By T.M. Bonner
As Black History Month
concludes, this series highlighting a Spotify list of songs that have
encouraged forward thinking on persistent social issues in
America turns its spotlight today on two songs that deal with the righting of
wrongs done to oppressed people.
Award-winning
African-American Poet and Author Maya Angelou once summed up this concept of
righting of wrongs brilliantly at a performance at the Boston Symphony
Orchestra several years ago: “If you take something from someone, give it
back.” This could apply to everything from dollars to dignity.
Angelou’s
statement was poignant in its message that how to correct mistakes done to our
fellow man should be this simple and obvious. But, unfortunately, in America,
there has only been avoidance at best. While other countries from Australia to
South Africa have held reconciliation conferences and enacted legislation to
deal with historic and continued wrongs of native and oppressed people, America
has noticeably avoided such healing measures. This has been particularly the
case with wrongs committed against Native Americans and African-Americans.
“What about the red man/Who met you at the coast?/You never dig sharing/Always had to have the most/And what about Mississippi/The boundary of old?/Tell me,/Who’ll pay reparations on my soul?”
Song: “Who’ll Pay Reparations on My Soul” (1970) (Written and
Performed by Gil Scott-Heron)
Social Issue: Righting of Wrongs against the Oppressed
Gil Scott-Heron, who famously penned
the 1974 piece “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” also wrote this
thought-provoking one about the economic and psychological damage suffered by
African-Americans as a result of racism, slavery and oppression in America.
He asked the same question that many
juries have to ask during civil trials when someone has been harmed or wronged:
what should be the price for suffering and harm – even though
any penalty exacted can never compensate for what was lost in reality. In fact,
Scott-Heron acknowledges that nothing could ever compensate for all that his
people have lost. Which is why he asks: “who’ll pay reparations on my
soul?”
This acknowledgement is significant
because it recognizes that the wounds go deep. Thus, the methods of healing will have to be as enlightened and comprehensive. As Angelou brilliantly pointed out, you can only truly make things right by
replacing what was taken. And you can’t replace what was taken if you don’t
learn what that was, understand it, and then acknowledge it.
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| Lynchings of African-Americans as sport |
This learning, understanding, and
acknowledging is a major component of the H.R. 40 Bill in the U.S. Congress that
has been introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D - MI) every
Congressional session since 1989, but has never been presented for a vote. The
bill, called “The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for
African-Americans Act,” seeks to “acknowledge the fundamental injustice and
inhumanity of slavery,” establish a commission to study slavery and its
subsequent racial and economic discrimination against freed slaves,” study the
“impact of those forces on today’s living African-Americans,” and then to “make
recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies to redress the harm
inflicted on living African-Americans.”
Conyers compares H.R. 40, which currently has approximately 40 sponsors, to the
world acknowledging the Holocaust, to America acknowledging the wrongful
internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and dealing, to some
extent, with the harm done by the colonists to Native Americans.
I’m not seeing the problem with Conyers' Congressional Bill here. How can wrongs be righted if America
refuses to hear the exact nature and extent of the harm done? How can one “give
it back” if one won’t delineate what was taken in the first place?
It’s amazing how America understood the human suffering as a result of events like 9/11 or the Boston Marathon Bombings -- and readily and rightfully sought for a price to be paid for the suffering of the
victims -- but refuses to acknowledge the long-term suffering caused by slavery.
America’s reluctance to deal with
slavery and its harm to an entire race of people has a lot to do with the fact
that this was an inside job. There are no scary foreign terrorists or
immigrants to latch our anger and blame onto. The “evildoers" (a label former
President George W. Bush was fond of using in reference to terrorists) was America. And as Ricky Ricardo of
“I Love Lucy” would say, America has some “splainin’ to do.”
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| From Reunionblackfamily.com |
The real deal of what actually went
down (not only during slavery, but afterward) – from forcefully taking black
babies to use as alligator bait (thus the expression: “alligator bait”) to the
lynchings, rapes, murders, church bombings, cross-burnings, assassinations, using
police dogs to attack women and children protestors, and sadistic torture of
slaves and freedmen – makes the movie “12 Years a Slave” seem like “Mr. Rogers’
Neighborhood.”
