By Ivy Reeves, Community Activist & Empowerment Speaker
Politicians, entertainers, sports teams, and their owners are all jumping on the “Black Bandwagon.” It is not as if Black people have not been around since the beginning of time. In America, Black people have been around for centuries, and, during the time of captivity, the African people were called savages, animals, three-fifths of a human, and many other mean, nasty, and derogatory names. Having the culture, language, and religion stripped away, the brainwashing and mind screwing, make it almost impossible to be free again.
Suddenly, on May 25, 2020, the Caucasian, white elites, and Europeans grew a heart and developed a conscience for Black people after witnessing the cruel, senseless, and heartless murder of George Floyd. Why Mr. Floyd? Was it because it was witnessed by the world, during a pandemic, where people are quarantined at home with nothing else to do but watch television? It reminds me of the Christmas cartoon, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. They watched another senseless murder of a Black person, and their tiny hearts began to grow.
While there were 400 years of brutality such as rapes, beatings, lynchings, burnings of black bodies, during parties and outings- a term called “Picnic,” where they would “pick a ni—er” and take pictures of themselves with black men hanging from trees in the background- a term called “Strange Fruit,” Black Lives clearly did not matter.
Blacks were sold away from their families like chicken or cattle. When a Black male slave stood up to the slave master, he would be taken out onto the plantation, where the oppressor would embarrass and humiliate him by beating him, sodomizing him, and raping him in front of his family and all the other slaves. The purpose was to make an example of him and to intimidate the other Africans. Today the same method is used by attempting to take away the livelihood and quality of life by taking away job opportunities or firing you if you do not allow them to control you. And yes, just like years ago on the plantation, today we have a sad, sack of bootlicking, Sambos who will suck up to the oppressor just to have a tiny spot in their world.
When “Mr. Charlie” the (oppressor) needed more livestock (slaves) to work the plantation, they would take a young male slave and his mother, cover the son’s head so that neither of them would know who the other one was and make the son have an intimate (sexual) relationship with his own mother, Hence the term “Mother F#**#r”.
If that were not bad enough, how uncaring, and horrific could a people be to take little black babies, chain them up, and use them as bait to catch alligators, so they could make belts, wallets, and shoes. Tulsa, Oklahoma’s’ Black Wall Street, The Tuskegee experiment with black men being given syphilis, the Civil Rights Movement and now Black Lives Matter means things have not changed that much
After Centuries of systematic racism in this country, one pandemic and one man’s murder has touched the hearts of this country and worldwide to actually have us believe that the dehumanizing hatred, disrespect, and humiliation of black people will cease to exist now. The wealthy, rich white people and the fake, phony politicians are searching for photo opportunities with Black people during the election year. Some say they are now more sensitive to human beings whose skin is not the same color as theirs.
Perhaps it is difficult for me to believe that after all the years of murdering, lynching, shootings, and other ways of killing, now, suddenly, there is this big change of heart. I got news for you! In the eyes of God, black lives have always mattered!
Black lives will always matter, but now we must act; we must make demands, and we must always stand strong and stand together when it comes to civil rights and being treated unjustly. When we do things for ourselves and for our black people, some white people like to say that we are racist. That will tell you just how ignorant some people are because they do not know the meaning of the word racist. Black people may, at times, be prejudice, bias, or discriminate, but not racist, especially here in America.
In the matter of black lives, black lives have always mattered. In this country, we just have not been treated as if we mattered. I do not believe you can teach kindness or compassion, and I fail to see any real, redeeming qualities in people that have been filled with hate for so many centuries. I am open to seeing how long this Black bandwagon of compassion, change of heart, and sensitivity to blackness will continue- especially after the elections. I pray for the best. Peace!
