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I do not understand the plight of the African-American community. All minorities, including me an Asian-American practicing a minority religion – Hinduism, have benefited from their continuing movements. There should be no difference between us (whichever group you self-identify) and them.
Alas, Black Lives Matter more so than ever, and the least we can do is support the cause since all of us will benefit from the movement. Even the racist/prejudice folk – you are a minority in some shape or form.
Progress from the Plights of the Black Person. This one is rough.
African-Americans have suffered centuries of injustice likened to being treated less than animals. Slaves were a thing/property/object up until the 1860’s [1]. Even though Lincoln set them free (change them to 5/5 of man) these men, women, and children had no way of leaving their condition. Imagine becoming a full adult with the education of middle school and an entire life of submission (master says withhold food – slave complies and suffers retribution). The emancipated person’s life was already over – since they had a life expectancy of 21 years old with the only job qualification of being a slave [2]. Their legacy’s life was bound for continued systemic oppression.
Plight – 20 year old African-Americans now have the possible opportunity to get an education (equivocated as a job) and create a life for themselves. If you are Black, you have a 60% chance of coming from an uneducated family (40% chance as White where the sheer volume of White students eclipses all minorities) [3]. Also, if you are Black and from 2003, 33% of the men in your community will be jailed or have been at some point. These are harrowing facts of a current day Black American. The stigma for the jailed and erosion of rights is a lasting effect of systemic oppression – take away their rights to enact changes in the oppression system.
Even then (post-civil war) as with now, racism did not vanish overnight. Racism was prevalent both in the north and the south. Prejudices have remained strong in all communities. Lynching became an outcome of maintaining oppression for economic, social, migratory, and plain fuckery reasons [5]. From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States [6]; however, the recent Arbery lynching serves as a reminder that Black Lives Matters differently in different neighborhoods [7].
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop. [8]
I bring lynching up to STRESS the effects it has on the psyche of Black Americans and frankly any minority group. Death is a somber event. But when death is brought early on through lynching, it becomes a message. We choose to heed the last message from our fallen or not. The message being – your life is an object that can be taken without major repercussion.
When will the life of a minority stop being considered a second class citizen?
Black men and women began creating wealth for themselves, but it was too much for Black Wall Street to exist (1920s), so it was burnt down along with innocent Blacks being massacred [9]. Even academics took advantage of the Black body. The Institution Review Board is a reactive solution for the Tuskegee experiment where unwitting Africans were live subjects harboring syphilis – an experiment that lasted over 40 years [10].
Cue our old racist/sexist/bigoted uncle Jim Crow using public laws (state and federal laws) to keep systemic oppression alive and well. New laws followed the 13th Amendment segregating colored folk. For the ones who couldn’t afford homes or live in a decent area, the urban ghetto was the solution.
Ever wonder how to make urban ghetto? Here is the recipe.
First, take a barren land with no industry or minable resources.
Second, cram in BUS loads of people from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Third, only create enough space for public transport, but ensure the physical infrastructure surrounding the ghetto prevents public transportation from reaching affluent economically-thriving areas [11].
Fourth, most critical, implement an overburdened and under-resourced public education system so children grow up underprepared while systematically maiming their ambition and drive.
Fifth, “sprinkle some crack,” as Dave Chappelle honestly states ( or a slew of vices into these communities..) while simultaneously enacting laws that primarily impact specific races WITH mandatory minimum sentencing – (necessary to break up the family unit and put mothers on social safety nets leading more children into the poverty cycle) [12]. While I had the fortune of studying under someone who addressed this modern Black plight using mixed-income neighborhoods and relocation programs, the housing and urban development department like the public education system remains overburdened and underfunded.
The true atrocity to the Black people is not the ghetto cage, it is the systemic reduction in wealth opportunities dating back to the 1920s. Black men joined the military and fought for our country. Only to return to second class options in the nation they defended. Housing programs for veterans and lending institutions (mortgage banks) for average Black men were blatant discrimination tactics used under the “lawful” equal but separate segregation standard. Public works projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority had villages for the whites and shacks for the Blacks because “negroes do not fit into the program” [13]. Then finally when a Black person secured housing in a white neighborhood, the remaining folk would sell their houses above market value to profit off of the flow and move elsewhere. In much of the 1900s, the African-American community was redlined, racially zoned, exclusionary zoned, denied loans, legally harassed, specifically targeted, and treated as second class citizens – I guess as 4/5 man.
But then we had change. Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Hugh P Newton among other activists who stepped up and created cascading changes for ALL MINORITIES only to be euthanized for giving minorities a voice while preventing mass bloodshed. I truly believe humanity has become far less violent in the past 50 years. But 50 years aint shit. Since then, a new form of systemic oppression was empowered – law enforcement. The way laws were enforced in minority communities vastly differ from affluent (who happen to be White) communities. One can raise the argument of gangs and drugs, but even those major issues are the produce of fertile urban ghetto grounds. Ground to rage systemic oppression tactics while wildly profittng. The urban ghetto plight is one that remains vibrant, but is now being addressed through forms of gentrification and cultural and educational movements.
As a minority, I understand the aforementioned facts as facts not legacy. I see the plight that was reserved for African-Americans now the plight of all young people who wish to be individuals. We live in a world were there is only intergenerational wealth opportunities. There are slim chances for you to become wealthier than your parent, especially as individual, while the American Dream fades [14]. While African-American continue to be targeted and subjugated, I implore you to understand what has caused their condition. Those are the lessons history will teach us. Those are the messages I heed. Making a dent through creating wealth for individual is the only chance we have at sidestepping systematic oppression in a capitalistic world.
Black Lives Matter.
1 – https://www.history.com/topics/Black-history/slavery
3 – https://firstgen.naspa.org/files/dmfile/FactSheet-01.pdf
4 – https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/piusp01.pdf pg 8.
6 – https://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/
8 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnlTHvJBeP0
9 – https://daily.jstor.org/the-devastation-of-Black-wall-street/
10 – https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
11 – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained
12 – https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01/crack-vs-powder-cocaine-a-gulf-in-penalties
13 – Rothstein, Richard. 2017. The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
15 – REDDIT FOR THE ART JULIAN SHAW – THE RED MAN