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How To Fight Oppression
Oppression can be defined as the active denial of liberty and pursuit of happiness by one group of people over another. The oppressors are mostly of a higher class or dominant culture and race while the oppressed are usually of a lower class and minor race. Most people of minor races living within the culture of a dominant race often have to fight to fit in because it is human nature for people to support other people who are more like themselves.
Race and culture favoritism may range from something that is minor to full blown racism at the extreme. These types of oppressions will never change on their own therefore it is the responsibility of the oppressed to recognize oppression in its many forms and act to either protect ourselves against it or act to end it outright if they ever wish to live free and happy as minorities in a dominant society.
Most non-white races may claim to have been oppressed at one time or another but none has experienced the sustained and documented record of oppression as that of the Black AfRAkan race. Throughout history we have and still are being exploited by Europeans and Arabs for the resources of our lands in the form of colonization and for our labor in the form of slavery. Race mixing has colored the exploitation in many aspects to further bind AfRAkans to foreign cultures of all sorts.
Today, many Black people are so brainwashed as a result of colonization and slavery that they don’t even recognize that they are still being actively oppressed. They accept the linear understanding of reality that they are thought and think that they had no culture or understanding of life and reality before Europeans thought them how to function in his reality.
While most Black people acknowledge that oppression exists there are some Black oppression deniers who are blinded by religion which teaches them that their hardships in life are really just tests of faith by their illusionary god. They use the benefits of the sacrifices that others have made to better themselves financially but instead of acknowledging revolutionaries like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and DR. King they attribute their success to their own hard work.
Those of us who do recognize that Black people are actively being oppressed by dominant cultures and races are the ones who are taking steps to increase our awareness of the world around us. Fortunately, all people; oppressors and the oppressed, want the same basic things in life so we don’t need to look for any hidden secret of how to fight oppression. We all want to be happy, healthy, and successful in life. Oppressors simply go about achieving those things at the expense of the people they oppress.
For years many of us have been staging our own personal boycotts of businesses and organizations that do not respect Black people or that keep Black people enslaved in consumerism. We are the ones who get accused by other Blacks of being “all talk, no action” because we aren’t in the streets. We fight oppression in different ways through education, awareness, and support of our own cultures and businesses. We spread information about businesses and organizations that serve to maintain a system of direct and indirect oppression against Black people.
We also know that Western cultures are built on capitalism therefore; the most effective means of fighting Western style oppression is through economics. It is the #1 reason why they exploited Black people and lands centuries ago. One of the most successful periods in the struggle against oppression in America was during the 1960 when Martin Luther King JR took Black people out of cowering in churches to marching in the streets, holding sit-ins in white owned businesses, and boycotting national corporations.
Why do we think that the times have changed so much that these measures are obsolete and won’t work today? Sure the struggle against oppression is hard because Black people work for and depend on many of the oppressors businesses so they will be financially affected by boycotts but let us not be foolish in thinking that we are smarter than our leaders of the past or that things that worked in the past cannot work today.
All institutions and corporations are run by people who all want to be successful and happy. None like the uncertainty of economic turmoil so they will bend under pressure. At the same time we must support Black owned businesses and stop the crabs-in-a-barrel mentality that makes us not want to see other Black people succeed while personally we are not.
