I Have a Dream

By the way deaf people can’t hear their names with sound, so how do they call each other? It’s “sign name” with hands that identifies them. Normally you make the initial letter of your name with hand (ex. “D” for Daigo) in fingerspelling and touch some parts of body. To make “D”, first you stand your index finger upward like No. 1 and gather the tips of your tall finger, ring finger, little finger and thumb at one point. Now you touch shoulder and wrist with D for Daigo. Good. Thank you for calling me. I’m not very confident if you have correctly understood with my explanation, if not, sorry for that:((( Sign name is quite useful when you call someone from distance. My sign name is given by children when I was introduced in the morning assembly. This is one of my treasures in life.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!

Last year, I made a video for JHS-3 and put the message: “Be proud of your name. Because it is only one name in the world!” In Japan, giving name is very meaningful. Parents consider it as the first gift and job to child from parents so they put their wish and hope into child’s name. And giving name is referred to “Mei mei (命名)”, which literally mean “Name of Life”. In short, “giving name” means “giving life” in Japan. And Bushido teaches that Name is the most important matter for Bushi– Samurai; they considered even more important than their lives (名こそ惜しけれ). Bushi walks, lives, and fights as people memorize his name in a good manner and if his name will be disgraced, he is willing to cut his belly (Seppuku:切腹 –Harakiri) to prove his innocence. And if his name remains in people’s heart, that’s the honorable life for Bushi. We should respect others’ name.

In Slavery, name was meaningless for slaves. They had their own name but slaveholders gave different names to their properties. The main character of “Roots” his own name “Kunta Kinte”, but he was given another name “Toby”. I don’t know if he was happy with it. Just imagine that I give you a name “Nomed” or “Natas” and you use it from today. Are you happy? Cynically speaking, thanks to the slaveholders who kept records of their properties, the author of Roots, Alex Haley could trace back to his ancestor in Gamiba. I would say that History never forgets, even if people forget, in other words you can’t hide bad deeds in history. And names of people who do wrong will be memorized by people living in future. It’s better for you to keep your name clean and live rightly.  

Several years ago, I read the book, “Physics of the Impossible” by Michio Kaku, in which the author insists that so many things thought “impossible” in 19^th century are possible in 20^th century. Today we live in 21^st century and know that innovations and progress change our lives and thoughts. When you read the speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. above, you might feel a bit strange in his lines because today the world is becoming the place that Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed about. I’d never say no racism, no discrimination, no exploitation today, yet it is sure that things change and people change toward better future. We all live in the Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream today!

“White People”

I can imagine that many of you feel unpleasant by reading my lines. Some may say that it’s a stereotype; some would feel that it is written based on prejudice; some may think that D@IGO D@IGO is a racist. I will accept any criticisms on my words, but I want you to read on to the end of this writing before you finalize your judgment on my words. So would you be surprised if I say that I am writing to protect white people? I know a lot of white people who are kind, compassionated, sympathized to other peoples in the world; I believe that 99% of white people are nice and helpful, and never offend other peoples. Let me introduce a video: “Colombia – Would you like take the risk?” You can find it on Youtube. It is a video to promote Colombia, but it doesn’t hide negative realities such as Marijuana, Cocaine, guerrilla, drag smugglers etc. and says:

“…a population of 42 million of people of which 99% are nice, hardworking and honest, and don’t grow Marijuana or Cocaine…”

If you want to inherit your righteousness to your descendants in future, you should bravely tell both positive and negative truths in history. This is the way to protect right people.

In my definition and usage of words, “white people” (with double-quotations) is different from white people (without double-quotations). The former is a pronoun (I created) for those who inherit the ideology “White as Superior”, while white people merely means people who have white skin. It has nothing to do with nationality; it has nothing to do with race; it has nothing to do with color of skin. Namely “black people” who helped Slavery are “white people” in my definition, while white people who are helping people in developing countries without hypocrisy are not “white people”, regardless of colors of skin. It’s not a matter of physical appearance but of behavior and mentality.  

Yet things are not that simple. When I was talking with a Lithuanian friend about history, he became nationalistic and started advocating “white people” in history. I was NOT talking about white people living today, but “white people” who did bad deeds in history. However he mixed them up and protected “them”. It is true that Lithuanians are white in terms of race (color of skin) but they didn’t join Slavery, Colonization, Imperialism by “white people”, rather had been exploited and suffered from the oppression of the Imperial Russia and Soviet. Why did he try to advocate “them”? This is caused by Unconsciousness. Namely he considered himself as “White” in race and stand on the side of “white people”. It would be a beginning of racism. Unconsciousness is very dangerous.

That’s why I’ve been trying to talk to your Unconsciousness as “White” by using and emphasizing “white people” in order to make you realize and visualize your nature and Roots. If you’ve ever felt unpleasant when you read my lines, you’re a candidate of “white people”. It’d be hard to face the reality because it’s so painful as if you had a surgical operation by yourself. Yet it’s the necessary progress as human for our future. “I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one…”

If you say “white people” are superior to others as a race, you must also share negative facts of history done by “white people”; if you say that Leonardo da Vinci showed the superiority of “white people”, you also take responsibility for barbarous acts done by Spanish who recorded many cases of mass killings in the Latin America and destroyed and ruined the entire culture, tradition, and civilization to the extent that we can’t trace them today. Unconsciousness is Roots and vice versa. To make up better future, we should study our Unconsciousness and Roots, even if we meet something unpleasant. Does White as Superior die hard? To be or not to be, this is the question I want to ask…

 Internal Slavery

Slavery is one of most cruel acts done by “white people” in human history. So why was Slavery possible? Although it’s the historical truth that “white people” hunted black people in forests like collecting insect, there’s another way to collect Negros: “White masters” bought black people from “Black masters”. Namely there were collaborators who sold fellows to white people; Slavery was sustained not only by “white people” but “black people” living in Africa. This is an important factor.