So, why can’t we move forward and see
the urgency of starting the healing process from the evils of slavery and
racism in America? I’ll provide some insight into the obstacles by quoting things that were
actually stated to me and to others that I know.
Complaint: “I wasn’t a slave owner and
you weren’t a slave. Who cares?”
Answer: Correct. I wasn’t a slave. But
the limited financial and social capital that was passed down to me was most
definitely impacted by my family being descendents of slaves and a
disenfranchised minority group. My grandfather fled the atrocities of the South
with a 6th-grade education. He escaped to the lesser of two evils in
the North, where he was still met with discrimination that limited his opportunities. He worked his entire
life – as a cook on trains and, later, as a custodian – and raised several
children and grandchildren (including me), and supported and cared for his wife
for 55 years until her death. He died with only $1,000 in the bank.
And, yes, you weren’t a slave owner.
But I can guarantee that by nature of skin color and being a member of a
privileged racial class, your family was able to pass down a great deal more
financial and social capital to you. If not, that same skin color and privilege
will guarantee more opportunities to gain such assets for yourself than the as-qualified
minorities right next to you.
Complaint: “Why should I pay for
something that I didn’t do in the past and have nothing to do with now?
Answer: Americans have to pay for
things that they don’t agree with, don’t care about, and abide by laws that
they would prefer not to have all the time. It’s the American way -- and it’s the
price we pay to be able to have funding for things we do care about, do agree
with, and is necessary to support the interests of the whole instead of just its
parts. African-Americans paid taxes to the same country that first sanctioned their
disenfranchisement under slavery for 500 years, and then sanctioned the continued denial
of their basic human rights for decades during Jim Crow after slavery ended. African-Americans
still pay taxes to police departments that abuse them, to fire departments that won't hire them, to school systems that
don’t educate their children, to governments that pass legislation and laws
that discriminate against them and throw obstacles along their path to upward
mobility. They even paid taxes to bail out the financial industry, but then suffered
the most economically as a result of the Great Recession that resulted from
the financial meltdown of that same industry.
And in regard to not being a party to
the historic and present discrimination, I would ask someone this: what actions do
you personally take when you witness or have knowledge of discrimination? If
the answer is nothing, then you are benefitting from the same system that you
feel you shouldn’t have to be a partner in correcting.
Fact: a former white co-worker of
mine told me that a landlord in a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn offered
him a lower rent than he offered the African-Americans who were vying for the
apartment. The landlord literally told him that he was hoping the deal would
entice the co-worker to take the place because he didn’t want African-Americans
in the building. What did the co-worker do? He took the deal and enjoyed the
steal. The co-worker said he “felt bad” that he benefited from the
discrimination, but he couldn’t pass up the lower rent. This is just one of
many wild stories I am told regularly by people about the discrimination they
have seen, heard, or, “sadly,” from which they have benefitted. For most, what
they did to address it is never part
of the narrative. They just took what they were given and accepted what others
were wrongfully denied – and they kept it moving. I’m merely the confessional
for moral/conscious cleansing.
Complaint: Didn’t Affirmative Action
Make Everything Equal?
Answer: Affirmative Action is just a necessary tool to provide African-Americans and other minorities legal
protection from discrimination. It is only as effective as the institutions and governments that are supposed to utilize it, but that are also steeped in systemic racism. It has long been documented that white
women – having been classified somehow as a minority – are the largest
beneficiaries of Affirmative Action initiatives. The number of government contracts awarded to
African-American and racial minority businesses still significantly lag behind those awarded to whites. Additionally, The New York
Times reported on an Urban Institute study last year which found that
consistently over the last 30 years, white families have earned, on average, $2
for every $1 that black and Hispanic families earned. Recent data also shows that white family wealth was about $632,000
compared to only $98,000 for black families and $110,000 for Hispanic families, according to that same study.
