Political Book Review: Ten Commandments for Good

Title: Ten Commandments for Good Negroes

Author: Terrell Carter

Publisher: Communities Forward

Date: 2020

ISBN: 978-0-9792443-2-2

Length: 57 e-pages

Quote: “A good negro is patriotic, reveres the flag, overlooks the sins of his nation, and forgets the history of his homeland.”

Pursuant to some things posted at this web site about the difference between “goood” and “nice”...

When reviewing this book, I have a problem. (I anticipated this problem.) I am not Black, so according to current rules of etiquette I’m not supposed to quote Carter’s “commandments.” But I think this may be useful. It can be a useful exercise, whatever your demographic identities may be, to use “A nice [whatever]...” as the subject of each one.

“A nice woman is agreeable.”

“A nice working-class man learns the rules and plays by them.”

“A nice junior employee is grateful.”

After all, niceness is the same regardless of race...right? Being a nice Black American doesn’t require more strain than being a nice whatever else—or does it? One benefit some people may get from reading this book is that it can show them some of the situations when being “nice” is opposed to doing what is good. Often “nice,” in this case, means “helping to maintain someone else’s inflated ego state,” which may help move product but does not serve the person’s Highest Good. There are actually 42 "commandments" and this somehow seems to represent the way the requirements for being "nice" tend to expand, to creep, to go far beyond what is good or even pleasant.

That’s not the author’s primary purpose in writing this short but hard-hitting book. This book grew out of the racial tension in Missouri that came to a head a few years ago. Neighborhoods and even churches were integrated (sort of), Black students were going to the best universities, Black people were doing all the most prestigious jobs, even the President was Black, White people were saying. What more can be asked? What do Black people want? So Carter gave them a few clues. His "commandments" are pithy, snarky, suitable for use as sermon or assembly speech outlines. They pack enough punch that some White people in almost any group are likely to reply, “That’s not what we want at all!”

For example, Carter’s first “commandment” mentions that Black Americans feel that they’re not supposed to think about their “ancestral homeland,” meaning Africa. (Ishmael Reed famously traced his roots, proved that he had Scottish, Cherokee, and Irish ancestors too, and joined the Irish-American League. Fine by this legally White descendant of the same Reeds.) In the past, reportage about Africa usually came from colonial administrators with an interest in making their employees sound like rather brain-damaged animals, or from missionaries asking for money, or from horrified spectators in revolutions and intertribal wars. Black Americans cringed at such images and sneered at “African heathens” sometimes more than White Americans did. Now credible reportage from Africa is becoming much more pleasant to hear. Funds are still being raised but the causes for which funds are solicited are becoming more interesting, with evidence that past support is paying off. African people are asking us to buy products of their creative work, not all of which is even “primitive” style, rather than just donate money some fraction of which might be used to feed war orphans. Africans are writing worthwhile books in good English; there’s a science book from Uganda that I like to recommend to people with degrees in things other than biology. White Americans are likely to be as interested in a friend’s visit to Nigeria or Cameroon as they are in a friend’s visit to France or India. The Black Americans making this complaint should probably try them and see.

Sometimes the group of White people who do want to enforce this kind of rules is very small. Early in the 2020 election thousands of White Republicans were ready to see a Black man, from a working-class background yet, in the White House. Whether or not they'd read any of his books (I had), many voters wanted to elect Ben Carson just to make the statement, "There are no limits on how far a Nice Black Person can progress." The people who didn’t want Carson elected were not necessarily White, were better described as “other candidates and their supporters,” and, though they sneered at his religion, they said nothing about his complexion; many of them had voted for Obama. By the time the Republican National Convention picked a candidate, the White Americans who thought Dr. Carson needed to “accept his limitations” were pretty much describable as “Trump and his backers.” Democrats would probably have resented Carson less than Trump—neither man had even claimed to be a Republican before that election, and both were quite moderate on some issues, but Carson was at least tactful. They were a small group; their opposition was based on competition not bigotry.

Consider, Gentle Readers, the situations in which you relate best to these “commandments.” Are they situations where you are legitimately subordinate to someone else, as an employee, student, member of a younger generation in the family? Are they situations where you are in fact at least somewhat senior and/or superordinate, as a more experienced or higher-level employee, teacher, member of an older generation in the family, and you find that “niceness” is interfering with your performance in a leadership position? Do White Americans really feel that all minorities, including White foreign visitors in our country, are in a somewhat subordinate position, or have they only learned manners that make members of minority groups feel that way? If White Americans feel that they’re in a somewhat superordinate position at integrated churches, schools, offices, etc., does that mean they feel that they’re in a correspondingly subordinate position when they’re in cities like Washington where Black Americans are the majority ethnic group?

