Homeless Activist Ted Hayes of Los Angeles asks a compelling question in his newest book The Other Side of the Pyramid. His question: If the proverbial Black man is indeed the original (man) who laid the foundations from which all civilizations are built, fell, and will fall, and being the first ruler over all peoples, looking at his present disastrous state and trending fate to total annihilation, the profound question must be asked…what happened?”
How did people of African origin go from the top to the bottom?
Of his backround, Hayes writes of himself:
“As one who willingly chose to live with the folks (the homeless) to whom I am charged, that being the weakest and most vulnerable human beings in any society, the experience has gifted me with a unique understanding which no other American in US history has been granted by our Creator GOD.”
Hayes asks Black Americans or those who call themselves African Americans to re-examine themselves and their history, not only in North America from the 1600’s to the present day but also in Africa. He also asks them to question the ‘politics of pigmentation’ that has exploited “White Guilt” for Black Power. In no way does he minimize the horrors of chattel slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, Ku Klux Klan terrorism, etc. However Hayes eschews the one-sidedness of the racial debate that blames European (White) people for the entire sum of Black American racial woes.
Hayes writes:
“It is evident such a perverse interpretation of the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade has not improved the state and the fate of Blacks, but has instead made it even more dire, even worse than pre-1964 Civil Rights Acts.
“Blaming the proverbial White man has not and is not working, because such is not the full truth, and most importantly, GOD does not approve of it, therefore HE does not bless us Blacks as we desire.”
The Other Side of the Pyramid is the nexus between past Black history and the present Black condition. Hayes says that the idea of the “White man” being totally responsible for the enslavement of Black Africans is a myth and “an outright, self-destructive lie.” He writes:
“No matter what Whites do to rectify their standing with Blacks, nothing will benefit, not even a Reparations, until the former slaves admit with we are just as responsible, if not more for the slave-race ‘wound’ in America.”
According to conventional Black history taught in some quarters, savage White Europeans, with nets, invaded the peaceful, Edenic continent of Africa, must like what was portrayed in the 1970’s television mini-series Roots. These few Europeans used their nets to overpower the native Africans and to kidnap them to take them to the Americas. When he says “we,” Hayes writes:
“[I]t was actually Blacks in conjunction with certain Arab and converted African Muslims who captures and sold West Africans as slaves off their mother continent, thereby making them an exiled homeless, lost people to this day.”
Because of the “blame-the-White-man-only” mentality, Hayes says there is a wound within the psyche of the Black American community. He believes the wound can be healed when Black people embrace the historical truth of themselves, embracing the good elements of their history with the ugly elements. He quotes Jesus Christ who said:
“You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Hayes hopes that through his book that Black people will be set free and never see themselves the same way again. He writes in Chapter 2 – “Mia Culpa, ‘My Fault’?”:
“Instead of progressive, based on the mad ideals of the Black scholars and policy makers, the state of the various Black peoples of the earth has steadily grown more disastrous.
“It appears that historical discovery of our ancestors’ times seems more inclined to drive them/us, to further resentment, hatred, madness in a frenzied struggle for so-called liberation from the proverbial ‘White Man,’ instead of justice, peace, and prosperity...Look about! What is seen, heard, and felt among Blacks? Where has the resentment of the White man gotten us?..In reality, Blacks are literally scared to death of each other! More so than of the White man. Why?”
Hayes admits that in the past he, with feelings self-inferiority, also had resentments toward American Whites. But he feels when he saw the truth in Black history, ascending up the “bright side of the Pyramid,” he was set free to accept the Hamitic history of Africa, which was a history that laid the foundations of civilizations.
In Chapter 4 – “A Neo Form Racism,” Hayes writes that the Neo-form racism is “more insidious to us than that which the White oppressors have perpetrated upon Blacks, as evident in our subsequent inordinate, mad, self-genocidal rate and other destructive behaviors.” He addresses the contention that Black people cannot be “racist.” Presumably, this philosophy is based in the idea that since Whites have power to oppress, they can be racist. But since Blacks have no power to oppress, they cannot be racist.
