Can you hear me now?
18th June 2012 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
Tuesday, June 19, marks Juneteenth, a day set aside to honor to legacy of our enslaved African ancestors who toiled for more than two centuries as beasts of burden until President Abraham Lincoln decided to sign the Emancipation Proclamation to legally end slavery and send a deathblow to the Confederacy. As we reflect on what it means to be free and what is required of a free people, let us be ever mindful of the fact that freedom has never been free. Although freedom has been described as an “inalienable right” by some, it usually comes with a steep price. While Blacks in America are still a long way from achieving self-determination, something the Hon. Marcus Garvey wrote and spoke about often, we do have more tools at our disposal and are free to determine our own destinies. While there are still many rivers for Blacks to cross, we are free to open our mouths and speak our months. Free to develop a blueprint for people of African descent to move us closer to achieving self-determination. And free to pursue our total liberation by any means necessary.
• Why is it so easy for the mayor to talk at great length about the “culture of violence” he believes is responsible for the city’s horrific murder rate but so difficult for him to even mutter a mumbling word about the city’s “culture of racism” that creates conditions that lead to violence, despair, hopelessness, nihilism and violence?
• Why can’t the mayor and other elected officials see that taking FEMA funds earmarked to create affordable housing and using it instead of pay for a third round of post-Katrina renovations to the Louisiana Superdome is an act of violence against the city’s poorest residents?
• More than a decade into the 21st century, how do officials with the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board have the audacity to try to raise customer fees while not even offering residents a way to pay their bills online or over an automated telephone system?
• Why is it so hard for the city and state’s elected officials to follow the ethical rules they took an oath to adhere to?
• After everything that was revealed during the Danziger Bridge and Henry Glover police trials, why are there still more than a handful of convicted former NOPD officers who don’t think they deserve to spend any time in jail?
• What did you do this past weekend to honor and celebrate the Black fathers who quietly go about the task of loving, teaching and protecting the children in their lives?
• With women being decapitated and elders being hit over the head with window air-conditioning units, do we really need to have a long-drawn-out debate about how desperately the city of New Orleans needs mental health care services?
• With children being killed across the city, NOPD morale at what some members of the force have described as an all-time low, and no sign of letup in the 2012 murder rate, does anyone think the mayor should reconsider his decision to refuse to even discuss the possibility of firing the city’s police chief?
• Why is it still so hard for some people to see that the takeover of the New Orleans Public Schools was all about money, power and contracts?
• When was the last time you picked up a book about Black history for the sheer joy of learning something about yourself?
• Why are so many houses of worship going unused fork so many hours during the week when there is a dire need for places for young people to sharpen their reading and writing skills?
• Why do so many Black professionals appear to be unable to navigate the world with an African-centered perspective?
• When did we start letting government agencies and boards tell us what we can and cannot teach our children?
• If you had a choice of colors, which one would you choose, my brother?
• Why do so few of us seem to have the courage of our convictions?
This article was originally published in the June 18, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper
