As a young child, I can remember my mother saying, ‘being Black and being old in America are two of the most difficult things in life; neither is treated as if they matter.’ Here we are, more than fifty years later and being Black and old in America are still seen as the two worst groups to belong. Through it all, Blacks have had to climb mountains intentionally set before them, dodge fires, and swim oceans and avoid the quick sands of life that were set to hinder their growth and progress. The levels of discrimination from the middle passage of over four hundred years ago are still prevalent in present day America. When I consider the challenges faced by Blacks in America, it’s amazing that our overt suffering from PTSD is not more prevalent. It’s also amazing that the majority of Blacks aren’t sitting on the Golden Gate Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge, ready to jump, when they are unable to swim.
Starting with the middle passage, continuing onto the plantation, during the Civil Rights Movement, and into our present day society, it has always been the belief by the majority, considered superior, that those they deemed minority/inferior needed to be policed. The racist system that consisted of the ‘massah’ and the ‘overseers,’ indicated that Blacks needed to be policed and controlled.Blacks have come to realize that police officers are a microcosm of the macrocosm of a country built on violence and hatred, which not too many want to admit or talk about. We have also come to recognize that laws in America are made to keep some people down and out, such as Black and Brown people. We have also come to recognize that there will never be laws made by the majority society that don’t include loopholes for them to not have to adhere.
Being Black in America has been a challenge all of my life and I have had to fight all of my life. Sadly, the fight continues. However, because of time and space, I am unable to document all of the challenges. However, I can say, I wouldn’t trade being Black for anything. To Deny or trade my Blackness would be denying and trading my identity, rendering me nonexistent. There are times that I have asked God ‘why.’ I am aware that God makes no mistake, but I thought by now, the hatred, racism, discrimination, disrespect, the state of invisibleness that has been and still is imposed on Blacks in America would have at least dissipated. And the lie told to me and my Black sisters and brothers about the power of an education has also not held true. My education and ability to articulate myself have made me a target to be silenced and there are attempts to erase me as a person. It has been stated that whatever White America doesn’t understand, instead of getting to know and understand, they seek to destroy and kill. And it seems as if instead of embracing differences, America does everything to destroy those who are different, especially the Black, Brown, poor, disenfranchised, and the have nots.
The white privilege attitude, white privilege behaviors, and realities of white privilege within America has brought about many caste systems, such as the haves and have nots, FICO scores for credit, discrimination, inferior education, inferior treatment, poverty, economic disparity, etc. Although I have not been faced with the atrocity of having to live in dilapidated and inferior housing, white flight has turned my community into a dilapidated area of boarded up buildings, fat food restaurants, gas stations and liquor stores on each corner, dollar stores threaded through out the neighborhood, and car part shops and used car lots scattered throughout the main streets.
One of the greatest challenges of being Black in America is having to not only defend myself in a white society, but to also have to defend myself in my Black society. Because of the self-hatred taught to my people to bring divisiveness among the slaves on the plantation and maintain physical, psychological, and emotional control, unfortunately, the vestiges of slavery still exist. The in-race hatred on many occasions is much more challenging than the hatred from White America. Many of my Black sisters and brothers look at each other and see themselves, hating what they see, they begin to lash out at each other, believing that the battle is between Blacks as a people instead of Blacks and the larger system. It’s a syndrome that has been labeled as ‘the crab in the barrel mentality’ and has caused us to constantly treat each other the way White America has treated us. It is truly a challenge and has been detrimental to the Black race as a whole!
As a Black person in America, too many of us have had to harness our feelings of pain, associated with disrespect, rejection, dejection, discrimination, and racism. Our feelings have not mattered. Ironically, even when we visit our doctors with physical pain, it is diminished and too often dismissed. We have not been trusted and workplace discrimination and racism are often seen as problems of the Black worker, rather than those of the racist society in which we live and work. As a Black in America, we have long been faced with the fact that we don’t matter. As a result, it has been shown that Black lives have not and still don’t matter.
I have been very disturbed by the recent events that have taken place in America, but I’m not surprised. A lifetime of hearing, seeing, and experiencing racism has become even more draining and is traumatic for the Black and Brown people who experience racism on a daily basis. However, the recent acts of racism violence, and murders that took the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Manuel Ellis are nothing new. I have lived with it all my life! The media constantly states that the COVID-19 coronavirus has uncovered the negative state of African-Americans in America, especially in relation to police brutality/murders, poverty, economics, healthcare, etc. However, because Blacks have lived with these atrocities throughout their lives, none of these adversities were/are covered. The reality is that there are those who didn’t/don’t want to see the truth of the reality of the inferior and racist conditions and discriminatory treatment that Blacks have faced and continue to face in America on a daily basis. These conditions and treatment have existed for over four hundred years. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t uncover the aforementioned issues cast on Black Americans, the haves chose to wear blinders, turned their heads and their backs, while covering their ears and their eyes. What the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has uncovered are the American cover-ups regarding the truth of its racist past and racist present.
