Wake up and rise up
21st November 2016 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
It’s always good to know where you stand with people.
I thought about that after reading about the racist, venom-laced post on social media made by a West Virginia workforce development director about First Lady Michelle Obama.
In the post, Clay County (West Virginia) Development Corp. director Pamela Ramsey Taylor described First Lady Michelle Obama as an “Ape in heels.”
Clay Mayor Beverly Whaling, another white woman, did not hesitate to co-sign the racist post, telling Taylor, “You just made my day, Pam.”
As I reflected on the posts, I could only shake my head and think about how both of these women likely consider themselves to be classy and Christian in a nation where both of those concepts have become convoluted and difficult for some to grasp.
While they certainly have the right to say and think whatever they want to say and think on their own time, they certainly don’t have the right to do so while serving as public officials and should not be trusted to treat anyone who is not white with respect and fairness given their demonstrated inability to see people of color as human.
The post, first reported by WSAZ-TV, was reportedly shared hundreds of times on social media before it was deleted.
The Facebook pages of Taylor and Whaling couldn’t be found Monday, The Associated Press reported.
The AP also reported that an online petition seeks to remove Whaling and Taylor. The nonprofit development group provides services to elderly and low-income residents in Clay County. It is funded through state and federal grants and local fees.
It is not affiliated with the town of Clay, which is about 50 miles east of Charleston.
West Virginia NAACP director Owens Brown was among those last week calling for the removal of both women.
“I feel so it’s unfortunate that people still have these racist undertones,” Brown said. “Unfortunately, this is a reality that we are dealing with in America today. There’s no place for these types of attitudes in our state.”
Although Black people only make up about four percent of West Virginia’s population, we need to fight back and speak our minds whenever anyone questions or challenges our humanity, our citizenship or our very right to be.
We need to make it clear in 2016, just as we made it clear in 1816 and 1916, that we will not sit idly by and allow anyone to disrespect or denigrate us. Not today, not ever.
As I mull over the recent presidential election results and all of the doom-and-gloom forecasts that have been uttered, I also reflect on the long, proud history people of African descent have of fighting back against oppression, economic exploitation and genocide against what has often looked like insurmountable odds.
We fought back when white mobs came in the middle of the night with sheets and hangman nooses to keep us in our place. We fought back when we were declared by the federal government “three-fifths human” and when the highest court in the land said that people of African descent have no rights that a white man is bound by law to respect. We fought back when Lincoln tried to enact a plan to ship us out of the U.S. after he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. We fought back when white mobs burned down the towns we built from the ground up and when doctors and government officials saw nothing wrong with using us as laboratory animals in a four-decade syphilis experiment. We fought back when the FBI and law enforcement agencies decided to exterminate and incarcerate our most brilliant and dedicated freedom fighters and when our greatest Black voices were silenced by assassins’ bullets.
We continue to fight against educational apartheid, unequal protection under the law, unconstitutional policing and mass incarceration.
There is no way that we are going to let two simple-minded bigots in West Virginia or a raving, self-absorbed lunatic in the White House take us out.
While no one is happy about having to re-fight battles we won 50 or 150 years ago, we have the faith, hope, courage and assurance that comes with knowing that we are at our very best when our backs are against the wall.
I strongly suggest you dust off that old copy of The Black National Anthem and start reflecting on the strength, pride, courage and dignity that can be found in those lyrics, especially the part that says:
“Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.”
If you know what’s good for you and those you love, you better wake up, stand up and fight like the future of your children and your children’s children hangs in the balance.
All power to the people.
This article originally published in the November 21, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