I have a book named, “A History of INDIGENOUS SLAVERY IN GHANA” written by Akosua Adoma Perbi on my desk. The following is the knowledge from this book. Before Europeans came to the land of Gold Coast (today Ghana), there had been “indigenous slavery”. However here’s a problem to use the word “slave”. According to the author, the one in the African context is so different from the one by Anglo-Americans that we can’t call it “slave”. And when you see the word “slave”, you would imagine the one who were severely exploited without human rights and treated as a commodity or an animal. But in Ghana “slave-like slave” was regarded as a human.

 “The characterization of a slave as chattel was however, not part of the Ghanaian slavery experience. In Ghana the slave was regarded as a human being and was entitled to certain rights and privileges. (P-4)”

And foreigners witnessed the treatment of slaves then.

“Basel missionary Zimmerman noted that slaves were well treated by their owners and this was a normal situation. He commented as follows: With the normal situation where the master treats his slaves in a fatherly way, the slaves leave only in particularly tense situations or out of their own light-headedness or disobedience. (P-120)”

Slave was a human being in Ghana while it was commodity for “white people”. Although it’s however very inconvenient that there is no appropriate word for “slave” and “slavery” in Ghana, I think you have understood that slave in Ghana was not the same as slave for Anglo-Americans.

Nevertheless it is true that this “Indigenous Slavery” pushed black people into becoming real slave in Americas, even if they were treated as human beings. For instance once a war happened between tribes and prisoners of war became slaves of the winner, they were easily sold to “white people” because people don’t normally sympathize with people from other tribes, and rather chief of winner could get profit from selling their slaves. This would be the Roots of corruption in Africa today.

When Europeans tried to exterminate the owner of land of America “Native Americans”, which is genocide, “they” provided alcohol to get Native American addicted to it; “they” killed America Bison on which Native Americans relied (because of “white people”, America Bison is on the edge of extermination); and whenever “they” found conflicts between tribes, “they” agitated them and supplied weapons to both sides. Actually this is the typical way of “white people” to conquer and destroy other lands for “their” business. Because whoever wins, “they” can make profits from selling weapons. That’s why War continues today. This is one of Roots of “white people”. You remember the words of Nkrumah: “(…) the enemy is intangible, invisible and impersonal, (…) Imperialism and colonialism die hard, and what they fail to achieve in one form they try in another.” Actually 150 years ago, “white people” did their ordinary job in Japan as well to mess up Japan and sell weapons.

In any event it is true that indigenous slavery assisted Slavery of “white people” and there’re sadly collaborators in Africa who made profits from selling fellows. Conflict is Market for “white people” and Integration is a weapon against “white people”. Thus we must be all connected each other.



Continued

Meaning of History for “White People” – Volume-2

 So why do “white people” must distort, forge, and fabricate their own history? Because “they” regard themselves as “superior” to any other races. And “they” would think that the superior white race must have “superior history”?! This idea would be the engine to make up things with lies or myths of history. Thus “they” want to and “need to” hide the fact that white people are a newcomer in the history of civilization. And some theories (ideologies?!) pushed the idea “White as Superior”.

 There is a theory called “Aryan race” or “Aryanism” developed as a racial ideology that claimed that the Aryan race (Indo-European speakers = white people) was a master race (from Wikipedia). It is very famous that this theory was used by the Nazi as the ideology to brainwash people.    

 There is another theory called “Degeneration theory” believed by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and other monogenists who believe the theory of human origins that all human races share a common origin.

“He claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian (Georgian) and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor dieting …”

 What he meant is that the origin of people “Adam & Eve” are white people and other races lost the quality as human adopting to environment. In sum, he insisted “White as Superior”. By the way you know how long Adam & Eve survived? 700 years! It means white people also degenerate in terms of aging.

Let me quote some lines by Georges Cuvier from Wikipedia “Scientific racism”:

“The white race, with oval face, straight hair and nose, to which the civilized people of Europe belong and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is also superior to others by its genius, courage and activity.”

“Regarding Negros, Cuvier wrote: The Negro race … is marked by black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium and flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe: the hordes of which it consists have always remained in the most complete state of barbarism.”

However the scientific reality is:

“…European belief that Negroes have smaller brains, and are thus intellectually inferior, is scientifically unfounded and based merely on the prejudice of travelers and explorers.”

 So why are white people categorized in “Caucasoid”?! Blumenbach divided the human species into five races, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, Malay and American, in 1779 based on his research of human skulls. And Caucasoid stems from Caucasia, the land between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, but it’s not the land of “white people (Europeans)” today. Wired… The origin of Greek and Roman civilization is east, so the origin of “white people” must be east to justify the Degeneration theory, and “they” can hide that Europe today had been out of civilizations and barely insist, thanks of geographical reasons, that ancestors of Europeans contributed to, more arrogantly “created”, ancient civilizations. And in this classification there is another problem: the naming “Negro” itself is discrimination; other names are based on the places, but Negro mean “black”. Why were black people named by the color of skin? Discrimination is deeply rooted in the mind of “white people”. 

 I don’t think white people today believe those theories, except few fanatic people, however “White as Superior” does die hard; it’s imprinted in the “Roots” of white people. I just ask you: Do you inherit this Roots? Anyway to sum up, History for “white people” means favorable fiction they make up on desk and an instrument to feel superiority to other peoples. If you’re not proud of your own Roots, you won’t respect other peoples and history of others. History will tell us the truth in future.