Dead Wrong

Race and therefore racism is white person created and it must be eradicated by white people. Not in some sort of savior mentality but for the simple reason of held responsibility. If you just read that and thought, he's taking responsibility for racism? The answer is yes.

Take some time and research this a bit before you blow a gasket. White men both ministers and scientists have had a hand in this. We created a world where people of all colors were put on a descending scale of humanness from white Europeans down to Africans. We did this to justify using black persons as slaves and keeping them in a place of both servitude and ineptitude. We did that because it served our best interests. We white people are fully responsible for that. (Kendi, 2017)

We are responsible for slavery before the Civil War but also slavery afterward. Yes, I said afterward. We white people would make it so that even a war between the states couldn't get between us and the money we so longed for in our society. History books have told children for years that we eradicated slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War but the real truth resides outside of what most of us have been taught. Instead of the overt auction block where black men, women and children were herded out to be viewed as livestock, we became more secretive about how we enslaved these souls. Still however under the guise of the law. Jim Crow law made it possible to "arrest" people simply for being black. Those who were arrested for things like, Talking too loudly in public, or Leaving one job to go work for someone else without telling their current boss, or staying out after dark were arrested by an appointed "sheriff" of a county. The black men were brought before the magistrate and were found guilty without a trial and sentenced to jail or a fine that was impossible to pay, these could be as small as $5 but to someone who had no money this just as well have been a million dollars. What the authorities found is that if they couldn't pay the fine the local businesses in need of cheap (slave) labor could pay the fine for the black soul and then make them work the money off. This could often be for a years time to pay off that $5 fine. Most of the time the poor black soul would die in the service of paying off that fine though. (Blackmon, 2012)

Did you know that the above happened all the way until around WWII in our country? That black men and women were being arrested for things that white people couldn't be arrested for and then sold off to anyone willing to pay their fine? Often times they were actually sold back to the plantations they had been freed from in the Civil War. (Kendi, 2017)

Have you heard or said a statement like this? "Why can't we just let this whole thing go (this whole black and white issue), I mean it happened so long ago." I have actually said that before. But see it hasn't been so long ago, and the repercussions of this are generational. We white people have never taken responsibility like we should for what we caused. We invented race and racism and we need to be the ones who eradicate this plague on our nation.

If you don't believe me, just turn on the TV. We are essentially still lynching black men in the streets! Ahmaud Abrey and George Floyd are two of the latest victims of the systemic racism that continues to be a virus upon our nation far greater than the COVID-19 that we are currently encountering.

Martin Luther King once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Our nation is a poster child for injustice. We who claim to be part of the greatest nation of the world who stand behind the fact that we have conquered communism and fascism and totalitarianism, sectarianism, and ISIS but we still can't seem to stamp out RACISM! It is going to take work but we need to put it in. Nothing worth having comes without hard work is what I have always been taught.

It is going to take work but we need to put it in. Nothing worth having comes without hard work is what I have always been taught.

How do we do this? I am no expert. I am white but I have learned a few things over the past couple of years that may help you and our country.

1. Admit we have a White Supremacy problem where you and I as white people benefit from it even if we don't consciously participate in it.

2. Admit you haven't educated yourself about the issues facing black and brown people and have shied away from them because we suffer from White Fragility.

3. Speak up about racism when you see it. Stop hiding behind White Solidarity and be brave enough to yell, "HEY STOP SHOOTING THAT MAN TO DEATH FROM THE BACK OF YOUR PICKUP!!" OR "STOP PUTTING YOUR KNEE ON THAT MAN'S NECK, YOU ARE KILLING HIM!!"

4. I am putting this one last because it may actually be one of the most important things you can do so I want you to remember it. Say you are sorry for the hate and the racism caused by your people towards people of color in your life. I have actually done this not because me or my ancestors owned people of color or have done anything overtly racist towards them but simply because I am white and have been part and party to what has happened to them.

If you read this all the way to the end, I know that you probably know me and know my heart. Even though these things are hard to say and hard to confront but, we must do so. The lives of the next generation are in our hands today, all of them in all of their beautiful colors.

All men are created equal, it's high time we act like it.

Kendi, I. X. (2017). Stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in America. New York, NY: Bold Type Books.

Blackmon, D. A. (2012). Slavery by another name: the re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War Ii. London: Icon.