The American brand of racial discrimination has its origin deep within the culture of the white race. An example of this is the play Othello by Shakespeare. This play is often taught in high schools, colleges and universities as a classic tragedy. There are those who would argue that the noun “Othello “was a complete invention by Shakespeare. It was a complete invention, but a clever racial one. The word “Othello “is a noun comprised of two Latin words which in Shakespeare’s time automatically identified who he was talking about because that person looked so differently from his white skinned society. Othello was portrayed as a black Muslim. The Latin rooted English noun ” Othello ” translate out to mean “of the it ” “Oth ” means ” of the “, and ” ello ” is a pronoun which means ” it .” The continued dehumanization of the black male passes on to the white skinned wife of Othello. Her name is “Desdemona.” The Latin word “Des” means descendant of, and the Latin word Demona “which means female demon. So the condemnation of the interracial couple within its own culture is complete with an ending caveat which is to stay away from such a love affair that can only have a tragic end.

The singer, James Brown, has a phrase in one of his songs which says ” a two faced woman, and a jealous man have been the trouble in the world since the world began.” But Brown did not remind us that the accused two faced woman was white skinned, and that the jealous man was black skinned as Shakespeare suggests. We can also see and understand the ancient strains of racial discrimination against the black male in the Greek writings of Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey identifies the king Odysseus, who through bad relations with the gods, sailed a confused route home to Ithaca.

Much of Odysseus’ route was along and near the northern coast of Africa where he encountered dope addicts (lotus eaters), and witches, and monsters. The white skin race’s habit of demonizing the black skinned race is very old and has passed on from ancient times up to the present through stories like these. Even Aristotle was ran out of his home, and Socrates was executed for trying to introduce ideas which had their origins in the black race. We cannot continue to believe that the black male is noxious to America. These fears were born in the culture of the ancient white race that had a world conquest mission and have no relevance in today’s America. Our teachers and scholars must continue to study, interpret and reinterpret our own racial discrimination and bigotries embedded in our treasured ancient stories.