"Boy, there's nothing new in the world," my Mama used to tell me. "You might think you're doing something different," she'd say, "but you best believe, I've already seen it. And if you live long enough, you'll understand what I'm talking about."
Well, I reckon I've lived long enough - long enough, anyway, to understand that there's no changing human nature. There's just no getting around it: Things are what they are, and humans do what they do over and over again.
Take, for instance, my trip to Columbus, to report on this issue's cover story. First off, I have to say that I had a great three days there. The people were upbeat and friendly. I wanted to stay longer, learn more about the place. But now to the point, and something else my mama used to say, something that isn't too pretty. "Ceaser," she'd say, "colored folks are like crabs in a barrel."
All that to get to what I saw going on in Columbus between the Somalis and the Ethiopians and what I heard was transpiring between indigenous African Americans and the new African Americans. Bovine fecal matter, is a polite way to put it. Treating one another as the enemy. We black people need to get up off of that kind of ignorant behavior, which is nothing more than funky self-hatred with a splash of cologne to camouflage the stink. The Ethiopians will have nothing to do with the Somalians - or the Smellians, as they are wont to call their beleaguered brethren. Many African Americans, meanwhile, simply don't understand their African brothers and sisters, considering them backwards and uninformed about the realities of American history as it relates to the mistreatment of people of color. And Africans, well, many hold the presumption that African Americans are uneducated slackers who won't cross the street to lay hold of the good life that all other Americans supposedly enjoy.
Black people of the world, we cannot afford to scrabble about with each other like crabs, snipping and biting at our fellow barrel dwellers. There's nothing new in this. Sounds a bit like the field hands being pitted against the house slaves to me. Now let me think… Weren't both groups actually slaves separated only by the notion that light-skinned black people were better than dark-skinned ones. But wait a minute. That's not the case between these new African immigrants. Nope. This time, in large part, it's about groups feeling superior because God revealed himself in different ways to different peoples. I don't care if you're Muslim or Christian, Hindu or Jew. There is only one God, and that's Whom we lift our eyes and prayers to in the final analysis, regardless of how and where we do it.
Jama Fara, one of the Somalis quoted in the cover story, hit the nail on the head. "I left California for Columbus because a lot of Somalis are here, and I got calls from here," he said. "In either place, I am black. If the police stop you here (the United States), they might very well treat you harshly. People are not treated equally…I don't like that." Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman comes at the issue from another perspective when he says, "People are relocating to Columbus from all over the world, especially Africa, and I welcome that. We want diversity, and I want to make sure that everyone in this city is lifted up. I don't care what color you are, or what country you come from. All that matters to me is that you embrace this community and the people who are in this community."
So right, both of you. We must all cooperate, work together to get out of the barrels that confine and limit us. Or is it too much to ask for something new of human behavior?
Ceaser Moyce Williams
Executive Editor
