Recently I have been
thinking, that I am glad South African apartheid was gone before Alicia Keyes, Rihanna & Beyoncé
were born because I really believe that they would have performed there just to
get a check. Now I am not holding the
aforementioned to the platitudes of others like Stevie Wonder or an AliceWalker or MayaAngelou, who in their youth and currently were more conscious and global than
the three cited previously, but I am questioning how lost one has to be to take
a stance against nations and regimes that treat people like cattle?
Recently I just
learned that Beyoncé has just informed the world that she will be performing in
Israel in this year on June 15. Now I am certain that many who have been
hammered and for lack of a better word Beyonceified, do not see this as a big
deal. But I would also speculate that
the same folk were not even around let alone born when Apartheid was alive and
well in South Africa.
We should all be
aware of the issues that presently and historically confront Palestinians, in
particular children whom are frequently used as targets while walking to school
by West Bank settlers and the Israeli military.
This I hope is a given, but what I am more concerned with, which is
rarely addressed, is the manner in which Blacks and Africans are treated in
Israel.
Over the past
few years, the Israel government, under the panoply of Zionism and the desire
for a pure Jewish state, have been rounding up Africans and
placing them in detention camps they way Hitler rounded up Jews and placed them
in concentration camps. The only reason why, is because they are black and
Africa and politicians openly state this to the public. The official policy is
to treat them as animals in the exact same fashion South African Whites treated
blacks during apartheid and this is not an over statement. This short film can
show you in images what my words will never be able to convey.
Africans in Israel are
frequently attacked violently in the streets of Israel and there homes,
apartments and businesses are often the targets of arson and fire bombings,
just like blacks were targeted in the South in the United States during the
1960s. But the Israel government even takes it back to the way in which the
United States treated many black women and force sterilize African women in
Israel today without their knowledge or permission. Just a few weeks ago, CCTV
recorded an Assailant caught beating an African refugee at Tel Aviv port for no
apparent reason.
I would go on, but my
goal is not to belabor but rather question how could a person not realize that
playing in Israel is giving tacit support and approval to an apartheid regime,
the same way such was during Apartheid in South Africa? I really do wonder what many of the
entertainers of this generation think (if they think at all) about what they do
and what their actions represent. Whether it is Nicki Minaj defacing Malcom X
or Lil Wayne denigrating Emmett Till, or Yo Gotti taking the classic ‘I AM A
MAN” sign used in the Memphis garbage strikes in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was
assassinated and changing it to “I AM A GANGSTER.”
Albeit consequential, I
have decided to call this the Beyoncé effect. She is no different than any of
the other examples have mentioned, it just so happen she is the latest to show
her ignorance regarding how blacks outside of New York and Houston are being
treated today. It is this Beyoncé effect, in my opinion that is causing the re-Negrofication
of Black America. And by re-Negrofication I mean the dumbing down of a
community to the extent where being informed, well read and supportive of proactive
self-determination is a worthless morality when compared to the dollar bill.
Re-negrofication takes effort because as Benjamin Franklin said, "We are
all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."
