Facebook... the wonderful, convenient, frustrating, annoying cyber community where people post whatever nonsense they desire for the world to see. The beautiful thing about it is that it allows you to weed out the people you thought were good apples once they start posting poisonous information. I opened my browser to see what people were up to one day when I saw one of thee most disgusting and offensive posts of the century. Someone who used to be my close friend thought it was a great idea to share this image:
Instant anger flared from ears and trickled into my throat, oozing its way into my heart. How dare someone call my people “pussies”???? Because I love to have facts to back up my arguments, it took me less than two minutes to disprove this audacious meme. A great article I read is called “Debunking the Imagery of the 'Irish slaves' Meme” by librarian and historian Liam Hogan. He sums up the situation perfectly by explaining: “Their belief is that non-whites can’t move on due to racial inferiority or social pathology. So through false equivalence and erasure, they attempt to remove history as a determinant so that they can claim the current socioeconomic position and mass incarceration of black people in the U.S. is due to racial inferiority.”
I'm going to be real: I went in on my “friend”. On her post. In front of all her family and friends and acquaintances and people who met her at a party once. I was a bit mean about it, though. I commented something along the lines of her not taking the time to read an informative article before she blindly shares ignorant shit. I posted two links to scholars disproving this outrageous claim and insinuated she wouldn't read them because they just might go against her archaic ideology. I then got a message from a mutual:
The next day I woke up and she had deleted the post as well as sent me a long text about how hurt she was that I called her stupid. As a friend, she is correct. I shouldn't have name-called and low-blowed. My anger flared from ears and trickled into my throat, oozing its way into my heart. I was acting out of emotion. I decided to educate her instead of degrade her. Here's the lesson...
In 1619, slaves were brought to the United States to be forced into labor with tobacco and cotton farming. Throughout the 1700s, 6 to 7 million slaves were brought to the U.S. The European settlers in what is now the United States of America would travel to Africa, invade tribes, handcuff men, women, and children, and put them on a boat where they were chained to one another. No showers were available. They had to piss and shit next to each other and eat there too, if they were given food.
Slaves were considered "property". They had to work out in the sun day-in and day-out, and if they didn't perform their duties to their master's standards, they would be whipped. Bare-backed with their hands tied around a post or tree, they could receive 30 to 100 lashes. It would open the skin, resulting in deep lesions. Women were expected to have sex with their masters and if they resisted, they were whipped. Then there's a term called "buck breaking". If a Black male caused trouble, he would be whipped until he was weak and bloody. Then he would be stripped naked and tied bent over a tree. The master would rape him in front of his wife, children, and the whole plantation. This was to show complete dominance and to scare the young boys to not revolt. They could also be strung up and hanged for no reason. They were property. This lasted for 250 years.
1865: Slavery is abolished. Millions of Black people are released to a new world. (By the way, slave masters were paid reparation money for their lost "property" after slavery was abolished; Black people received no compensation.) They didn't know how to read or write. They could only get jobs as cooks, maids, butlers, or cleaners. White people still terrified black people by killing them for nothing, or for almost nothing, and no white judge or jury in the South would send any white man to jail for killing a black man. Black people accused of crimes were often killed without a trial, by lynching. A new set of laws called the Black Codes emerged to criminalize legal activity for African Americans. Through the enforcement of these laws, acts such as standing in one area of town or walking at night, for example, became the criminal acts of “loitering” or “breaking curfew,” for which African-Americans were imprisoned. Jim Crow laws came into effect around this era. Black people weren't allowed in white schools. Similarly, "Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court held that the US Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for black people, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and so the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them. (John E. Nowak & Ronald D. Rotunda)"
"'Virtually from the moment the Civil War ended,' writes historian Eric Foner, 'the search began for legal means of subordinating a volatile black population that regarded economic independence as a corollary of freedom and the old labor discipline as a badge of slavery.' Hence, the Reconstruction-era legislation known as the Black Codes was born. In Mississippi, being Black and not having written proof that you were employed was now illegal. In South Carolina, being Black and having a job other than servant or farmer was illegal unless you paid an annual tax of up to $100. Being in a traveling circus or an acting troupe? Illegal. In Virginia, asking for pay beyond the 'usual and common wages given to other laborers' was illegal. In some areas, fishing and hunting, or even owning guns, were now banned, as these activities could lessen Black dependence on White people for employment. And who would enforce these new laws? The police. In some cases, Foner writes, these newly deputized men wore their old Confederate uniforms as they patrolled Black homesteads, seizing weapons and arresting people for labor violations. (Josie Duffy Rice, Vanity Fair: "Abolition's Promise", September 2020)"
"Remember the grandfather's clause of the early 1900s? Black people had to take literacy tests to vote, but the problem was: some white people couldn't read. So they were like, 'Man... we're now disenfranchising white people. We gotta fix that. Here's what we'll do: we'll create the grandfather's clause. If your grandparents could vote, now you can vote... Black people and white people, ya'll were getting too equal.' (Emmanuel Acho, The Oprah Conversation: Episode 1 Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man: Part 1, 2020)" This is a crucial historical aspect, because as long as eligible United States citizens were voting to keep violent racists (mostly men) in positions of power and authority, Black bodies would continue to be seen as lesser than and, consequently, disposable. November 2, 1920, a Black man attempted to vote in Florida and the KKK responded with a rampage that led to the exile or death of every Black person that lived there; The Ocoee Massacre.
