I guess that the saying ignorance is bliss remains the unofficial motto of many within Black America. This space is too small of an area to offer a severe recitation of what is best termed Black foolishness. Far too often, ignorance of historical matters has ushered my people centerstage for those guided by logic to wonder what they are doing. The fawning of Black folk over Queen Elizabeth II death is the latest display of total ignorance of the historical record.
Unfortunately, I am hard-pressed to recall the expiring of any day without encountering some form of Black foolishness born from preventable ignorance. There may be no more succinct display of how non-illuminating the American educational system has been on the minds of Blacks than the way that so many Blacks have rushed forward to offer condolences and varying levels of sympathy for the deceased Queen of England.
Anyone with a surface-level understanding of Britain’s centrality to chattel slavery’s establishment in the West must be bewildered by the descendants of enslaved Africans expressing sympathy for Queen Elizabeth II. It is not a stretch to assert that such condolences are akin to fondly remembering what Queen Elizabeth II represents and what she oversaw until her death. The reaction of some Blacks is the latest in a series of moments that brings validity to Malcolm X’s over a half-century old, yet still applicable, characterization of his dumbed-down people. According to Malcolm,
Ya been had!
Ya been took!
Ya been hoodwinked!
Bamboozled!
Led astray!
If he were alive, Malcolm would be disappointed, yet unsurprised, that his verbal litany remains applicable today.
Startling historical illiteracy is the only reasonable explanation for Blacks’ tears over Queen Elizabeth II. If nothing else, it reveals astonishing historical illiteracy birthed by the American public school system and nurtured by Black America’s failure to educate Black children. In the version of “history” that Blacks saddened by Queen Elizabeth II’s passing believe, there is no linkage between Britain and slavery. There is no exploitation of stolen Africans for their bodies, sexual organs, labor, skill, and knowledge, or the decision that the African would be a “slave” for the entirety of his life on the North American continent. There is nothing in the above listing of crimes against humanity for persons of African descent to celebrate unless they have become “white-minded,” meaning they have somehow managed to view historical events through the lens of a European.
Unfortunately for Black America, it is common to find Blacks who actively seek to ignore the historical record. Such people have refused to read historical texts and foolishly attempt to secure a psychological comfort that has eluded persons of African descent since they arrived in the Jamestown Colony in 1619. In many ways, the decision to ignore a brutal historical past in pursuit of an unachievable peace with those who have exploited them proves some Blacks to be unwise cowards contributing to their oppression.
Sadly, such people are plentiful. One may need to look no further than any news station to find the fools I am addressing, hopefully not a mirror.
James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.
©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2022
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