ENTERING THE MIND OF A RACE TRAITOR

What defines a race traitor?

Someone like Clarence Thomas, who puts his political agenda before the needs of the black masses?
Someone like Michael Jackson, who was associated with bleached skin for most of his adulthood and who was a devoted father to children who "looked" white?
Someone like Diana Ross, who has been associated with wealthy and well-connected white men for most of her adult life?
Someone like Nelly, who brazenly promotes the black whore complex to adolescents?
Someone like Flavor Flav, who decided that his reality show would depict the most classless black women who could be found?
Someone like Tracy Morrow (Ice T), who upholds slutty white women as idols for black male fantasies?

Is a race traitor a person whose actions create a detrimental impact on the mobility or credibility of black people as a whole?

It is important that black women examine all of the ways that they try to maintain acceptance in black constructs and accept accountability for the criteria that they internalize in order to avoid social ostracism among blacks.

A week or so ago, I was visiting Wayne's blog and he had a post about Clarence Thomas, "The Most Dangerous Negro In America". As expected, many black bloggers gleefully joined the lynchmob to start spewing insults about Clarence Thomas.

One reason why black people waste so much of their emotional energy spewing rants and insults about public figures who don't demonstrate any loyalty to the black collective is because these blacks "think" that they are owed something from black public figures. Their anger and scoffing is rooted in their unexamined entitlement mentality.

Black people in power don't have to do anything to help "black" causes.
Black people in power don't have to care about strengthening the black family.
Black people in power don't have to be crusaders for the black lower class tier.
Black people in power don't have to be protectors of the black middle class.
Black people in power don't have to care about your priorities or the priorities of the black collective.
Black people in power don't have to do anything with their power that advances the black collective. They can acquire power and choose not to share it.

Since they don't have to do these things, their choice not to do those things does not qualify them as an enemy of black people.

I have heard black people say, "well if they benefited from the black vote then they owe us!" These delusions would be comical if they were not so widely accepted.

If black officials are elected by black majority vote, they still don't owe anything to the black masses - unless those masses have a system in place to enforce the demands that they identified prior to the election. Usually, they don't! I mentioned in my post, "The Glitter of Counterfeit Loyalties" that black people were willing to toss their support to Obama when Obama had made specific promises to other segments - but had not made any specific promises to blacks.

Frederick Douglass warned us that: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will."

We weren't listening.

Many black women tend to create an emotional contract with black women in power.
Many black people tend to create an emotional contract with black people in power.
It's essentially a worthless and unenforced contract because black people in power don't have to adhere to the contracts that black people validate by clinging to entitlement mentalities.

The contract is formulated based on their own assumptions about what black people in power have to do. Scores of black people formulated a one-sided contract in their minds about what Condi Rice was supposed to do in her lofty position as Secretary of State. They have the terms laid out for what Clarence Thomas was supposed to do as Justice.

The problem with these delusions that they attempt to justify is that they are based on assumptions about the existence of black unity (that has been dead and buried). These delusions are based on unwarranted expectations. I've encountered so many black people who hoist their expectations on other blacks without any dominance strategy in place.

The new math for black women ought to be:
Blanket Expectations - Effective Dominance Strategy = Delusional Assumptions

Don't we realize that the black masses have no power at all to enforce these one-sided contracts with black public officials who do not acquire their positions by popular vote?

Even black public officials who acquire their positions by popular vote are not beholden to the black electorate - unless the black electorate is the voting sector that can ensure victory or defeat. Usually, the black electorate is not the crucial voting sector. Black people are no longer the largest minority group in this country so when politicians are eager to gain the "minority" vote, they are not thinking of gaining favor with any specific racial group anymore. They are thinking of gaining favor with specific ethnic groups. Ethnic groups are now the "new" powerful minority in this country.

This transition in political currency occurred while black people stood by watching the embers of black unity turn to smoke.

How do we qualify race traitors?

In all-black constructs, black women were "programmed" to place the needs of the black collective above their individual needs, above their individual priorities, above their gender, and above their common sense. Black women who did not protect and defend black men as a group (even if those black men were not protecting or defending them) were viewed as race traitors among the "race women".

Black women who refused to be the burden-carriers in the black community were viewed as race traitors among the "race women".

I continue to encounter scores of black women who are deeply afraid of ostracism in black constructs. (I use the term "constructs" because most black women who are currently in black constructs tend to use the word "black community" to describe the construct that they are identifying with and the construct that they are a part of. They are using the term "community" where it doesn't apply. "Community" is not where half of black women and black girls are being raped. "Community" is not where black women are being regularly mentally and emtionally assaulted. "Community" is not where black women are forced to fend for themselves while being exploited by others. The Jews didn't call the Nazi concentration camps "Jewish communities". They knew that they were being subjugated. They knew that they were under seige. They knew that their lives were in danger every day. They didn't delusionally call it a "community". Black women can learn something from the Jews who were captive about the necessity of naming things what they are.)

I mentioned in my post, "Sistas Confronting Xenophobic and Arrhenphobic Lives" that black women who refused to stay in all-black constructs for their entire lives and who decided to forge alliances and key relationships with non-blacks were viewed with suspicion and scorn. They faced numerous speculations from "race women" and they faced taunts from black men who demanded that black women "stay in their place". ("Their place" was in an emotional state where they were beholden to elevating the interests of black men as a group and beholden to seeking the validation of black men as a group.)

When I mentioned "Our Boundaries, Our Liberation and Our Elevation", I outlined the steps that are needed for black women to begin to take control of the climate of attack that they have permitted for entirely too long. The comment section was sparse because most black women are not ready to take concrete steps to actually address the attacks; they are stuck in the mindset of victims. In most cases, victims only whine and rant about the attacks against them; they have no plan in place to alter the equation that they are living with. This forum strives to outline action steps for black women.

