Modern Day Slavery

In 2018, while working with a theater workshop for seniors, one of the seniors started telling the story of how as a child she was a slave.  I thought she had hit her head or was playing with ghosts.  I said to her, "Miss Ruth, slavery ended in the 1800's."  She continued her story to say that her family didn't know.  She said a man came to the house and told her grandmother that slavery had ended.  Ms. Ruthie is in her 70's.  If it happened when she was a child, she thinks she was no more than 10, it means that in the 50's Ms. Ruthie and her family were still enslaved.  Sounds incredulous!

Hear Miss Ruth tell the story, herself, fast forward to 54.30:

http://wpcommunitymedia.org/slater-center-presents/06262018-1833

It does sound more and more incredulous, doesn't it.

It wasn't that long ago, in 2003, that the world was introduced to Mae Miller and her sister Annie on Nightline.  Mae told the story of escaping in the 60's from servitude.   She told of whippings, being raped and working the fields without being paid.  She is quoted as saying that they ate as hogs, not like dogs because dogs had a special place. Read the Nightline story below:

https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=129007&page=1#:~:text=Dec.,for%20no%20money%20at%20all.%22

Antoinette Harrell, the genealogist mentioned in the video above, calls herself the slave detective.  She researches, documents, visits and interviews people who still live on plantations with "masters."  These people are oblivious to the fact that they can leave and are deathly afraid to interview with her.   Please watch the video below.

https://video.vice.co m/en_us/video/vice-the-slavery-detective-of-the-south/5a947b9cf1cdb3764f3eee86

During a 2018 online Memoir Class, a fellow student wrote a paper, titled "The Hunt."  For the class, we had to read and critique other students' works.  In "The Hunt," she told about accompanying a colleague to a fox hunt.  She said her skin prickled when she realized it was being held on a plantation.  She noticed that in addition to herself, there was one other Black person, who sat regally on a steed and she felt proud to see him, among the genteel of the deep south in Charleston, South Carolina.  Her colleague pronounced that the gentleman on the horse and his family had worked the plantation for 200 years and had never left.  She bristled, however, it would worsen when the hunt started and she realized it wasn't a fox that was being hunted, it was the human MAN.  Her colleague explained that they couldn't use an actual fox because it would be immoral and illegal.  I was sickened reading it.  She wasn't writing fiction.  Remember, this was a memoir writing class.

The thousands of miles in the deep south, I am sure, still harbors masters with enslaved people.  Those still holding people in servitude need to be weeded out and brought to justice and labeled terroists along with their kinfolks, one and the same, the KKK, white supremacists and neo Nazis.  

You Can't Sleep It Away

I woke from a stupor, an almost six hours of sleep in the daytime.  I find it very strange.  I woke this morning at about 6:15.  I watched the news for a little while, felt sleepy, and went back in the bed at about 7:30 forcing myself out at 8 to get ready for an 8:30 yoga class.  I blamed it on the impending weather – rainstorm (which never came, unless it did while I was sleeping).  Sleeping for six hours during the day is quite unusual, three hours maybe, but not six. 

What can I attribute it to?  Weather?  Had that reaction earlier that morning – I can understand tiredness, low feeling, a nap, but not six hours.  Food?  I ate leftovers of my own home-cooked meal, eaten the day before with no reaction.  Physical tiredness?  Haven’t done anything physical except for the yoga class – that can’t be it.  Missed sleep?  Slept well the night before. 

It has been a draining three and a half months since my brush with COVID-19, followed by the tragedy of George Floyd.  COVID-19 has not fully left me.  I still at times experience loss of taste, no appetite for food, lethargy, chills and breathing issues.  Sometimes, I feel it in my eyes.   Others have noticed my eyes, too.  COVID is like Shingles in that sense, where it takes forever to leave you.  After having Shingles in 2013, I continued to feel pain in my shoulder blade ever so often and for quite a few years.  It is my hope that COVID-19 goes away and soon.

But what about the strain and drain of racism.  It takes a toll on the mind and body.  I am educating myself more through books.  Just before going to bed, I had been reading Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Become An Antiracist.”  I have also been reading slave narratives.  These are difficult and I cry for my ancestors.  I am learning about the sodomization of slaves in front of wives, children and anyone and everyone, and in particular in Jamaica and the reason behind Jamaica being number one against homosexuality.  I am also reading about modern day slavery in the South. 

Did I sleep six hours to sleep away the pain?

Richness of Africa

...but who owns and/or controls it?

https://time.com/106666/w/

The Willie Lynch Letter - Fake or Real

The Willie Lynch Letter has been debunked by scholars who use facts about the time period and language in 1712 to refute the validity of it.  I believe them, however...

Everything in the Willie Lynch Letter is real.  This is how the enslaved were treated and how they were programmed.  And the "willie lynches" won because we continue to use the same tactics they ingrained in us among ourselves.

I have two theories about the author.  1. It was written by someone who used information provided by the enslaved; there are a number of written accounts or 2.  This was written by a "willie lynch" who hoped to use it as training for Slavery # 2.

Here is the speech and information about the fake but so real "willie lynch."

This speech was delivered by Willie Lynch on the bank of the James River in the colony of Virginia in 1 712. Lynch was a British slave owner in the West Indies. He was invited to the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach his methods to slave owners there. The term "lynching" is derived from his last name.

December 25, 1712

Gentlemen:

I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies, where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome's would envy us if my program is implemented. 

As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasions. I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree, a couple miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, You suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed.

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 300 years [201 2]. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves and make the differences bigger. I use fear, distrust and envy for control.

These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On top of my list is "age" but it's there only because it starts with an "A." The second is "COLOR" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations and status on plantations, attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action, but before that, I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust and envy stronger than adulation, respect or admiration. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self refueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Don't forget you must pitch the old black Male vs. the young black Male, and the young black Male against the old black male. You must use the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves, and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves. You must use the female vs. the male. And the male vs. the female. You must also have you white servants and overseers distrust all Blacks. It is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful of each other.

Thank you gentlemen

Lets Make a Slave

It was the interest and business of slave holders to study human nature, and the slave nature in particular, with a view to practical results. I and many of them attained astonishing proficiency in this direction. They had to deal not with earth, wood and stone, but with men and by every regard they had for their own safety and prosperity they needed to know the material on which they were to work. Conscious of the injustice and wrong they were every hour perpetuating and knowing what they themselves would do. Were they the victims of such wrongs? They were constantly looking for the first signs of the dreaded retribution. They watched, therefore with skilled and practiced eyes, and learned to read with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slave, through his sable face. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstractions, sullenness and indifference indeed, any mood out of the common was afforded ground for suspicion and inquiry.

Let us make a slave. What do we need? First of all we need a black nigger man, a pregnant nigger woman and her baby nigger boy. Second, we will use the same basic principle that we use in breaking a horse, combined with some more sustaining factors. What we do with horses is that we break them from one form of life to another that is we reduce them from their natural state in nature. Whereas nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their offspring, we break that natural string of independence from them and thereby create a dependency status, so that we may be able to get from them useful production for our business and pleasure

Cardinal Principles for making a Negro

For fear that our future Generations may not understand the principles of breaking both of the beast together, the nigger and the horse. We understand that short range planning economics results in periodic economic chaos; so that to avoid turmoil in the economy, it requires us to have breath and depth in long range comprehensive planning, articulating both skill sharp perceptions. We lay down the following principles for long range comprehensive economic planning. Both horse and niggers is no good to the economy in the wild or natural state. Both must be broken and tied together for orderly production. For orderly future, special and particular attention must be paid to the female and the youngest offspring. Both must be crossbred to produce a variety and division of labor. Both must be taught to respond to a peculiar new language. Psychological and physical instruction of containment must be created for both. We hold the six cardinal principles as truth to be self evident, based upon the following the discourse concerning the economics of breaking and tying the horse and the nigger together, all inclusive of the six principles laid down about. NOTE: Neither principle alone will suffice for good economics. All principles must be employed for orderly good of the nation. Accordingly, both a wild horse and a wild or nature nigger is dangerous even if captured, for they will have the tendency to seek their customary freedom, and in doing so, might kill you in your sleep. You cannot rest. They sleep while you are awake, and are awake while you are asleep. They are dangerous near the family house and it requires too much labor to watch them away from the house. Above all, you cannot get them to work in this natural state. Hence both the horse and the nigger must be broken; that is breaking them from one form of mental life to another. Keep the body take the mind! In other words break the will to resist. Now the breaking process is the same for both the horse and the nigger, only slightly varying in degrees.

But as we said before, there is an art in long range economic planning. You must keep your eye and thoughts on the female and the offspring of the horse and the nigger. A brief discourse in offspring development will shed light on the key to sound economic principles. Pay little attention to the generation of original breaking, but concentrate on future generations.

Therefore, if you break the female mother, she will break the offspring in its early years of development and when the offspring is old enough to work, she will deliver it up to you, for her normal female protective tendencies will have been lost in the original breaking process. For example take the case of the wild stud horse, a female horse and an already infant horse and compare the breaking process with two captured nigger males in their natural state, a pregnant nigger woman with her infant offspring. Take the stud horse, break him for limited containment.

Completely break the female horse until she becomes very gentle, whereas you or anybody can ride her in her comfort. Breed the mare and the stud until you have the desired offspring. Then you can turn the stud to freedom until you need him again. Train the female horse where by she will eat out of your hand, and she will in turn train the infant horse to eat out of your hand also. When it comes to breaking the uncivilized nigger, use the same process, but vary the degree and step up the pressure, so as to do a complete reversal of the mind. Take the meanest and most restless nigger, strip him of his clothes in front of the remaining male niggers, the female, and the nigger infant, tar and feather him, tie each leg to a different horse faced in opposite directions, set him a fire and beat both horses to pull him apart in front of the remaining nigger. The next step is to take a bull whip and beat the remaining nigger male to the point of death, in front of the female and the infant. Don't kill him, but put the fear of God in him, for he can be useful for future breeding.

