"We Are Not Safe!"

“We are not Safe!”

(Black People have Never really been Safe in America)

By Glenn Peppers

Slavery and Plymouth Rock aside! When you look at it. Black people have never actually been safe in america! Sure most of us live our lives quietly. Confrontation free. Blatant racism free with barely a “Look Mommy, a Nigger!” comment made in a lifetime! Then there is that other part of black society that’s set deep in the real deal! The way things are and have been for quite a long time! 

This new President is always shouting that he wants to make america great again! As if there was ever some significant point in american history when people all nicely coexisted, and got along just fine, and everything was hotdogs and ice cream! 

Maybe on a garden variety of 1950’s TV shows, and sit-com’s, yes things were fine! Well, they weren’t really even then. If you could find a black person on TV back in the 1950’s, early 1960’s in one week. You be lucky!

Things have never been good for black people here in america! We’ve just skated along!... Waited out white anger. Took the crumbs, and stood back and settled for second best, holding ourselves back from showing our true talents and creative selves for fear of being murdered! Much like all those lucrative creative black folks were in Tulsa, Oklahoma back in 1920! An entire town of black people, bombed by air and completely wiped out because black folks had wealth, ingenuity and smarts. White’s jealous of this set out to kill off the entire town based on a lie started by a white woman! 

To put a finer point on my case. We’ve never really been safe here in America! Sure some of us have gotten by with barely a “Fuck you Nigger” from any white person! Let alone be beaten within an inch of your life by the police in front of your children! 

When you add up the situations and places, and circumstances on which we’ve lived our lives. Its a wonder that we didn’t all just jump on some tramp steamer back in the 1920’s and get the hell outta dodge heading back to Africa! 

Well hell, we couldn’t do that! A great lot of us were too busy trying to fit in, and be apart of a country whose only want and need for us is free enterprise through domestication. Sexual enjoyment or our demise!

When I sat back and thought about it! Since they dragged us over here from Africa. we really have not been safe, Anywhere in this country!

Not in our own homes! Not on the street in front of our houses. Not at the super market, or the open air market. Not even in your car! We’ve all been pulled over for being black on a sunny day or a dark night! Or for driving that really nice car that some jealous police officer thought that you shouldn’t own, simply because you’re black!

We are not safe in the mall’s, or some shopping centers! Not in some movie theaters or ball parks, a great many restaurants, coffee shops, and some gas stations! Heaven help you if you play your music too loud! Some old white dude may think its is his appointed duty to kill you for it!

We’re not safe in the playgrounds, nor at Wal-Mart playing with a BB Gun. Or walking home from a connivence store toting a bag of skittles and an ice tea! It is not safe for any of us to even look as if one of our tail lights is out on a car that we own. 

I think of Sandra Bland when it comes to this! Its not safe for most black and hispanic women to go to jail for some strange reason! Why they end up dead in a holding cell after being arrested for broken tail lights, or traffic tickets is still a mystery to me!

Some of us feel that we are not safe within our healthcare system! Most hospitals and clinics treat us differently. Billing and treatment-wise. 

Even the optometrist can be someone you may not trust or want to visit! Ask me about the optometrist who dilated my pupils with some really strong eye drops that affected my ability to focus, and see a long time afterwards. Ask the men from Tuskegee who were experimented on for over 30 years by the government! Black me who were injected with Syphilis for well over half their lives!

We’re not safe in the military, ask black women about that one! Nor are some of us safe at work! We’re not safe in just about every facet of life here in america! Especially in travel! “This land is your land, this land is my land” truly does not fully apply to black people! Try going to certain areas of upper Michigan heading north towards Traverse City alone!... 

Some of us have been lucky, and some of us have just been in the right places at the right time! And that's ok, because you are alive!

Yet and still. I know for a fact that as a black person in america, you at one time or another have had your Black-Folk Wakeup Call! Be it ever so shocking, or ever so subtle! 

Know that things haven’t really changed all that much since the civil rights days of the 1950’s! Its just that now days, everything is High Tech is all! Also know that things may not be getting better either because of the likes of an on coming President who pushes hate and intolerance, and has infused a message of hate and obstinance into white america that has become viral and almost demonic! 

This evil is the one thing that will keep this country at odd with everyone, including itself! This hate will eat away through to the core of this nation! 

In the process I say, do panic and do not fear or hate in return. Just know that things are not perfect. Nor shall they ever be! Watch your 6! Watch your brother’s 6, and let the reality sink in that because things seem to be better than they were in Jim Crow doesn’t mean that things are ok! Nothings ever perfect! Thus one of the reasons why as a people, we are not safe!.... Take care of one another! God bless!

Glenn Peppers                                                                          12-12-16   6am