Chika Onyeani - Capitalist Nigger

Book Description

Provocative, daring, acerbic but truthful Capitalist Nigger exposes the endemic frailties that debilitate and dehumanize the Black race into dependency, complacency perennial low self-esteem and inaction as if these were divinely ordained. Onyeanis tirade is angry but affectionate; it is a tongue-lashing but genuinely concerned about the fate of his race. As usual in life, this kind of truth scathes the ears. After all the charity begins at home with ones own race.

Dr Michael C Malherbe

Professor & Chair, Africana Studies/Humanities Department

Hostos Community College of the City University of New York

CAPITALIST NIGGER excels as an explosive and jarring indictment of the Black race. The book asserts that the Negroid race, as naturally endowed as any other, is culpably a non-productive race. The Black race is a consumer race and depends on other communities for its culture, its language, its feeding and its clothing. Despite enormous natural resources, Blacks are economic slaves, because they lack the devil-may-care attitude and the killer-instinct of the Caucasian, as well as the spider web mentality of the Asian. Capitalist Nigger contends that only as Economic Warriors, employing the Spider Web Economic Doctrine, can the Black race escape from their victim mentality.

This is a book of passionate sense of outrage and collective self-reproach. The beginning of self-reform is self-criticism. This author manifests a combination of anguish, anger and patriotism.

Ali A Mazrui. D Phil (Oxon)

Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities

Director of Global Cultural Studies, Binghampton University

Chika Onyeani is an internationally acclaimed journalist. A former diplomat, Onyeani is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the cutting edge and powerful African Sun Times , the only weekly African newspaper distributed nationwide in America.

Onyeani has received numerous awards for journalistic excellence. His incisive and explosive editorials and articles have proved prophetic on several occasions. A sought-after speaker, Onyeani has received wide media attention. He is an alumnus of several institutions of higher learning, both in England and the United States.

Title Page

JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS

JOHANNESBURG & CAPE TOWN

Dedication 1

It is not what you call me,

but what I answer to, that matters most.

An African P r overb

Dedication 2

To my parents Abba and Oyidiya Onyeani

Who always believed and instilled in me

the idea of personal responsibility

Dedication 3

Just as the Jew is hated in Russia, because he is thrifty, so the negro meets no resistance when on a downward course. `It is only when he rises in wealth, intelligence and manly character that he brings upon himself the heavy hand of persecution.

Frederick Douglass

July 1892

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I owe a great load of gratitude to several people who made writing this book a satisfying task. I doubt I could have written the book without the urgent insistence of Diahann Johnson, who immediately recognized the need for such a book as soon as I discussed the idea of the Capitalist Nigger, and even when I faltered with the so-called writers block, insisted it was my duty to the Black race to finish the book.

I must also thank Professor Michael Mbabuike, Chairman of the Africana Department and former president of the New York African Studies Association, who first read the draft of this book and pronounced it a provocative, incisive, insightful and a general success in the annals of socio-economic punditry; Desiree Agudo, Managing Editor, the African Sun Times , for taking a great load of work off my back by being there and ensuring nothing interferes with the paper coming out on time; my children Abba and Chika, for constantly asking when this book would be finished and expressing great pride in their fathers work and my nephew Uche Nwachukwu for constantly helping me in working out the computer glitches. I also want to thank Kenneth Ramseur, Esq., for opening my eyes to the American South I hardly knew about and making Justice Frederick Douglasss speech to me.

Finally, I must thank my wife, Loretta, an African-American, who initially opposed this book because she believed I hated Black people (African-Americans), but finally realized its import and has become a big cheerleader, and especially for providing the best hotel suite to stay and finish this book at the Reno Hilton, Nevada.

Power of a Word

POWER OF A WORD

It is not what you call me, but what I answer to, that matters most.

An African proverb.

According to Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, the word Nigger has now come to rank as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English ..... it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry. Ordinarily, according to the same dictionary, the word itself refers to a black person, having been used by such considered great writers like Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain and William Shakespeare. This word has caused all kinds of invectives between Blacks and Caucasians. Caucasians think by calling Blacks (Negro, Blackman, African-American, mulatto) Niggers, they are putting them down and putting them in their place, which would anger most Blacks. Blacks on their part have always obliged the Caucasians by doing exactly as they have anticipated.

We are creatures of habit. We like to take advantage of every situation. And Caucasians have been taking advantage of the Black race in every situation from the enslaving of Africans and plucking them to America to the present time of trying to demean us by the word Nigger. What is really in a word? We make it what we want it to mean. By accepting what others want us to believe a word means, we are invariably giving them the satisfaction of feeling a superiority over us. But when we hardly notice such an appellation as meaningless, it not only makes the user of the word totally stupid, it also takes away his feeling of superiority.

CAPITALIST NIGGER pp. 18 - 19

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

In October 1960, Nigeria received its independence from Britain. By then, Ghana the former Gold Coast had been independent for three years under the great Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah. It was a time for celebrating Africas coming of age, as more and more African countries received their independence either from Britain or France. It was especially a poignant time for Africa, as then British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan articulated his now famous winds of change sweeping Africa. Ive had high hopes for Africa, for the Black race, that the insidious imposition of foreign rule on us, the looting of Africas natural resources by our colonial masters and the disrespect and disdain that these colonial masters accorded us would be things of history.

That is more than forty years ago. Unfortunately, the promise of independence has not been fulfilled. Today, Africa has become more desolate; there is more starvation, diseases and non-provision of essential services than when we got our independence. There are all kinds of wars in Africa and millions of lives have been lost. There are more dictators in Africa than the rest of the world put together. The majority of so-called African leaders want to stay in power until the day their bodies are put in the grave. Through buffoonery, utter mismanagement and downright stealing of the wealth of the masses, these leaders have so impoverished Africa that we are now nothing but a beggar continent. We beg for everything; we are more dependent on our colonial masters than when we received our independence from them. Africa owes the West more money than we and our generations to come can repay.