TRICKLE DOWN DISRESPECT...

"Trickle down disrespect" is the term we use to describe
the behavior of relatively more favored dispossessed individuals toward those
they believe people more powerful than them disrespect in a society where one's
self-esteem is based on degrading others. They act on the belief that, even
while they are less powerful than those they consider powerful, they can still
safely act as if they have some power because they have the sanction and
protection of the powerful. This sanction and protection comes from knowing who
the powerful blatantly disrespect, for these are seen as easy victims for those
not as disrespected. We are reminded of this truth in the Akan proverb,
"He who has no power depends on he who has it." (The Kemetic proverb
"How doth man purchase power but by being a slave to him who giveth
it?"equally speaks to this.) In a society where power is most commonly
measured by one's ability to disrespect others with impunity, even relatively
less powerful persons receive a measurable degree of satisfaction from having
someone beneath them to disrespect. This is both an intra- (within/among) and
intergroup behavior. Those people who have been earmarked to remain at the
lowest rung of the social hierarchy are politico-economically used and abused
by newcomers (and those individuals among more powerful groups who through
misfortune fall from grace) as easily exploitable doormats and stepping stones
for their rise into the more powerful ranks in society. They know that their
predacious disrespect of those more dispossessed than they will be subtly
authorized and safeguarded. Their approval and protection is given by the more
powerful people in society. The need to disrespect those "beneath"
them is assumed as a personal obligation by treasonous, self-hating, mentacidal
individuals within the targeted group itself who wishfully seek some form of
asylum within the lower ranks of whatever relatively more powerful (i.e.,
influential) group(s) they serve against their own."

Mwalimu K. Bomani
Baruti