Subdivisions

It really bothers me that so many in my ethnic subdivision (caucasian american) do not recognize the depth of pain in the African history. I suppose some "white" people fail to recognize what is actually going on in this country and some honestly do not realize the history we were never taught. Some see the picture and fail to claim responsibility. Whatever the angle of the perspective, ignorance is NOT bliss!

I have heard countless heart wrenching phrases from the "white" population such as, "They need to get over it." "No one alive has been a slave anyway". "I never owned a slave". "They get more welfare then we do". Some have even believed themselves when they stated that there are equal rights in this country. This is exactly why we cannot "all just get along".

There are many subdivisions of this massive imbalance in our country's equilibrium. It is not sane to simplify it. However, if we continue to ignore it and brush it under the rug and tell "black" people to "get over it" all we will end up with is a race war. There is no harmony in denial.

Please take time to realize that people were stolen from their country, and put on ships where thousands of them after being brutally abused arrived harshly at their own demise. Death for so many Africans who were stolen to become slave labor. Those that did arrive on this foreign shore were forced into labor, void of human rights, treated as animals in young America's chattel style slavery. Women were raped, families divided, human rights removed, dignity denied. For anyone that thinks abolition was the end of slavery, you really need to hit the books and catch up on inherent knowledge!

Slavery "ended" yes, but segregation became "separate but not equal" and "black" people were treated as sub-human. Do those of you who assume that there is actually equality in this grand facade of a country know that in our own constitution slaves were considered as three fifths a person?! Post abolition, "black" people were denied so many rights and lynchings were still rampant and "colored" folk were still beaten, arrested, and even murdered for LOOKING at a white woman!

The Civil Rights movement was an incredible chapter in this horrendously sad story; however, Martin Luther King's dream has NOT been realized! "They get more welfare!" "More money for college!" Really? Walk into any business in America and tell me it is not segregated. Tell me please that there is an equal number from the African population as there is from the Caucasian. Walk into any restaurant, any store, any neighborhood and report your findings to me scientifically! I implore you! And while you are at it, please explain to me how the "black" population of America is about 12% and yet the percentage of "blacks" in our American prisons is about 85! Please present an algorithm to me that allows that to make sense!

Once, I was with a group of lyricists in a small town in upstate New York. One of my fellow performing artists and I decided to get breakfast on the way home together the morning after the show. As we walked in, he "black" and I "white", the din of forks dropping to plates was worthy of a well orchestrated movie set as people dropped their jaws and stared demonstratively in our direction! I took his hand in mine and asked him gently, "Do you wish to leave?" He responded "No", and so we stayed. Our entire breakfast was laced with eyeballs popping out of sockets in our direction. He remains a loyal friend and is one of the most intelligent men I have ever known. Who knew such a scholar could be born to us wearing "black" skin?

We all know enough about Ferguson. Boston. But who knows a word of the devastating story of the murder of Lennon Lee Lacey? Small North Carolina town. KKK, still alive and well. Seventeen with promises of football scholarships. He was found hung from a surface too far about his head for him to have reached on his own with a belt that did not belong to him, at one of the highest points in his beautiful young life. The local police called it suicide. Even worse, the people who murdered him stole his sneakers and replaced them with shoes too small for his feet. He was "black" and his girlfriend "white". Was that enough to take his life? And how does the KKK still thrive?

Any African scholar reading this blog or a well-versed "white" person knows I am merely scratching the very surface. This is the tip of a very deep iceberg. It cannot be fixed if "whites" won't even confront it.

Sure, if you like to justify your foul doings, then continue to believe that just because slavery ended that everything is equalized in this country. Pretend that "blacks" have the same chance of getting the jobs and the houses and the degrees and the neighborhoods and the schools that "whites" do. Brush under the rug your passive aggressive commentaries, and tell them to "get over it". That will certainly solve the problem.

And I wouldn't be intelligent at all if I did not recognize that there are extremists in every category. It is just like hating all Muslims because an extremist terrorist group bombed our country. However, not for one second should any "white" think that "black" people do not have a right to be angry, to not trust our system, to fight for change and liberation of oppressed peoples.

We speak of reparations. Extra welfare or minority job placement or scholarships. I hope no one really believes themselves when they suggest that generic Band-aid actually healed the wound.

"Liberty and Justice for ALL!" I will not stop. I too have a dream. Love me or hate me; at least I stand for what I believe.