A few days ago, I sat in a cafe not far from a couple of brothers discussing the ills of black folks -- the routine discussion, crime, poverty, babymamas; you know, the same stuff that forms the basis of black consciousness rhetorical questions.

After a couple minutes another cat joined them and perported that "Willie Lynch Syndrome" is to blame for everything they were complaining about. He argued all of the problems that seem to be so deep-rooted among African Americans can be traced back to the malevolent devices of the 18th century slave-owner who conjured a plan to socio-psychologically cripple all slaves.

I couldn't take hearing it anymore and as I walked out, I feigned a cough -- BULLSH*T -- and kept moving.

It's not that I was trying to disparage the brothers' thoughtful discussion, or act like the topics they were glancing over were not pertinent. But had I actually been in the discussion, I would have made one thing clear: there was never any such person...you have been duped by an urban myth!

I have no interest in cutting and pasting the infamous "Willie Lynch letter" here, and I'll be damned if I spread this crap any farther than it has already been spread. But if you haven't heard this story, in short the letter is supposed to have been written by Lynch, a plantation owner from the West Indies who came up to Virginia in 1712 to address fellow slaveowners on his "foolproof" system of creating perfectly subservient slaves.

The letter goes on to instruct the addressees on how slaves should be separated by age, size, skin complexion, etc., then pitted against each other, thereby rendering them incapable of demanding empowerment, liberty or even dignity.

After the letter first started to spread across the Internet (like wildfire, at that), it went to classrooms then state legislatures, then the House of Representatives. It was read at the Million Man March, and people have sat around discussing the implications over and over. Through all this, few people actually bothered to verify the authenticity of the letter, or even read the actual prose for that matter.

When you take a good long look at it though, you'll find that the letter is clearly a fake. Here's why:

* The language of the letter is not 18th century, but rather a poor attempt by the author to use what he thought was classical English. In fact, words like "foolproof" and "refueling" were not even in use at the time.

* There has never been any mention of this letter before about 1993-1994. Neither Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Assata Shakur, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Mary McCleod Bethune, nor any other known black luminary to have published anything before that time ever mentioned a "Willie Lynch" in their writings.

*Lynch refers to "our illustrious King James..." He says that in reference to the colony of Virginia still under the governance of the British crown. But the monarch on the throne at the time was Queen Anne. James died in 1625.

* Lynch is said to have come up from the West Indies, but the letter never states from which Island in the region he came from.

* His plantation is supposed to be in the West Indies, but historical records show that owners of plantations in the British colonies lived largely in England and simply had others manage them while they reaped the rewards. Live-in ownership of plantations was not prevalent until much later.

* Lynch says that his "boat sailed south on the James River." Anyone who lives in Virginia knows that the James River runs primarily east-west.

* And among many other things wrong with the letter, the most glaring is that there is no historical evidence of any plantation owner named Willie or William Lynch owning a plantation anywhere on any island in the Spanish, British, Portuguese, Dutch, French or German Caribbean.

Later on it turns out that a librarian at the University of Missouri-St. Louis posted a reference to the letter in 1993. Long story short, the people at the school discussing it with her were never able to establish any authenticity. So bottom line, the overwhelming likelihood (and by that I mean 99.9 percent) is that this is nothing but a hoax.

"Well, why is it that we have so many problems in the black community? Even if the letter is a fake, doesn't it express what is wrong with us?" I hear that question asked all the time about Willie Lynch.

First of all you should think more of black folk than that. Our problems are really no different than any other ethnic group, even though every new thing that happens seems to exacerbate them. Other people have many of the same identity problems. For example, if Willie Lynch taught us to hate each other based on the lightness or darkness of our skin, then why do South Asians (i.e. Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis) have the same issue with light and dark skin as we do? Willie Lynch has nothing to do with their history.

Our identity problems cannot be summed up with a letter that has no authenticity. Notions of nationalistic and racial superiority and inferiority can be traced back to Biblical times. Conquering nations have always thought of their subjects as inferior and imbued those notions into their psyches in order to make their conquests easier, for example the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in the early 30s.

