A little defense goes a long way
23rd January 2017 · 0 Comments
An MSNBC host had some great advice last week for those fretting over the prospects of spending the next four years with President Donald Trump as the leader of the free world: Get ready to play some defense.
Given the recent assaults on the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and concerted efforts to undermine the landmark Brown v. The Board of Education Supreme Court decision, that’s something that justice advocates, voting-rights champions, civil rights leaders and freedom-loving individuals should have already been doing.
It’s actually something that people who want justice, equity and democracy to take root in the United States have been doing ever since the Declaration of Independence was written.
Long before people of African descent were even considered three-fifths human, there have been ebbs and tides in the flow of justice, democracy and equal protection under the law across the land.
During America’s darkest days, people of African descent and other underrepresented and historically oppressed and marginalized groups have had to get up and fight every day for their right to be.
While some things have gotten significantly better for people of color, other conditions have not so there is still a great deal we have to put on our warrior boots and fight for.
It is a war for the very soul and future of America, one that will be waged on many fronts. We should always remember what we have come through to get where we are today and how much worse things could be if we had allowed ourselves to suffer in silence or to wait for somebody to come along and singlehandedly save us.
Most of all, we should always remember that the best offense is a good defense and that defense wins championships.
We, therefore, not only need to rededicate ourselves to playing defense but to play defense like a champion who believes with every fiber of our beings that we can and will win.
By the way, I got some questions for y’all. Here we go:
• How many local elected officials can you name with enough “starch in their backbones” to stand up to the majority-white business community?
• Have you ever wondered why so few local Black schools or historically Black colleges and universities teach anything about the 1811 slave revolt, the largest uprising of enslaved Africans in U.S. history?
• Why does no one want to talk about how the Haitian Revolution and the 1811 slave revolt have shaped life in modern-day New Orleans for Black people and the many obstacles and challenges people of color face daily in the Big Uneasy?
• Who benefits most economically and politically from a devil-may-care culture that encourages the masses to “laissez les bon temps role” and overindulge in spirits?
• How many New Orleans tour guides talk about how the heads of enslaved Africans involved in the 1811 slave revolt were placed on pikes around what is now Jackson Square and along the Mississippi River levee?
• After the history of mistreatment, disrespect and discrimination people of African decent have suffered in the French Quarter, why would any self-respecting Black person want to spend his or her hard-earned dollars there?
• How many six figure-earning deputy mayors do you think the next mayor of this cash-strapped city will need to effectively serve the people of New Orleans?
• Rather than just criticize the nation’s bail system that discriminates against poor people in cities like New Orleans, what is the U.S. Department of Justice going to do to bring about major criminal justice reforms?
• Why is positive change so difficult to bring about in a so-called democratic society?
• How are national media organizations going to handle roadblocks to reporting the facts and holding elected and appointed officials accountable in the Trump era?
• Why doesn’t Tulane University talk about its historical and financial ties to slavery the way Brown University, Georgetown University and other “elite” institutions of higher learning do?
• How would you grade the performances of the current Black members of the New Orleans City Council?
• Are you really surprised that so many people in Alabama and Mississippi still celebrate the legacy of former Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee rather than the legacy and contributions of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
• How often do you reflect on the fact that tens of millions of white Americans are also victims of white supremacy who have been mis-educated and undereducated about the history of the United States , Europe and Africa?
• Why are so many schools in the 21st century still teaching students that Egypt is not on the African continent?
• How often are whites who complain about conditions in the U.S. told that they should go back to Europe?
• Why are the Black and African history sections of public and university libraries some of the most underutilized and neglected sections of the library?
• When was the last time you visited the Amistad Research Center?
• Why did so few of us support the Nate Parker film about Nat Turner, Birth of a Nation?
• What if Black folks took all the money we spend on Mardi Gras, Super Bowl parties, second-line outfits and new clothes to hit the clubs and decided to drop that money into a fund to establish trade with African nations like Ghana, which offers Blacks in the United States dual citizenship?
• What would Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells, Queen Mother Moore, Mary McCleod Bethune, Malcolm X, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner and Martin Delany think of us today?
This article originally published in the January 23, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
