Nick Cannon: Black Hebrews and ... Black Supremacy?

Sometimes, my laughs sound like growls.

So, Nick Cannon lost his show and Viacom has severed ties with him. Most likely, you know why, since I’m (fashionably) late to the topic, but we can nevertheless revisit the statements and his being labelled a “black supremacist”. I in no way intend to defend his statement - he has had more than enough time to recant them many times and many more have opined on them-, but I believe a good breakdown of the two main points of controversy may be an interesting and revealing introduction for the question “What is a Black supremacist?”

Keeping it real

First, he asserted that Black people cannot be antisemitic because ancient Jews were Black, and that White Jews are “fake Jews”. Right, well Ancient Hebrews being Black would not make all Black people Hebrew. All squares are rectangle, but not all rectangles are square, simple enough to dispel, but the mere presence of that fallacy betrays the emotional importance of that identity claim. The belief that Black people in America are the original Hebrews is one popularly associated with the Hebrew Israelites, and I will get back to this.

Now to the more explosive part of that first assertion: White Jews being “fake Jews”. If you skim the Net for literature on Jewish history, you may find that the difficulty experts have in finding documentation for certain periods has left place for some divergent theories about the origin of Ashkenazi Jews, who make up a majority of the Jewish population in the world. While most theories and studies support that the Ashkenazim trace their origin directly to Israel with some admixture of groups with which they came in contact, some others controversial theories view them as early converts of non-hebraic origin. Clearly, Nick was basing his thoughts on the latter. But again, even if that latter theory was true (and that is a big “if”), calling them “fake” or questioning their authenticity in such ways would still be condemnable knowing all they have endured throughout only what we know of their history just because of their identity. It is something for which Black people, out of every people, can find compassion. Again, all questions of identity are emotionally charged, and even more when a painful history comes with it. But what is the point behind these claims of impersonation? What exactly do Black people gain if the original Hebrews we Black as well? What is the endgame in such a strategy, as emotionally rooted as it is? I will get back to this after breaking down the second controversial assertion.

When there is smoke...

The second point of controversy is that he said White people have less soul and are more savage because of their lack of melanin. Now this assertion, mighty interesting as I find it, caused a bit less controversy than the first one, but they paired in an explosive package. Of course, anyone who ventured in the “conscious” community - or crossed its path on social media - knows of the purported association of melanin to soul and the third eye of the pineal gland. This idea carries a lot of religious undertones coupled with scientific claims which I do not intend to address.

We don’t have no friends

Ina high society

We don’t have no friends

Mark my identity

Bob Marley - We and Dem

However, if we are to consider,  in addition to the well documented history of the Western world in regards to Africans, the Arab slave trade, the Latinx world insistence on “salvar la raza” (itself a ramification of our history with Europeans), the marginalization of Black Jews in Israel, the cast system in India which parallels a bit too well the racial hierarchy with which we are way too familiar, and the history of East Asians’ enslavement of the dark skinned aborigines in their region and in the surrounding islands among other examples, there emerges a consistent pattern of white or lighter skinned peoples victimizing darker peoples. Such a well established correlation begs the question of a potential causal link. Nick was reportedly influenced by Frances Cress Welsing’s notion that White people fear the potential genetic annihilation Black people represent to them. I can’t comment on Dr. Welsing’s ideas as I have not read them, mainly because I was always satisfied with Dr. Amos Wilson’s answer as to why White people oppress us: “because they can”. Simple, elegant, it implies that if we render it impossible, they can have fun figuring out their motives on their own. Nonetheless, I did encounter some snippets of her interviews, and while I would have a lot more questions about “genetic fear”, I very much understand her point about the fear she isolates as she ascribes a genetic origin to it. There is indubitably a fear - racism is a type of xenophobia, a fear of the other -, to which we can make our way while finally addressing my point on these Hebrew Israelite beliefs.

