Post Racial America

We are living in what most say is something called a post racial society. Based on the word “post” it implies that racism no longer exists. It amazes me that anyone would come to this conclusion when you look at the state of relations in America today on any level. African Americans and people of color lead every negative category across the board; be it unemployment, healthcare, housing, education, you name it. Yet, there are those who say things have changed.

I share many Thought Provoking Perspectives on a wide range of subjects but interestingly enough the hate mail comes when I speak to a reality we all know is truth. I know it sound good and all that but the reality is that not much has changed. Yes, we do have a “Black Face” in the White House and I am glad to have lived long enough to have witnessed this phenomenal event.

Frankly, no one living or dead would have thought that an African American would ever live in the White House as president. But just for the record; let me remind you of what Carter G. Woodson said in 1933 in his still relevant novel “The Mis-Education of the Negro:  

“History shows that it does not matter who is in power... those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they did in the beginning.” In the same novel he also reminded us that “if you control what a man is thinking you don’t have to worry about what he thinks”.

Post racial in many respects is nothing more than putting a new name or title on what I would argue will never change. I can recall in my lifetime where the “N-Word” was the last thing a black man, or woman, heard before being lynched. I remember vividly the KKK terrorizing black communities burning down houses and bombings churches under the protection of law; this is also to include murder with no justice for the crime. These cowards held down and raped black women for amusement.

Like the Dixcrats that are now the Republican and Tea Partys are not that much different than the Citizens Counsels of old. Today, the police still act in many regards under a similar code. They can “Stop and Frisk” you at their pleasure, beat and brutalize, and kill with no repercussions. The Prison Industrial Complex where you find “Just Us” is big business filled with 21^st Century Slaves trade on the Stock Market; just like slaves were back in the day.

I’ve seen guns and drugs proliferate black communities with murder at unprecedented rates. We just accept it and the legacy and lifestyle that come with it. When there was talk of a revolution; CONINTELPRO was created and that put an end to any thought of freedom. The president spoke loudly of “Change” and said “Yes we can”. I have not seen it!

Mr. President, with all due respect, it’s time that we hold you accountable and make possible change we can believe; just like at the drop of a dime you send billions all over the world in an instant. You can reach out and touch or throw a lifeline to the millions who look like you right here in America. You say that you are trying to be the president of all people. Well aren't African Americans people or are you viewing it as the Constitutions say -3/5 human.

African Americans have been here since August of the year 1619 and they are still debating whether or not we can vote. Just for clarity, every so many years that portion of the Voting Rights Act must be reauthorized and signed into law, and in the span of time between re-authorization they try every trick imaginable to suppress the vote. Mr. President if you do nothing more for the people and their children who look like you; use your power to at least make Voting Rights permanent.

So it’s time for the rational minds to return to earth and stop using the meaningless term “post-racial” because there’s no such thing! There’s no place that fits that description in America. There’s no “post-racial era.”  Never has and never will! It’s a term for a concept that does not exist. 

I knew Jim Crow and see his son, James Crow Jr. Esq., as being more clever and wicked than his namesake. I never thought I would say this but I felt more comfortable and safe during segregation. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

The Making of a Slave

 

Some have proclaimed that a slave was born. I do not agree with this notion because a slave was made by means of a defined calculated and well thought-out plan devised for the purpose of being a beast of burden. We know the reason for this atrocity was to build a nation through and to obtain wealth. But what is not understood, en mass, is how it was designed to be sustainable or that varying forms reappear overtime and this footnote to history has been erased or usually unnoticed.

This reminds me of the powerful words Harriet Tubman expressed succinctly concerning the effectiveness of this system of mental conditioning. She was asked shortly before her death, if she knew how many slaves she freed while conducting the Underground Railroad. She did not think about it, replying quickly, “I could have freed a lot more, if they had only known they were slaves.”