I continue to mention the necessity of dominance strategy implementation in various discussions at this think tank.

I continue to insist that black women analyze their identification of collective power, their leverage of collective power and their wanton abuses of individual power that impede collective progress.

It is vitally important for black women to understand how their deep fear of having the "race traitor" label hurled at them has kept them from seeking self-actualization.

Who qualifies as "race traitor"?

1. Clarence Thomas was labeled a "race traitor" because he married a white woman. Anyone who marries outside of the race has their blackness credibility questioned by those blacks who were "programmed" to believe that race should become the main factor for deciding who to marry.

2. Clarence Thomas was labeled a "race traitor" because he held views that many blacks didn't agree with. Anyone who does not validate BlackThinkTM is suspected of deliberately seeking to forge alliances with factions that are anti-black. I described this mentality in the post, "Examining The De-Black Tactic". The assumption is that black people must adopt group think in order to prove their solidarity to black people.

3. Diana Ross was labeled a "race traitor" because she grew up in all-black constructs - in Brewster Place Projects - and she never came back to all-black constructs. She became comfortable in a global arena. She became class-mobile in international settings. She didn't apologize for not adhering to all of the black ideologies that had been part of her early "programming". She married wealthy white men. She had children with wealthy white men. This caused her to become suspected of rejecting her blackness.

4. Michael Jackson was labeled a "race traitor" because he was bleaching his skin and had not called a press conference to inform black people that he had vitiligo. All black people who have seen the impact of vitiligo on anyone's face know that it is a skin disorder that is extremely unattractive. Many people with vitiligo carry an umbrella to avoid exposure to the sun. There are still black people who are debating whether or not Michael had vitiligo - in spite of the fact that nearly all of us have seen blacks who have the disorder. It is estimated that up to five million people in this country may have it.

Michael's children look white. There is speculation about whether he fathered his own children. Black people aren't allowed to have any children that aren't black? Black people aren't allowed to become parents to children that are not biologically theirs? Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Mia Farrow can choose non-white children but blacks (especially black celebrities!) can only choose black children?

5. Condi Rice was labeled a "race traitor" because she forged powerful alliances with white men who had no interests in elevating the black community. Condi is a dominance theory expert who utilized strategies to leverage her individual power that black women had not seen before. Whenever we see another black person operating with strategies that we are ignorant about, we usually resort to shaming, ridiculing and scoffing. Those reactions attempt to camouflage ignorance. It's too easy to sit back and bash ideologies that you have never been exposed to and much harder to confront your own mentality.

I am not surprised by Condi's power leveraging strategies because I understand dominance theory. Her strategy has nothing to do with proving black unity. In this country, proving black unity to the black race has not benefited black women as a whole.

Angela Davis was loyal to black concerns and personified the Black Power movement. Angela was not protected by the black collective. She may be deified as a bold revolutionary today, now that she's in her 60s, but she faced vicious and persistent opposition from the majority of blacks when she was in her 20s. She was viewed as a trouble-maker.

King was deified in his death but his actions were being loudly opposed by the majority of blacks. Anyone who was alive when King gained prominence can attest to the suspicions that were leveled against him by status-quo blacks who were terrified of blacks who could potentially upset the apple cart. They weren't focused on the benefits of revolution - they were intimidated by the retaliation that revolution would produce.

This is why blacks who internalized slave thinking were deeply afraid of those blacks who spoke out against racism. They believed that those blacks would create retaliation for all black people. In slavery, the rule-breaking of one slave could result in harsh punishments for all of the slaves. This punish-all-for-one method of entrapment is precisely how the white slave owner ensured that blacks would "police" each other.

This slave conditioning is evident with scores of blacks who loudly lambast any black who doesn't adhere to the "one-drop" rule. Blacks don't know how why "one-drop" rule was important to white slave owners. It ensured that they could black slaves (who were blood relatives) the legal right to claim any of their property.

"You can't claim any part of your ancestry except your African blood line!" they insist. "If you are one-drop black then you are black!" they scoff. There are scores of black people who are still attempting to enforce the "one-drop" rule in black constructs - while remaining completely ignorant of that rule's origins and motives.

Black women who want to prove their solidarity to the race usually make decisions that benefit black male patriarchy or reinforce the dysfunctional model of the "strong black woman" or the "grave digger".

If we examine the characteristics of a "race traitor" in black constructs, we will see that those are the characteristics required for divestment.

- A willingness to place self-interests above group advancement
- A willingness to reject BlackThinkTM
- An ability to separate one's ideologies from the "black interests" umbrella
- A desire to serve the interests of non-black factions that provide tangible returns on the investment
- An ability to foster a self-definition that is not centered on racial loyalty
- An ability to establish manufactured dependencies within non-black constructs
- A willingness to develop alliances that are not based on racial similiarity


Any terms that are bandied about in all-black constructs that are intended to keep black women focused on black solidarity while they are not reaping any benefits of their racial loyalty, should be examined closely. We are so used to hearing certain terms, that we don't bother to ask ourselves about who benefits in black constructs from upholding the criteria that is attached to those terms.

If we are going to discuss the power base of black women at this forum, then we need to be willing to examine the ways that we concede our power. One way that we concede our power collectively is by elevating terminology that has been used to subjugate us and to keep us in ideological cages of racial conformity.

When black women hear terms such as "race traitor", we need to step back and ask ourselves, "What does that term mean in the construct that I am in? What is the price that I have accepted to avoid that label in the construct that I am in?"

Are you willing to be labeled a "race traitor" (among all of the slave-indoctrinated blacks) in order to become self-actualized?

I am.