Black people are at a vast disadvantage when it comes to mastering technology and computers due to an economic and social disadvantage that has plagued our people since slavery, Jim crow and apartheid.
In the 90’s the internet exploded with a new technology that was introduced called social networking. As I understand things, Black people are also responsible for the technology necessary to create the internet. Philip Emaegwali is a Nigerian scientist who is responsible for super computers. We call these super computers servers today, and they are the necessary element that makes the internet possible in the way that it is today.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Black Voices and Black Planet were among the first sophisticated websites in existence. These black social networks had the most advanced networking system at that time. They were the first. And Black people loved using these platforms, because MySpace, Twitter and Facebook hadn’t copied their technology yet. One of the things I loved about Black Planet was that I was able to use HTML code and other hacks to change my profile and also change the behavior of the website altogether.
Then came white social networks and the flawed nature of Black people wanting the inclusion of white people changed everything. Once MySpace came along, Black Planet was abandoned and Black Voices was already out the window. Black Voices, which was the first major social network, was bought by AOL and then sold to Huffington Post who now uses the URL to point to a category in its website that focuses on Black people.
In hindsight, all it took for Black social networks to become irrelevant was a white owned platform that included Black people. The behavior is still amazing to me.
On Facebook, thousands of Black people complain on a daily basis about being mistreated by the platform, being put into what is popularly referred to as “Facebook jail” and constantly complain about their profiles being suspended or deleted – all claiming that they are being sought by the elite Facebook staff because their content is “too real for them racists.”
This doesn’t change the fact that they still choose to engage on the platform. Even after they talk about how the FBI has their profiles under surveillance, it doesn’t stop them from tagging all of their closest friends and family members on the platform and uploading up to thousands of pictures of themselves and family, all while knowing that Facebook has one of the most advanced facial recognition features on the planet.
When you are not aware that something is against you, then it’s not your fault if something bad happens to you. But how about if you are aware something is bad for you, yet you still use it as if nothing is wrong? Could this be perceived as a form of retardation? Perhaps delusional?
Black people need their own Black social networking platform. It’s a requirement, not simply a nice thing. You can’t purport to be about spending money at black businesses and supporting black businesses while black social networks go extinct and you fully support multi billion dollar white institutions that are against you. The behavior could not be anymore backwards. But unfortunately, black people have excuses and no one sees anything wrong with this degenerate behavior.
Today, Black social networking is on its last leg. It truly appears that Black people will not understand the necessity for a black social network until their masters tell them that they can’t have one anymore. The internet is changing and someday, trying to develop a website will be like trying to start your own radio station or TV channel.
The most popular Black social networks are owned and controlled by white entities. White people, especially in European nations such as America and Europe have a huge advantage over Black people. They have benefited from the hardships and labor of our ancestors, yet, Black people have become mentally lazy and morally cowardice when it comes to upholding certain principles and convictions that used to be prominent among our people. Chattel slavery may be over in most parts of the world, but the mental oppression of our minds still linger in most black societies. This is holding Black people back.
Black people don’t network together well because we are used to being so divided and seeing our own people as enemies. This is through systematic superiority, which empowers supremacy. Black people do the opposite of what it is actually going to take to uplift our people.
Black people as a whole need to get back into black social networking because the internet is a big giant network that operates socially. Black people need to ban together and create something truly amazing, or our opportunities to do so will blow away in the wind and we can continue to leave our kids dust and then complain about how white people did this to us. When the saddest truth of all must be stated: we do a lot of damage to ourselves through our own social behavior. It must stop!