For over four hundred years African-Americans have had to pretend that they did not know, that everything was/is okay. Blacks have had an inlet, but no real outlet for their pain and suffering. If there is no outlet, there will be an eventual implosion or explosion. The minute Blacks march and protest, they are considered rioters and looters. Although I don’t agree with the destruction of property, I would prefer to have property destroyed rather than the continuous and consistent destruction of our Black boys, Black girls, Black men, and Black women. Property can be replaced; Black lives can’t be replaced. Marching and protesting are for the lives taken away from so many of our Black sisters and brothers, as well as a way of being heard, out of the silence forced upon them.
Racism is a mindset of irrational beliefs that fuels various emotions, such as fear and hatred. The belief of superiority has been the operating system of white America. The fear of those white Americans believing that they are superior, and those of a different race are inferior, leads to their belief that as long as they can keep a knee on our necks or their feet on our backs, they have and can hold us back.
The challenges faced by Blacks have been so long standing and too many Blacks are suffering from just trying to breathe in a society, which does not recognize or respect them, because white America continues to hold their knees on our necks and our backs. Also, too many of our young Black brothers and sisters have grown up in a society that perpetuates a false sense of equality and equity, where many are not aware of their history. Unlike many other groups of people in America, the educational system has stripped Black children of their history and replaced it with distorted tales from a White majority perspective, in order to control the narrative. Any race of people without knowledge of its past will have difficulty navigating their present and moving forward into their future. Such is the ‘pipeline to prison’ in the American school system that strips Black girls and Black boys of their self-esteem by third grade, sending them on a winding and confusing path of economic deprivation, inferior education, or no education at all. Remember, compulsory education was never meant for Blacks in the first place. The field of education has been one of the greatest breeding grounds for discrimination and racism.
The American establishment would have us to believe that Blacks have ‘arrived’ by allowing them to accumulate some material pleasantries that they struggle to maintain over long periods of time, endowing them with the slavery of high interest rates and excessive debt. Where have Blacks arrived and when did they arrive? There is no economic freedom for Black and Brown people in America, when there is controlled measure that discriminates against them in determining their worthiness as consumer, based on the color of their skin. This FICO score keeps widening at the top and bottom, making the American dream for Blacks in America elusive. But no matter how much wealth Blacks accumulate, material wealth will never replace the acceptance, respect, recognition, honor, fair, equal, and equitable treatment they deserve as human beings who are whole men and women, instead of three-fifths of a human being as was interpreted in the American Constitution of 1787 (Article 1, Section 2).
It is past time for justice to prevail in America. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about justice rolling down like mighty waters. However, injustice seems to roll much faster than justice. It is essential that every living human being, especially Black and Brown Americans use their power of the vote at the polls on June 9, 2020, as well as in November 2020. Too many Blacks have lost their lives for our freedom to vote and the majority American establishment is trying to take that right away.
Yes it has been and still is challenging to be Black in America. However, we have the right, the fight, and the sight to change the narrative that has been scripted for us. We must stand up, speak up, and speak out. But we must also develop a comprehensive plan of action that includes all willing, committed, genuine, and dedicated people in America. As Blacks in America, we must not only tell our stories, we must write our stories from beginning to end.
As long as there is hatred and racism in America, there will be challenges for Blacks in America, but God ahs the final say!!!
We must make our marches the footsteps for mobilizing specific and strategic actions to once and for all put Black and Brown lives at the top of the VIP list. We must engage those who will not participate in cover-ups against Black and Brown people, no matter who they are, allowing for true change to take place in America, in order to preserve the lives of Black children, Black men, and Black women.
As Blacks in America, we must decide our own directions and gain information to not only have candid conversations with our Black and Brown children in navigating the racial, economic, and social disparities in America, but also fighting to end racism and discrimination. It is imperative that our children learn and understand their history and apply it to their present day realities. We must also develop approaches for moving forward in confronting racism on macro and micro levels, especially when dealing with law enforcement officials. We must also help you and your children to understand how to survive in a nation that believes the only way to see them is to keep them invisible, not hear them, and keep the knees of law enforcement and vigilantes on their necks, their knees and feet on their backs, as they are deprived of a quality and equal education. You must believe yourself that BLACK LIVES DO MATTER, because YOU MATTER! It’s important to start loving, to maintain your faith, maintain your hope, and to keep marching until ALL of us have arrived, without hatred, without injustice, and without racism. And you MUST VOTE, VOTE, VOTE! You must VOTE because your life does depend on it!!! That’s what needs to happen to truly understand “What’s Going On!”
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