The Breaking Process of the African Woman

Take the female and run a series of tests on her to see if she will submit to your desires willingly. Test her in every way, because she is the most important factor for good economics. If she shows any sign of resistance in submitting completely to your will, do not hesitate to use the bull whip on her to extract that last bit of resistance out of her. Take care not to kill her, for in doing so, you spoil good economic. When in complete submission, she will train her off springs in the early years to submit to labor when they become of age. Understanding is the best thing. Therefore, we shall go deeper into this area of the subject matter concerning what we have produced here in this breaking process of the female nigger.

We have reversed the relationship in her natural uncivilized state she would have a strong dependency on the uncivilized nigger male, and she would have a limited protective tendency toward her independent male offspring and would raise male off springs to be dependent like her. Nature had provided for this type of balance. We reversed nature by burning and pulling a civilized nigger apart and bull whipping the other to the point of death, all in her presence. By her being left alone, unprotected, with the male image destroyed, the ordeal caused her to move from her psychological dependent state to a frozen independent state. In this frozen psychological state of independence, she will raise her male and female offspring in reversed roles.

For fear of the young males life she will psychologically train him to be mentally weak and dependent, but physically strong. Because she has become psychologically independent, she will train her female off springs to be psychological independent. What have you got? You've got the nigger women out front and the nigger man behind and scared. This is a perfect situation of sound sleep and economic. Before the breaking process, we had to be alertly on guard at all times.

Now we can sleep soundly, for out of frozen fear his woman stands guard for us. He cannot get past her early slave molding process. He is a good tool, now ready to be tied to the horse at a tender age. By the time a nigger boy reaches the age of sixteen, he is soundly broken in and ready for a long life of sound and efficient work and the reproduction of a unit of good labor force. Continually through the breaking of uncivilized savage nigger, by throwing the nigger female savage into a frozen psychological state of independence, by killing of the protective male image, and by creating a submissive dependent mind of the nigger male slave, we have created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever, unless a phenomenon occurs and re shifts the position of the male and female slaves. We show what we mean by example. Take the case of the two economic slave units and examine them closely.

The Nigger Marriage

We breed two nigger males with two nigger females. Then we take the nigger males away from them and keep them moving and working. Say one nigger female bears a nigger female and the other bears a nigger male. Both nigger females being without influence of the nigger male image, frozen with an independent psychology, will raise their offspring into reverse positions. The one with the female offspring will teach her to be like herself, independent and negotiable (we negotiate with her, through her, by her, we negotiate her at will). The one with the nigger male offspring, she being frozen with a subconscious fear for his life, will raise him to be mentally dependent and weak, but physically strong, in other words, body over mind. Now in a few years when these two offspring's become fertile for early reproduction we will mate and breed them and continue the cycle. That is good, sound, and long range comprehensive planning.

Warning: Possible Interloping Negatives

Earlier we talked about the non economic good of the horse and the nigger in their wild or natural state; we talked out the principle of breaking and tying them together for orderly production. Furthermore, we talked about paying particular attention to the female savage and her offspring for orderly future planning, then more recently we stated that, by reversing the positions of the male and female savages, we created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever unless a phenomenon occurred and resift and positions of the male and female savages. Our experts warned us about the possibility of this phenomenon occurring, for they say that the mind has a strong drive to correct and re-correct itself over a period of time if I can touch some substantial original historical base, and they advised us that the best way to deal with the phenomenon is to shave off the brute's mental history and create a multiplicity of phenomena of illusions, so that each illusion will twirl in its own orbit, something similar to floating balls in a vacuum.

This creation of multiplicity of phenomena of illusions entails the principle of crossbreeding the nigger and the horse as we stated above, the purpose of which is to create a diversified division of labor thereby creating different levels of labor and different values of illusion at each connecting level of labor. The results of which is the severance of the points of original beginnings for each sphere illusion. Since we feel that the subject matter may get more complicated as we proceed in laying down our economic plan concerning the purpose, reason and effect of crossbreeding horses and nigger, we shall lay down the following definition terms for future generations.

Orbiting cycle means a thing turning in a given path. Axis means upon which or around which a body turns. Phenomenon means something beyond ordinary conception and inspires awe and wonder. Multiplicity means a great number. Sphere means a globe. Cross breeding a horse means taking a horse and breeding it with an ass and you get a dumb backward ass long headed mule that is not reproductive nor productive by itself.

Crossbreeding niggers mean taking so many drops of good white blood and putting them into as many nigger women as possible, varying the drops by the various tone that you want, and then letting them breed with each other until another cycle of color appears as you desire. What this means is this; Put the niggers and the horse in a breeding pot, mix some assess and some good white blood and what do you get? You got a multiplicity of colors of ass backward, unusual niggers, running, tied to a backward ass long headed mule, the one productive of itself, the other sterile. (The one constant, the other dying, we keep the nigger constant for we may replace the mules for another tool) both mule and nigger tied to each other, neither knowing where the other came from and neither productive for itself, nor without each other.

Control the Language

Crossbreeding completed, for further severance from their original beginning, we must completely annihilate the mother tongue of both the new nigger and the new mule and institute a new language that involves the new life's work of both.

You know language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people. The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country the more he is able to move through all levels of that society. Therefore, if the foreigner is an enemy of the country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign culture. For example, if you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets, and he is then no more a slave, for you can't fool him any longer. For example, if you told a slave that he must perform in getting out "our crops" and he knows the language well, he would know that "our crops" didn't mean "our crops" and the slavery system would break down, for he would relate on the basis of what "our crops" really meant. So you have to be careful in setting up the new language for the slaves would soon be in your house, talking to you "man to man" and that is death to our economic system. In addition, the definitions of words or terms are only a minute part of the process. Values are created and transported by communication through the body of the language. A total society has many interconnected value system. All the values in the society have bridges of language to connect them for orderly working in the society. But for these language bridges, these many value systems would sharply clash and cause internal strife or civil war, the degree of the conflict being determined by the magnitude of the issues or relative opposing strength in whatever form.

For example, if you put a slave in a hog pen and train him to live there and incorporate in him to value it as a way of life completely, the biggest problem you would have out of him is that he would worry you about provisions to keep the hog pen clean, or the same hog pen and make a slip and incorporate something in his language where by he comes to value a house more than he does his hog pen, you got a problem. He will soon be in your house.

https://archive.org/stream/WillieLynchLetter1712/the_willie_lynch_letter_the_making_of_a_slave_1712_djvu.txt

Election 2020

Is George Floyd changing the electoral world?  Well in New York and Virginia with potential wins by Black Candidates, it seems so.  We will have to keep our eyes on Kentucky where Charles Booker is just under his competitor by 4,000 votes.  Absentee votes could change the current lead.

Mondair Jones, looks like he is about to step into powerhouse Nita Lowey’s shoes, leading by a large margin.  Mondair is Black and gay, two strikes, yet he is able to lead candidates with name recognition.  If his lead stands up after all absentee ballots are counted, he is almost assured a win in the general election.

Jamaal Bowman, seems to be giving a whopping to long time congressman Eliot Engel.  Engel has served 12 terms, unchallenged for the most part.  He was caught on a mic saying if it wasn’t for the primary, he wouldn’t care.  He was talking about the pandemic.  Engel was endorsed by almost all Democratic leaders in my district, state and nationally.  Why they continued to back him, is a question I would like to have answered.  He, too, is assured a win in November.

In Virginia, Dr. Cameron Webb handily won his primary for the US Congress.  He will have to run against the Republican candidate in a Republican area, but change is a-coming.

Update:  

As of Thursday, 6/25, Booker was ahead by 3,000 votes

To That Racist

CAUTION: Contains explicit and strong language.

This was written for an online Creative Writing class in 2018.  I had earlier documented it in a Writing Class circa 1986, however, do not have that copy. 

At the time, I didn’t understand why you did what you did.  Didn’t understand the hate. 

I still don’t!

To trigger your memory, I am the woman, the Black woman, who was parked in your space the day I ran to pick up my daughter from her babysitter who lived across the driveway from you.  I had always been able to pull into the babysitter’s space, but as fate would have it that day, there was someone in her space, so I pulled into yours. 

My daughter was 8 and I, 30.  I am now 62*.  How old were you then?  I know not.  How old are you now?  I know not.  What did you look like then?  I know not. What do you look like today?  I can’t even guess because you are lost in the memory.

  Your action is not!

As soon as I was ready to reverse from your space and looked in my rear view mirror, I saw that you were blocking my car.  I called from my window and asked you politely to move.  Your response was, “Don’t ever park in my space again.” 

Realizing then that it was your space, I apologized still calling through the window, “Oh, I am so sorry.” 

“Don’t you ever park in my space again.” 

“I am so sorry.  It won’t happen again.” 

After the third time of telling me to not park in your space and still in oblivion, I got out of my car and asked you to “Please move your car and I will get out of your space.” 

The next time you said it, I finally heard you.  “Don’t YOU park in my space again.” 

The breath left me for a quick second and I became that angry Black woman.  “Wipe my Blackness from the pavement,” I screamed and continued to scream at you; the memory of what else was said eludes me. 

As you scurried to move your car, were you elated to know that you had gotten to me, or were you embarrassed that your neighbors had come out to see what had happened?  The former, I gather, as I was to later learn that this was the real you the neighbors knew.

I left Jamaica to reside in the United States when I was 24.   I didn’t know racism.  I hadn’t experienced it in the six years I lived here.  I never understood why my US born Black brothers and sisters were always so defensive, thinking that almost everything that happened to them was racism.  I didn’t know their history and was oblivious to their pain.

You changed it that day.  You changed me.  I should thank you.  You helped direct my path to  understanding the Black American experience.

But no, I don't thank you!

Did you care that my eight year old daughter was witness to your hatefulness?  Do you care that she was cowering in the car?  Do you care now to know that she was witness to her mother pulling out of your parking space, stopping at the end of the driveway, slumping onto the steering wheel and bawling my heart out uncontrollably as she tried to console me?  She was eight!

