(ThyBlackMan.com) Black people are constantly being told to let go of slavery. We’re told it’s time to move on, that America has progressed, and that we ought not play the race card. It’s always ironic that the same people that would tell us to leave slavery behind will never tell a Jewish person to forgive the Holocaust. With that being said, the reason we can’t forget slavery, or move past it, is because we see things that happen every day that let us know slavery still exists for black people. We can begin by looking at the Constitution of the United States; by now everyone should know that the 13th amendment did not abolish slavery. It simply changed the form of the institution from the plantation to the prisons. There have been many documentaries and scholarly studies on the reality of slavery in its continuation in the United States. How are we supposed to move past slavery when there are countless reminders that we are seen as second class citizens in this country?
Why must we continue to deal with issues such as: gerrymandering in our communities, blatant gentrification, black face, police brutality, disparities in health care, subpar school districts, and gentrification that destroys the cultures that we have been at the core of creating in different urban cities. Black bodies are still a source of revenue in this country black men and boys are targeted to the modern-day plantation that is the prison system, while black women and girls disappear from the communities only to become kidnapped and sold into of sex trafficking. How then are we supposed to put the past behind us when not only remnants of the past exist, but the offspring of an inhumane culture torches us to this day?
A few years ago, a South Carolina 42 year old white man was taken in for human trafficking and child sex crimes, as he boasted of having 693 bodies…693 black girl bodies and many of them are minors. That number is unbelievable if one did not know the history of this country, and how many black bodies could be deemed property on a plantation. This is sickening, but it speaks to the cancer of this nation. How do we protect out babies, wives, husbands, families, communities when we are seen an human commodity? Yet, white people want us to take responsibility for the culture of racism in this country without addressing them. They see the political rhetoric; they saw what happened when Former President Barak Obama was in office. They watched that man be disrespected in every manner thinkable, and they see an administration that passes out disrespect in an unprecedented manner.
White people see the news, and yet they want us to behave as though our children aren’t getting snatched, our men are getting bleed in the streets, and our women aren’t getting sent to their death as they birth life into the world. Some black people try to overlook what is happening, and some fix their mouth to justify it…until is darkens their doorstep and they are reminded of what we are called in this country. There are black folks that would fix their mouth to ask why we continue to make movies about slavery. They argue that there is more to our history, and they are absolutely right. However, until this country deals with slavery, and our people understand the toll that period has placed on us mentally and emotionally, and how much of our fighting one another stems from that source, we must press on to truly address slavery as a people.
The history of black people in this country that are the descendants of slaves is quite different from our POC brothers and sisters. Yet, some of them have been given our history by the ruling class, so they may not realize it, and some of them do, but they also ask us to move on from slavery. I’m sorry we can’t do turn our eye away from the root of our issues in this country. Every group has their story of suffering in America. Black people would never ask you to lay down your fight for justice for your people. It is unfair to ask us to do such…especially when so much of the law all of us use to try to defend our rights in this country have been borne out of our struggle.
Slavery is still an issue for black people. We must recon with it physically, mentally, and spiritually. It’s a disease from which we must heal. It is time to begin to dig into the past of our ancestors and find our liberation. We can’t expect our oppressors to grow a heart, nor can we wait for other people in this country to realize that our struggle has not ended. We must unify as a people, and don’t have to be a monolith to do so. Our differences allow for many schools of thought, and strengths to lift us out of the state we are in as a people. Without an understanding of the past we can’t reach our full potential; we won’t be able to come together to truly move forward as a people.
Staff Writer;Â Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.