Know Your History
I am a Black woman, mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and educator. Everything in me believes knowledge is power and that knowledge informs progressive action. In general, Americans are grossly miseducated about the history of Black people in this country. Historical inaccuracies and omissions about the persistent, purposeful oppression of Black men, women and children are glossed over. Since 1619 Black people of the African Diaspora have been referred to as property, human chattle and as slaves – instead of enslaved people. This is the foundation for narratives of false inferiority. Most people can spout some facts about slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. However, knowledge gets muddled between Lincoln’s true motivation for the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the whittling down of Dr. King’s legacy to nonviolent protests and a handful of speeches that work to keep folks passive.
Slavery was a legal US institution from 1619 – 1865. People are apparently very, very confused about what freedom truly means. As inhumane and horrific as 250 years of slavery was, systemic oppression has continued for the last 155 years. It surged through the 1863 -1877 Reconstruction Era – which was ruthlessly sabotaged by southern states and President Andrew Johnson. Then the 1865 Black Codes, reversal of Field Order 15 (40 acres and mule), forced share cropping, Whites’ huge benefit from the Homestead Act, the birth of the KKK, The Rosewood lynch mob, The Tulsa massacre, Jim Crow, and on and on.
Don’t be fooled by the glamour of the Harlem Renaissance. As always Black creatives and scholars were doing what we have always done – seeing our beauty and brilliance despite our pain. Ideas, inventions and ingenuity stolen for centuries. Not to mention our history as a people before enslavement. BLACK is our culture because we have no home nation to claim. That’s why we claim an entire continent as African-Americans. That’s why we say Black Girls Rock and others Say Kiss Me I’m Irish. It’s not about supremacy; it’s about defining cultural identity. But, I digress…
The plight of segregation preceded The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and depending on where you live segregation is still rampant. How about White Flight, the rise of the housing projects and malicious disintegration of Black families in order to receive much needed financial and housing government assistance? Redlining. Food deserts. Poisoned water. Human guinea pigs ie. the Tuskegee Experiment and Henrietta Lacks. Spectacles – Sara Baartman and the Muse Brothers. Medical neglect. African American mothers are dying at three to four times the rate of White mothers and Black infants are dying at twice the rate as infants born to White mothers. We have the 1970s war on Black community organizations. Drugs being dumped and pumped into our communities and the criminalization of addiction. Where was the empathy and concern being displayed for the opioid crisis when crack was ravaging our neighborhoods? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has earmarked over $1 billion to prevent and treat opioid addiction. Black and Brown folks got “Just Say No” commercials and a dog detective. Take time to examine the detrimental effects of the 1994 crime bill. Don’t forget crippling inequity in our neighborhood schools and employment discrimination. Read about the preschool to prison pipeline. A 2018 US Government Accountability Office report found Black K-12 students are 3.2 times more likely than white students to face suspension or expulsion. Did you know Black children ages 6 to 21 are 40 percent more likely to be identified with disabilities than their peers? This is not racial over-representation, instead it is over-identification meaning a child is inappropriately identified with a disability and placed in special education. Consider disproportionate attacks of our LQBTQ+ family and gotdamn Coronavirus!
That brings us to now – fighting against police violence. The brutalized bodies of Black men and women are circulating social media. Documenting crimes we’ve known to be real since before Emmitt Till, not figments of our imaginations. Literal state funded snuff films caught on cellphones and body cameras, yet we’re still asked to speak on crime in our communities FIRST. Having to justify jogging, sleeping in our own homes, driving, playing, walking home in a hoodie, even praying. We have to justify breathing. After 400 years we are sick and tired. All while watching mainstream society adopt our culture for the cool factor, albeit clueless to the blues that accompanies the rhythm.
This moment is long coming. Our collective outrage is just; our treatment never has been.
maryclaremontchronicles 