Do you now care that you tore away a part of my soul?

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you racist bastard. 

And the world has not been the same.

*Reminder, this was written in 2018.  I am now 64.

African Americans, Thank You

I came here from Jamaica and rode on the back of your sorrows and pain, giving myself all the accolades for my success.  I never gave you credit, you who set the stage for me to achieve anything in this country.

I came in 1980, and at age 24, was completely oblivious of the struggles of Blacks in this country.  I knew a lot about the slave trade, or thought I did.  I knew about the Middle Passage, having studied History of the West Indies.  I had no idea there was slavery in the United States.  When I say I was ignorant, I mean it with all letters capitalized.  IGNORANT!  I knew nothing about the Civil Rights Movement.  I did not know who the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was, even though the great one had visited Jamaica in 1965.  I was 9 at the time.  He had come to lecture at the University of the West Indies.  I would guess that the intellectuals and people within a certain class knew who he was.  Classism and colorism are endemic and deep seated issues in Jamaica and subject of its own thesis.  I am from a family with parents who had at best a sixth grade education and we lived in the inner city. That may have been the excuse for my early years of ignorance.  However, I graduated from Teachers’ College and taught elementary school for three years before emigrating. 

How could I be so ignorant of what was happening in the United States of America?  You see, we heard that America was the land of “milk and honey.”  Everyone wanted to come to the United States.  I had never heard anyone speak a bad word about the US.  My mother had lived here since the early 70’s and she had never ever mentioned anything about discrimination.  The few American Blacks I came in contact with before coming here, were those I met or saw as tourists in Jamaica.  They never spoke or exhibited anything that would let me suspect that anything about their lives was anything beyond the happiness they exuded.  I, in fact, envied them for being born in that land of richness. 

After I got here, I based my information on biases and not facts.  Implicit bias is not the sole territory of Whites, even though, they are the ones who started it and have us believing it as facts, and then we pass the lies on as facts.  Blacks are lazy.  They are criminals.  They are on welfare.  They are on drugs.  They don’t take care of their children.  They are uneducated.  And it goes on and on. 

I didn’t stay ignorant for long.  In 1981, I found myself surrounded by American Blacks and discovered that all I had heard were lies.  There were things I had to learn along the way.  I never understood why some Blacks would not want to give up their information to the government or any agency.  I had never seen “Claudine.”  I had never read any books either.  I never understood why some Black men did not take care of their health.  I did not know about the Tuskegee Experiment. 

One of the criticism about Black Americans, is that they always blame everything on racism.  Guilty of thinking and saying that.  I missed cues along the way, even when I became a reformed critic.  I didn't know racism.  So when a man told me to go back to where I came from, I cussed him told him to go back to where he and his ancestors who stole the land came from and moved on.  It took two experiences that slapped me directly in the face for me to see and get it.  (I will relay one of those experiences in a post tomorrow).

And so I found out that all that I had heard about American Blacks were lies, but…

I didn’t correct friends or others when I heard them repeat the lies.  I, too, failed you.  What did King say about the silent ones…

I know that those of us Blacks not born in the US, have been the brunt of vitriol, with criticism of where we come from, our accents, that we came over on the banana boat, we live in huts , we steal your jobs and other derogatory things, many of them are the same ones mentioned earlier that are said about Black Americans.  "Hurt people hurt people."  Black Americans have been hurt by their extended history of oppression and subjected to criticism from White Americans and by those of us not of this country.  How much can anyone take? 

What I want my fellow non born Blacks living in America to understand.  Where you want to separate yourself from Black America, White America sees you as the same.  Don’t get it twisted.  When the white supremacist comes after you with a noose or that racist cop with a knee, you don’t get a pass because you are Jamaican, Trinidadian, Ghanaian or Nigerian.  Black is Black.   Let me say it again.  Black is Black.  Don’t get me wrong now.  I am not saying we give up who we are.  I am Jamaican through and through.  Ask anybody.  Look at my closet.  Look at the food I cook.  Look at me celebrating my culture come August (Independence) and almost any and everything Jamaican all year long.  Listen to my accent.  Overhear me speaking to another Jamaican and hear my patois.  And don't ever, ever get me mad, you will get my wrath and you will indeed hear the accent, interspersed with patois.  I am also Black America (notice I didn’t say Black American - I respectfully use that term for those who were born here).

Here is my pledge... I stand in solidarity with you, Black Americans. I pledge to continue to study and learn and increase my understanding.  I pledge to not allow anyone to debase you.  I pledge to shut it down if and when I hear it.  You are my sisters and brothers in every sense of the word.  Your pain is mine.  We are Black America.  I will fight for us with all my might and means.  And I love you.

I am sorry, truly sorry for the pain inflicted on you by us and others.  

I thank you for making the sacrifice.  I owe it all to you.

Racism Vs. Everyone

Guest Author Sanai Thomas, Rising 12th Grader

 Racism isn’t getting worse.  It’s getting filmed. ~Will Smith 

Have you ever been followed around in a store because the sales people were suspicious of you as soon as you entered?  Have you ever been classified as a ¨gang¨ for casually walking in a group with your friends?  Have you ever been asked if you were lost when you sat down in an AP/Honors class?  Have you ever been looked at twice just for the color of your skin?  Imagine having your mother fear for your life everytime you leave the house because she doesn’t know if that’ll be the last time she sees her child until it’s time to identify the body.  That’s just a glimpse of what it’s like to be black in America in 2020.

          With the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests (and many before), it is clear that being born black makes one a threat and a target in American society.

Up until I grew to be a certain age, I wasn’t viewed as a threat.  What caused that to change?  Now I, and all African-American people must live in constant fear.  What is your biggest fear?  Is it fear of walking outside?  Is it fear of wearing a hoodie?  Is it fear of going for a jog?  Is it fear of sleeping in your own home?  Is it fear of going to the park to bird watch?  Or, is it fear of simply existing?

How did you feel when the President of the United States used fear tactics and called my people “thugs” instead of condemning the wrong that is taking place?

These are recent examples of what has occurred in the lives of my black brothers and sisters.  We have been harassed, falsely arrested and had the police called on us.  We have been beaten and some of us have lost our lives.

It’s evident that the murder of George Floyd has caused a major shift in this country´s politics.  There’s no reason that can justify the police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.  This is the second time that we've publicly heard a black man crying out, “I can’t breathe!” moments before he went silent and died under a white man in uniform.  The same scenario occurred in 2014 to the late Eric Garner, who was put in a choke hold by a white police officer.

But George Floyd’s murder was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  We’re tired of having to justify why our lives matter, there should be no debate.  The color of my skin shouldn’t make me less equal to anyone, especially in a country built on the premise of “liberty and justice for ALL.”

Let’s make one thing clear: “We never said, only Black Lives Matter.  We know All lives matter.  We just need your help with Black Lives Matter for black lives are in danger.” (unknown)

Black Lives Matter isn’t and never will be a trend or a movement used to lessen the importance of another life.  According to www.blacklivesmatter.com, its roots were grounded in 2013 as a result of the tragic murder of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of all charges.  “It was created to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes” (part of the mission statement by the founders of Black Lives Matter).

This isn’t a fight of black vs. white, but of racism vs. everyone.

For the past twelve days, there have been protests happening in every state of America and in many countries around the world.  The protests are in response to police brutality and the negative impact that this continued brutality is having on the black community.  We must fight against the illnesses of marginalization and discrimination in relation to housing, jobs, incarceration, and healthcare.  In the past, protests were effectively used by Civil Rights leaders to address the issues that were burdening black lives.  These protests were alive with the hope of gaining the attention of law and policy makers for change.

It’s saddening that we are still fighting the same battles that we have fought since June 19, 1865 - better known as Juneteenth - the date when slaves were freed from bondage.  What else is it going to take for black lives to be seen as equal?  What else is it going to take for black lives to matter?  What else is it going to take before the law protects black lives as it does those who harass and kill us?

          Now say their names: Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, George Junius Stinney, Jr., Freddie Gray, Samuel Dubose, Terence Crutcher, Michael Brown, Walter L. Scott, Alton Sterling, Aiyana Jones, Renisha McBride, Jordan Davis, Darius Simmons, Sean Bell, and …

The list goes on.  When will it stop?  Attend peaceful protests and local marches.  Make your voices heard!

Finding My Voice

At first, I wasn't planning to attend the White Plains Juneteenth celebration in White Plains because I am deathly afraid of crowds and didn't trust that social distancing could be maintained.  It was to be held at a central location in White Plains, in the midst of stores, banks and city life.   The decision was made to only invite committee members and to not publicize it.  I caved in and decided to make my debut back into the life of the living.  It's not that I have been totally isolated.  I am back to work.  We have a food distribution and I have been around the allowable ten or less staff members and volunteers.   I go shopping (no more Maxine Drop and Run, that long since ended.  See Corona Chronicles, April 25th).  But for each of these, I control my movements.  The flag raising still concerned me.  Because this place was so central, I was afraid that a crowd would gather.  Then that morning I found out that a local news channel had announced it.  Be that as it was, I knew I had to go.  I had promised to read my two poems, and didn't want to renege.  But, more importantly, I wanted the message from my poem to reach a larger audience than those who read my blog. 

I have been finding (rediscovering) my voice since COVID-19.  I have made quite a number of entries under Corona Chronicles and now under Black Battles.  I am conflicted whether I should thank COVID-19 or say "Nah, nah, nah, nah. nah, I got the better of you."  Because of COVID-19, I am not protesting like I was apt to do in the past.  Fear of crowds.  Fear of reinfection.  COVID-19 got the better on that one for me.  BUT... I am finding other ways, this poem being one.  

I am also reaching out to organizations I am associated with to see what they are doing, if anything.  I have read and heard people say they don't care about seeing these corporations and organizations making statements.  I want them.  When corporations and organizations make these public statements, they are saying to shareholders, funding sources, conservative members, holdouts that this is their stance.  When they don't, I can't trust that they will move on to do anything else.  After the public statement (not one hidden among their memberships), I am coming back at them to see what else they are doing.  For those organization that I am associated with, when there is nothing, I disassociate from them.  I see and hear them loud and clear.

In writing Mama! Africa!, I was influenced by George Floyd's call for his Mama and my sister's lament for our mother in the poem, Mamaa! (Corona Chronicles June 5th).  It is George Floyd's voice which influenced my choice of having a male voice as the narrator.  Mama and Africa are separated by the exclamation mark, since the cry is for both Mama and Africa singularly and together as one - the motherland.  I had written nothing about Juneteenth in the original poem.  I added that verse the morning I was to read  it.  

In reading the poem publicly for the first time that morning, it dredged up every emotion in me, emotions I didn't know I possessed.  It was that slave within me who narrated.  It wasn't planned, any of it, the wailing cry for Mama, the pumping of my fist on the podium, and the cadence in my voice.  It all came out from the pits of my soul and being. 

I am grateful I chose courage over fear and made it to the Flag Raising.  I give too much power to COVID-19 and I am ready to take it back.  I still will not march; not until it's safe to, whenever that is.  But, I can do other things like I have been, making posters for marchers and using my voice.

So to COVID-19, I say nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you didn't take my voice.  You actually gave me a bigger one.

White Plains Juneteenth Flag Raising

http://wpcommunitymedia.org/community-events/06192020-698

Not Climate Change Too

The past four months alone:

COVID-19 hates us.

Cops who are racist hates us.

And now climate too?  

A New York Times article, Climate Change Tied to Pregnancy Risks, Affecting Black Mothers Most, stated:

“Pregnant women exposed to high temperatures or air pollution are more likely to have children who are premature, underweight or stillborn, and African-American mothers and babies are harmed at a much higher rate…minorities bear a disproportionate share of the danger from pollution and global warming.  Not only are minority communities in the United States far more likely to be hotter than the surrounding areas, a phenomenon known as the “heat island” effect, but they are also more likely to be located near polluting industries.”  New York Times, 6/18/2020

And we still don't understand systemic racism. 

Juneteenth

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York announced that state employees will have the day off this year for Juneteenth on June 19th, and next year he will sign legislation to have Juneteenth declared an official holiday.   

Yippee!  Hip, Hip Horary!  About time!

But...

Don't let us see any Juneteenth day of sales.  Don't let them commercialize it.  Don't let this become Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day.  Don't fall for it.  Do NOT shop at any Juneteenth sales.  Don't do it.  Just don't.

Juneteenth began on June 19, 1865 when news of freedom reached the enslaved in Galveston, Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.  The story is that Union soldiers landed in Galveston Texas after the fall of General Lee.  Lore has it that an emissary was killed on his way to deliver the message that all slaves were to be freed.  Another one is that the soldiers delayed their arrival to give slave owners more time for free labor.  Lore also has it that the slave owners deliberately kept the slaves in bondage to keep their workforce intact.  Another lore (mine) is that Lincoln didn't care one way or the other.  In his words:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it…Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New-York Tribune 

Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom.  It's Independence Day for Black folks.  It's not July 4th.  America's Independence Day has been celebrated since 1776.  During slavery! It is definitely not Independence Day for Blacks.  In the words of Frederick Douglass:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?  I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.  To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.  There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.  Frederick Douglass in a speech on July 5, 1852. 

1852 practices more shocking.  2020 practices more shocking.

Because of the Coronavirus, many celebrations were cancelled this year.  However, due to the unrelenting protests and marches since the murder of George Floyd, marches and rallies for the cause will also commemorate Juneteenth.   

As a part of my protest, I will not celebrate July 4^th this year.  Until…

Watch below and find out all you need to know about Juneteenth:

Emmett Till Propels A Movement

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old Chicago native who was visiting with relatives in Money, Mississippi.  It is alleged that he whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bennett.  She accused him of groping her and making crude sexual remarks to her.  When her husband learned of it, he, his brother and other men beat and gougued out Emmet's eyes, shot him, weighed him down and threw him in the Tallahatchie River.  When his body was found, it was mutilated and grotesque.  Emmett's mother held an open casket funeral for the world to see what racists had done to her son.  Jet Magazine published the photo.  In a trial two weeks later, the men were found not guilty.  

The outcry from Emmett Till's murder and the verdict propelled the Civil Rights Movement.  

In 2017, Carolyn Bennett admitted that she had lied, according to Tim Tyson, in his book, The Blood of Emmett Till."  He quotes her as saying, "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him."  To read more:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/emmett-till-lynching-carolyn-bryant-donham.html

My Blackness

MY

   BLACK

           HUMANITY

                           IS

                             NOT

                                  POLITICAL

It's human.  Period!

