Whiteman, blackman

The gruesome death of George Floyd in the hands of the police has predictably reawakened a deep feeling of unending persecution and has served as a reminder of centuries-old atrocities the Blackman has had to experience in the hands of the Whiteman.

First, there was a slave trade when Blacks were herded into slave markets, auctioned and sold as mere goods. They were chained in the legs, they were chained in the neck; one tied to the other stripped down with only pieces of dirty cloths around their waists.

Trending videos and recalled photographs showing the maltreatment the Blacks suffered paints vivid pictures that speak volume about the era much more than may have been read or taught in schools. The pictures are grim and exceedingly revolting. The saying, “Seeing is believing” cannot be more apt looking at them. It was inconceivable evil.

The sight of the horror is unbelievable. The cruelty is unimaginable. Those captured were beating; they were thrown into the ocean and see if there was any whiff of dissent. The peacock merchants bestrode the firmament, feeling the world under their feet. They rejoiced in seeing the slaves being beaten on the field and in the plantations. In one of the videos, one could hear a fervent supplication for help and deliverance in the singing by slaves in churches supposedly raised in honour and adoration of the Creator, the Almighty. After watching the video, one couldn’t but feel like hiding, and upon awakening from the slumber of unbelievability, you want to live in denial—that it did not happen. Did we human beings do all this to ourselves? Some of the leaders of the Blackman, chiefs and kings sold their fellowmen, women, many with children for a pittance and for something as ridiculous as bottles of gin. It is a dark and shameful spot in human history.

George Floyd could not have imagined in his wildest of dreams that it was his brutal death that would bring to life what the Blackman had gone through and is still encountering in his daily life. The dark spot also reveals that it must have required not only the pangs of conscience, but courage and selflessness on the part of William Wilberforce in 1787, Lord Grenville, Thomas Jefferson and the anti-slave trade movements in Europe and America to rise and set in motion mechanisms to bring an end to the evil trade that slavery business was, such as an Act of Parliament in 1807 prohibiting the heinous trade in the British Empire.

Slave trade may have ended, the resultant ugliness and unconscionable harm it left in its trail endures. There is systemic racism from which all other evils flow. There is joblessness. There is homelessness. There is social discrimination. Unemployment among Blacks is 16.8 per cent in the US, according to reports on the internet. Blacks are excluded from certain jobs and there are wage differentials based on race even when doing the same job. More Blacks are likely to be convicted in court than the Whites. They are targeted for police violence and the police commit the brutalities with impunity. It is discrimination and devaluation of life.

As it is widespread knowledge, more than 50 per cent of Black families are headed by single-parent women and two-thirds of Black children are born out of wedlock resulting largely from a feeling of not being wanted. The latest challenge such women are facing in these times being ravaged by COVID-19 pandemic is eviction from their homes, burdened by an inability to pay rent. Blacks have been more affected by the pandemic than any other racial group. So as not to be thrown onto the streets, Housing Justice Movement has emerged and is asking for eviction moratorium. The combined impact of all these has led to a psychological feeling of low esteem among the Blacks and the attendant disorientation.

The harrowing experiences are not without sympathizers among the Whites. Many have been touched. Many a figure with contrite souls has spoken about their abhorrence for the harm the Western world has inflicted on the Black race. It reminds many, for example, of what former President of France, Jacques Chirac once said: “We bled Africa for four and a half centuries. We looted their raw materials, then we told lies that Africans are good for nothing. In the name of religion, we destroyed their culture. And after being made rich at their expense, we now steal their brains through miseducation and propaganda to prevent them from enacting Black retribution against us.”

The killing of George Floyd was greeted by multiracial protest marches tagged “BlackLivesMatter” with multitudes lying on their backs on bare public square grounds, not just in America but in several parts of Europe and Africa. The Minneapolis City Council has given a bite to their threat to disband its police department. Congress is mulling on how to curb police excesses in America as a whole. Through what the world saw of the killing of Floyd, not many knew that the United States that prides itself in the rule of law could tacitly approve a certain degree of police violence that often results in deaths, without state recourse to the courts.

In the wake of the violent death of George Floyd through police neck choke there is a resurgence and the unmistakable resurgence of nationalism in Nigeria partly in colour solidarity with Black brethren everywhere, with some pressing that we return to our culture and pristine religious persuasions, indeed going to the extreme by dubbing Christianity and Islam as foreign: We have our own religion, they say. The advocates are drawn largely from the ranks of the enlightened and the sophisticated.