Hayes writes:
“Despite one’s skills color, race, ethnicity, etc. , if that person thinks and acts upon the idea of genetic superiority over others by a so-called divine right, that person or persons is/are still racist, anti-himan, therefore anti-GOD-Christ who created and Loves all equally. Any people who foolishly fall into that mindset of genetic superiority are due a horrible awakening in identity confusion.”
Hayes also touches on the non-scientific “Melanin Theory,” which says that the pigmentation, melanin, in the skin of non-White people, makes them superior to those who lack melanin. Did inferior White Europeans discover some form of “White Kryptonite” that made the superior Melanin-rich Black people weak?
Hayes writes:
“The doctrine of Melanin is no different than that of the Nordic, Anglo-Aryan supremacist philosophy of racial purity being, ‘Whiteness is god-like and (has) civility’ while Blackness is diabolical and barbaric.’...According to this doctrine of racial supremacy, the Whiter a person, (the) closer to God (he is). The Blacker a person, the closer to the Devil (he is)…The Black version is simply the opposite…’Blackness is divinity and ‘Whiteness is diabolism.’”
Since many Black Americans hold to that Melanin Theory, Hayes compels the reader to use critical thinking and to follow that theory to its logical conclusion Since the original man, the Black African, has had an abundance of Melanin, he had to be closer to the divine element, closer to God. He was the zenith of superiority on this planet. But yet in time the superior Black man became dominated the inferior White man through slavery, colonization, etc. The evil non-melanites (White people) who have been disconnected with the divine element through melanin (therefore inferior) were able to dominate Black people who were connected with the divine element. How it is that possible inferior Weak people dominated superior Strong people?
Hayes makes the point:
“Strangely, the powerful GOD-given, good substance of Melanin so abundant in Blacks, indeed the very element that gave sudden rise to civilization and civil behavior even child-likeness in our peoples, was impotent to protect us from the inferior, White devils...the Melanists say, that Blacks are a pure, good, and innocent people, who were set upon by clever, deceitful Whites, therefore they, not us, are the sole reason for our demeaning fate and daunting fate. Interestingly, Melanin on one hand is all-powerful, yet on the other, it made Blacks so naturally good that we became weak and susceptible to foreign conquest and enslaved by those who are inferior to us...It is as though, we the ‘innocent’ were/are being unjustly exploited by sub-human beings.”
In the remainder of the book, Hayes proposes three theories of how the weak European dominated the strong African in which only one theory could be the correct one. He also expounds upon the very rarely-taught history of the Black-on-Black and Arab-on-Black slave trade in Africa which pre-dates the European slave trade in Africa. Hayes believes that this lack of acknowledgement of this “swept-under-the-rug” piece of Black history only causes the painful wound of the collective Black soul to fester. This wound of bitterness, resentment, lack of self-esteem, self-hatred, etc. cannot be solved with a monetary settlement of “reparations.” It can be solved by looking directly into all of Black history with all its flaws and embracing it. An understanding of the correct theory of how Europeans dominated Africans will bring Blacks to the “Table of Brotherhood” according to Hayes. That understanding will heal that festering wound of the soul in Black Americans.
Hayes, while explaining why people of African origin went from the top to the bottom, hopes to impress upon the reader:
“This brief book is not written to castigate, nor exonerate any race, ethnicity, nationality for human sufferings ‘today,’ but rather it offers some healing prescriptions that will ultimately shield our descendants ‘tomorrow’ from the devastations of their ancestors’ ‘yesterday.’”
The Other Side of the Pyramid can be purchased online from http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2449938. Ted Hayes can be contacted at ted (at) tedhayes (dot) us. His website is http://www.tedhayes.us. His phone number is 424-222-6010.
Robert Oliver is a writer and former newspaper editor. He can be contacted at interactionswest (at) gmail (dot) com.
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