There are volumes and volumes of documents that are historically verifiable and written by real historical figures like Frederick Douglass, Richard Allen, Harriet Tubman, a whole host of abolitionists, and even the old slave narratives, which talk in graphic detail about the degradation and abuse of slavery. Because we have these, there is no need to rely on a lie to know what the effects of slavery have been on our people.

I recently talked to Dr. William Jelani Cobb, a professor of history at Spelman College who was one of the first to uncover the Lynch hoax in an article he wrote for Africana.com, a predecessor of BlackVoices.com. He told me that the reason it got so out of control and people embraced it so closely is that they were looking for an explanation, a traceable reason we're supposed to be so messed up.

"People have a need for a quick fix when they see complex problems," he told me. "We just want to relate back to just one thing, to find a smoking gun and it will all fall into place. But history doesn't work like that."

Cobb said that if people were discerning, the letter's fallacies would probably be easier to recognize. "But it fills a psychological need and it's a pernicious one." Using the example of old black college yearbook photos, Cobb points out that our community is more heterogenous than we might think and the light-skin, dark-skin issue is more of a social dynamic.

"One of the things that happens is there is a culture in black America where we seem to be willing to believe the worst of ourselves despite evidence to the contrary," said Cobb.

Now, none of this is to say that white superiority notions did not exist. In fact, the concept is very old, and was well-established when Columbus ran into a group of Taino Indians in the Bahamas in 1492. Exactly when this attitude mutated into a social dynamic that infected people of color all over the world has been the subject of study of generations of sociologists and anthropologists, and I don't think it has an easy answer at all.

So I say all this to say, it's never a good idea to believe everything you hear. Critical thought and skepticism can eliminate at least three-quarters of the B.S. from your life, and just because someone speaks loud and talks eloquently does not mean he knows what the hell he's talking about.

Yes, black folk have major issues, too numerous to be named here. But they can't be traced back to one piece of paper. If they could, then that means that we have no obligation to be responsible for ourselves or our destinies. We could just say: "shoot, let's get the government to reverse what the Willie Lynch letter says." But it really ain't that simple. There are 36 million of us, and when you have that number of people whose grandparents and great-grandparents have lived under things like Jim Crow all their lives, there are bound to be tons of issues.

People who tout the Willie Lynch letter in classrooms, and in pro-black speeches probably mean well, and intend on casting some identity among black people where the notion is often missing. But our history should not be seen as one of a people who are stupid and incompetent, unable to reason their way through civilization.

On the contrary. Our history demonstrates a people who have cunningly survived actual legalized systems of oppression and racism, and produced some of the world's best and brightest. If the Willie Lynch letter were true and the tactics described in it worked, then believe me, I wouldn't even be capable enough of the technical understanding it takes to sit at this laptop and make this blog posting.

If you want to understand our past and the effect slavery has had, then I suggest you visit your local library and start to dig up as much information about slavery, the antebellum south and pre-colonial Africa as you can. You'd be surprised at what you can learn if you'd just put forth the effort.

As for the person who originally wrote that letter, I hope you're happy. You have pulled the biggest ruse on black people since they promised us 40 acres and a mule. SHAME ON YOU!!!

******
BLOGGER'S NOTE:

As an addendum, since many seem to believe famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass made reference to the "Willie Lynch letter" in an alleged writing of his entitled "Let's Make a Slave." But once again, this is more than likely a fabrication.

For one thing, whoever came up with this tripe didn't even bother to spell the brother's name right. The text refers to a 'Frederick Douglas,' but the venerable orator, journalist and freedom fighter spells his name Douglass!

Furthermore, the language that 'Douglas' is using here is not 19th century English, nor is the text that follows that is supposedly written by Lynch 18th century English, although Lynch was supposed to have lived in the 1700s.

Lastly, the reference to this whole thing is supposedly attributed to an organization called "The Black Arcade Liberation Library" in 1970 and was supposedly "recompiled and reedited" by a Kenneth T. Spann. But once again research turns up no independent identification of this "library" or Spann himself.

Thus this reference to 'Frederick Douglas' cannot be authenticated and like the above mentioned "Willie Lynch lettter," is a stupid hoax as well. If this Spann person does exist and is still alive or if anyone who knows him can step forward to back any of this up, then he or they should do just that.

In conclusion, people: DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID.