|
|
|
|
Mobilization 2/21 Writers' Group
The Way I See It
By Jack Crawford
Africanized Bees — Another Racist American Theme
I've been to Africa many times. I've traveled in six countries. I've been in the cities, the plains and the heavily forested areas. Never once did I hear of anyone being chased down by a bee. Never once did anyone warn me that the local bees are aggressive and that I should avoid a particular area. Never once was I stung. There have never been any widespread reports of bees attacking humans that I'm aware of. Africa is highly covered with vegetation. Therefore I will assume that pollination the old fashioned way goes on as usual. I will further assume that since Africa is five times the area of the continental US and there are various forms of plant life and people are all over the continent, there exists an abundant supply of bees of various species to make life possible.
So how is it that some dumb scientist cross-bred some wild, super-aggressive bees from somewhere in Africa with some "civilized" European bees and created the people-killing monsters now widely known in America as "Africanized honey bees?" One would get the impression that these are all a bunch of spear-carrying, people-hating, super-strong, Mandingo-types of the bee world. The racist American mind has struck again.
No one has thought to properly label these bees as "aggressive." No. Somehow, "Africanized" is an adjective that is substituted in a way that should mean, if it is accurate, that all bees from Africa behave this way. As a result, the average ignorant American will probably think that all bees from Africa are similarly uncivilized and undesirable. Somehow, this reminds me of the same brush the media used to paint the people of Africa so many time in the past and present. It is the reason Americans are so ready to believe anything negative about Africa, African people and anyone who is a derivative of Africa. It does not take much effort. The detractors simply make a generalized statement about "those people over there."
And it's not just white people that do it. Oprah responded to a comment about not going to Africa because foreign travelers had been assaulted in the western Uganda/eastern Congo area where a war is going on. She said that she was staying in America because Africa was not safe. How stupid can we get? How can anyone say that going to London is unsafe because there is war in Yugoslavia? And how many ignorant, lunch-box-carrying white people changed their vacation plans to South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, Ghana or Zimbwabe just because Oprah did not bother to distinguish between an area the size of Ohio and an area three times bigger than Russia (Europe + Asia)?
Maybe I'm paranoid. Maybe I'm sensitive. Maybe I'm over reactive. Maybe "Africanized" bees is a proper term. But, I don't think so. After 560 years of contact with people who have done little more than constantly find overt and covert ways to degrade, enslave and exploit my people, I'm very sure it is very intentional.
Quickly… close your eyes and imagine overpopulation. Do you see them? Don't be ashamed to admit it. You've been exposed to American racist ideology. The image you saw was black, brown and yellow masses? So when we read reports that these people die by the thousands every hour, we feel nothing because they are expendable. We feel helpless to do anything about it. The reality however is very different. Africa is not overpopulated. Africa's resources are mismanaged and plundered by thieves and modern-day slavers. I've been there. I am here to testify that the land is not utilized to efficiently produce food. If agriculture was properly developed, Uganda alone could out produce the US in corn and soybeans. You are in a land where people use long knives instead of tractors. Food is transported to market by bicycle rather than train. Do you get the picture? This can easily be fixed if capital is redirected. The racists of the West don't want this to happen. So they encourage these images of starving people who produce too many children because of their lack of sexual discipline.
Just like the bee, our attention is pulled in the direction that gives us the desired conclusion. They use the images that are already implanted in your mind and expand on it. And we are so acclimated to this mass manipulation we don't even realize it. Wake up America! Stop letting the media make you an accomplice to their evil.