Now I want to tell you a story about a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till. He was visiting family in Mississippi summer 1955. He supposedly whistled at a white woman so her husband and brother-in-law kidnapped him and beat and mutilated him before shooting him and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. He was found 3 days later. On September 23, the all-white jury acquitted both defendants after a 67-minute deliberation. Due to the double jeopardy procedural defense, after they were let off, the two accusers admitted to killing young Emmett. His mother wanted an open-casket funeral to show the true depths of racism in America.
The KKK emerged as slavery was abolished, which consisted of previous slave-owners and citizens who believed Black people were lesser than. This organization believes whites are the dominant race and all others should leave or should be killed, even though they either brought us here or took over our land. It has risen and fallen over the years but in the 50's they were very prominent in most southern cities. Caucasian men in hoods would take Black people and hang them for no other reason than for being Black. Police would not intervene or stop the violence from ensuing; some police officers were members of the KKK.
The 1960s is when the Civil Rights Movement emerged. Amazing and brave advocates like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Dick Gregory, Angela Davis, Nina Simone, and so many others wanted to end the lynchings, systematic disenfranchisement, and segregation.
The Black Panthers, an all-African-American organization, was created to help Black people learn how to defend themselves, get an education, acquire food, have community clinics, and embrace their culture, instead of being ashamed of it like white society tried to drill into their psyche for so long. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country", and he supervised an extensive program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members, discredit and criminalize the Party, and drain the organization of resources and manpower. It was disbanded by the U.S. government in 1982.
March 1991: Rodney King and a couple friends were drunk driving in California and led the police on a high-speed chase. When he finally stopped, King got out of the car. He was tased twice. He tried to run and was tased again. (He was unarmed, by the way.) He was hit with batons 33 times and kicked 6 times. All four officers were charged with excessive force and all four were found not guilty; despite having it on tape.
"But he was breaking the law!" Yeah, so was James Holmes in 2012 when he murdered 12 people and injured 70 in Aurora, Colorado. He was escorted out of the theater in a bulletproof vest.
Now for the 21st century: 12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing with his toy gun in 2014 when he was shot and killed by a police officer. It was on video. The police officer was found not guilty of any charges.
2014, New York: Eric Garner was standing on the street when an officer approaches him and accused him of selling cigarettes on the street. Eric tells them: "I'm tired of you harassing me all the time. Leave me alone." He is then placed in a chokehold and killed on the spot. He was unarmed. His hands are open and visible. His last words were, "I can't breathe." IT IS ON VIDEO.
There are so so many more examples I can use:
Sandra Bland (28)
Oscar Grant (22)
Aiyana Stanley-Jones (7)
Michael Brown (18)
Walter Scott (50)
Trayvon Martin (17)
Tanisha Anderson (37)
Freddie Gray (25)
Alton Sterling (57)
Philando Castile (32)
Yvette Smith (47)
Laquan McDonald (17)
Akai Gurley (28)
Jerame Reid (36)
Natasha McKenna (37)
Ahmaud Arbery (25)
Botham Jean (26)
Atatiana Jefferson (28)
Amadou Diallo (23)
Terence Crutcher (40)
George Stinney Jr. (14)
Alton Sterling (37)
Bettie Jones (55)
Natasha McKenna (37)
These victims were doing absolutely nothing to deserve to be shot and killed. They were all unarmed. Not only were they needlessly murdered but their Caucasian perpetrators got away with it and were not punished. "The presumption of innocence is a right afforded to all Americans, but not generally Black and brown people," says Linsi Griffin. Due process is a luxury in this country; white people have historically been allowed to be the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to altercations with people of color.
This is what people mean when they say Black Lives Matter. For 400 years, African-Americans have been trying to prove their worth and be treated equal. A system that was not designed for you cannot protect you. I saw someone say, "Black people have the same opportunities as everyone else," but. they. don't. Black men have been imprisoned since they were let free, creating many single-mother households. The prison population consists of 67% people of color despite them only being 37% of the U.S. population (benjerry.com). When they're working and trying to support their kids, their kids run the street and fall prey to gang affiliations; the people who show them a means of survival tend to be drug dealers, pimps, and criminals. It's been a pattern for years: not being shown the value of education and only being seen as athletes or musicians. These events are intentional. It is the product of years and years of being told you are not worthy; your life is not valued. You can be hung/raped/shot and there will be no repercussions for it. I can Google "Black man lynched" and have pages of images.
"[There was a] belief among White Chicagoans that the first Great Migration to the city was 'the worst calamity that had struck the city since the Great Fire' of 1871, which took hundreds of lives and burned out the heart of the city. The implications of this equation are haunting. Once a people become a 'calamity', all means of dealing with them are acceptable... The logic here is obvious. To plunder a people of everything, you must plunder their humanity first... And so it is with the children of the enslaved, regarded, to this very day, as a Great Fire consuming White maidenhood, immolating morality, and otherwise reducing great civilizations to ashes. (Ta-Nehisi Coates, Vanity Fair: "The Pyromancer's Dream", September 2020)" It's why 600 African-American men were coerced to participate in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study without informed consent. It's why the Tulsa race massacre ensued; extinguishing any trace of Black Wall Street. It's why the city of New York had zero hesitation to enforce eminent domain when demolishing Seneca Village.
Even though I am light-skinned and haven't faced the same hardships as my darker pigmented brothers and sisters, that doesn't mean I won't spend every ounce of energy I have to defend, protect, and advocate for them.
"If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn't even begun to pull out the knife." —Malcolm X