Race held back by selling out

Black.

I really do not like the title “black” people.

If black symbolizes death and ignorance, then that must make black people a bunch of zombies.

If you sincerely do not care, you are one of those zombies they so often refer to. I just recall that as a little kid I didn’t like to be left alone in the dark.

We as black people are, as a whole, the people in the dark together, but alone. We don’t look out for one another. Everyone is aware that we’re in the same struggle. But as soon as one of us achieves success, he turns his cheek and leaves the rest of us to struggle by ourselves.

These are what you call sellouts.

Sellouts are those blacks who betray other blacks. Too many blacks are sellouts. Somewhere between our trip across the Atlantic and now, we picked up this to-hell-with-anyone-else-but-me-as-long-as-I-make-it mentality. An alarming percentage of blacks are contaminating their people from the courthouse to the White House, from the TV to the radio.

Maybe we are dead people walking.

Selling out isn’t winning the Cash 5 on Wednesday and moving from the projects into a condo on Thursday. I mean, who wants to stay in the ghetto? I’ve stayed in some of the worst areas in America, and I was overjoyed to leave. Selling out isn’t marrying someone of another race or enjoying “white folk” music. I happen to enjoy “white folk” music and, as far as I am concerned, love is colorblind.

There are so many different viewpoints on what makes someone a sellout. In the political scene, Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas and Armstrong Williams are the poster boys for black sellouts and trailing not too far behind them is the newly confirmed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Who in their right mind would refer to his mother or sister as a “slut” or “hoochie?” Any music artist that pimps his Nubian sister via radio or television is a sellout. I could name so many, but you have heard them on your radio or seen them on BET before. That reminds me… Bob, Bob, Bob, you let us down.

How are we as a people going to move up economically if we give our earnings to everyone besides us?

About five years ago Bob Johnson, then owner of BET, sold his company to Viacom. Viacom, which also owns, CBS, MTV, UPN and Paramount Pictures did what so many whites have been doing for hundreds of years: keeping blacks in their place.

We are being duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled!

Bob sold out his people. It’s the American Negro way, right?

No.

As Bob Johnson told the Washington Post, “What are my responsibilities to black people at large? If I help my family get over and deal with the problems they might confront, then I have achieved that one goal that is my responsibility to society at large.”

This is the infamous American motto, “I can’t help you.”

With the NAACP afraid to stand up without using the IRS as a crutch, it’s apparent that there isn’t going to be too much advancement happening as long as the NAACP continues to sell out by allowing the IRS to cover their mouths.

Being the aspiring professional journalist I am, I would love to say thank you to Jayson Blair. Sike! Mr. Blair, who happens to be black, once worked for The New York Times. In 2003, he embarrassed himself by submitting fraudulent reports and was fired as a result. That road not so easily traveled is even more difficult now.

“United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” My people we must get up – together.

Siraaj Sabree is a sophomore newspaper journalism student from Miami. He can be reached at bree_305@yahoo.com.