The Essential Selfishness of Survival

Chancellor Williams writing in his eminently readable and enjoyable Destruction of Black Civilization, informs the global Black collective that one of the costliest mistakes made by our ancient African ancestors in Egypt was a series of misguided immigration policies that allowed non-African ethnic groups to create beach-heads in Egypt. These beach-head were later transformed into permanent breaches of Black hegemony in Egypt and in other parts of the African continent.

Africans have been accused on many things historically. Regrettably, inhospitality to foreigners does not seem to be one of the flaws ascribed to Africans past or present. Black people seem to live by a philosophy of live and let live. This is borne out by the reality that just about any ethnic group can come and set up shop among Africans and thrive. A Chinese restaurant will thrive in an all-Black community. The reverse is hardly likely to happen however.

Blacks, due to economic impediments either of their own creation or systemically created by other ethnic groups seem quite content to allow other ethnic groups to supply them with everything from apples to xylophones. Our great elder John Henrik Clarke lambasted the global Black collective for its inability to even produce a safety pin to secure baby diapers.

Elder Clarke in one of a long line of Black thought leaders who have underscored the need for the Black collective to take responsibility for the production of its own survival needs. Elder Clarke and others remind us that our inability to produce for ourselves that which is needed to guarantee our survival dooms us to always being beggars at the gates of other ethnic groups.

In his book Powernomics African American author Claude Anderson makes the point that Black people tend to bounce their money around in their own community the least. Jews, Chinese. Indians, and Europeans tend to prefer to spend their money within their ethnic grouping. The deficit in the ownership of the means of production of many essential goods forces Black people to spend most of their money in businesses owned by people of other ethnicities.

Anderson adds that this sad state of business affairs in Black communities explains why other ethnic groups grow rich in Black communities while Black people continue to eke out a meager existence. Other ethnicities benefit by keeping the money they generate within their own communities while simultaneously capturing most of the money generated by the Black community.

The Caribbean is currently following the same trajectory as ancient Egypt. The further back in antiquity we go the Blacker Egypt appears to be. Not even the most racist of historians can deny the presence of Black dynasties of Pharaohs in ancient Egypt. The Black rulers of Egypt, perhaps anticipating the Asian and Caucasian--washing of Egyptian history, left great monument in stone to instruct future generations about who were the shakers and movers in ancient Egyptian History. The Sphinx, even with its disfigured nose still testify to the greatness of Black people in ancient Egypt.

The original Black inhabitants of Egypt seem to have suffered the same fate as most of the indigenous people of the Caribbean and the Americas. As the European plague spread from Europe to the world that was new to Europeans, the indigenous populations were forced to uproot themselves and seek the protection of terrain that was less suited to population growth. Indigenous people who chose to stand up and fight back, drained the genocidal cup placed to their lips by diabolical Europeans who were prepared to conquer by any means necessary.

Ancient Egypt was repeatedly invaded by Asians hordes, European marauders, and finally by the religious zealots of Islam. Africans encouraged these invaders by allowing them to settle on African land, marry African wives, and rise to positions of leadership in ancient Africa. The offspring of Africans and the invaders tended to identify more with their invading fathers rather than with the African mothers whose status was very often close to that of a slave.

The lax immigration policies of Black Egyptians eventually led to a coalition between the Asian invaders and their offspring that waged war for control of Lower Egypt. Egypt was eventually divided into two kingdoms. Lower Egypt was ruled by the Afro-Asians and full-blooded Asian while Upper Egypt continued to be ruled by Black Africans.

Already we have seen two Caribbean countries go the way of ancient Egypt. Black demographic dominance has been replaced by Asian demographic dominance in the Guyana and in Trinidad. Other Caribbean countries are experiencing a significant increase in the Asian presence in their populations. A local comedian and calypsonian on the island of Barbados has warned that Barbados might be the next Caribbean nation to fall prey to the Asian invasion.

Master teacher John Henrick Clarke is on record reminding Black people that no ethnic group has ever come among African people to uplift and benefit us. It was Elder Clarke who advocated the concept of Africans learning to put into practice what he referred to as the essential selfishness of survival.

Since Africans are risking life and limb to get into xenophobic Europe and the US, there is absolutely no reason why Caribbean governments should not be opening the doors to African immigrants and encouraging them to come and settle in the Caribbean. A new wave of African immigration may be necessary to ensure that these lands in the Caribbean that have been made sacred by the blood, sweat, and tears of our African ancestors remain within the ambit of Black political hegemony.

President Trump is unabashed in his championship of America first and foremost. Every ethnic group places the needs of their group at the top of their priority list whether they verbalize it or just quietly go about realizing this objective. Africans may be late to the ball game of the essential selfishness of survival but we have to no choice but to enter this game if we want to be a viable ethnic group in the new global order that is emerging.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.