From the Publisher
It was a white man who said, "If you
want to hide something precious from
Black people, put it in a book because Blacks would not read it."
Well,
unfortunately for the likes of the New York Times, this run-away best seller
is making a fool of whoever said this because our people are rushing to
bookstores to buy this no-holds-barred book on the Black Race.
Here is
Gloria Dulan-Wilson's take on Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success
-
which you can republish as you please.
BY GLORIA DULAN-WILSON
DAILY Challenge
Hollis, Dean of the Liberal Arts College at Morgan State University,
“Capitalist Nigger - The Road to
Success,” is a landmark publication, and
its author has penned an historic and ground-breaking economic, political and
cultural treatise....” The Dean
of African Ambassadors (ECOWAS) in
Washington, D.C., Ambassador Mamadou Mansour-Seck said the book is “.... a
definitive wake-up call for all the Black race.
It is long overdue in this
21st century,” and the Chair and Professor of the Africana Studies/Humanities
Department, Hostos Community College of the CUNY, called “Capitalist Nigger
- The Road to Success,” “A masterpiece,
provocative, daring, acerbic...”
Rarely has the phrase “taking the nation by storm”
been so well deserved
"Capitalist Nigger" is African
emigre Chika Onyeani's first effort. And he
starts out with a bang — the proverbial “whack upside the head” that has
been
long needed to cut through the
plethora of over intellectualized diatribes
that we have had to digest as of late.
The title
CAPITALIST NIGGER will definitely grab your attention, as you try
to decide in your subconscious mind whether to launch a protest against the
use of the “N-word”; or to read it through and see who has the audacity to
use such a word in the 21st century, when so much emotional baggage has been
attached to it by the Black community.
But, as Onyeani stated in a recent
interview: “In Africa we have a
saying,
‘it’s not what you call me, but what I answer to, that matters most.’”
Once you get past the title, you begin to see there
is a method to Onyeani’s
madness. “We are creatures of
habit. We like to take advantage of
every
situation. 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 really is
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...it not only makes the user of the word totally stupid,
it also takes away his feeling of superiority.”
Onyeani’s motives for writing the book
were to open a debate on the state of
the African race, as well as to establish a doctrine of making money and
creating wealth.
Onyeani has a special vantage point, having
lived in the US for more than 30
years since the end of the Biafran-Nigerian
civil war, and has been married
to an African American for that long. He
has therefore gained a unique
understanding of the effects of oppression from
the standpoints of both
fricans and African Americans.
The book is an
indictment of Africans and African Americans and their
failure to fulfill the dream of liberation and independence, and a
constructive solution to those very same problems.
It is an absolute must
read for Blacks, no matter where you’re from.
I especially recommend it for
ego-ridden, puppet or hand picked leaders, and for the
constituents they
oppress; it’s for Africans in the diaspora, for those who think they made it
because they have an education and a degree or title; it’s for those
so-called leaders and political activists, college students, educators,
historians, and anyone African descent.
Onyeani wants us to stop playing the
complain and blame game and begin to
take responsibility for our own destinies.
Africa, as he so ably pointed
out, is one of the richest continents in the world but produces nothing,
depending on imports from other countries when they should be making and
manufacturing them themselves.
He introduces a concept called the “spider
web economic doctrine” to depict
the means by which East Indian immigrants have been able to move forward at
warp speed, enjoying success after success — they control the news stands in
New York, taxi, insurance, computers, hotels, motels, etc. They did it,
according to Onyeani by pulling together, controlling the production,
manufacturing and distribution of all their products in their communities
including food production, clothing, appliances, etc.
Evey dollar spent in the Indian community is
captured in the spider web
economic analogy and goes around the community 16 times before it goes to the
outside. Like a fly trapped in a spider web, the dollars are trapped and they
don’t get out. The multiplier
effect works in most communities where a
dollar becomes eight dollars and eventually ends up being $164.00.
But
before a dollar comes into the Black community, seven dollars has already
gone out, if it gets in to begin with, and if it’s not being begrudged.”
Onyeani has no love for many of the African
leaders or the so-called African
elite, with the exception of Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta,
Nnamdi Azikiwe, and those who were prepared to lay their lives down for their
country, putting the welfare of their people first.
