I was listening to a talk radio show today, and the host was discussing the latest
Don Imus mishap. The host stated that it is often very difficult to discuss racial issues in the media. He identified himself as a 44 year old, White male, and it was his opinion that the moment anyone in the media says something pertaining to race, it can be easily misconstrued, and once that happens the public automatically labels you as a racist. As I was listening and thinking about the points that he was making, he said something that really grabbed my attention. He made the comment, "Any rational person that knows about slavery, realizes how horrible it was, but I'd like to think that we are at a point where we are moving past slavery."
*I sighed aloud, gave Dan a mini-rant about how that statement was short sighted, and silently vowed to turn this into a blog post. So here we go...
The history of U.S. slavery is a painful one. African men, women, and children were abducted from their homes, and forced to move halfway around the world to be used as unpaid servants. These people were auctioned off as cattle or some other type of livestock. Their families were torn apart, mothers and fathers were separated from their children, and wives were separated from their husbands. Slaves were regularly beaten as motivation to work harder, killed for sport, and the women were raped at the master's whim. If women had children in those days, they had no rights to them at all. They were property of the slave owner. These people were robbed of their religion, their culture, they were even robbed of their names (Slaves were often given the last name of their owners. As a result, today, most Black Americans whose ancestry lies in U.S slavery, still retain the surname of their ancestors slave owners).
As if the physical abuse wasn't enough, there was a good amount of mental and emotional abuse that slaves had to endure.
Slaves were consistently told they were ugly, stupid, unworthy of respect, and didn't deserve the same rights as others simply because of their appearance; because of the color of their skin, or the kinkiness in their hair. They were told that they were evil. To sum it all up, Black was bad, White was good, and that's just the way it was. This belief system was regarded as truth by adults, and they in turn taught it to their children. When those children grew up and had children of their own, those very same beliefs were passed down, and the cycle went on and on. Now while the slave owners were instilling these values in their own children, they were also relaying this same information to the slaves themselves, and you know what? The slaves internalized it, and although I don't believe it was intentional, they passed this same belief down to their own children. So what did all of this produce you ask? It produced a nation of both Black
and White people that believed that the color of their skin determined their worth. It produced a perception among African-Americans that they were their own worst enemy, and all of this, every bit of it, was based on lies.
Now, U.S. Slavery lasted for over 200 years. Not, 5 years, not 10 years, but 246 years. If we say each generation is about 20 years, slavery lasted for about 12 generations.
After more than two centuries of bondage, slavery became illegal in 1865. The slaves were freed without a dime to their name, but they were freed nonetheless.
But there was a problem. While slavery became illegal in 1865, the legal ramifications of slavery didn't quite end until 1964ish (ie.
Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Voting Rights Act of 1965) That's basically another 5 generations (1865-1964). And if you notice I said legal ramifications, not social ramifications. Although there were laws on the books that said Blacks were equal, society didn't always agree. If you question whether or not racism was socially acceptable after the Civil Rights Movement, all you need to do is read about the
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, which lasted until the early 70's, to realize racism still existed at that time.
Now I'm sure a lot of you reading, know the history of slavery in the U.S., but I wrote that very abbreviated version of it to say this:
What you see today, in 2008, is the product of 17 generations of struggle, pain, intolerance, fear, hate, and disrespect, with a side of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
To even
imply that what had been built, nurtured, and sustained over 17 generations, can and has been eradicated in 2 generations (1965-2008) is downright insulting. Are we as a nation making strides and moving in the right direction? Without a doubt, the answer to that question is an emphatic yes. But to say that slavery and racism are not relevant to our present day society is foolishness, in my opinion.
* Since I didn't record the talk radio show I can't confirm what I typed was a word for word quote, but that was the sentiment expressed.