From that day in 1619, when it is believed the first Africans were dragged onto the shores of Jamestown to today where we’ve witnessed the first man of color elected President of these United States (or as Jesse would put it – from the outhouse to the White House), there is no doubt that our story is the greatest story ever told.  As it was said in scripture, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” But let’s understand that there was a plan, a sinister master plan, conceived at some point to ensure that people of our hue remain the least of thee.

As the story goes, a British slave owner from the West Indies was invited to Virginia sometime during the year 1712 to teach his methods to slave owners. Willie Lynch was the name of the man credited with a speech delivered on the banks of the James River. It is noteworthy to mention that the James River was named for the diabolical King of England, who was ironically the same guy responsible for the twenty-eighth version of the cherished Holy Bible.

Lynch brought with him, as he put it, a foolproof method for controlling black slaves that will last for a thousand years. Consequently, it is believed the term “lynching” was derived from his last name as a way to pay homage to him for delivering this ingenious approach. The name Willie Lynch is interesting because it may be a simple play on words. For example, Will Lynch or Will he Lynch. Whatever the reason, it no doubt had significant psychological implications that played heavily on a naive race of people.

Lynch began his historic presentation with a warm greeting: “Gentlemen, you know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems. I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a foolproof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee every one of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least three hundred years. My method is simple…The black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self refueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands….” The seeds of devastation were fertilized and the process of destruction was underway for the making of a race into slaves.

In the speech, Lynch outlined a number of differences among the slaves. He stressed to his audience that they should take these differences and make them bigger. These differences included such things as age, color, intelligence, fine hair vs. coarse hair, tall vs. short, male vs. female. These tactics were not new; however they were more than likely put together collectively for this specific purpose for the first time as keys to control.

This short eight paragraph speech was profound in that it was the embodiment of the cruelest demoralizing agenda ever imposed upon a people since the days when the Romans crucified our Lord. As Lynch closed his speech that day, he said, “They must love, respect, and trust only us.” This is the key to producing a successful strategy. Whether this story is true or not is cause for much speculation. However, as history demonstrates, a manufactured plan was developed by someone to achieve these results that continue to this day.

The Willie Lynch letter first appeared in the early 1970’s but gained widespread notice during the nineties, when it began appearing on the Internet. Since then, it has often been promoted as an authentic account of slavery during the 18th century, but its inaccuracies and anachronisms have led historians to conclude that it is a hoax. Let’s be honest, I don’t think any reasonable person would think that those persons present, if there was a meeting, took written notes. However, the same reasonable thinking person can see that there was a designed plan created by someone in order to sustain such division. It may have been something as simple as “divide and conquer.”

So let’s suppose the Willie Lynch story is a modern creation; either the concept was ingenious or the biggest urban myth ever. Then it begs the question, why are we still fighting amongst ourselves. Further, how can the ruling people, or anyone for that matter, justify a philosophy for building and maintaining a government which sanctioned murder, among other atrocities, to enslave human beings?  This I know, and mind you I was not taught this in school nor did anyone explain that the government, through legislative sessions, passed laws to ensure that our bondage was sustained.

This wicked system was sanctioned by the church in the name of God. Therefore, it is important to understand, when the church endorsed slavery and the vehicle that drove it, this meant in the eyes of the system that God himself authorized this immoral agenda. If this was the mentality of the church, and it is a historical fact that religion sanctioned and justified enslaving people for centuries. It begs the question, does that mentality still exist?

And that is my Thought Provoking Perspective!

Have Hoodie Will Commit Crime

“I feel that we as Americans are all equal and held together by a common thread. Like a treasured beaded necklace of different colors held together on a string, Held together by our necessities, our circumstances, and our humanity. Every color helps to make the necklace beautiful. We can never be a separate entity! Americans of all colors are so integrated that if we hurt one, we hurt all. Just like that necklace of treasured beads, leave one out and the gap is seen, break the chain and many of us are lost.”