Writes Onyeani: “Africans are not a
forceful people, neither are they
aggressive to the point of a fight to the finish.
We are not resolute in our
commitment to a goal and lack the devil-may-care doggedness needed to scale a
Mt. Everest or Himalayas. We have a
short attention span, and have a very
short bust of energy which easily extinguishes in the face of impediment.
We
prefer to be parasites of a culture which we had no hand in creating, a
caucasian culture took yeas to perfect, which we cannot easily emulate in its
basic tenets — a predisposition to make wars not only on themselves, but more
so on others for intimidation and supremacy.
Africans could possibly learn to develop the
technological means themselves,
but according to Onyeani, “it is any wonder that we go to school and still
come out illiterates. It is no
wonder that despite our years of school, if
we need our roads built, we have to contract them out to European engineering
firms to build for us; if we need electicity, we get Caucasians or the
Japanese to build them for us; if we need drinking water, we have to import
European or American experts to do them for us. We are highly educated, yet
we cannot assemble a bicycle.”
In terms of the mis-education of the African, Onyeani states that after 40 years of liberation we still are being taught African history through Caucasian eyes. “A community cannot survive when its so-called educated citizens are morally and intellectually bankrupt and decrepit. You cannot have a community whose intelligentsia are mere parasites of other cultures...It must be in our genes, our inability to take care of ourselves, our dependence on others to take care of our every need."
"One must question the intelligence of
a race of people which has seen how centuries of dependence on others have made
them perpetual slaves and who then continue to build
castles in the sky...authentic education will begin when
Africans abandon the easy way out by producing what they need rather than
depending upon Europeans and Americans and begin to build our own roads, produce
the drugs and medical equipment our people need, manufacture our own light
bulbs, build our power plants, build the electrical grids to provide electricity
for our multitudes. We don’t need to invent it, they have already
done it, we only need to copy it for our own benefit.
We don’t have to invent a new mousetrap.
It has already been invented."
This whack upside the head is not without its upside: He applauds African Americans for the capacity to endure and survive nearly 400 years of hardship. He recommends getting mentors, white ones where possible, who can give us inside information. Or better yet, begin to band together to develop our own wealth building groups. He also recommends that we follow the 16 principles of being a Capitalist Nigger.
And lastly, he recommends a three-day of atonement to begin to forgive ourselves and to confess our transgressions against our race, and to promise forthwith to correct such transgressions.
The book, self published by Onyeani under his Timbuktu Publishing company in New York, has already received rave reviews from many African officials.
Students throughout Africa will be using his book in conjunction with their class work to begin the work of developing a new understanding of the 21 century imperative of the spider web economy.
Editor's note:
Chika Onyeani is an author, writer, consultant and adviser to
governments, as well as the publisher, president and CEO of the African Telecom,
Inc., publishers of the African Sun Times, a weekly newspaper distributed
nationwide and geared to Africans in the United States and Africa.
Writer’s Digest
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Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success - A Spider Web Doctrine
It seems many writers attempting controversial subjects get across points
they couldn’t otherwise. From its sparkling cover on, this bold effort by
Chika Onyeani sets out to open a debate on the state of the African race.
His viewpoint will anger many, mostly Africans like himself, but his
commitment shines through, and in the course of reading the book, the reader
begins to understand what he is saying.
He delivers his message loud and clear. Since the African independence, he
is of the opinion that blacks haven’t reached their aspirations. His view on
how technology has passed them by is a fine piece of writing.
Separatism is not condoned by this author. He considers himself a warrior
seeking equality in a capitalistic world. He presents a strong case for his
race to quit being the consumers and join the providers.
The emphasis on the book is making money, and the author teaches by example.
He is at his best when discussing power. His focus is strong as he lays out
a road map to success. As an editor and publisher of the African Sun Times,
he knows his subject and explains his case well.
Conveying the ideology of Capitalistic Niggerism is no easy task, and I can
sympathize with the author’s accounting of writers’ block. Good for him that
he broke free of it and was able to write this important book.
.......I believe the author has done an excellent job with this book.
Melanie Rigney, Editor
Writer’s Digest
May 3, 2001