No, U

I remember, about ten years ago, being handed a pamphlet summarily explaining that Black people in the Americas were the 12 tribes of Israel. Don’t ask me which people were the tribe of Judah or Levi, I absolutely don’t remember (even though I love gazing at maps of any kind and the pamphlet had one). What I got from the pamphlet and the guy who handed it to me is that these Afro-Asiatics went into exile in Africa, and when came time to sell slaves to Europeans, Africans turned on those “foreigners” who had lived among them …. for fifteen centuries. It immediately sounded weird to me, because I know for a fact that humans love sex, and that one of the most attractive traits which one can have to any human of any gender or orientation is novelty. With these two things, I know that even with rampant oppression, you just cannot stay “strangers” for fifteen centuries (ask Thomas Jefferson’s descendants).

As easy as it may be to punch logical holes in this theory, it is even easier to notice how emotionally loaded it is. If you step back, you see a people who were beat upside the head with Bible during their horrendous oppression finding a place in that very Bible. Black people in the Western world were told they were ungodly and they could only ascend in humanity by accepting the God the White man brought them. By recasting themselves as the very people chosen by God in White people’s very Bible, Hebrew Israelites have activated their ultimate Uno Reverse card while reframing their identity in their former master’s Holy Book (since we have also been called Hamites in attempts to justify Slavery). But notice that in doing so, they are not contesting the importance of the Bible nor the Judeo-Christian paradigm White people brought to us; they are only protesting their position in that paradigm. Just like when Black Americans claim to be Natives to separate themselves from Africa, the White scale of human worth is still intact; the Black individual solely attempts to climb it. The Black individual is still, through these movements, seeking the White man’s acceptance.

Black faces, White masks

When Europe sent its prime sociopaths and lunatics to proselytize the idea that the White man is one and only scale and model for humanity, instead of mounting an adequate protection against them and their lunacy, we have accepted them and, in time, their claims as our truth and incorporated them so deeply in our beings that we still live according to them. This is why, with the recent discussions on race which we in the Western world have been subjected to at work, we and our black colleagues try our best to appease and comfort our white colleagues before the discussion has even started. This is why African countries have always looked to build an African Paris or Switzerland but never a Wakanda (N. B. : an idea coming from a White mind). This is why, now that young White people are protesting against racism, the Black elites - notably Barack Obama, four years after leaving the most powerful office in the world - are only now finding the words and the will to support the cause. This is why, for formerly enslaved and colonized Black people, there is nothing harder than letting go of our oppressor’s religion. Even Rastas have a majority still holding on to their colonizer’s Bible, when the most liberating novelty with H.I.M. Haile Selassie at the time of his coronation was him being an observable beacon of Black sovereignty at a time where we felt stuck in a world built for White supremacy. Again, here, unable to let go of the Bible, we had to tie him to it to justify ourselves, which is a simple task considering Ethiopia’s history. Even our proudest black identities have to somehow get us higher on the White man’s scale of humanity. We dig in our history for parallels and equals to Alexander, Caesar, Louis XIV, Napoleon and Joan of Arc to prove that we can also mirror, if not rival, the White man’s history, plagued as it were by megalomaniac sociopaths. Our countries are underdeveloped not merely because of the structural issues that plague, but more so because they are not yet White countries in blackface. Is there a place in the entire Black world, wether woke or conscious or corporate, for self referential Blackness? Great question.

Therefore, yes, it is the White man’s narrative that Hebrew Israelites are sticking to when professing to be the original Hebrews. It is also notable that in accusing the Jews of being perfidious schemers and impersonators, they tend to agree with white supremacists. But although their soothing idea is religious in nature, if ever one was to justify that position with the way White academia and White media have conspired to hide and obscure Black history, I would have to concede to the contextual soundness of the conspiratorial premise. Should I mention Egypt? The mental contortions European explorers went through to explain Mwenemutapa and the coral mosques of Kilwa away from Blackness? Maybe White academia has indeed learned over time to not let any would-be Cheikh Anta Diop on archeological sites. Again, movements like the Hebrew Israelites are only attempts at mending the Black identities broken by our enslavement. However, if the purpose of these studies is to remeasure ourselves more favorably on the scale of Whiteness, is it even really a threat? Is the obvious psychological affliction of these “conscious” groups truly a hate crime? If the supreme tool you use to assess your human worth is Whiteness itself, how could you possibly be a Black supremacist? It does seem like it would disqualify Nick Cannon and the Black Hebrews from being actual black supremacists.

Where is the true BS?

