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“They say They don’t see Black when They see Me!”
(Embrace who I am.... I certainly do, so why can’t you?)
By Glenn Peppers
People are so fake with that, "I don't see color!" BS, and that "You shouldn't focus on color, because I don't see you as a black person... I see you as a person!" That’s so much BS! Why? Because, when I am somewhere white people think that I shouldn't be, all of a sudden, I'm black!
Or whenever you get pulled over by the police, and you're shot, even after you've complied to show them your ID, as you reach for that ID, they shoot you dead! You're automatically black at the drop of a hat, if you're wearing a hoodie!
You are exclusively, and especially black when and if you try to attain any kind of credit, or buy a home in the suburbs, or any gentrified area of any city in america. To do so, all of a sudden you're considered to be, Scary Black! Suddenly now, not only are you black, but you are someone to be feared! And you haven't done anything at all to even be considered a threat!
To get you to a place where you will deny your own color and culture, is a divisive way to get you to separate yourself from your heritage, your ancestry and of course yourself! It is the fearful, insecure racist' way of trying to white-wash and erase our history, and sin of slavery, and the many years of mistreatment of black people in america, as if any of it had never happened at all!
Your denial of self makes the racist and moderately bigot’ed everyday racist feel comfortable! It excuses him or her of their ancestral guilt of murder, cruelty and the ungodly bondage and enslavement of a an entire race of human beings!
Thus over the years, inserted buzzword phrases like, "Angry Black Man!... Angry Black Woman! And Black on Black Crime!" were created, to make out as if our pain and suffering somehow is invalid and didn't matter! Thus why the phrase, "Black Lives Matters" bothers so many white people! Because if anyone ever thinks that the lives of Black People ever matters, then that would in fact acknowledge that what has police killings, hangings, and universe of injustice stomping our necks that have happened to us, past and present was and is indeed dead wrong! And they couldn’t have that, now could they?
So the phrases, “All Lives Matters” came into being in order to downplay and further wash over the fact that millions of innocent black lives were are are being taken out byway of the same cruel murderous spirit that burned churches in the south, and killed Emmett Till, murdered Martin Luther King, and prompted Dylan Roof to shoot down a 9 member prayer group, in a weeknight prayer meeting, that he willfully attended on his own, and partook of before gunning them down in cold blood! This is the spirit that wants to try and rub out that visible stain of evil put against black people, as if getting us to deny ourselves would make it all disappear!
Then when these terrible injustices happened to black people as a result of hundreds of years of hate crimes, all manner of murders, church burnings, untold shootings, car and truck dragging’s, skinning, gutting, hangings, beatings, intentional drug infusions and infestations into the inner cities to create genocide, water poisonings with lead, water shutoff's, record home foreclosures, and rampant gentrification and black homelessness; on top of all this, we are almost always asked to deny who we are by trying to convince themselves, and us that they do not see color when they see a black person! As if this denial would suddenly make the last 700 years vanish into thin air!
Then after all that we've suffered, for hundreds and hundreds of years in America, whenever these things are done onto us, we are always the ones asked to turn the other cheek and forgive!
So let’s add things up! In the last 60 years or so, all the marching hasn't really worked! Protesting only gets you teargas'ed and tazed, and rubber bullets from riot shotguns! Since Selma, we’ve been beaten, hung for trying to vote, and in some cases, burned alive! The laws passed in government granted civil and voting rights are eventually reneged upon!
Out of the abyss, rebel rousers like Donald Trump come along and incite a whole new breed of racism into american culture, that is a throwback of blind ignorant hate in america that existed well over 75 years ago! This form of hate has become the gasoline on the fire intolerance!
So, as black people, what do we do! Where does this impasse take us? Do we keep marching for nothing? Do we just sit back and watch as those who hate us, pick us apart bit by bit? Do we boycott? Do we use our monies more wisely, supporting only enterprises that support us?
In the meantime, do we make our constructive demands firmly, and meaningfully, come what may? There comes a time when you can no longer sit back and take the abuse! When will that time come for you, in your mind? And when that time comes, what will you do? I’m hoping that you will always know who you are, and who you will become as a result of standing up for yourself, and for your people!
Glenn Peppers 3-5-2017 7:30am