Though it’s not a religious book Ten Commandments grew out of the experience of a Black minister in an integrated church. Christian readers may want to consider that idea in depth. While White churchgoers (and office workers and so on) nowadays may like to have some ethnic diversity in the group, how comfortable are they if either (a) the group becomes majority-minority, or (b) minority-type people move into leadership positions?

And, is it time for that national discussion of introverts’ victim-group experience? It’s relevant to any discussion of race relations. Introverts are constantly accused of not liking other people enough. Well, as long as our experience of “other people” is that they’re allowed to demand constantly that we ignore our own interests and feelings and needs, become slaves to their craving for control of others’ attention, and then be blamed for not giving them enough control of our attention anyway, there is no valid reason why we should like them; the question is why most of us don’t actively hate “other people.” In the context of race relations, in a world where it’s become possible for most extroverts to live long enough to enter adult society, inevitably the first members of the other racial group we meet are the most aggressive extroverts. This by itself generates a form of prejudice that has nothing to do with the old tired story of race relations. So long as television teaches us that White people are bumptious grinning backstabbers with, if possible, even less respect for their own parents than they have for everybody else, and Black people are loud angry bags of bitterness just waiting to spew forth if anyone looks at them, one can expect that (a) introverts who identify as White or Black will continue to find the sight of each other hard to endure, and (b) introverts who identify as both-or-neither will have sufficient reasons to avoid both White and Black people. Nothing about slavery caused extroversion, though a case could be made that extroversion played a crucial role in setting up systems of slavery.

One solution to this problem was made famous, and hilarious, by Florence King: Just advertise that we don’t like “people,” continue to act naturally with due respect for other people, and be recognized—at least by other introverts—as a nice, kind, polite person with a vicious sense of humor. It sold a lot of books for H.L. Mencken, Florence King, and some other writers, but somehow it fails to appeal to most introverts. We do, in fact, like people—our kind of people, who are defined not by a physical look but by the manner of behavior produced by a level of brain development. We might even manage to like extroverts if society agreed to stop enabling their obnoxious behavior and resume its traditional task of pounding manners into them. If we’re blessed with the opportunity to spend time in a cosmopolitan city like Washington, New York, or Atlanta we soon learn that our people can be any color. Otherwise, even if we detest the idea of prejudice we’re likely to have prejudicial feelings.

Due to overt, ongoing discrimination against introverts in many workplaces, it’s possible that some groups of co-workers won’t need to address this aspect of race relations. School and church groups probably will.

“I feel discriminated against when a White person who had seemed friendly is out on the street with other White people and doesn’t speak to me, even when I wave and call out to them across the street.”

“I feel mortified when anyone I’ve been claiming as an acquaintance waves and shouts at me across the street...even when they can see I’m walking and talking with another person, or persons. How can anybody not know that when you see that someone you know is talking to someone else, the thing to do is walk on by!”

In order for such conversations to be useful the group need to make sure everyone listens respectfully, thanks the quietest members of the group for explaining this kind of thing, and rewards those people with consistently more respectful behavior in the future. Like members of other victim groups, introverts may have been told that we should be grateful for the kind of social attention that, if we pay attention, we realize we actually loathe. Reconciliation begins with a ban on any comments like “You’re so strange...” and a requirement that replies to introverts’ complaints be phrased without any little ego defenses. Not “I didn’t say it ‘that way’,” but “I didn’t realize I was offending you that much. Please forgive me. I’ll make sure I never say that again. No interrupting conversations. No calling out names. No shouting on the street. No standing closer than handshaking distance. No nasty words...” It helps if people in the same racial category go first. Introverts don’t enjoy putting up with obnoxious behavior and have every right to dole out our favorable attention as a reward for extroverts who can learn to suppress their obnoxious behavior, regardless of color.

The trendy sociological word “intersectionality” describes the way an individual can be part of an oppressed group (as Black, working-class or welfare-class, younger, junior, student in relation to teachers) and at the same time part of an oppressor group (as male in relation to female, young adult in relation to children or geriatric adults, extrovert in relation to introverts, member of the majority party, heterosexual, arguably even as Christian or Humanist in relation to Jews or Muslims). Or, in the old feminist saying: “Sister, your foot’s smaller, but it’s still on my neck.”