In Their Words

On Rage:

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time - James Baldwin

You should be angry.  You must not be bitter.  Bitterness is like cancer.  It eats upon the host.  It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure.  So use that anger.  You write it.  You paint it.  You dance it.  You march it.  You vote it.  You do everything about it.  You talk it.  Never stop talking it. - Maya Angelou

There is a legitimacy to this anger.  There is a legitimacy to this outrage. - Stacy Abrams

On Silence:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

There comes a time when silence is betrayal. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty of the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Now:

There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation.  The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. – James Baldwin

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today.  We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.  In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.  This is no time for apathy or complacency.  This is a time for vigorous and positive action, - Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Courage:

I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it's safe.  Things of value seldom are. - Toni Morrison

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.  The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but her who conquers that fear. - Nelson Mandela

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. -  James Baldwin

Mama! Africa!

In sixteen nineteen, evil men from afar

Using wile and lies and gold coins too

Stole us from Ghana, Nigeria, Angola and more

Our homelands, our people, our everything

Oh! Mama! Africa! we cry out for thee.

In dungeons on ships, shackled, lying side by side

In bile and vomit and excrement, carcasses too

Parched and hungry, some died, some lived

As days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months.

Oh Mama! Africa! save us, we pray 

From auction blocks, they displayed us like meat,

Your evil ancestors, our masters became, 

Branded and beaten and given new names 

You took our language, religion, and customs too.

Oh!, Mama! Africa! they stripped us of you.

Dawn up, sun down, we toiled and we slaved

In chains, picked cotton, paid nary a cent

Used us as breeders for children here and there

Raped our women, sold our children, took our dignity

The animals of the field treated better than we.

Toussaint in Haiti, the revolution's begun

For us, Nat Turner and others, freedom‘s a-coming

The lie that's been told that in one eight six three

Lincoln and his proclamation freed the enslaved  

If truth‘s to be told, 'twas we more than he.

The fight for freedom took quite a toll 

One million dead and wounded among the lot

Freedom's word took two years and half 

To the last of the enslaved in Galveston, Texas

Gave birth to Juneteenth, Black Liberation, Jun Jun Day. 

Tricked and promised us forty acres and mule

Sharecropping a ruse to keep us bondage to thee

But while some thrived, Jim Crow you enact

You burned Black Wall Street and massacred us there 

To remind us that less than a person we were.

For civil rights, we fought and wouldn't back down

Through persistence, perseverance, marches, boycotts.

Your dogs and your hose, even your batons too

Men hooded at night and in suits by daybreak

Lynched us on trees, in jobs and banks and real estate too.

Our progress was too much for you and your ilk

You martyred our warriors Malcolm, Martin and Medgar too

And found a way to keep the noose 'round our necks

State sanctioned lynching from clansmen in blue.

Up to this moment in two o two o.

Have you resolved what it is about us you hate?

It’s been all of four hundred one years,

Don't you think you should quit?

We come from a people resilient and strong

When you took us from Africa, you couldn't take Africa from us!

The Face of Pain for All The Unanswered Crimes

by Stephon Watson

About the Artist

My name is Stephon Watson, I grew up in White Plains NY, and I'm a visual artist of various mediums, including painting, drawing/illustration, and graphic design.

The inspiration behind my artwork derives from when I was a child. Throughout my adolescence I could see how unhappy, miserable, and self-destructive the idea of not believing in yourself and living out your passion could make someone feel, ultimately pushing those closes to you away. I wanted to promise myself that I wouldn't fall into the same cycle of un-fulfillment that so many fall victim to. I decided to use art not only as an outlet but as a visual example that if you have faith and self-perseverance you can achieve the desires of your heart and have a life that's worth living, this is why I create! 

My Art piece, The Face of Pain for All The Unanswered Crimes is inspired by the unjust killings of unarmed black men in America. I wanted to portray the feeling of suffocation that America tries to evoke on people of color and how we are willing to fight for the basic right of equality regardless of the size of the obstacle presented in front of us.

Black Power Within

Guest Author, Martha Leonard

Look up Tulsa Race Massacre...know your History!  

This is a History check for my Black community! 

Please please stop killing each other! We have the power to thrive as a culture and a community! Believe me this is what they fear! Our capability to thrive, be better be rich, be independent! But we have to heal and start within! I pledge that this generation has the power to exact change but within our own communities. 

We can own, we can thrive! This Massacre shows you that if you stay ignorant to your history you will never see your future! We have very high rates of college graduates but those graduates wind up working for Wendy’s or Burlington! You have the power to buy black, be black owned, police black and more! 

It’s your God given right but we must start with healing coming together no gangs. They’re not needed if we love each and look out for each other.  No more crabs in the barrel.  There is enough for everyone to be thrive and be comfortable, no more hate and black unhealthy competition. Let’s focus on our communities, think of the world you want your children to have access too! And make a change! 

Make these hashtags go viral #independentblackcommunitiesmatter #blackcommunitiesmatter  #iwontkillmyblackbrother 

💪🏾💪🏾✊🏾✊🏾 We are strong and have overcome everything they have tried to do to us... but we MUST CHANGE WITHIN. Let’s organize within our community to build our communities up not tear them down ✊🏾✊🏾