CALLING OUT RACISM IS…
Some time ago, I watched Angela Rye break down on live TV because she was frustrated with being called racist for calling out racism, and today, I can honestly say that I feel her pain.
The great Malcolm X once said something really profound regarding the response to the physical, emotional, and social trauma caused by the American government and reinforced by racist whites. He said:
“If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made…”
-Malcolm X
All whites can admit to slavery, can admit to black slave codes, can admit to Jim Crow (and it’s etiquette) and can even admit to how tyrannical a system it was, and that’s a great start.
The problem is that America stabbed the black community with a 9 inch blade, they barely remove it, and here we are, 400 years later with 6 inches of transgenerational trauma still stuck in our bones, and all the American government, and the racist whites can respond with is, “Why do black people always bring up slavery?” or “black people always pull the race card.”
Maybe it’s because the 9 inch deep wound that America inflicted on the black community [from slavery to civil rights] HAS NEVER BEEN HEALED. …and don’t bring up the fights for equal rights, equal pay, equal protection, or voting rights because once blacks were deemed citizens, equality is something black folks should not have had to fight for… it should’ve been a given.
The 2nd paragraph of the US Declaration of Independence says this:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
…and don’t bring up Affirmative Action either because it benefits white institutions more than it does the black community. Think about how great the football and basketball programs at HBCUs would be if the black athletes went there instead of the great white hopes of Alabama, Duke or the like…
To bring this to a close, calling out the knife in the flesh of black folk that is racism and discrimination is pointless because like Malcolm X said, “They won’t even admit that the knife is there.”
My fight [as should yours] is to fight for atonement of the perpetual sins of the American government that are directly responsible for the ills and trauma of the black community. It’s the only way to truly show any form of true racial reconciliation.
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