ColumnsDon OkoloOpinion“It’s a White Man’s World” —A reflective parody of James Brown’s legendary lyrics

Avatar PilotnewsJanuary 13, 2021

Whether this country lives or dies is in the hands of the white race. Not in the hands of Antifa. Not with the clamoring, baying demands of BLM

―Don Okolo

Indeed, it is a man’s world. Maybe, it isn’t. I couldn’t have said so, considering that I had a mother with the same abilities to challenge any man in mind and in the muscle of purpose and tenacity. Inside the constructs of strict, straight-on-the-arrow morals and ethics, most women possess the know-how to stand firm on the grounds they themselves had cultivated…on solid reasonings and fair shakes. Most mothers would disagree with the godfather, James Brown, on his ageless, soulful strutting of his legendary piece, ‘This is a Man’s World’. But then, the song heralds, the world would be nothing for men without a woman or a girl in the mix.

For the sake of this article, it is more like, ‘This is a White Man’s World’. At least, in the United States, it is. The history of the world is replete with the disharmonies following the white man around: Hong Kong, South Africa, the entire West African rainforest belt, and India, were colonies they just recently walked away from. It was from this same vein of white men that the United States was born. Overwhelmed by the topography, the sheer vastness of her newly acquired kingdom…the sprawling escapades through unstructured countryside he was unable to tame, and the native badasses she tried to bamboozle and finally conquered, the white man, and his band of gunslingers got back on that boat that brought them north and sailed back south through the Atlantic till they docked in the Bight of Biafra.

The fact that they indiscriminately broke up Black Africa’s families never affected them.

From that bay, they traveled inland, conquering territories and communes nestled in the deepest recesses of the rainforest, looting with vehemence, loading up works of art and culture in house-boat sized bags. Yes, they did. By stealing these works, they inadvertently stole Black Africa’s culture…in a way, to augment their own. But it was the Kunta Kintes, the Shaka Zulus they came for; they exchanged paltry rations and gunpowder for men and women they dragged into dinghies for the long, arduous trip across the Atlantic. I repeat; free labor was the most potent reason why they came; men and women feeling the shackles about their necks would readily work the white man’s new kingdom. The fact that they indiscriminately broke up Black Africa’s families never affected them. One would have to have a hole in his soul to engage in such despicable bartering of humans. In these slave ships were the pillaged goods they had stolen. From this trade, the so-called New World sprung. And hence, the great United States of America, blossomed. Four hundred years now and counting. In truth, nothing much has changed since then. You would think that after slaves had labored for more than four centuries, and had built this new empire on free labor, that a measure of empathy would set in…that black people would have earned their freedom from the insipid, and the caricatured. No, that never happened.

Hear this: I am not writing this to rehash the plight of the black race at the hands of the white man. Screw that!!! I am writing this to reiterate what the white man believes he was created to do. His belief on this is unwavering; he believes that he owns the freaking world. Period. In truth, if he shot a man in broad daylight, and with ten thousand people watching, he would get away with it. You would agree with me if I told you that, if the man he shot was a black man, his chances of getting away with murder is even higher. (That’s a fact) This same white man could live a happy life on any corner of the earth he chooses without fear of being harassed. I did try to figure how much being a white man is worth, and I came up with this astronomical figure of it being $$$$$$priceless. It is, indeed, incalculable. Ask yourselves this: how many times have you heard that a black policeman shot and killed an unarmed white man? I will bet you a quid and a dollar to find a case of such in the past twenty years. I have been in the United States for over forty years and have yet to hear that a white boy was shot by a black police officer. It just never happens. For George Floyd to be killed in broad daylight, the killer cop must have had an alliteration of the craziest verbiage in a loop as his knees were planted solidly on his neck: ‘I will get away with this. I could snuff the life outa him and walk. He is black. I am white’. He committed murder in the most stylistic way ever; his hands were in his pocket. That lackadaisical attitude, the calmness this killer cop brought into the murdering scheme, and game, inside the biggest swirls and rushes of adrenalin redefines devilish eccentricity.

Look up the history of the justice system and see who bears the brunt.

Think about the hell they put Obama through. Look up the history of the justice system and see who bears the brunt. Look up the history of Banking and her loan schemes, and the wildly insouciant approach practiced on blacks in Real Estate redlining schemes. Go ahead, look them up. I’ll wait. You have been warned! You will be heart-broken at the naked cruelty as practiced by these runners of economic institutions. It is unending as it is vast…because the white man is unrelenting in the way he conducts life’ improbable, acrimonious symphony. What drives them to keep things unchanged? Which brings me to the events that happened on the 6th of January 2021…the Capitol murders…the Capitol invasion…the attempt to slash the throat of democracy as she was deliberating. I am not going to bring in Antifa, Black Lives Matter into this equation. I am leaving them out…even as they are already blaming these two groups for the Capitol insurrection. Antifa, we all know, is not an organization; it is an ideology. BLM is an organization…and should be. We know what would have happened if BLM organizers and their members had stormed the Capitol.

