This past Friday was Juneteenth; what a glorious day for black folks across the U.S. Or at least the black folks that wanted to celebrate the official end of slavery. There were parties, BBQ’s, inspirational messages and memes on social media. Streaming platforms updated their content to reflect movies and/or documentaries that highlighted the culture. Major corporations decided to take a stand and proclaimed “JUNETEENTH” a paid holiday. It was a beautiful day across the board or in the words of the famous American poet; Ice Cube “today was a good day”. I used my day off to reflect and think about the lessons my father taught me. After all it was also Father’s day weekend. My pops was big on Black history; he never missed an opportunity to school me about some obscure little known black history fact. I wonder what my pops would think about this moment in time? He would always ask me “what did you learn?”
So I ask the question what have we learned from the Tulsa Race Riots; or should I say the absolute massacre of a group of law abiding citizens that happen to be black? 100 years later how far have we come or are we stuck in neutral spinning our collective wheels? Sure there are outliers; the athlete, the entertainer or the once in a generation president. We have marched, sang songs of our ancestors, looted stores and burned down our own communities. There is never an easy answer to the American sin of slavery and the lasting legacy of racism. Some like to call it “white privilege” but I don’t hold every single white person in contempt because of the color of their skin or the location of their zip code. Black folk are only 13% of the population; and not every white person is wealthy; so that leaves the poor working class white brothers and sisters, the college students or the Starbucks barista. There were no white allies during the Tulsa riots, but with the televised murder of George Floyd the outrage was palpable. Even the whitest human could not turn away from the last gasps of a dying man. From Friday to Sunday the protests could be seen from the streets of Harlem to Hollywood Blvd to 1600 Black Lives Matter Avenue to London to Berlin to Albuquerque and yes Salt Lake City! Humanity collectively rose like a tidal wave across the globe; the world could not “BREATHE”. Corporations, churches, Sports Leagues, politicians and plain ole common folk asked themselves what can “we” do better as a society? The best of our humanity was on display, looters and agitators tried their very best to hijack the movement; but when God is on your side there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. George Floyd was a common man from a common town in Texas, I know plenty of black men who could’ve been BIG George, hell I could’ve been on the wrong end of that knee. Time will tell if the murder of George Floyd will yield the results we so desperately need, the absolute end of systemic racism and police brutality. Should I let skepticism over rule my optimism? I’m old enough to remember Rodney King, old enough to remember Radio Raheem, old enough to remember Laquan McDonald, but too young to remember Emmit Till, Medgar Evers, Dr King or Malcolm X. Our history is stained with the blood of the innocents, scarred by the teeth of police dogs, blinded by the sting of tear gas. A 400 year head start is close to impossible to overcome but the one thing racism can never kill is our indomitable spirit, our faith that GOD will see us thru, the work ethic to jump twice as high and be not be satisfied with half the money. When the crack era decimated the black family in the 80’s our grandmothers carried the burden of raising the babies, black babies not crack babies! Yes there are plenty of our kin folk who were born chemically dependent and are now in need of mental health services but cant get the help they need; but we love them anyway because they are OUR responsibilities.
Well all the optimism in the world couldn’t stop the inevitable. Chicago had one of the most violent weekends in recent memory. 140 people shot and 17 of those were fatalities. All the good will we built up was gone in an instant. What’s the point of telling the world we can’t breath if there men of color that look like me are the ones taking my breath! Where’s the outrage of a 3 year old boy shot by a bullet meant for his father; who by all accounts “was about dat life”.
Earlier I mentioned Ice Cube’s verse from “Today was a good day” well the end of the song had a chilling reminder. “Man what they fuck am I thinking about?”
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