Happenings in the world, to the discerning, are perplexing. They induce deep reflection. Have we not seen how events pile one after the other, how events are accelerating and intensifying, and little things, almost innocuous issues are escalated beyond proportion? Where is the world headed? Is this how things are to continue? The changes are unprecedented with the world going out of balance at a great speed. As I did hint, the perplexing problems of our time will require uncommon solutions which can only come from familiarization with Creation Knowledge, that is, deep knowledge of the totality of life, all the correlations. Part of that knowledge is enlightenment on reincarnation without which mankind will continue to grope in darkness and as we are witnessing causing great harm and devastation to both man and his environment. What are we to understand, for example, by a pronouncement that no one suffers because he is White, Black or Brown but because he is himself. I find this seminal work titled “Why was I born?” very instructive; the author puts it poignantly: “The knowledge of reincarnation is essential to being able to grasp our human existence as a complete whole. Without it, we fare as one who would judge the action of a play, a film, or a novel on the basis of a single scene or chapter. We are bound to come to wrong conclusions because we lack the knowledge of the connections.”

Why is one child born sightless and the other with clear sights? Why are some born into affluence, with a silver spoon in their mouths and others into untold penury? The destitute woman by the roadside brings forth babies effortlessly without the expertise of a teaching hospital, and the well-off and sophisticated lady with everything going for her runs from pillar to post; from Britain to India and from Lagos to China in search of just one child? She says on her knees, “Lord, do this for me, even if it is just one, only one!”

Another aspect of the knowledge is to know who the man is. He is spirit encased in the fine wrappings that first makes him a soul and material body that makes him a dweller on earth, an earthman. The animating core is the spirit. It can only then follow that every man is a spirit and all men have a common origin which is the Spiritual Realm high up in the structure of Creation, the place we all call Paradise, the destination we long to reach after the sojourn on earth as learners. It can also be seen that the essence is the same, it is the forms that are changeable, manifesting today as Black and tomorrow as White, depending on the need of each individual for his development, be it environment or station in life. Joy and sorrow, disappointments and success knock on the door of everyone, for atonement and progress. If every human being on the face of the earth has been here before, a great many no fewer than 40 to 50 times, is it not possible that a multitude, indeed billions of Blacks today had been Whites before, and Whites in equally billions had been Blacks in previous earth lives and today here to make atonements for previous mistakes? Is it inconceivable that many a Blackman today were slave owners of old and on recognizing their hindering grave errors and crimes, and upon supplication to be allowed to make amends, are on earth to fight for the dignity and liberties of the Blackman they once despised? Is the Whiteman of today, who was once a Blackman and who has not sufficiently developed the spirit of forgiveness, here on a vengeance mission for the evil perpetrated against him while he was a Blackman and the Blackman victim was a Whiteman? Did the threads of encounter in previous earth lives bind them together so their paths can cross again? Questions, Questions and Questions in our closets! The answer must lie in knowing: “Who is behind the veil?”

It is important to also state that there are no Whiteman’s religion and Blackman’s religion. There are also no foreign religions. The so-called different religions are degrees of recognitions and steps of development in the evolution of mankind. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come for only the Jews nor did Prophet Mohammed come for only the Arabs. Christ incarnated among the Jews because they were the first people to recognise that there is only one God, and is thus closest to the Truth He incarnated in their midst. Abraham proclaimed the knowledge of one God Jehovah in 1800 BC and it was reinforced by Moses, the lawgiver, in 1,200 BC in his teachings and through the Ten Commandments of God which he received on Mount Sinai. Many of the Teachers and Prophets came as Forerunners to the Light between 500 BC, 550 BC and 800 BC. Lao-Tse came in 600 sent to China; Buddha to India 550 BC; Zoroaster to Iran 600BC. Jeremiah came in 630Bc; and Elijah 800 BC. Prophet Mohammed came 571AD following the failure of mankind after the Lord departed, murdered by mankind to whom He brought Holy Peace and enlightenment on the purpose of life and what man needs to be done to fulfil and get back home in Paradise. As I did state recently, Prophets and Teachers of mankind were sent down to this earth by God Almighty to bring different aspects of Truth as appropriate for human beings at certain stages in their development.

In Africa, there were two Light incarnations some 3000 years ago. All human beings started from the rudimentary stage, first with the recognition of the elemental beings who were their teachers. As their inner eyes got open and connected to the finer environment, the external perception temporarily shut, they were able to behold the lords of the Elementals. They were able to discern the specific briefs of each of them. Such was it that acute sense of justice was ascribed to Zeus; vigilance to Athena; sincerity to Apollo; Aphrodite, grace; Mercury, humility and conscientiousness; Mars, courage and Artemis, purity. The knowledge of these beings was universal. Different peoples have different names for them but their recognition of their briefs was the same. To advocate that we go back to the antiquity age is either retrogression or we are marching on the same spot. Man has no excuse today for ignorance as he is surrounded by help and knowledge of the immutable and incorruptible lawfulness that governs Creation all times.