West Indies Cricket Fans

Drapetomania was a term created by Euro-American physician, Samuel Cartwright, in 1851 to describe a contrived mental illness that allegedly caused enslaved Africans to flee their plantations. As a means of justifying this viciously racist “medical theory,” Cartwright went on to assert that the bible called for slaves to be submissive to their masters, and because of this, they should have no desire to run away. This evil white supremacist man even prescribed “whipping the devil out of them” (slaves), as a “preventive measure.” Some of the doctors that found his version of “science” to be valid, prescribed (and followed through with) the cutting off of each of the big toes of enslaved Africans, as a means of preventing them from absconding – highlighting the extent in which white supremacists will go to justify their attempts of supremacy over people of color.

Many of the evil people who supported the wretched institution of chattel slavery would routinely attempt to convince their slaves that this was their destiny in life and things would be “good” for them in the “next world” if they did their work and were obedient. Unfortunately this system of comprehensive oppression forcibly indoctrinated many Africans to buy into their oppressors’ ideologies regarding captivity. Chattel slavery was geared towards domesticating Africans in a similar manner to that of dogs – except even more inhumane. This was done by way of brutal oppression, physical and mental. Africans were starved of any knowledge of their true history or culture. They were forbidden from reading, writing, or even speaking in their native languages. Doing so would result in beatings, or death. White supremacists of then, just like those of today, understood very well the fact that armed with knowledge, anything would be possible for African/black people – even freedom.

Chattel slavery may have ceased, however the oppression of people of color continues in 2014. The United States remains a quagmire of oppression, white supremacy and institutional racism. Police brutality, educational and economic inequities, as well as gentrification (ethnic cleansing), are but a few examples. As a matter of fact, some of the least assuming facets of US society are riddled with the trappings of white supremacy and institutional racism. Take the upside-down world of corporate-backed Hip Hop music as a stark example of what can happen when white people with bad intentions gain control of cultural art forms derived from African/black people. Within the realm of corporate Hip Hop there now exists a theoretical plantation. This virtual plantation is primarily within the minds of scores of black and brown rappers who, unfortunately, have accepted the role of slaves to their corporate masters.

In 2013 this author wrote an essay entitled, “Hip Hop’s Ku Klux Klan & Corporate Slave Plantations: The Infestation of White Supremacy within Rap Music,” detailing this inconvenient reality. Hip Hop artists fail to recognize that they are routinely exploited at the expense of their dignity, their families and even the communities from which they derive. Like the non-substantive rewards doled out to select slaves in exchange for being “good n*****s”, many of today’s rappers are given material trinkets in exchange for acting out the white supremacists’ wet dreams of the stereotypical “black thug,” “jezebel,” “drug dealer,” and “sex crazed Mandingo.” This is why these corporate executives created “cookie cutter” roles for misguided aspiring rappers to conform to. White corporate executives laid the foundation for much of the “coonery” we see throughout today’s mainstream media. This is the “Frankenstein” version of rap music these cretins cultivated and strategically mass-promoted. This is Hip Hop’s corporate plantation where white media executives profit from the deluge of psychologically destructive music their mentally enslaved and misguided rappers blissfully produce. These corporate producers are not good people. They knowingly profit from the wicked offspring of violence that comes as a result of the music they selectively, and exclusively, choose to promote to the masses. For anyone to believe that impressionable youth do not attempt to emulate the actions they hear and see on rap songs and videos, is beyond naïve – it is intellectually dishonest