In the Metro-west Interfaith Book Discussion Group, that I am in, we are reading Isobel Wilkerson's book, Caste, which is about how black people in the USA are treated, thought of, and not thought of, since the first black slave was brought to America.
You have no idea!
My frame of reference and maybe yours is as "privileged whites." The author of the book, Caste, posits that the USA has a caste system not unlike that of India's. Black people in the USA are akin to the lowest caste in India. Blacks are thought of as the "dalits"--"the untouchables."
You may have the urge to protest the author's claim, but that is only because you haven't read the book and more so because you most probably are not black.
Today, the boil over point, was not so much as the police killing black youths, it was the fact that policemen get off, scott free! There's the spur under the saddle. The white cowboy holds on all the more securely. But the black horse under the cowboy can't stand the pain, anymore.
Get down, cowboy! Look. Asses the problem. Remove the offending spur of racial profiling and work to eradicate spurs.
Black Lives Matter is not a new phenomenon. Blacks have been treated as they haven't mattered, for way too long. I have a poem I need to read to you to emphasize the emotion that is evident in BLM,
We all should remember the occasion that inspired the poem. So go back to Los Angeles of 1991. Pretend you are a black male. Imagine the neighborhood you live in, the low-performing school you attended, the high school that kicked you out, the relatives in prison because they couldn't afford to pay good lawyers, lack of opportunities to leave your environment, and get a good job. You are black.
It is now the summer of 1992. Your name is Harry Johnson and you are black. You are trying your best to achieve the "American Dream." This is American; the Land of Opportunity. Right? You work hard to buy a house to move out of the ghetto to have your children go to good schools to become whatever they want.
But back in 1991, Rodney King, a black American was beaten by Los Angeles police. And we saw it happen. We are all witnesses. By the way, if you remember, Rodney King was stopped for a traffic violation.
Harry Johnson was listening to the verdict in the trial against the police officers. Most people were shocked at the verdict, after all we all were witnesses to what had happened. A group of white police officers shot Rodney King with a stun gun, one officer knelt on him to hold him down while other cops kicked him and beat him for fifteen minutes, while more than a dozen cops stood by, watching and commenting on the beating.
Yet, contrary to what we all saw, the verdict stunned everybody. Four officers were charged with excessive force and the verdict was "not guilty."
Howard Johnson was so upset that he left work, went home, and composed this poem that I will read to you because it expresses the raw emotions of our current Black Live Matter movement.
News Item: Four white Los Angeles police officers,
following a three-month trial and seven days of jury
deliberations, were found not guilty of using excessive
force on the evening of March 3, 1991, when they subdued
a Rodney King, a black man, by shooting him with a stun
gun and striking him 56 times with their police batons.
Damn! Damn!
Damn! Damn! Damn!
No, I wasn't in the courtroom.
No, I wasn't privy to all the evidence.
No, I didn't see everything the jury saw.
No, I didn't hear everything the jury heard.
No, I am not in a position to second-guess their decision.
Yes, I try to believe the promise of America.
Yes, I try to believe that the rules are fair, that justice is blind.
Yes, I try to believe--God knows, I try to believe--
that America works nearly all the time,
for nearly all the people.
But don't ask me to believe today.
Today, I believe something different.
Today, I believe America lies.
Today, I am disappointed. Shocked. Angry. Enraged.
Today I am a skeptic. A cynic. An unbeliever.
Today, I am not an American.
Today, I am a black man.
Today, I know what the black man has always known.
Today, I know that America--deep in its heart--
doesn't know what to do with me,
doesn't know how to deal with my audacious blackness.
Today, I know that for many white Americans,
slaves forever to the emotional apartheid
that infects their very souls,
I am not different from Rodney King.
Today, I know that nothing that I do--
not the way I dress, not the way I talk,
not the way I comport myself, not the way I invest my life--
will ever make me any different from Rodney King
in their eyes.
Today, I know that nothing I have ever done,
nothing I will ever do--
not the tears that I cry, not the blood that I shed--
will ever make any real difference.
Today, I know that the bruises to my black man's ego,
the pain in my black man's heart,
the scars on my black man's soul
will never heal completely.
Today, I know that I am not an American.
Today, I know that I am a black man,
living at the margin
of a place called
America.
Damn! Damn!
Damn! Damn! Damn you, America!
Once more, you have lied to me!
No comments:
Post a Comment