Reverend Manning: The white-black demagogue (1)
What caught my attention in one of the tapes was his demonization of Nelson Mandela as a comprehensive failure who destroyed all the good things the whites had done to bring South Africa’s infrastructure to world class level. Although he says he doesn’t approve of apartheid, Manning says the black man cannot run or organise […]
What caught my attention in one of the tapes was his demonization of Nelson Mandela as a comprehensive failure who destroyed all the good things the whites had done to bring South Africa’s infrastructure to world class level. Although he says he doesn’t approve of apartheid, Manning says the black man cannot run or organise anything and can therefore not be trusted with governance. He goes on to declare that the black man has never invented anything and that we owe all the progress the world has made to white people. More on that later.
Are you riled too? Well, who exactly is this Dr Manning? Born in 1947 to BLACK parents, he grew up in segregated America picking cotton and tobacco in his younger days. He relocated to New York from North Carolina after secondary school and started a criminal career of over 100 burglaries. He spent about three-and-a-half years in prison for robbery, larceny, criminal possession of a weapon, burglary and a host of other charges. He claimed to have been ‘born again’ in jail. He bagged a Master of Divinity degree in 1985. He pastors his own church, “ATLAH Worldwide Missio-nary Church” — the former Bethelite Missionary Baptist Church. The church also hosts the unrecognised ATLAH Theological Semi-nary where Manning awarded himself a PhD.
That is the man who has nothing good to say about the black race. Indeed he is, paradoxically, also a black racist of sorts because he doesn’t have anything good to say about the white race either. Perhaps because there is too much milk in the coffee of his skin colour, Manning is caught in mid-trajectory – neither black nor white. I haven’t had the time to research his family history but it seems there must have been some white blood somewhere along the line. He is neither black nor white and therefore hates both races with passion.
He thrives on notoriety. The moment Obama became president of America, Manning went ballistic with his caustic tongue. He even described Obama’s mother as a piece of trash. He recently referred to Obama as both “perverted” and “the son of Satan” in his online series, The Manning Report. In the past he had tried to demonise the US president as a closet gay and pot-smoker. Manning has stretched the concept of liberty and freedom of speech to their elastic limit. It is about time he is challenged.
I don’t think Manning’s education has afforded his contact with the true history of Africa before the slave trade which made his ancestors cotton and tobacco pickers. His total disdain for his race stems from the fact that he does not even know where he is coming from. Like Ocol in Okot P’ Bitek’s “Song of Ocol”, this celebrated halfwit could well repeat Ocol’s lamentation: “Mother, mother, why was I born black?”
For the education of celebrated pests like Manning, Africa did have a glorious past. Manning says we should stop referring to the slave trade as one of the causes of the black man’s backwardness. But the slave trade is one of the worst crimes ever committed in history — destroying a civilisation and dominating the peoples of the African continent for centuries. The psychological toll is unquantifiable and Manning exhibits traits of that same poor boy who grew up in segregated America believing that the white man is superior to the black; so, self-hate sets in.
Has Manning bothered to check the history of black people in Africa and the Diaspora before claiming that the black man has never invented a single thing in the whole wide world? From my little corner in Abuja (does Manning know where that is?) I want to draw the attention of the self-styled ‘Dr’ to a list of black inventors and their inventions which anyone who cares can access from www.blackinventions101.com/inventionslist.html
*air conditioning unit* Frederick M. Jones July 12, 1949
*almanac * Benjamin Banneker Approx 1791
*auto cut-off switch* Granville T. Woods January 1, 1839
*auto fishing devise* G. Cook May 30, 1899
*automatic gear shift* Richard Spikes February 28, 1932
*baby buggy* W.H. Richardson June 18, 1899
*bicycle frame* L.R. Johnson October 10, 1899
*biscuit cutter* A.P. Ashbourne November 30, 1875
*blood plasma bag* Charles Drew Approx. 1945
*cellular phone* Henry T. Sampson July 6, 1971
*chamber commode* T. Elkins January 3, 1897
*clothes dryer * G. T. Sampson June 6, 1862
*curtain rod * S. R. Scratton November 30, 1889
*curtain rod support* William S. Grant August 4, 1896
*door knob* O. Dorsey December 10, 1878
*door stop* O. Dorsey December 10, 1878
*dust pan * Lawrence P. Ray August 3, 1897
*egg beater* Willie Johnson February 5, 1884
*electric lampbulb* Lewis Latimer March 21, 1882
*elevator * Alexander Miles October 11, 1867
e*ye protector* P. Johnson November 2, 1880
*fire escape ladder* J. W. Winters May 7, 1878
*fire extinguisher * T. Marshall October 26, 1872
*folding bed* L. C. Bailey July 18, 1899
*folding chair* Brody & Surgwar June 11, 1889
*fountain pen* W. B. Purvis January 7, 1890
*furniture caster* O. A. Fisher 1878
*gas mask * Garrett Morgan October 13, 1914
*golf tee* T. Grant December 12, 1899
*guitar* Robert F. Flemming, Jr. March 3, 1886
*hand stamp* Walter B. Purvis February 27 1883
*horse shoe * J. Ricks March 30, 1885
*ice cream scooper * A. L. Cralle February 2, 1897
*improv. sugar making* Norbet Rillieux December 10, 1846
*insect-destroyer gun* A. C. Richard February 28, 1899
i*roning board* Sarah Boone December 30, 1887
*key chain* F. J. Loudin January 9, 1894
*lantern* Michael C. Harvey August 19, 1884
*lawn mower* L. A. Burr May 19, 1889
*lawn sprinkler* J. W. Smith May 4, 1897
*lemon squeezer * J. Thomas White December 8, 1893
*lubricating cup* Ellijah McCoy November 15, 1895
*lunch pail* James Robinson 1887
*mail box* Paul L. Downing October 27, 1891.
To be continued next week