Ethnic identities don’t change; nevertheless people have other loyalties, to other groups and to their own ideals and values, so nobody acts as a representative of an ethnic group all the time. This thought may help people who want to tackle edgy “commandments” like the one that the nice Black person “doesn’t move too quickly, neither physically, spiritually, economically, or socially.” Despite controversies, Carson’s Cabinet service, Barack Obama’s presidency, Condoleezza Rice’s term as Secretary of State, etc., takes some of the venom out of the “commandment” that the Nice Black Man “understands that to make America great again, he must assume his place.” His place is no longer limited to options like laborer, porter, or janitor.

In the end the fine line of balance between the overly nice person who tries to seem “content, compliant and grateful” and “only as happy as you let him be,” and the commercial media’s Horrible Alternatives, the Black Gangsta or Hostile Lez Hag or Creepy Chinese or whatever, may be best found by avoiding people who cling to the extreme stereotypes, spending time with individuals who are willing to get to know us as individuals and become friends. While both Black and White people laugh at jokes about what a chore it is to be someone’s first Black or White friend (should there be a charge for letting person touch our hair?), once we find the right people it’s easy for people of good will to bond across the color lines.

Some of the 42 commandments rouse more indignation than others. A Nice Black Guy “knows his presence affects property values,” does he? Who the blippin’ bleep says so? Why are we not all affirming that multi-ethnic, multi-use, multi-tax-bracket neighborhoods are nicer (and less expensive!) than those horrible yuppie enclaves? If you could be so lucky as to have someone like Barack Obama (without the ex-presidential security problem) or Denzel Washington or Thomas Sowell move into your neighborhood, wouldn’t that raise property values? Realtors need to know this kind of thing, just as they need to know that, if it’s a really good neighborhood, not only cats and children but even chickens can roam around outdoors, and in a really nice neighborhood nobody would dream of complaining if people wanted to live in a trailer house in the yard near the home of an elderly relative. Nice neighborhoods focus on eliminating undesirable behavior, not on being sold the false idea that just making everything expensive enough will screen out undesirable people—actually, raising prices, rents, etc., promotes undesirable behavior as people feel desperate to pay the higher prices. If we all made anti-yuppification purchasing decisions, yuppification would cease to exist. And I say the sooner the better.

Another way to make neighborhoods nicer, as opposed to more expensive, is to reject at once any politician who starts saying “If we could raise prices, raise property values, and thus increase taxes, we could do more for people...” This is basically a Democratic Party strategy though I’ve heard increasing numbers of Republicans spouting it. All citizens should just say no to it, regardless of the flavor. FALSE NARRATIVE! Leave more of the taxpayers’ money in their own pockets and let them do what they want done for themselves. Whatever our grievances against “the system,” schools that failed to prepare us for opportunities, employers who were required to “give” us the burden of oppressive time-consuming interviews because of our qualifications for jobs before hiring their less qualified in-laws, oppressive licensing rip-off schemes, and whatever else has contributed to our individual lack of wealth, earning a little money is always preferable to taking handouts. Instead of collecting more money to build more retirement housing projects government officials should be held to a high standard of keeping taxes low, keeping budgets small, and keeping retired people in their own homes.

Today genuine race prejudice still exists, though it’s found in an ever decreasing number of increasingly older and more isolated individuals. Chatter about “racism,” however, nearly always comes from people who are using it to mean “opposition to political schemes that may be favored by those dependent on handouts, a category that includes many Black, Hispanic, and Native American people as well as single mothers and retirees, but that have the long-term effect and goal of bringing all the ‘common people’ back into dependency on, and totalitarian government more intrusive than was ever imaginable before by, a very small set of ‘aristocrats’ or ‘technocrats’.” 

What’s missing from Carter’s 10 Commandments (probably intentionally missing, but I think the discussion is important) is a recognition of how politics affects race relations, how fervently some Black people have been trained to argue that any form of good will for humankind must support socialism while others realize that socialism is actually opposed to most people’s interests. We as a nation could stand to discuss whether even “safety net” programs like food banks, homeless shelters, and primary schools would be better off if restored to the private sector with some regulations aimed at preventing the shortcomings of earlier privately managed “safety net” programs. We could stand to look at how the peculiar demographics of the mid-twentieth century allowed unsustainable programs to seem to work for the generation that voted them in, while remaining unworkable for succeeding generations. Forced integration served its purpose (not nearly so well as private voluntary desegregation would have done) and even government hiring quotas made it clear that nothing inherent in any genetic type kept any specific group of people from succeeding in any kind of job, but that era is passing away. We could stand with some forward thinking about how responsible individuals, Black, White, and otherwise, are going to rebuild our society as the national socialist schemes inevitably collapse.