I reside in one of those Southern states that celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday in April; evidence that racism still has deep Southern roots. Why are there celebrations honoring the Confederacy? I have some white friends tnat tried to explain that it's part of their heritage while I tried to explain to them that it represents hate. Needless to say, we never could agree that the Confederacy represents a heritage of hate. I guess I will never understand why it's embraced but I know what it represents. Does Germany have a Nazi Remembrance Day on their calendar? I seriously doubt it. Only in America will certain state be allowed to honor terrorists. Since I can't change the fact that this day is considered a holiday in my state, I can use this day to provide some insight on the evolution of the Uppity Negro.
It is ironic that what started as a religious Crusade ended up in the enslavement of a continent. The cruel and inhuman Atlantic slave trade was a culmination of religious, political and social developments in Western Europe and North Africa. The literature on this subject is vast and has been extensively analyzed both from European and African perspectives. Here we look at it through the prism of Muslim history, examining how the slave trade was influenced by events in North Africa and how it influenced Muslim societies in West Africa.
It is not commonly appreciated that the first target of slavery in West Africa were the Moors (the Portuguese and the Spanish referred to all Muslims regardless of racial differences as Moors). A description of the first raids has come down to us through the writings of the Portuguese writer Azurara. In 1443, an expedition was financed and organized explicitly to capture more Muslims. The Maghrib was in an advanced state of political disintegration and the presence of these predatory ships was hardly noticed in the palaces of the Emirs, busy plotting against each other. In 1443, the Moors fought for their freedom so the could return to their homes. Essentially, this was the year the Uppity Negro was born.
Not to be associated with the stereotypical “FOR SALE” Uppity Negro a.k.a. “bourgeois” or the punk*** social brokers a.k.a. “political pimps”. The Uppity Negro is A FEARLESS black person who by social definition is “not in their place”. UNAPOLOGETIC. VAINGLORIOUS. MULTIFARIOUS. JUST. AUDACIOUS. A black person who knows his or her American legacy, his or her actualized social status, and his or her social and emotional plights with still the identical high regard to self as an equally entitled American due the same privileges, attitudes, concessions, and respectability of THE ENTITLED. Conscious of his or her impressive yet awkward esteemed existence throughout the evolution of America’s prescription to annihilate, denigrate, ignore, placate, satirize, extort, ostracize, and water-down the institution of the Uppity Negro; immune to The Entitled’s reverse psychological guilt of the legacy. Conscious of the debt owed by the country to the legacy. Equally conscious of the debt owed by blacks to blacks. APPRECIATIVE of the expensive price paid by ancestral Uppity Negroes for the presumed entitlement claimed. ADAMANT. Never whining, never begging. DEMANDING. NEVER ASHAMED. COCKY (rightfully). COMMITTED with imperial passion to define “their place” as equal (if not BETTER.)
People admit and defend a meaning that was created to destabilize them for nearly 600 years (ago) and counting rather that destabilize the perpetuated meaning. It didn’t mean a bourgeois slave in 1442/1443. It meant a resister to the system in 1442/1443 when the first slaves were taken to Portugal and fought to get back home. It always meant the adage, “You think you are too good”. During slavery it meant the question in intimidation, (Oh, you think) "You’re too good to pick that cotton?" During Reconstruction it meant, “Oh, you’re too good to buy from me or work for me?” So they, racist, jealous Whites burned our businesses, burned our communities, hung our men, and we defeated and scared again by this new thing, Jim Crow, went to work for them again. We started to buy from them only and teach each other we were worthless and needed them to survive. For decades during Jim Crow it meant, “Oh, you’re too good to walk through the back door” or “You’re too good to give me your land?” Then we found our fathers or grandfathers hanging from a tree. Our people with dignity were called UPPITY. Then one time, they taunted and terrorized with words, “you’re too good to sit in the back of the bus?” to a nice little fed-up lady. She in turn got UPPITY, talked back, and remained seated.
Being an Uppity Negro does not mean bourgeois. It does not mean a person who has left the community behind or has forgotten where they came from. It has never meant that. Black people picked up those ideas in slavery because they were actually jealous of the UPPITY NEGRO slave/captive that had the courage to fight back or run away. Courage was a characteristic to covet and at the same time be afraid of because it was treason to bestow it on the plantation. Courage is still a very dangerous characteristic to bestow in seeking liberation on our modern day plantations (our communities, our churches, our jobs, our families). That is why we “whisper” about injustice instead of speak out. Uppity Negroes didn’t whisper on the plantation. They walked tall.
I've never been one to "know my place." I can't recall a time in my life where I fit in; maybe it was the blood of the Moors pulsating through my veins, crying out for change. I've always used my God given talents in an attempt to help others. In the vein of DuBois, I humbly embrace the recognition as one of the "talented tenth" in an effort to obtain enough status to effectively bring about change. As I embrace this new challenge, it is my desire to use my gift and other redeemable smattering of talents that I have been blessed with to be able to make uncomfortable those things that need to be unsettled, provide a salve to those things that need to be saved and to unashamedly embrace my hertiage. I hope you join me on this continuing journey of discovery. Peace and Blessings!
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