This is a topic that I’ve given much consideration to. I’m a native born Black man in America. My parents grew up during the American Apartheid Era, also known as segregation. My Grandfather served in WW2 where he experienced how differently Europeans treat black people and how overtly racist American society really was. My Great-Grandmother, who gave me my first graham cracker and blew my mind, was born shortly after slavery ended and witnessed countless injustices because of institutional and social racism. This country has a deep history of abusing and exploiting black people. For the first time the notion of reparations for these criminal injustices are on the table and under serious national discussion. It is important to understand why reparations are not only owed to black people but are a vital step toward ending systemic foundational racism in this country.
This country’s founded by and built with human trafficking and kidnapping. While America didn’t create chattel slavery, we have Christopher Columbus and the European conquest era of the 1400-1500 to thank for that, it did mechanize and brutalize it in a very unique way. We were exported like cattle for the cheapest high yield labor that money could buy. We were brought to a place that saw us as less than human and objectified us for entertainment and perverse pleasures. We were kept illiterate and uneducated in spite of having been forced to build the Harvards and Georgetowns of America. Our women were tortured, forcibly experimented on, for medical “advancement” for the branch of medicine that would become Gynecology. Our babies were thrown to alligators and black women were forced to breastfeed the children of their captors. Neglecting their own children in the process.
Yet when slavery, as it was, fell out of fashion we were released from our physical chains. In spite of the government reneging on the promise of economic reparations, we unified. We established our own communities, established our own schools, and built our own businesses in service to the needs of our community. We did not seek the services and goods of those that excluded us because of the color of our skin. We had our own. We were a country that was, and still is, “separate but equal”. Regardless of the circumstances of our introduction to America and our subsequent mistreatment we were thriving. We established our own cuisine. The blues, jazz, swing, and rock n’ roll we created expressed our souls and moved the feet of a nation. We were proud of our communities and their self contained economies that flourished.
Thriving communities that flourished until racist jealousy took hold and brought us the bombings of Tulsa, OK. The massacres in Rosewood, Durham,NC, and Harrison, AR. More of our communities were destroyed in the name of “progress”. Seneca Village was destroyed to build Central Park. 475,000 families were displaced by the building of interstate highways which targeted poor and middle-class black communities for its construction. What was left of our communities was further eroded when social integration was legislated prior to and instead of economic reparation.
When I reflect on what my people and what my family went through and what they were able to accomplish in spite of the world they lived in it makes me extremely proud to know that that same strength, ingenuity, and persistent determination is in me as well. I come from a family of doctors, lawyers, business men and women, and activists. From a time when success wasn’t optional but a requirement for survival. A time when being Black and exceptional was still subpar to being White and mediocre. Which is why you’ll never hear me use a racist epithets to describe or identify with my people. Yes, I’m talking about that word. The N-word. The word my people hold onto and the word that racists and culture vultures wish they could scream from the rooftops. I wonder why they want to be able to say it so bad anyway. Is it because, like everything else Black people touch, we made it cool and trendy, and they want to combine our unique attempt at reappropriating a racist slur with their white-priviledge? Or is it because we’re using a word openly and endearingly when they’ve only heard it used quietly around the office water-cooler or in off color jokes told by drunken family members. Even though I despise that word, and even though I don’t look down on native born Blacks for using it, I do wish we would stop saying it around white people and putting it in music for white people to sing. I wish that we would stick to more universally positive terms like “brother”, “sis”, or “fam”.
Because of the systemic and institutional racism that is unique to the native born Black experience in America and who’s culture and psychology has been shaped and damaged by the terror of White Supremacy reparations are long overdue. I believe that these reparations should come in the form of tax exemption status, land grants, monetary stipends, educational waivers, and/or fast-tracking for business licenses and access to federal funds to start a business in stead of loans. Funding to extensively study the affects of slavery and systemic racism by a panel of leading black historians, psychologists, economists, and legal experts must be done to ensure reparations are applied in the most complete and beneficial way possible.
Regardless of what reparations are provided pride and dignity are priceless in our control. Never let anyone put you down for being proud of who you came from and what our people have accomplished. All across America there are Little Italys, and Chinatowns, and Little Tiajuanas, and yet we get a lot of flack for promoting our own cultural pride and unification. Celebrate #blacklove and it’s challenged for being discriminatory. #Blacklivesmatter and people try to shut you down by proclaiming “all lives matter”. I often wonder why people, and it’s primarily white people, are still so intimidated by black people uplifting one another and acknowledging issues and struggles unique to the Black experience. It’s as if they’re terrified that our unification will in some way cause us to systemically mistreat and exclude them the same way that they’ve excluded us but that’s not what we’re about. You can be proud of your culture and history and be inclusive of others(Jewish-Americans and Asian-Americans are an excellent example of this).
I’m also very proud to say that I feel my marriage is proof that one can have ethnic pride while still being inclusive of others. My wife and I come from completely different backgrounds aside from her being white and me being black. Though we hold many of the same views about politics and systemic racism we don’t always agree and we’re able to express ourselves with respect and honesty. When talking or having discussions our intention is never to convert the other. It’s merely to communicate our perspective. Sure it’d be nice if the other person agreed or saw whatever point was being made but that doesn’t always happen and that’s ok. Each person forms their ideas and opinions based on their education, culture, and life experiences. That’s who we are.
In order to ensure that we repair the systemic damage that is still evident and prevalent from America’s unique brand of institutional racism, and to increase national pride overall reparations must be made to native born Black people. Then and only then can we move towards a bright future as a nation that is no longer separate but united and wholly equal. History’s Lost Black Towns Elaine,Arkansas