Is there anything worse than being black?
This is a very interesting question especially in this lying society that thinks we are in a post racial society since the president was elected almost 8 years ago. Is there anything worse than being black as a whole in this country? Is this an over statement? Is this a statement coming out of self-pity or is this a statement that was meant to provoke thought? When it is all said and done this is a statement made to bring the real reality of the state of the black man in this country today in 2015. We have always been in danger and in my opinion we are still in grave danger. People tend to think that because we have a black president that all is well and we can now sing we have overcome and we really haven’t if you look at what has happened since our president has entered the white house nothing significantly has been done to advance black folks. I will qualify this by saying in the first 90 days of his presidency the Hispanic community went to work and before you know it there was legislation introduce for immigrant reform. The group of people that went to work was the gay community. They went to work for their issues and they achieved their objectives. Now we all may not agree with their agendas but we can’t hate on their hustle. They simply got it done! Now the real reality for black folks is that we were celebrating this grand victory for “black folks” but we got caught slippin! There has been absolutely no significant advancements for black folks since we have had a black president. What this presidency has done is to bring out all the racist and awake all the crazy that had gone to sleep over the years. You best believe that all the disunity that existed in the country united those who stood together in the hatred of our current president.
So if we look at the state of our nation today we see a huge divide between the millennials who think we have all over come and somehow are now on an equal plane and the previous generations who realize that a black president did not change over 200 years of behavior. The younger generation doesn’t understand why race keeps comingup in conversations. They don’t get why we just don’t get over it! The older generations both black and white understand exactly what this county’s history exist of and both know exactly what it has produced as a result. I asked the question is there anything worse than being black and I have to say no! Now with this being said the new people to hate are people of Middle Eastern decent and of the Muslim religion. The very same mentality that this country was built upon is now feeding this hatred. I have heard over and over especially in the church world that this country was a Christian nation and we need to go back to the way it was. I also hear in the conversations of idiots like Donald Trump that we need to go back to the way this country once was. Now I will be the first to so say I in no way, shape, fashion or form want to return to any part of this country’s past! Now I will address the idiotic statement of this being a Christian country first. Sop lets go back into this country’s inception and look at how it was formed. Hmmm… Let’s see they came into an already inhabited nation that had been explored by many African explores prior to Columbus arriving to what he thought was India hence the word Indians. So they come here as “Christians” rape Maim, murder and experiment in the most barbaric way possible. They simply played the kindness of the native people as their weakness! Let’s see they gave the blankets filled with small pocks and killed millions of the natives. These were “Christians” mind you that did this type deadly deeds. Let’s also look at what they did to Africans in this country. They killed thousands upon thousands in transit to this country then beat, tortured, lynched, raped both men and women into submission, demoralized, humiliated, dehumanized, and diminished who we were as a people. Not to mention they were convinced that we as people were not even human. So when I hear things like what we used to be as a country I am appalled at the thought of such a statement. People who make these kinds of statements have truly researched the entire history of this country. As it pertains to the Native Americans and what they endured at the hands of white folks in this country; they are now being compensated for their treatment. I can’t say that about black folks who went from no pay to low pay for our contributions to this country. We got nothing then and are criticized if we bring up any type of reparations. Is there anything worse than this in this country? I don’t think so!
The next idea is this notion that we want to go back to the way America use to be. This is the most loaded statement out there. If one has any since they will see straight through this type of language being spoke today. Now getting back to the way American used to be insinuates a white privilege era, a financial system that is not favorable to minorities, unequal opportunities, tax laws that favor rich folks, and simply is going backwards. There is not a price you could pay me to want to go back to any aspects of the way this country was! Thank god we are not where we used to be but we are most assuredly not where we should be either. I am not buying into this mindset that says let’s just move on form the past without truly addressing the issues that we are facing today because of or very real history. I think the more and more we see things arising from the ignorance of people like a Donald Trump the more we see just how far we have come as it pertains to race and racism in this country today. How is it that at we can go so quickly against people of other races and religions but not put things together that has allowed terrorist and extremist to arise? How is that we can’t see the same racist mentality that this country was founded upon is quickly arising. The answer is simply because it has never been addressed it has simply been hidden and manifested in other ways. Now it’s being given permission to arise once again in the name of patriotism that is based out of fear.
So I will now return to my original question of is there anything worse than being black and my answer still is no! The notion that gays have been through more than blacks is preposterous. To even think that they can put themselves in the same category is crazy we got a couple hundred years on them. To think that the new racism is going to be the people of the Middle East is a real reality because people are simply driven by fear and a lack of real facts and education. I pray that we can get it together as a nation when it comes to this subject. Here’s what’s crazy about this whole subject and many of you may not know this but people are more educated on US history then the citizens of the US, this is simply embarrassing to a country that has all the advancements it does.
There is nothing worse than living in a country that has laws that protect the rights of gun owners to carry their guns in public but if you are black and do this then you are shot with no questions asked. However, if you are white you can do this with literally no harassment whatsoever. If you don’t believe me in Michigan and Ohio recently white men have walked in the streets with assault weapons in neighborhoods and schools with no harassment what so ever. But people like Tamir Rice and another black man in Walmart in the state of Ohio are now dead because of toy guns. Countless men and women of color dead at the hands of cops every 23 hours statics say that a black man is killed at the hands of cops. This does not make all cops bad but it doesn’t change the perspective on the value of black lives either. This also does not change the mindset on the institution of racism in this country. It doesn’t help when people can’t nor won’t have conversations about this very real issue weather I the community, the church, on college campuses, or politically.
So I would have to conclude that after looking around and observing the mentality today there still is nothing worse than being black at least here in America. I say all the time that people want to black without the benefits and this simply means people can dress, talk, listen to black music and “act black” but will never truly benefit from being black if you are not in the skin of a black person. Thank God we are not where we used to be but we are not where we will be hopefully soon. This doesn’t change real factual data nor qualify the racist and prejudice attitudes of this country.
I thought I would give you the reader a little dose of reality today a I see the attitudes of bigots moving towards the people of the Middle East and as a person who has dealt with racism first hand I feel very empathetic towards these people as our people know exactly how it feels to be treated a certain way because of your race. This will probably be short lived but it still will never compare to what we have gone through as a race of people all over this world. I will conclude by saying you may not like the subject matter I chose to write on like this particular subject but you can never say I haven’t addressed the issues many would love to see never brought up!
As always have a great day!
God bless you all!
D