The hardest thing in man’s mind is to be tolerant of another or to keep an open mind. In order to tolerate someone or something we have to step out of our comfort zone. We judge without thought when something or someone is different. As long as we (Black) people have been a part of American society, you would assume we would be a value to America. Though we strive to be like our White counterparts, accepted unconditionally we are still fighting. We fight for the label of Colored, Black, Negro, and African-American.

I sometimes wonder if we engage in a losing battle because the battle is not against ‘us’ per say, but against the inner sense of shame, the shame of Slavery. Shame for an action is hard to wipe away. You can apologize but as long as the object which causes the shame is persistently in sight, the shame remains and becomes an irritant. Something you want to get rid of and eventually the irritant turns to anger and the anger causes you to lash out. We, if only seen as a ‘casing’ or a vessel cannot change, as a thinking individual we can cause enormous changes. Just look at the profiling of the unfortunate hoodie in the media lately. In place of the word, ‘Black man’ read hoodie.

The hoodie, its sleeves worn by every age, sex, religion and racial ethnicity, singled out as a troublemaker, a deviant. Even though it comes in every color, fashioned from various material, is designed, made, bought, and sold in malls as well as major outlet stores all across the world, is still profiled as the accessory to theft and considered an outfit for the degenerate. Who cares that the hoodie, seen on the backs of individuals in every profession, worn in the highest halls of education, laying across the seats of chairs in the White House, it is now a symbol for all that is bad in the world, much like the Black man.

Recently, I impatiently watched the news to view a certain pumped-up segment. The announcer, constantly harping about a thief caught on tape and our impending surprise on what the thief was wearing, had gotten my attention. It would be shocking, right? Wrong. I had hoped to see some man in a tutu dragging out a flat screen while fighting off a pit bull, but of course, it was the obvious. Wait for the shocker....it was a guy in a hoodie! What really made me think WTH, the interviewed owner in the piece says, 'I didn't want to call in and be accused of racial profiling by saying the guy wore a hoodie’. What?

So, only Black people wear this item of clothing? Anyone with one eye could see the person was Black, just say a Black guy is robbing my car and don't bring up the hoodie. What a shame. Poor hoodies cannot get a break lately. No one is trying to learn the real essence of the hoodie or the Black man. The profile, both a cancerous malignancy formed in error is set and there it stays. As with any race there are deviants and threats to society. Why pick on the Black race as a whole and label us as worthless.

The fight for racial and social equalization continues and will continue as long as man breathes. We are a selfish entity believing we are better than another is because of our perceived ‘place’ in life. Our unification should grow because of our differences and if we were honest with ourselves, we would see our differences are only skin-deep. In religion, anyone can choose which path to follow. In education, we can all go as far as we choose. In sexual orientation, again it is a preference.

In our choice of occupation, whether or not to be a parent, or who to marry, these all are options. Much of the tension in the world boils down to the color of a person’s skin. Of all the races, I believe the dark skinned are the least tolerated, especially the American Blacks. How many times have we been the scapegoat as kidnapper, murder, or thief without reason? How many times have we been judged as sell-outs or ignorant because of skin color?

In the American multi-racial history book Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History chapter three is titled Voices of Change and has a section dedicated to activism and the people who stepped out to confront the injustices directed at people of specific ethnicities. The author begins the chapter with a small bit of history pertaining to members of her family.

These members (father and cousin) fought and succeeded in the desegregation of what is now Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. How many of us cannot find a single member of our family who has participated in the formation of history? It should not matter the color of your skin or your belief system we have all voiced and accomplished a change.

Being part of a cause means more than marching and shouting to have personal wishes met. It is a chance to make a change in behavior and thought patterns in areas from equal rights in housing, education, socialization, sexual orientation and the donning of an item of clothing.

By Ey Wade

About the Author: Ey Wade considers herself to be a caged in frustrated author of thought provoking, mind bending eBooks, an occasional step-in parent, a fountain of knowledge, and ready to share. She is the author of Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History a celebration of the accomplishments and contributions of all races to America’s illustrious growth and history.

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