Black supremacy

Black supremacy is the belief that blacks are genetically or "racially" superior to people of other racial backgrounds.

Black supremacy vs. white supremacy

"Black supremacy" is a highly controversial, emotionally charged term.

Unlike many white supremacists, who generally embrace their label, most "black supremacists" reject the term because of its implicit meaning. They do not regard their belief in black superiority as an equivalent opposite of white supremacy, which is far more widespread, and which historically has been reinforced and sustained worldwide by instruments of Western economic, political and military power. The integration of instruments of white supremacy -- institutions; their human agents, individually and collectively; policies; procedures and actions -- that work to systematically disenfranchise, marginalize or otherwise oppress nonwhites on the basis of race or ethnicity is called institutional racism. In comparison, there is no powerful, far-reaching nexus of instruments under black control that have a corollary effect on whites. In predominant part, black supremacy in the past has been, and remains today, an internal, almost existential belief system. That is, as an ideology it is simply conceptual and confined to its believer community. Contrarily, white supremacy has been, and remains today, a political ideology, a worldview. Its power is projected outward as an instrument of dominance and oppression to preserve and regain white hegemony, white power and white privilege.

Author and social commentator bell hooks (1995, p.154) writes:

...it is [the] system that promotes domination and subjugation. The prejudicial feelings some blacks may express about whites are in no way linked to a system of domination that affords us any power to coercively control the lives and well-being of white folks. That needs to be understood.

Based on this understanding of racial or ethnic supremacist doctrines, there is no such thing as "black supremacy," per se, as a corollary of white supremacy; it simply does not exist. But black supremacy as a core belief in the inherent superiority of indigenous peoples of Sub-Saharan and West Africa and their progeny has been a fairly marginal, but growing, school of thought among blacks for 30 years or more.

Rastafarianism and the Nation of Islam

Rastafarianism is a religion that originally was founded on principles that included a belief in the inherent wickedness of the white race and the absolute superiority of the black race. This element of Rastafarian religious dogma, promulgated by preachers like Leonard Howell, has been almost entirely abandoned in modern Rastafarianism, which accepts converts from all ethnicities. A few, small fringe groups, however, continue to adhere to a black supremacist doctrine.

In the 1930s, the Nation of Islam, emerged, coming to prominence during the 1960s, when charismatic minister Malcolm X became a spokesman for the movement. It was during the time of the American Civil Rights Movement, a period of social and political ferment in the United States, when a number of African American organizations became more militant in their demands for positive change.

Some whites believe that the Nation is a black supremacist organization, but this notion is an erroneous one. While generally hostile to whites based on their history of racism and oppression of people of color, generally, and blacks in particular, the Nation of Islam never held that any race was superior to another. The earliest doctrines of the Nation of Islam held that whites were "devils" and enemies of blacks. Among other tenets, the group's founder, Elijah Muhammad, preached the "Doctrine of Yakub," which held that the Original Man, was the "Asiatic black man." White people, it contended, were "grafted" from black people 6,000 years ago by a mad scientist named Yakub. Muhammad also preached black self-reliance, black cooperative economics and strict moral and physical discipline. Most historians and social scientists, therefore, classify the Nation of Islam as a [[black nationalism|black nationalist], or black separatist, organization.

Observers point out that modern science has proven that the first human beings were black Africans. The "Doctrine of Yakub," they argue, is simply a allegorical for the mutation, or evolution, over time of whites from blacks as a result of climactic differences as humanity migrated out of Africa and population other areas of the globe. Such colorful storytelling, they argue, is little different from the Bible's account of God creating Eve from Adam's rib, or the creation of heaven and earth in six days.

As the years have progressed, like the Rastafarians, the Nation of Islam has moved away from some of its more stridently anti-white rhetoric. It has formed working relationships with various groups across ethnicities, including whites, to address issues of mutual concern.

Such groups as the Rastafarians and the Nation of Islam emerged at a time when blatant racism and bigotry went largely unchecked in their respective societies. They were a reaction to the oppression and violence commonly directed at black people. Their rhetoric was a kind of liberation theology designed to challenge a status quo of white privilege and black disadvantage, as well as force their adherents to confront internalized values of white supremacy manifested as black self-loathing and fear.

Black supremacy and Melanin Theory

There are some blacks who today believe that, because blacks are the most ancient human beings on Earth, they are more highly evolved than other peoples of the planet. They cite the early, powerful black civilizations of Nubia and early dynastic Egypt as proof of inherent black superiority. Among some is a belief that the higher levels of melanin in black skin is one of the primary reasons for black superiority and black advancement. Those who subscribe to the Melanin Theory believe that, with higher levels of melanin in the skin such as that which occurs in people of black African descent, athleticism, intelligence and emotional, psychic and spiritual sensitivity likewise are increased.

Melanin is a neuropeptide, a polymeric substance that influences neural activity and mediates the conduction of both light and kinetic energy. It is an organic superconductor. As such, it is the subject of intense interest in biotech research and development, most notably in plastic electronics. Researchers postulate that melanin, in both its organic and synthesized forms, may be among a handful of biopolymers that one day could supplant conventional, inorganic materials such as gallum arsenide and silicon in high-tech devices.

The Melanin Theory has little to no credibility in mainstream social scientific thought or scientific study.

References

• bell hooks: Killing Rage: Ending Racism, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995, ISBN 0805037829

See also:

• Racism, White supremacy, Anti-Semitism