(ThyBlackMan.com) My People!! They’re calling you “Colored People” again. You’re calling yourselves “Colored People” again willingly. If you replace two letters of the hip new catchphrase “People of Color”, and rearrange them, you can literally spell out the term ugly historical term: “Colored People”. Just replace “of” with “ed” and rearrange the order of the words. How is this ok? Have you lost your ever-loving minds?
Today’s cookie-cutter negro is more compliant with white supremacy than ever before. Where is this generation’s Public Enemy? Where is this generation’s Malcolm X? Sean King??? ‘Black Lives Matter’ is a leaderless, and thus far, completely toothless organization that has produced absolutely nothing in terms of tangible results. Awareness is not enough. We have DL Hughley, Lord Jamar, and Willie D for that. It’s almost as if we’re satisfied with Civil Rights Movement re-enactments. I’d like to remind you how our fight for Civil Rights in America Actually ended.
Despite modern American mythology, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was an abject failure. The Baby Boomer generation loves to herald that time as some glowing halcyon day creating era. It was not. The ‘War on Drugs’ was the most prominent and immediate after-effect of the Civil Rights Movement as Richard Nixon, Roger Ailes, and Ronald Reagan conspired to achieve the downfall of African-American Generation X. The gains in access to public and private institutions has only been met with hostility, even at the Presidential level. There have always been exceptions to the rule, but we have not progressed economically since the end of the Civil Rights Movement as Dr. Claude Anderson would firmly attest to.
The failure of the Civil Rights Movement to actually produce increased liberty or decreased school segregation, or to avoid yet another version of slavery in mass incarceration, is only underscored by the progress of Asians and Latinos in America. When I hear the term “People of Color”, I hear nails screeching in horror on a chalkboard. Are “People of Color” mass incarcerated in America or are black people? Anybody see an Asian kid executed by the cops for nothing? Is that “People of Color” or ADOS people? Were “People of Color” enslaved in America or were African people? How about Jim Crow and sharecropping? People of Color? Nope. Negro people.
One needs to ask why they’ve never heard the term “People Without Color” to understand the need for the term “People of Color”. One needs to ask why the 90% of the humanity who doesn’t identify as “white” needs to lump itself together for the convenience of the 10% who does. It’s utterly degrading and robs us of who we are to be lumped in with people who are arriving on our shores with diplomas and inheritance. It takes away from our unique identity in this country and it is a deliberate effort to water down any attempt at racial justice specifically for African-Americans. And y’all are helping it along….ignorantly.
Staff Writer; Darrick Herndon
Power to the People – You can find me at; DarrickH@ThyBlackMan.com.
