130 reads

Why We Can’t, Just Get Over It

A few days ago I had an associate of mine comment that we (black people) should just get over slavery and Jim Crow. Admittedly this pissed me off a bit. I would like to attempt to explain to all people black and white why we can’t just forget it or get over it.

Let’s start at the formation of our country, 1776. From 1776 to 1865 slavery was not only legal but a thriving industry in America. So for the first 89 years of our country the enslavement of a people acceptable. They survived conditions that you can’t imagine. We were stolen from our land, made to forget our culture, and those that resisted where beat to death. The slaves had to endure humiliations like Derbys dose and other horrific tortures. For those of you that don’t know, Derby’s dose was used on a slave that tried to run away or committed some other crime. It was started by Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica but spread here in the states also. The slave would be beat then have salt pickle, lime juice and bird pepper rubbed in the open wombs. Then another slave would be forced to defecate into the mouth of the beaten slave who would then have his mouth gagged for 4-5 hours. I just want you to imagine this for a minute. This is what you want us to get over. You want us to get over watching the white man rape our women and kill our kids. These are stories passed down from generation to generation. I know what some of you are going to say now, Well, those things didn’t happen to you, I wasnt a part of those things, It was so long ago, and my favorite excuse, well the Irish had it just as bad if not worse. I will cover each of these as they seem to be the top 4 excuses to just get over it.

I would first like to cover the fact that we did try to get over it. As I covered in a previous post. After slavery we built our own communities and cities. Some of the most famous Greenwood - 1921 Atlanta - 1906, Chicago - 1919, Rosewood - 1923 D.C. - 1919, Detroit -1943, Knoxville – 1919, NYC – 1863, St. Louis – 1917. This is just 8 cities/communities that were destroyed while blacks were just tried to build their own lives in the world that was set against them. This is something that happened all over the US many many times over. This country was founded on freedom Says so right here:

So what does it say when the government that you are supposed to trust has a document like this written but still keeps you a piece of property. Will write laws specifically designed to keep you as a second class citizen. Does it sound like they are willing to allow you to get over it and ever allow you to become their equals? All those cities/communities that I mentioned were destroyed because they started to get too successful. The black people started to do better than the whites. In some of them the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate. They couldn’t handle it. Even with all the laws set against them they were still succeeding. So what happened Lets kill this kid and then when they demand justice or retaliate we will say they rose up against us and we can burn them down. Even going into the civil rights era we tried to get over it. But you would not allow it. You created even more laws designed to keep us down. You created the projects with the purpose of breaking up black families by not allowing the fathers to move in with their families. You performed heartless experiments on us. The types of things that we would attribute to Hitler (Tuskegee experiment, Henrietta Lacks) All this after slavery ended.

The confederate flag, many have asked why is the flag such a racist item. It means southern pride, there is nothing racist about it. Well let me ask this? How many of you would appreciate it if I put a Swastika on your lawn, or every day you had to see a Swastika or work with someone who you knew had a swastika on their car or tattooed on them etc.…. You get the point. I willing that most of you would not like it. You damn sure would want a flag with that symbol flying over your states capital building would you. But I can’t understand why not. The swastika has at least 5000yrs of use in several different cultures before the Nazis. It meaning has differed slightly from culture to culture but it has been a positive one. Usually something along the lines of Good fortune or wellbeing. Hitler only used that symbol for a few decades and now it synonymous with hatred. The rebel flag has been around for much shorter of a time and has had much more hatred attached to it. That flag stood for the South. Which in case you didn’t know, had slaves. After the civil war the KKK was formed and they adopted that flag Dec 24, 1865 with their founding. Well the flag itself was created May 1st 1863. So roughly 2.5 years of not being directly tied with racism and hatred. 151yrs of inflicting pain and suffering onto people based on the color of their skin. You see to the black race that flag symbolizes that we are still not equal in this country. It’s a constant reminder of the tortures that we still have to go through on a daily basis. Let me ask you this. (for anyone that truly has to go through what I’m about to say I am deeply sorry) I want you imagine that you have been raped (man or woman) by a person at your job, they raped you and beat you within an inch of your life and left you to die. Now you press charges but it goes nowhere. You find out that your rapist is connected with all the right people. You just shuffled from one person to another and no one takes you seriously. Your told you deserved it, oh I know them, that doesn’t sound like something they would do, Oh it couldn’t have been that bad. You have to see this person every day. Leaving your job is not an option, moving is not an option. How would this effect you? This is how the vast majority of black people feel when we see the “rebel” flag. That’s why its such a big deal. That is another reason we can’t just get over it. Its flown in our faces every single damn day.

So let’s to the excuses listed earlier The first 3 (Those things didn’t happen to you, I wasn’t apart of those acts, It was so long ago) can be summed up rather simply. Your absolutely right, They didn’t happen to me, You were not part of it, and yes slavery was a long time ago. But he is the thing, this government and white people in general still benefit greatly from what slavery produced. Slavery built this country. Brown University, CSX, Harvard Law School, pretty much any company that was around during the 1800s profited from slavery. Many of those companies are around to day, just under different names. So many white families today owe their fortune to slavery, not to mention the country as a whole. So all these people benefited from slavery but blacks still have to ask for fair treatment. My ancestors built this country, literally and now we have school books that try to show slavery oh it wasn’t so bad and give it a really good whitewash. Or as Bill O’reilly has said they were well fed, like that excuse that fact that you enslaved people. And to make matters worse, we received nothing. The Japanese received reparations for being locked up for several years during WWII along with a heartfelt apology, The Jews received reparations from the US for the Holocaust and we didn’t even do anything to them. What did Blacks get? A half assed apology from house of representatives. Just a sorry for the whole slavery thing, and we had to wait until 2008 for that and only 120 people signed it. And it changed nothing. As for the whole Irish slave thing, That’s a myth. Yep sorry no Irish slaves. They actually volunteered to come to the states as indentured servants to pay off the price o the voyage. They were freed within a few years. No doubt some were treated bad, but they were not stolen from their homeland, they had a chance to be free and they were accepted by white people. So no Irish people were not enslaved. They were indentured servants. There is a big difference. So I’ll leave you with this and you can make of what you will:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.