Chapter Two

   Black and White

John St. John

When the glaciers closed in and the tropics got cold Man invented clothing
to survive. At that time his skin color must have been white. The skin color
of chimpanzees and gorillas like that of dogs and pigs is white. The face of
a gorilla is black because it has been exposed to the equatorial sun. The
hair on an animal keeps the sun from reaching its skin and so the body color
does not have to change to protect it. The evidence for early Man wearing
clothes is in the location of his body hair. All races of men have hair on
their heads, under their arms, and in the pubic area. This is because of the
nature of early garments. The simplest garment was a skin wrapped around the
shoulders reaching to the waist and cinched in front with a leather thong.
Another skin wrapped around the waist and belted, covered the lower members.
This left the under-arms unprotected from updraft and the primitive kilt
allowed cold air to reach the pubis, hence hair in those places.

The population explosion (due to stone-age technology) caused the diaspora
of the human population to colder climates as the glacier receded. The
victorious tribes who held the tropical homeland were able to discard their
garments. The heat of the sun on bare skin caused menalin pigment to darken
their skin as the paler brothers died from skin cancer. The lank hair of the
original Man disappeared. Those with tight kinky hair survived the sun
better as it enabled air flow to cool their pates. Meanwhile their northern
cousins remained much the same as the originals because they retained their
clothing. The changes here were in minor facial differences like pointed
noses, thin lips, and receding eyes, to protect them from the wintery gales.

All human beings are of the same species. Regional characteristics like
those of the African Pygmy accommodated them to their hunting territories.
The Pygmy's small stature enabled them to hunt in the dense forest. The
Australian Aborigine is quite as intelligent as any other Australian. Surely
race would be an unimportant matter if it were not for the totem gene.

Skin color may act as a totem in that it is a visible difference that the
warrior can take aim at. It provided the slaver and the klu-kluxer with an
excuse for their atrocities. The totem gene tells the racist, as it does the
warrior, that their treatment of another human being is justified by
dehumanizing him in the eyes of the racist as it similarly dehumanizes the
racist himself. The only sure cure for this genetic malady is integration.
Anything that furthers integration is in the interest of
humanity.

As an old radical I fought White racism in an era when it was accepted by
the majority. I never thought I would live to see the day when Black racism
would become a problem. The Black American is as American as pumpkin pie.
Crispus Attucks, a freed slave was the first American to be killed by the
British at Boston Common at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Black
culture that developed out of segregation has become an integral part of the
greater American culture. Without Black musicians there would be no "American" music. The baseline American with more than five generations of ancestors in this
country can not say with certitude that he does not have some African blood
in his veins.

The gradation from Black to White has taken place for a number of reasons:
prostitution forced on a people who had no other way to live because of job
discrimination, slave-owners who abused their female slaves, voluntary
mixing between poor Whites and poor Blacks, and today . . . middle class
Blacks who have moved into White suburbs. The Black who accuses me for his
condition because I am White and insists that I pay for the sins of my
fathers could have White slave-owner blood in his veins. So far as I know my
ancestors were Canadian and Abolitionists. We Americans are mongrel products of miscegenation for the most part. The blood of the American Indian has been thoroughly mixed into the stew which contains blood from all parts of  Europe and Asia. The Sioux and Blackfoot called the Black American troopers "Buffalo Soldiers" and "Black White-men." Every year thousands of white children of Black families "jump the fence"
and join the White community where prospects are better.

The gains made by the American colored were the result of outlawing Jim Crow
separatism. The struggles of the Whites who followed Martin Luther King is
down-played. The failure of Black History is that it is taught in a racist
way. It ignores the role the American White has played in the ongoing
struggle for freedom. There is a conspiracy of silence on the subject of old
John Brown and his sons being hung at Harpers Ferry and of the young Whites
who marched along side their Black brothers on the road to Selma.

One time in Flint, Michigan a fellow worker in the Buick factory, who
happened to have a black skin, and I entered one of the bars near the
factory. The bartender did not even look at him, but he stared me right in
the eye and said "Why did you bring him in here!" He might have hated Blacks
but he wanted to kill me. Imagine how I feel on a bus full of young Black
people who express hostility to me because I am an "old" White man. These
children have been taught that old White men were the ones who enslaved
their ancestors. A lot of us "old" White men risked our lives and ruined our
prospects in the struggle for freedom.

