The Devil Was the First Ethnocentric

The Devil Was the First Ethnocentric
on october 28, 2013 at 8:17 pm in viewpoint
By Peregrino Brimah
Passover Haggadah – The Fall Of Satan: Satan, the
greatest of the angels in heaven, with twelve wings,
instead of six like all the others, refused to pay heed
to the behest of God, saying, “Thou didst create us
angels from the splendor of the Shekinah, and now
Thou dost command us to cast ourselves down
before the creature which Thou didst fashion out of
the dust of the ground!” God answered, “Yet this
dust of the ground has more wisdom and
understanding than thou.” Quran – Chapter 7:12:
[ Allah ] said, “What prevented you from prostrating
when I commanded you?” [Satan] said, “I am better
than him. You created me from fire and created him
from clay.”
The story goes that man proved himself over
“super” Satan by his “wisdom and understanding.”
He rose above via an ethos of knowledge, intellect
and inspiration, being able to name the animals by
God’s guidance which the tribalist Satan couldn’t.
This is the first account in narrated history of
discriminatory judgment and a sense of superiority
based on racial attributes. The devil was the first
racist or ethnocentric. He was the first individual to
demand and desire preferential roles simply due to
his perceptible nature. And ever since, those who
desire, demand and think they deserve some form
of unique treatment, opportunities or insulation
simply because of the color of their skin, their social
class or their hereditary origins, take after Lucifer.
Early evolutionists like Charles Darwin fueled racist
ideology. Promoting the multi-origin concept of
human beginnings, the evolutionists promulgated
the idea that Black and White man had separate
origins and development. Darwin really believed
Blacks were more primitive than Whites, an Ape-
like species en route extinction. His “science” aided
much of the colonial conquest and derogatory
slavery Africa was subjected to.
Ota Benga, the Congolese Mbuti pygmy who in 1906
was put on display in Bronx zoo alongside apes,
reminds us of the reality of racial thinking. The New
York Times at the time, stated: “We do not quite
understand all the emotion which others are
expressing in the matter … It is absurd to make
moan over the imagined humiliation and degradation
Benga is suffering. The pygmies … are very low in
the human scale…” On March 20, 1916, Ota Benga
took his life in America.
Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy, posed at the Bronx
zoo in 1906.
Today, science recognizes the recent single-origin
hypothesis (RSOH) of man, all having a common
ancestor, “Mitochondrial Eve,” with race being no
more than skin deep. But irreversible damage has
already been done. The fortune of learning about
gun powder from the Arabs or Chinese and the
infectious, deadly germs they carried helped the
White race conquer Africa and embed through
colonization and slavery, a rather intractable sense
of inferiority in its peoples.
White ladies’ swishing their hair in front of Black
slaves is attributed to the desire of slaves for
straight hair over their natural nappy curls. Madam
CJ Walker developed the hot comb to straighten her
hair, later relaxers were developed, and today we
have horse tail extensions, synthetic attachments
and real hair from shrines in India.
Black women still suffer from the feelings of
inferiority based on their nature. Skin bleaching is
another consequence of the history of colonial
racism. Common in Africa, the Caribbean Islands
and Black America is a preference for light skinned
males. Many Island women are happy to share a
single fair skinned Black male to father their
children, rather than to have a dark-skinned good
man all to themselves. Many Black men are
likewise attracted to the fairer skinned female.
Racism and ethnocentrism is a serious and very
dangerous problem. People feeling and portraying
difference and superiority based on inherited
phenotypes, leaves those who lack these particular
phenotypes at their mercy and victims of their
torture.
So is it wrong to feel proud of your race or ethnic
affiliation?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with ethnic pride;
or racial pride. We can be proud of being White,
Black, Red or other. We can be proud of being
Jewish, Arab, Gao, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Berber,
Ijaw, Hutu or Zulu. The problem arises when we
bring down others of other ethnicities as Lucifer did,
simply because they are not one of “us.” The
problem comes when we feel we merit certain
accommodations and opportunities merely because
of those phenotypic appearances that others of
other groupings are not recognized for. The problem
comes when we feel that simply based on our
ancestry, we are more worthy. The problem arises
when we band behind those who look like us and
war against those who do not, not based on their
decency, honesty or virtue, but just because. When
we oppress others based purely on ethnic origin, we
are ethnocentric. We have put our ethnic group at
the center and all others are cast out.
There are things we can change and there are
things we cannot. Virtue can be learned. Education
can be obtained. Even religion can be adopted. But
race, ethnic origin, these things are fixed and can
never be changed. When we oppress others or cast
them out of our communities merely based on
things that are no more than skin and history deep,
we are condemning them to misery and suffering
for no just reason.
If we believe so much in uniqueness and indemnity
of our race, what do we think of those who are a
mix of our race and “theirs?” Recognizing we are a
non-tribal people, with so many intermarriages.
Where do we wish to throw them? Where do the
Obama’s go? It is still sad that in the US, the one-
drop rule still applies; this is why we regard Obama,
a half-Black and half-White man as a Black man.
He is mixed. Many of us are mixed. Genetic studies
keep exposing just how mixed most of the world is.
Israel was referred to as “little Eden” in Steve
Olson’s “Mapping the Human Genome” book,
because therein are found almost all genotypes of
all races on the planet. The founder and CEO of the
world’s most valuable brand—Apple Inc., late Steve
Jobs, son of John Jandali is a Syrian by blood. One
has to ask, what does race really mean in the
context of the world?
How would it be if we focused on the things we
have in common, rather than harping on what sets
us apart? Race, ethnicity should be like school
teams, only valuable for progressive, competitive
sport and not a nidus for war. Don’t we all shed the
same red blood and feel hunger the very same
way? And for those of us who accept transfusions,
when we need blood, do we ever ask “whose blood
is that?”
Some of us look forward to a world where there are
no fences. Where all nations are merely nations for
governance purposes and not to segregate or
separate. Where there is free, no-visa travel from
country to country. Where man is recognized and
qualified of “superior race” by virtue of his value, his
skill, his morality and his uprightness and not the
color of his skin or from whence his father hailed.
A Black man whose father hails from Kenya and
bears two Arab-Muslim and a Luo name, is the
president of the United States. Would we
accommodate a Barack, let alone let him head our
village? I think this is something we should think
about.
Much of the world’s problems stem from the
unreserved advantage, oppression and impunity
based on race, ethnicity, class and other sectional
demarcations. And the devil rules this domain.
Man, Why Not Let Wisdom And Understanding Be
The Features That Set You Apart.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah wrote
from drbrimah@ends.ng; Twitter: @EveryNigerian