I have had to unfriend some people on my social media networks after this past week’s multiple American tragedies. I just can’t have people in my Life on or off line that don’t get it. The murders of Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile were the same as the Emmett Till murder in the ’50s. The lives of five officers that were killed and seven others shot by a gunman, who snapped, magnify the need for better gun control. These events are the rallying cry to everyone of conscience, another moment of Truth for this country to deal with both racism and the easy access to guns that plague us.
However, they are two separate issues and we must not sweep what happens to black people on a daily basis and the very oppressive way we ALL, as black people live – irregardless of education level, economic status, or neighborhood – back under the carpet. EVERY black Amerian lives with the specter of racial discrimination, both in our lives and our family’s lives. It affects every single aspect of our lives from before we are born to our deaths.
We CAN overcome our racist past and present, eradicate racism and have a unified future. BUT it will not happen unless EVERYONE gets real about both white privilege and black empowerment. I just can’t stomach any more people, who refuse to get it, when we are talking about OUR LIVES and the Lives of our future generations. I am not going to allow my toddler nieces and nephew and their soon to arrive little brother, to still be dealing with racist oppression when they are adults. The racism in America has been a 466-year cancer. It is time to cure it already.
Some of the Ignorance I have seen posted on social media networks and having to teach my Facebook friends, things that we all should know by now, dealing with racist PR people manning brands for this online magazine and watching all the horrors on news shows has totally worn me out physically, mentally, and spiritually.
I know that many American people suffer pain and are struggling. But last week’s incidences were about BLACK people’s pain. Even the Dallas police shooting was about a black man’s pain expressed and embodied, so violently that it cost five people their lives. However, unlike Mr. Sterling, Mr. Castile and all the other victims of police who murder, the murdered Dallas cops were cops. And as such, they know that they are risking their lives every time they go to work. Black citizens should not feel we are at the same risk for simply living our daily lives. Asking us to say that “all lives matter” is ridiculous when it is BLACK lives that are being taken by the people we pay to protect and serve us. Sure any dolt knows that all lives matter. But it is Black people, who make up 12% of the population that are a full 33% of the victims of police shootings.
Thus, if you are white American and do not get the obvious, in your face fact, that your black American friends live very different lives than you do, solely because of our skin color, have a history of oppression in America spanning hundreds of years, and are not blaming you, rather we just want you to RECOGNIZE what is going on and help us eradicate it; it’s been nice, but please, unfriend me offline and on.
If you are black American and don’t know our history, are not about honoring our ancestors – who fought so hard for us – and you are not about uplifting the community, please also unfriend me, offline and on. Oh, and if you support the GOP candidate, please unfriend me, too. Because he represents your guilt by association.
As both Christ and Buddha said, we are forced to relive our mistakes until we get them right. Racism has been a thorn in America’s side, a rip in our “life, liberty and justice for all” fabric, since our country was founded. Enough is enough.
It is time for coalition building. Let’s solve this already. Mother Earth needs our attention. It is silly and ridiculous that we are still working out mere pigment issues, people.
