The Other Racism

Back in the day, slave owners classified the Negro as part animal, sub-human, and not worthy of being educated. This allowed these slave owners, many of them forefathers of this country, to clear their minds of guilt and any type of redemption from God. This misguided justification to classify the Negro and Indians as less than human and savages, was all they needed to execute a plan that would last for generations. This plan was designed to give and retain power to people with white skin, forever.

Thankfully, today most people don’t believe Blacks are less than human, Indians are savages, or Mexicans are lazy. However, racism isn’t perpetrated effectively by the few extremely hateful people, screaming in the faces of people of color. The key to the success of racism are the people sitting on the fence, doing nothing to stop racism. Sure, these people may think racism is wrong; they may even show sadness when a violent, racist act happens to someone. But, without question, the most damage done by racism, happens when everyday normal people don’t take any action against racism.

So how do we start to undo racism? First, know that racism isn’t a trait we were born with. We were taught to hate. As a fighter of racism, you must know and understand that racism has to be undone systematically, just as purposefully as it was done. Racism will not take care of itself. We must fight. And to be totally honest, we need White allies. Racism will not be destroyed without White people who “get it”. Telling people of color how sad you are about what is going on does nothing to stop what’s going on in this country. Go look at civil rights marches from the 60’s and you’ll see there were White people who “got it”. Many of them were hit and injured as they marched alongside people of color.

Second, just because a person isn’t overtly perpetrating hateful acts on people, doesn’t mean they aren’t possibly racist. More and more racism uses its power to control groups of people. A lot of times racism is covert. Usually overt racism comes before covert racism. Overt racism is used to instill physical fear into a group of people. Once the brutality of overt racism is fought and condemned by the masses, including White people, covert racism usually kicks in. The power group stops kicking the powerless group in the ass physically but begins to kick their minds. This mind-kicking becomes like a mental beating. It is designed to instill a sense of hopelessness. It is designed to make the powerless feel less than human, or less than a man.

Let me take a detour for a second. We see this very situation of feeling less than human or less than a man, going on around this country now. People of color and especially Black men must act almost childlike, so we won’t get shot during a routine traffic stop. We are now having to teach our young sons to kowtow to mostly White police forces. In my mind, a traffic stop for young unarmed Black men is like a slave walking on eggshells so that the master won’t whip him again. Of course, that isn’t the case with every policeman, at every traffic stop. But I don’t know one responsible father or mother who has said this happens so infrequently that my son doesn’t need to worry about it. We’ve seen enough killings of unarmed Black men, that we to have to believe that any of us can be killed at any time. The guy who killed the policemen in Dallas is dead. He did a cowardly, horrible thing and he got what he deserved. So, isn’t it fair to ask and expect the policemen who killed the last two Black men, will have to answer for what they did?

Okay, back to fighting racism. Third, educate yourself by reading and learning what racism is about. Most of the time people repeat things they’ve heard. Even when true facts are used to rebuke their lies, they stick with the lies they’ve heard. Most Pied Pipers know that the average person wants to be told what to think. As a fighter of racism, you must understand that these are the people you’re up against. So, in order to enlighten them, you must be able to guide them past their “right to their opinion”. You must know that just because people have a right to their opinion, it doesn’t mean their opinion is worth a damn. So, know your facts. Know who’s really abusing the welfare system by knowing statistically, who’s really on welfare. There is a lot of White on White crime, but we don’t hear about it on the news. But, ask victims if White on White crime exists.

Lastly, watch out for Uncle Tom and Aunt Bessie. These are people of color who are wolves in sheep clothing. We know about the famous ones, because we see them on television. They blame people of color for poverty and the racist things that happen to people of color. Television host Wendy Williams played the Aunt Bessie when she declared that Historical Black Colleges and Universities as racist, and The NAACP as being pretty much racist. However, veteran television newsperson Roland Martin, using knowledge and facts, put Wendy in her place. She apologized the week Roland was a guest on her show. Don’t be fooled, her apology probably had something to do with losing sponsors, which means the network losing money. These Uncle Tom and Aunt Bessie of today got their roles from slavery. There were Negro slaves who survived by telling on the other slaves. They function pretty much the same way today. They want to be known as the “good Black, Brown, Red or Yellow”. In any case, watch out for them.

After we get through this overt phase of racism, we’ll have to deal with the covert aspect of racism. These different aspects of racism come in cycles, much like the season of the year. Maybe one day, we’ll begin to understand that there is only one race, the human race. We are all people. We all live, and we all die. No one group of people is so superior that they live forever. Give yourself the gift of love. Then, share your love with everyone you can.