Did anyone ever inform them about Jim Garrison who's print shop was burned
to the ground by slavers, or the Whites who died in the Civil War for the
cause of humanity? I consider those Black leaders who inflame the totem gene
against all Whites are as much racists as the Kluxers. Racism; Black or
White, is evil. They are devils with tails within the human tribe. I am
aware of but have never experienced the daily slights and insults offered to
people of color. It must have a terrible effect, yet it cannot excuse Black racism. The victim of Black racism is not White . . . he is Black.

If we draw an artificial line between people of different skin-colors, no
matter what the reason; we are contributing to racism. All humans must unite
against the corporations. Black slavery in the new world was the result of
The Royal Africa Company, an English corporation that turned the catching of
slaves and their shipment to the Americas into a lucrative business. The
first cotton plantations were for the purpose of shipping cheap cotton to
English cotton mills. The American Revolution developed a native manufactury
in cotton goods and even though England abolished slavery, we were left with
it. This was a bad start for the “land of the free”.  Today the corporations
of Texas want to secede from the Union. The glorifiers of the Alamo do not
mention the reason Santa Anna attacked the Texans who were working slaves on
their plantations.  At that time slavery was against Mexican law, and what
became Texas was Mexican territory.  No sooner had Texas won its
independence from Mexico than it seceded from the Union and joined the rest
of the South in The Civil War.

The situation of the Black people of Africa is horrendous. It is a result of
European colonization led by European corporations. The diamonds, oil, and
treasures of Africa were stolen; the African people turned into wage slaves
in the mines, and the country polluted with oil. The end of colonialism
following World War II left most of Black Africa in limbo. They had been a
source of raw materials and slaves for White plantations. Their old tribal
structures were dismantled as subsistance agriculture was the main base of
the new governments. The possibility for what we know of as democracy was
impossible. Tribal warfare and famine erupted and is now a chamber of horrors.

In an article from Reuters by Manoah Espisu: "Since "people power" revolts
toppled communism in eastern Europe in the late 1980's demands for democracy
have ousted or weakened many military and one-party governments in Africa,
which had ruled for three decades. Western countries in turn embraced the
interventionist strategy of demanding better economic management
and pluralist democracy as firm conditions for aid . . . Africa's lifeblood.
But its deep economic and political problems have raged on and some Western
donors are having to decide whether to stick to their demands or give aid to
stave of isolationism or chaos. Western powers, having seen the collapse of
communism as their opportunity to spread democracy in Africa, saw hopes for
a peaceful democratic revolution across the continent diverted into helping
grapple with the chronic problems there.

Civil wars in Liberia, Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique and Angola have destroyed
agriculture, transport and communications and fueled lawlessness and famine
that killed millions of people.

Sudan, Africa's largest state, remains split between the Arab, Muslim north
and Christian and animist south, where rebels have fought for a decade for more of the meager national cake.

Civil strife in the continent has forced millions into exile abroad and
many, mostly poor Africans have been driven from their houses and displaced
in their own countries. The continent is also weighed down by an external
debt of some two hundred seventy billion dollars and many of its
agriculture-based economies have floundered because of depressed global
commodity prices.

While democracy falters, Africa's population flourishes, with the continent
set to explode to 900 million people by the year 2000 from the present 700
million despite the ravages of AIDS."

What better laboratory could one have to see the totem gene in action? The
"Arms Dealers to the World" armed artificially created "countries" allowing
artificially created governments with artificially created boundaries and
artificially created leaders to fight out their ancient tribal animosities.
The social "scientists" through the United Nations advocate democracy for
this fabricated set-up not withstanding the reality that the original tribes
before their intervention were the most democratic organizations that ever
existed.

