Look away, look away
24th October 2011 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
White America must be sick of us colored folks right about now. I certainly wouldn’t blame them.
The larger society has done everything in its power to annihilate us and we just keep comin’.
African America kind of reminds me of that damn Energizer Bunny — we just keep going and going and going… I ain’t mad at our white brothers and sisters for being mad at us. I mean, the nerve of us refusing to give up after everything that has been thrown at us.
How dare we insist on holding our heads up high despite what we’ve had to endure in this land of milk and honey? How dare we weather the wintry storm of white supremacy, hatred and hegemony and still manage to make music sweet enough to make the angels cry?
No wonder a segment of White America years for the good old days when Black folks were the help and knew their place and whites were ready, willing and able to put us back in line if we ever had a memory lapse or got too uppity or obstreperous for our own good. Is it really any wonder that so many whites still tune into vintage shows like “Leave It To Beaver,” “My Favorite Martian” and “Father Knows Best” since these programs represent an era in which there was less obvious social friction between the races and Blacks were only beginning to harness the truculence and resolve needed to fuel the historic Civil Rights Movement? Even though the landmark Brown v. The Board of Education Supreme Court decision was handed down in 1954, White America was still being buffeted from the growing militance of Blacks and the burgeoning liberalism of some whites by governors and other elected officials who knew where their loyalties resided.
In fact, the 1940s and 1950s are remembered by some whites ads the twilight of unchallenged and unlimited white power and privilege in America. Lynchings were still very much a common occurrence, as were the burning and bombing of Black businesses, churches, towns and homes, and Blacks were still being routinely denied the right to vote and other “inalienable” rights.
This period must have been to whites what the 1970s were to Black people in America. Even though we were still being murdered by cops and preyed upon by federal agencies, we knew we were Black, strong, beautiful and unstoppable. Everything we said and did reflected this awareness of self and our blossoming African-centeredness. There have always been African-centered Black people in the United States, but the 1970s certainly saw those numbers swell.
No one should be surprised by the anger, hostility and fury of White America as the sons and daughters of Europe assess how dramatically things have changed over the past few decades. If that were not bad enough, Census projections suggest that things are going to get worse in America for whites who struggle with racial and cultural diversity. By the middle of the 21st century, guess who’s going to be the new minority in the United States? If you think the powers that be don’t take those projections seriously, think again.
Why do you think there’s such an uproar over the issue of abortion? Do you really think a group of people who are diametrically opposed to people of color getting a decent education, gainful employment, affordable health care and a decent place to live are really worrying themselves to death about Black babies being killed? Abortion is an option that an increasing number of white women are taking as they gain greater access to educational and economic opportunities. With more women working, there’s less time for motherhood, a fact that is at least partially responsible for the drop in the white U.S. population. Also, the white population is aging, moving beyond its reproductive years, white the Black and Latino communities are relatively younger and growing exponentially.
You’re either incredibly naive or just plain stupid if you think white people are going to go “quietly into the night.” They’re fighting to retain their diminishing power every step of the way. Look at the decades-old national assault on affirmative action. Whites have had enough of this fairness and diversity in the workplace thing. They’ve only begun to fight to retrieve the power and privileges they’ve lost over the past 50 years.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if more white people had gotten outraged about race-based solutions and preferential treatment in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries? Why didn’t more of our God-fearing white brothers and sisters stand up and speak out when “affirmative action” gave White America the right to purchase and own African people, the right to slaughter and annihilate Native Americans as they saw fit and the right to do whatever the hell they pleased, to whomever they pleased, for as long as they pleased? Why didn’t they have a problem with “preferential treatment” when they were the ones being treated preferentially?
The descendants of a group of people who used religion, law and science to justify their mistreatment of people of color for centuries are now finding that the tables are turning and that those who were placed last on their societal order are moving to the head of the class. It’s not about reversing the master-slave relationship with Blacks doing to whites what was done to us. No, it goes much deeper than that. It’s about righting the wrongs of the past and making certain that what was done to Africans in the name of freedom, patriotism, Christianity, and profit is never done to another group of human beings on the planet. It’s about doing the work of the Creator, making certain that the wrongs that have been done and are still being done are pointed out so that those who commit them have at least a fair chance to change their ways.
White America has had a vast number of opportunities to right the wrongs of the past but have failed miserably to do so. Whites know that they benefit from the atrocities committed and inequities created by their forefathers and perpetuated by modern-day elected officials. They know that the things this nation has done and continues to do to people of color and the poor are wrong. They know also that they would never allow what they have done to others to be done to them. But they choose to participate in a conspiracy of silence and allow things to proceed as usual.
White America can make a lot of claims, but it can never say that people of African descent have not tried to tell white Americans the truth. We have pleaded with White America, appealed to the nation’s conscience and sense of justice to no avail. We have shown white Americans — although we shouldn’t have had to — that we too are human beings and yet they continue to treat us like beasts of burden. We have reminded our white brothers and sisters at every turn that people and nations reap what they sow but they have often refused to listen. They have tried to use ignorance as an excuse, but the Creator knows that they know and we know that our white brothers and sisters know exactly what they are doing to us and themselves every step of the way.
Although I use terms like “White America,” I know that white people will be judged by the Creator as individuals, by their words and deeds and the contents of their character. Those who have no problem seeing and treating people as individuals and human beings are going to have an easier time of it on Judgement Day than those who refuse to relinquish their standard of living or privileges they take for granted as members of the “white” chosen race.
May the Creator have mercy on people of all races who put their wants and needs above the mandates of Divine Law.
This article was originally published in the October 24, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper
