The broad ax., 1922-02-04
LITTLE PHILOSOPHY, BUT
BIG WORDS, THEREFORE
THUNDER

Mr.. Arthur Brisbane said it If
you want anything fight for it. You
get that from Ireland.
AS long as you DOM fight you
don't get anything. You learn that
from India.
The above is the very essence of
the purest philosophy. This does not
mean to be always pugnacious, or
waging strife, brutally carrying on a
bloody war. The Negro people
should struggle against adversely,
against dirt and ignorance, while yet
contending for rights, and protesting
for privileges that others seem to
have. The idea is not to always be
brutally giving away to force i'm
PEELED by ignorance and dominated
by vicious natures with an improper
and mistaken idea of reaching dis
tances far away, just by thinking or
acting hatefully.
We are in great need of the in
telligence which would enable US to
properly interpret our status quo, and
which would help US to modify con-
ditions and circumstances.
There are lots of things being done
to US, maybe the half of them because
the oPpressor is more ignorant and
less civilized than we are.
The chief idea is to have the right
kind of spirit and knowledge to deal
with marauding situations as they
arise. OF course we meet opposition
which the whole people do not de-
serve, but if we were not up and &C
tive, and ever on the alert to brave
the storms of racial conflict possibly
our progress would slow down to no
progress at all.
1t is that meanness and contempt |
of those who hate that compels US to
struggle forward and upward.
If the poor, illiterate whites had |
some of the same kind of prejudice |
to meet and overcome it would be
a very good thing. 1t would wipe
out the illiteracy of the South in two
generations. While we are at it we
might just as well speak of white as
a color. 1t is a fallacy. 1t is the
greatest fake that was ever pepetrat-
ed against humanity. A white goat
and a black goat, a white cat and a
black cat, a white bird and a black
bird, while from the color viewpoint
they are just as opposite as color
can make them Yet he who would
say that a white goat is better than
a black goat, white cat better than
a black cat, a white bird is better
than a black bird, would be looked
upon as some freskish specimen of
the damn fool variety. Yet when we
think of a white man and a black
nan even our philosophers crusted in
ignorance of the ages, and beset with
the prejudices of hell will at once
without giving the matter a thought
tell you that a white man is better
han a black man. Now come, let
IS see whether it is so. What is the
thief quality, and noblsst attribute of
human being1
It certainly cannot be the color of
human skin. Skin does not possess
my attribute. Yet if without any
hing to sustain the persistent who
'ereeches skyward like a dog at bay
hat white is better than black, and
$ therefore to be regarded as supe-
Tor, then our rejoinder is that stealth
md perhdy, torch and treaehery of
he white skin stands condemned be-
ore the world for ten thousand
'ears. It has brought about reforms
md made history rythmical, filed
he air with music and song, pano-
lied with grandeur the art of super
men, given the world a literature
While identifying language, yet when |
We. stop to think that every. step to-
yard the satisfaction Of the ambi-
ions has been made through the red
he'd blood of his brother kind it
rings a world shaking shudder to :
he human race. \
Everything low and deviIish, mil
ion inquisitions concentrated into I
me grand collosal nightmare and $