Dear Editor,

Blacks and Jews have a few things in common. Both groups have been the subjects of horrendous genocides and persecutions throughout the centuries. Jews also share with a growing number of blacks the concept of being the favourites of the Judeo-Christian deity. Jews and blacks also have a special card that can be pulled out and played with devastating effect when they are placed under the critical microscope.

The anti-Semitism card and the race card have been effectively used by blacks and Jews to shut down critics of all stripes and shades. Not even fair-minded, objective Jews and blacks can escape the storm of vicious invectives hurled their way for even the mildest critiques offered against their respective groups. The terms self-hating Jews and house Negroes are terms used to silence those who recognise that all is not well in the Jewish and black camps.

Among blacks in the diaspora the house Negro appellation was historically reserved for those who were perceived to have elevated the interests of the dominant Caucasian class over and above the interests of their own black race. House Negroes were usually the first to snitch on blacks who got fed up with their subservient status and wanted to burn the system down. It is equally true, however, that some house Negroes also fed useful information to their brethren bent on fermenting revolts. Toussaint Louverture of Haitian Revolution fame was a house Negro.

In the contemporary setting, the term house Negro is hurled against any black person who dissents from whatever is the current ideological fad circulating among black people. The COVID-19 crisis created some serious cleavages in the global black collective. A narrative emerged among many black people that the virus was just another attempt by Caucasians to further their genocidal agenda against people of African ancestry.

Many black people were justifiably suspicious about the virus and the new vaccine or treatment developed. After all, black people had been used as guinea pigs in medical experiments before and there have been historical rumours about Caucasians deliberately transmitting infectious diseases to indigenous people as part of a final solution to appropriate indigenous land.

Social media or the new temple of information, misinformation, and disinformation was abuzz with all kinds of theories about the “plandemic”, 5G technology, global depopulation, transhumanism, the vaccine as the mark of the beast, the enslavement of the global population by the elite, and a host of other emotionally triggering topics that effectively served as indicators of who were awake and in the know and who were still asleep in the rabbit hole land of the matrix.

The emotional debates that ensued on social media and in real life turned out to be as effective as the gospel of Jesus in turning sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers, and daughters-in-law against mothers-in-law. Ploughs were beaten into spears and swords were unsheathed as families, neighbours, friends, and even religious associates took to the ideological battlefield against each other.

Needless to say, many of the more zealous black activists hurled the epithet of house Negroes at their more cautious black brethren who were not convinced that a grand conspiracy was afoot and that the supposed genocidal plans of the global elite were about to go into hyperdrive. As the COVID-19 crisis recedes it is becoming evident that both sides of the ideological conflict were right and wrong about some of the positions taken relative to the disease.

The outcome of the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News Network and the revelation that leading Fox News correspondents did not really believe some of the information they were peddling to their audience for consumption is cause for serious reflection. Clearly, much of the information we expose ourselves to on social media and traditional media is ideologically driven. The truth is out there, but we have to dig for it as though we were digging for hidden treasure.

A long history of persecution and suffering has made black people and Jews ultrasensitive to criticism. People of African and Jewish ancestry, regrettably, are not perfect. Individuals within both groups engage in some very unsavoury activities, as do individuals in all the other groups of people on the face of the Earth. When blacks and Jews act honourably, we should be applauded. When we cast aside our ethical compass and act in ways that are unscrupulous, deviant, and destructive, we need to be called out as well. To do otherwise would be to initiate a downward spiral for both Jews and people of African ancestry. Such a downward spiral would result in nothing less than a race to the bottom for both ethnic groups.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

rodneynimrod2@gmail.com