AmeriKKKa The Beautiful
“I ran into this girl, she said, “Why you always blaming? Why you can’t just face it? Why you always gotta be so mad?””
I got a text this morning from a good friend telling me how they were so troubled with the things going on in the world today against POC/Black people that they broke down before work. I know plenty people who have been driven to this same act, including myself, over the course of about a year now. It's gotten to the point of anger, then sadness, to even numbness at this point. Aside from our own journey of emotions, we have to deal with our white counterparts telling us we shouldn't be mad or that we need to accept apologies from people who make racist remarks. Huh? What's really going on?
In the still early stages of 45's presidency we have seen a plethora of race riots and unprofessionalism on his end, lies of investigations and meetings, coddling of racists, and avoidance of what matters. It should come as no surprise that 45 is a neo-Nazi sympathizer and a supporter of white supremacy, seeing as how his entire campaign was built upon it with constant reminders to his constituents to "make Amerikkka great again". Hinting at the idea that certain powers should be recovered and privileges given back (that were never really taken away).
Since the action of him taking seat in office we have had a nuclear war impending, multiple cops shooting and killing Black civilians, and recently a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and neo-nazis. These terrorist groups have been so fed up with POC, Black people specifically, and have been given the green light from 45 to be overtly offensive and racist. They've been so adamant about "making America great again". So much so, that they even have decided to band together to reclaim their status as a majority race in Amerikkka together (who knew they were going extinct?).
Many people have questioned if this would be occurring if Hillary Clinton had taken office, but let's be real here, these two were not better than the other when pinned against each other in matters of race issues. One offered covert racism and the other offered you overt. Would we be here where we are today if Trump was not in office? Maybe.
Race issues have been on the rise again for a bit before 45 entered office and we have possibly been hitting this peak of riots for a while. We are here now. We are facing travesties and no longer are the "All Lives Matter" folks worried since it is now white faces making the uproar. Our people are in danger and we are hurting. What do we do?
It's exhausting and tiresome to constantly have to be given news of violence against our POC and see our Commander and Chief not condemn the actions of these hate groups, but rather give them leeway and support until forced to half-ass apologize for their actions. We are in this war alone.
Admittedly so, so many of us have the ability to sit at home and turn off the television, mute words on timelines, or just block certain users to escape the atrocities because they don't directly affect us in our own cities. Sadly, there are brothers and sisters of ours experiencing the horrors in their front yards and having to fight.
It can be tough to tell you not to turn off the TV because your mental health is necessary; It's tiresome, draining, unbearable. But, at the same time, it's hard to tell our other brothers and sisters not to fight wherever they are. Speaking of fighting...
“I am not my grandparents.”
No, We Are Not Our Grandparents...
I have seen this saying pop up for a while since our first few outbursts of racial riots. It's become praised and donned upon t-shirts as some great thing to parade around. This saying is usually extended to implicate that unlike our grandparents, we will fight. How are we REALLY fighting, though? By typing up statuses, sharing a video and tweeting it out, then sitting back down to drink our wine before bed? I'm not here to chastise us for having access to media to be social media activists when we can, but I am here to condemn those for using this saying as if to explain that we are better than our grandparents.
There has been discourse among this statement saying that if our grandparents had done the job right we wouldn't be having these problems still today. It makes me wonder if some of you really understand the way that ideologies are passed down from generation to generation. The same way you were raised to be told to honor and appreciate your culture and Blackness by your grandparents who fought for your privileges today has been passed down, don't you believe that those same racists who still are alive were able to pass their white supremacist ways of thinking on to their grandchildren, thus proliferating this hate and allowing for further turmoil?
Our grandparents can't stop white peoples from being white.
Not only is this saying offensive, I think, to your grandparents who fought (do I need to say fought again?), marched, and dealt with the overt racism that was nation-wide to get you the privilege to even sit on your couch and be mad, but it also alludes to the fact that this generation lacks some of the proper education of Black history. Do not sit on the ideas that white curriculum gave you about a docile Martin Luther King, Jr., and the images of all Black people getting sprayed with hoses as if neither of these markers fought back and caused riots or "threw hands" when provoked.
Sadly, history is repeating itself and we need to show respect to those who fought before us to even allow for the years of "peace" we have been given to even have open conversations about race and war with our white counterparts and each other via many mediums.
So, no, you're right, we are NOT our grandparents. Our fight is structured a bit differently, and we did not have to witness some of our friends hung, nor did we have to worry about possibly being drug in the street for a show by some white supremacist (some of us). But, isn't it a blessing to not be our grandparents to some extent when you really delve into the history of events? Their grandparents forged a way for them to even fight the fight they did, just as our grandparents set us up for our own fight.
Fight the fight the way you see best, but don't disrespect those who made it possible for us to sit on our asses and fight when we want to or through a keyboard and a shared post.
We Need A Resolution...
I can't tell you where things will end up, or how things will play out. But, we claim to be angry and capable of fighting this battle if it comes our way. Until then: Be mad. Complain. But, also remember to decompress when you need to.
This seems like it'll be a long and tough journey, and you've got the right to be mad. Don't let anybody tell you not to be; you've got a lot to be mad about.
Fight on.
- Begum, Over and Out! ;)
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(c) 2017 Aisha Begum All Rights Reserved