for their peoples issues
obviously they cannot govern Africa properly and the continent is bound
to remain a place of sorrows in the midst of plenty...there is so much
resources in that land that if responsible people ruled it the
continent would be the richest in the world but instead it remains the
poorest in the world).
CONCLUSION
The hypothesis advanced in this essay is heuristic; it needs to be
studied, verified as true and accepted and if not true discarded.
I wish that there are academic black psychologists here who could
study this intuition reached view; I mean do empirical research and come
up with supportive evidence for it and if none refute it.
I can see a graduate student in clinical and or cognitive psychology do his PhD dissertation on this topic.
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