But wait, if even Hebrew Israelites are not Black supremacists, who are? Do black supremacists even exists!?

If “Black supremacist” refers to one who deems Black people racially superior in some regard, I believe they do exist, and that they are quite numerous. I just don’t believe that any of them are Black.

Let me show you how I identify Black Supremacist thought. Whoever argues it is justified self-defense to use lethal firepower against an unarmed Black teen half your age, weight and size believes in Black supremacy. Officers who feel it necessary to violently take down one Black man with a whole team of officers believe in Black Supremacy. Cops who are overwhelmed with fear during simple interactions with Black people, whether they even act accordingly or not, believe in Black supremacy. If you deem it necessary or justifiable to use a superior amount of force, firepower and ammunition against Black people than against any other ethnicity in the same given situation, you believe in Black supremacy.

If you believe I have only scratched the surface, you are right.

At the core of the religion of white supremacist racism is a fear of the dreaded supreme threat, which the creed determines to be the Black individual. The faithful, whether casual believers or extreme fundamentalists, all behave according to this dogma. And it shows.

Whenever a crime against any group has been recognized by the dominant society, laws have been passed and resources have been funneled to the victims to right the wrongs. Except when the group victimized was Black. We’re supposed to get by with only half-ass apologies and our pride of our resilience. We are expected to get by equally or better with less, which can only be expected by people who believe us to be superior in crisis navigation. Treating the threat we are perceived as equally to other groups seems unequal to these worshippers. Their fear of adequate reparations to Black people for slavery, Jim Crow, colonization and the apartheids we’ve been subjected to is rooted in a belief in Black supremacy. This explain why leveling the playing field for Black people seems so unequal to these cultists. The system of White supremacy was elaborated with the objective to cripple the competition, and Black people’s crippling on all fronts, starting with the socioeconomic and psychological ones, is by far the most absolute. The size of the ravine this brotherhood feels it needs as an edge telegraphs the scope of the menace they see in us.

Hurt people hurt people

And this last point is clearly misunderstood among us Black people: the claim that we are inferior is not a conviction nor a belief but a wish, a soothing desire to appease their fear of Black supremacy. It is not so different in this regard from the wish of the Hebrew Israelites to be the “true chosen people” and aims for the same type of emotional comfort. They may have professed that we were less than human, but none of the attacks we’ve endured would have worked on non-human animals. We are, to these true believers of Black supremacy, “super-predators” (Does this work like super saiyajins? Are we what these dreadlocked space hunters evolve into with lots of training and anger?). In parallel, Jews were persecuted (and are still maligned) on grounds of perceived financial and political supremacy. What we have termed racist white supremacy actually operates from deep-seated feelings of insecurity and inferiority. That feeling of inferiority can be fantasized about through porn, through the homoeroticism of many of the sports our people dominate and through the constant uncredited borrowing of our culture, yet it still is the dangerous motivation behind their attacks on us.

But looking around, you have to ask “Why?”. Colonization worked. The Apartheids worked. The rapes worked. You might reasonably ask what there is to fear after we have been so thoroughly defeated. When we try to progress or self-actualize, we do so following the White man’s scale. When we rebel or give up, we devolve into the patterns of dysfunction White media have promoted to us. We still seek ways to make our hair hang straight down our backs, natural or not. Only the international White man is able to bestow upon us the attestation of human greatness which we so desire from him. We cheeringly recite and live by all of his chants of progressivism, conservatism, capitalism, Christianism and all other isms, only adding our color in front of them. We have fully accepted the gospel of White supremacy.

So why then still go to additional lengths to break us even further? Well, it might be that there somehow still is some glimmer of hope for us somewhere. Or it could just be because fear is not a rational assessment. I will let your level of optimism designate an answer for you. If they considered us to be an equal adversary, just half of what we have been through would have been enough. But this is not the case. The colonizer forced us bow so low to the white god because he so dreaded the black god he saw.

What type of scars would even make them feel so vulnerable? Who knows? Maybe they can turn around and blame the Moors...

The ironic and perverted poetry of it all...

Where did it all begin?

When will it end?

And it feels like total destruction is the only solution.

Bob Marley - The Real Situation

And I still love you.