I’d rather talk about the white man’s awesome privilege. (Easy now. Satirizing here) If you owned the latest nineteen million-dollar Bugatti, you would cherish it; you would be, on occasion, afraid to drive it around for fear some drunken, Scooby doo, with the driving abilities of a dimwit would crash into you. You will treat it as you would a platoon of possessive brothers in their quest to protect an only sister. That is the beauty of white privilege. (There, I go again!) You see, those that own it, would protect it with everything they’ve got. If you owned it, you too would know the two-faced game well enough you would serve it hot on the platter to keep your grip on the downtrodden…like the lying, spineless, Ted Cruz; freshman Senator, pretty boy, Josh Hawley; Texas twister’s twin brother, Louie Gohmert; the quintessential aberration and supreme roadside harlot of misinformation, Tucker Carlson; the fat 4%#$, Rush Limbaugh; Fox News’ deplorable femme fatale, Laura Ingraham; twenty-first century’s only bad lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; the one whose fashion begins when used and staled by other men, Congressman, Jim Jordan; Caligula in the flesh, Sean Hannity; God’s second regrettable creation, Alex Jones; God’s third regrettable creation, Stephen Miller; pro-Trump lawyer and the one who started the chant to have VP Mike Pence, and Nancy Pelosi killed on the scene, Lin Wood; three of humanity’s deadliest crawlers, Mark Levin, Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro: Two more; Breitbert News’ con man and hater of humanity, Steve Bannon, and the foul-mouthed, top of the food chain predator, P-Funk, no, P-grabber, Donald Trump. These are your frontline progenitors of grief. The rest of us are awed with their cult-like adulation of the most hateful, narcissist in the White House…in the world.

If you are white, and in the mold of Bernie Sanders, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Former MSNBC anchorman, Keith Obermann, and Morning Joe’s duo, Mika Brzezinski and hubby, Joe Scarborough, or you are a white person inside the eighty-one-plus million people who voted for humanity, thank you.

The white man would be the one to bring down this country

Now that I have pretty much cleared the tortuous pathway leading to the sanctuary where these demented souls are reclined, and would most likely live out their miserable lives, you should know that the bane of this country rests with the white man. The white man would be the one to bring down this country…and consequently those of us living in her womb would suffer collateral damage. Whether this country lives or dies is in the hands of the white race. Not in the hands of Antifa. Not with the clamoring, baying demands of BLM…and neither would the destruction originate from any other race of people. For these men and women to invade the Government’s sacred ground, in an effort to keep Donald Trump in power, they must believe that overturning the election would get them to where they want to be…that Donald Trump is the one, and the only one, to get them the extras…the sweeter emoluments…the munificence…and that includes, money and power…where the rest of us would shrink and tremble, and would stay bent-double in their presence waiting for a beck and a call from them.

Try having a conversation with white supremacists. You may want to ask them why their beliefs are rooted so deeply and anchored so wickedly. If you do, try asking them to explain their beef with the rest of us. Try asking them what it is that they want…and see if you can get a satisfying answer to compel you to change your own POV. Ask them if there are things they would want the United States to offer them…that the country hadn’t gotten around to granting them. Why is the rank-and-file GOP filled with cow-hand cowardly haters? Could that be why blacks are missing in that line-up? But then, it is among these abnormalities you would find some of the greats among men…and they too are white. The great filmmaker, Michael Moore reminded us; ‘There are more of us…the good ones, that is.’

Insurrection, in politics, is a crime…and in many countries, punishable by death.

If you have tears, you should be shedding them now. I am offering, Dolly Parton’s ‘Eagle When She Flies’ to you…to conclude this. With the cowardly attack on the Capitol, no other song comes to mind. The greatness of this country is encapsulated in the lyrics of that one song. I am inclined to allow you snippets of it…what the lady lyricist and impresario wrote about women folk. Not necessarily in the lyrical order that she sang it: What I have for you is a muddled compilation, a sampling of that vintage but scintillating, twenty-eight carat harmony…the only ditty of supreme ballad, that keeps me welled up emotionally. It brings tears to my eyes each time I hear the music. In my mind, the United States is written all over this masterpiece. Here it goes: ‘She’s been there, God knows she’s been there. She’s gentle as the sweet magnolia. She has seen and done it all. She is a kaleidoscope of colors; you can toss her around. Keep her in your vision, but you can’t keep her down. She is a sparrow when she is broken, but, she is an eagle when she flies’.

Unity is a political concept. The republicans are proposing that now. Insurrection, in politics, is a crime…and in many countries, punishable by death. If the attempted coup was brutal as this one was, and the seditionists had killed and maimed, and they had sung in resonances to find and kill political opponents in hiding, then, they have bought themselves, in the parlance of the mostly industrialized, ‘Death at Dawn’.

♦ Don Okolo, Professor and filmmaker, is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of many books.

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