Additionally, there is a persistent movement in America to eliminate Affirmative Action. The latest trend is for states to bypass court decisions
and legislation by bringing Affirmative Action abolishment referendum questions
to the states and their mostly white voting population to avoid the diversity that Affirmative Action
encourages. This is how the state of Michigan – which was 80 percent white in
2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – was able to abolish Affirmative
Action in education and hiring a few years ago.
Complaint: Why don’t you just get over
it?
Answer: On the Holocaust Memorial is
the phrase: “Lest We Forget.” There’s a very good reason for that phrase. The
same evil in people that caused them to participate in such atrocities doesn’t
just disappear, or become 'post-hateful' (i.e., the laughable "post-racial"). Instead, it is taught to the succeeding
generations and continues lurking in society. Like a vampire, hate needs to
continue feeding to survive. That scary Arizona legislation that would have
made it lawful for businesses to refuse service to someone based on sexual orientation
actually made it to Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk for a signature before she vetoed it
this week. For African-Americans, this was nothing new. Parts of the country legalized similar discrimination against them (think: Jim Crow separate but equal laws) for decades after
slavery ended. Watching the U.S. Supreme Court weaken the Voting Rights Act
last year was like waking those who died fighting for voting rights and killing
them all over again. So, you must remain vigilant and aware – lest we find
ourselves victimized by the same forces all over again. So, no, we won’t – and
should never – ever get over it.
The Song: “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” (1988) (Performed by Tracy
Chapman; Written by Tracy Chapman)
The Social Issue: Economic Inequality
“While they’re standing in the welfare lines/
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation/
Wasting time, in the unemployment lines/
Sitting around, waiting for a promotion/Don't you know, they're talkin’ 'bout a revolution/
It sounds like a whisper/
Poor people gonna rise up and get their share/
Poor people gonna rise up and take what’s theirs”
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Occupy Wall Street Protester
in New York City, 2011 |
Long
before the "99 percent" protest movement that became known world-wide as Occupy Wall Street launched
on September 17, 2011 in New York City, Tracy Chapman sang about such uprisings.
Chapman wasn’t the first song about uprisings or the
first protest song. In fact, the 1960s was like one long protest song. But what
is significant is that in each succeeding generation, Americans are still
singing this same, sad tune about economic inequality.
One of the lessons of these economic protest movements that continues to be
lost is this: When there is economic inequality, no one wins. While the wealthiest
among us can remain insulated from the impact of economic inequality because of
their already accumulated financial resources, the country as a whole suffers. The financial meltdown of 2008 and the Great
Recession that followed should have shown us that business owners need
customers who can actually buy their goods or utilize their services. That Real
Estate Developers and Agents need people who can afford to buy their homes or
rent their apartments. Citizens in communities need to be self-sustaining in
order for those communities to remain healthy. What’s the point if when you build
it, they just can’t afford to come?
Another lesson that keeps being forgotten is that oppressed people will see the
light and fight back. Except, today they have better weapons.
What the oppressed have now
that they didn’t have in the time when Chapman released her song in 1988 was major
arsenal in the way of the Internet and social media to even the playing field
of message dissemination and support for their cause. This is how the Occupy Wall Street movement focusing on the plight of the “99 percent” and based out of little
park near Wall Street became known and duplicated across the
country and the world.
Back in the 60s, television was such a weapon – allowing the
rest of the country and the world to see the injustices that were taking place. But the oppressed were dependent on mainstream news media to tell their stories for them and share their plight. Social media today ensures that inequality will continue to have nowhere to
hide, allows the oppressed to control their own message, and allows them to reach their audience without the mainstream news media as intermediary. As the Occupy Wall Street movement illustrated: people will listen.
Chapman celebrates the power of that voice of the oppressed, and warns
that the fortitude and capabilities of the oppressed should never be underestimated or ignored.
Read Part I of this blog series here
Next and last in this series: "Love's In Need of Love Today"
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T.M. Bonner is a writer, filmmaker, MBA, Social Justice Advocate, and is currently completing Graduate Studies in Social Policy/Social Service in New York City.