The introduction of tribal "chiefs" to these people was the result of their
being forced to negotiate with the early colonizers. Chiefs in tribes
uncorrupted by intervention were war leaders and shamans and never would
dare to go against the common welfare of the tribe. They assumed autocratic
power as a result of dealing with Europeans. Our own autocrats were the
result of the technology of agriculture, early mining, and seafaring. The
African autocrat was the result of a "property" culture imposed on warrior
tribesmen from the outside. The tribe did not have to hold a vote to reach a
concensus. They all thought alike.  With independence: the phoney chiefs
were turned into military dictators like Idi Amin by the corporations.
The head of Shell Oil in Nigeria sad: “dictators are easier to do business
with”.

It would be well to back up and take a look at the results of European
colonization and its subsequent follies. Without knowing the problem you can
not find a solution. Continuing the pretense that African populations
possess the background and infrastructure essential for bourgeouse democracy
is futile. The corporations have sent in mercenaries and provided arms as
they stirred up ancient tribal animosity.

there is no use even thinking about it. The new racially integrated
government in South Africa has the economic base to address the problems of
tribal animosities.

The United States neglects the cultural integration of its own youth.
Government should be concerned with developing sports and culture in a hands
on way. This was on of the great contributions of Roosevelt's New Deal.
Unfortunately the war put an end to it. The problem with welfare is that the
money is allocated without any consideration as to how it is spent. A check
in the mail is not enough. A large cadre of social workers who actually do
social work is neccessary. Governments are the only entities that do not
check to see what is happening to the money they give away. People who have
been on welfare for three generations could have been self supporting if
one-fifth of the money had been used to capitalize them and move them into
the productive sector. Geraldo Rivera had a program that dealt with the
killing of young Blacks by other young Blacks. Geraldo sat in the center
with two young gangsters on one side and four successful middle-aged Blacks
on the other. A police Lieutenant, a business man, a minister, and his wife,
and a distinguished lady social worker who had lost her own son to this
warfare. The gangsters were the target. They were cajoled, plead with, and
threatened. The business man said that in the depression discrimination was
worse than it is now but one could get ahead by
persevering. The mother reminded them that they could get killed too. The
minister said they were endangering their soul. The police lieutenant
reminded them they were harming their own people.

The first common-sense spoken was by one of the young Blacks who said that
some sort of social organization could provide them with a place to hang out
and give them other things to do. Geraldo asked the other boy what he
thought caused the violence. He answered "It is the violent television
programs." Geraldo quickly stopped this line by embarrassedly interrupting .
. . "another media critic!"When asked why he did not take a job one gangster
said "Why should I work for the minimum wage when I make six-hundred dollars a night." The preacher answered that they would feel better and their soul would be saved. As a
television watcher I wondered if Geraldo would give up his job if he were
told that he could save his soul by working in a McDonald's.

The answer to discrimination based on skin color is integration and more
integration. There should be no Black ghettos. They should be outlawed as
de-facto segregation. Whatever it takes to do this should be done. Black
Power and any other form of Black nationalism is a mistake. I was in the
American Communist Party when Black Power was invented. It is a result of
Stalins book on "The National Question" It began with an analysis of the
Black population in the United States by Pettis Perry. It correctly pointed out that the southern states in the "Black Belt", (black) meaning the color of the soil in the Mississippi Delta, constituted a nation and these people had the right to self
determination.

The problem with this was: that though the Blacks in the Mississippi Delta
could have qualified as a nation. The idea of skin-color being a tribal, (or
national) requisite is absurd. The Delta had a majority Black population but
if it became a tribe, (or nation) the Whites in the Delta would have been
part of this deal too.  Black Nationalism does nothing more than set the totem gene’s of both Black and White in motion. Skin color is not part of the national question. The
Black Muslims of Muhammed Ali and Farahkan began with hatred for “the
blue-eyed devils”, but when they got older they found out that most of the
world’s Muslims where White.

It is easy to understand that a Black person could develop a visceral hatred
for anyone with a White face. They are insulted and face rejection on a
daily basis from an American society that has been conditioned to racism.
But feelings are not facts. As Martin Luther King said: “Keep our eyes on
the prize!” and the prize is integration. Racism is still rampant in the
United States and is coming back as the corporations are dragging their
anti-human concepts into the popular culture. It is time that we waged war
on these heartless and soul-less robots and quit fighting each other.