Rev. AL. Shapton in his sermon at one of the memorial services conducted in honour of the slain George Floyd in U.S.A said inter alia, that “the black man has moved from the out house to the White House.”
He was apparently referring to the progress blacks in America have made from the slave era when they were quartered in the plantations for quick access to payless labour, to these times when one of theirs has been president of the U.S.A.
The out house was poorly equipped, rugged and without basic comforts. While the out houses were homes for field slaves, the boy quarters were for the house slaves – those who attended to the various personal needs of their masters.
Regrettably the abolishion of slavery only freed blacks to the vagaries of weather, hunger general lack and economic strangulation. At that time, peasant migrants from Europe were receiving millions of acres of Land from the government of America, and nothing was given to the black peasants who had labored for over one hundred years in America.
Shapton’s outburst at the Floyd memorial was also to emphasize that blacks have overcome all challenges thrown at them from time. And that the knee on Floyds neck that killed him was also on all black people and will be eventually removed, thus killing racism.
I laud the unrelenting efforts of the blacks in America in challenging racism, inequality and oppression metted against them. But sadly, in Africa, the home of blacks, the case is different. The black peoples of Africa, have not risen to fight the oppression, repression, injustice and inequality imposed upon them by their leaders, who are also fellow Africans.
This unfortunate situation arose because African leaders since independence have largely continued with the exploitative and divisive methods of their erstwhile colonizers.
Africa’s colonizers not only carted away its wealth; they cornered the continent’s best lands which they kept to themselves as “European quarters.” They left Africans to live in shanties and slums, with their personal staff living in “boys quarters” closer to them.
Apparently, African leaders continued these oppressive practicess against their fellow citizens. It is easy to observe the subtle ways governments in Africa have continued with systemic and systematic impoverisation of Africans via inadequate funding of projects, poor Medicare facilities, looting and stashing away of public money overseas.
These atrocities are carried out with the active connivance of their countrymen and other collaborators outside.
As if that is not enough, they exploit ethnic, regional and national rivalries to keep their positions. These manifest in the form of tribalism and xenophobia as seen in South Africa, indigene-settler clashes as seen in Nigeria, religious intolerance as seen in the activities of Boko Haram and ISIS across West Africa, among many others.
All these are indicators of weak fractured government across Africa, and they can only end when leaders of Africa begin to examine themselves with a view to changing for the better. They must also begin to unlearn the ways of the colonizers, with the aim of stimulating economic growth and reducing intolerance across the continent. Also, African entrepreneurs, industrialists and governments must begin to patronize themselves to curb capital flight.
To liberate themselves, Africans in the slums and all the oppressed must emulate the time-tested methods of their fellow blacks in America: organized resistance, solidarity marches, memorialisations, as well as use of poetry, arts, music and literature to document their efforts. We must refuse to align ourselves with oppressive leaders and those who wish to lay hands on the public treasury.
We must always remember that the world is peopled by descendants of only one race – the Away From The Out House and that we all, without exception, want to get away from the out house.
Onyeukwu C. S. is a Lagos-based Engineer. He is of the OGSS class of 1975.
