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| Race and class are intertwined in America. We must work to change that | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| When I was a little girl, I’d sit on my daddy’s lap during his city council meetings. As Alderman of Ward 4 in Natchez, Mississippi, his job was to take care of his people. Theodore “Bubber” West took that responsibility as seriously as he did his commitment to his family. | When I was a little girl, I’d sit on my daddy’s lap during his city council meetings. As Alderman of Ward 4 in Natchez, Mississippi, his job was to take care of his people. Theodore “Bubber” West took that responsibility as seriously as he did his commitment to his family. |
| Daddy would tell me, “Baby girl, the further you move from your community in politics, the less committed you are to them. You can hide from racial injustice from behind a desk in Washington DC, but you can’t do that when it’s at your front door.” | Daddy would tell me, “Baby girl, the further you move from your community in politics, the less committed you are to them. You can hide from racial injustice from behind a desk in Washington DC, but you can’t do that when it’s at your front door.” |
| Steps from our front door was the Forks of the Road. It was the second-largest slave trading post in the country, and I passed it every day on my way to school. I grew up knowing the bones of enslaved black people lay in the Devil’s Punchbowl on Cemetery Road. I passed them on the way to my grandmother’s house. | Steps from our front door was the Forks of the Road. It was the second-largest slave trading post in the country, and I passed it every day on my way to school. I grew up knowing the bones of enslaved black people lay in the Devil’s Punchbowl on Cemetery Road. I passed them on the way to my grandmother’s house. |
| Our ancestors had been buried alive for just trying to be free. | Our ancestors had been buried alive for just trying to be free. |
| I come from a family of business owners and public servants – a family with streets and schools named after us – and we flourished during the Reaganomics of the 1980s and the mass incarceration of the Clinton 90s. I was sheltered from the traumas this country inflicts on most black people. And because of that, I once believed anyone who works hard, stands straight and acts right could attain the American Dream. | I come from a family of business owners and public servants – a family with streets and schools named after us – and we flourished during the Reaganomics of the 1980s and the mass incarceration of the Clinton 90s. I was sheltered from the traumas this country inflicts on most black people. And because of that, I once believed anyone who works hard, stands straight and acts right could attain the American Dream. |
| And I believed it until I moved to Los Angeles with my husband and our sons. | And I believed it until I moved to Los Angeles with my husband and our sons. |
| I couldn’t find a job, couldn’t find anywhere to live. We survived without healthcare and hoped our children wouldn’t get sick. | I couldn’t find a job, couldn’t find anywhere to live. We survived without healthcare and hoped our children wouldn’t get sick. |
| It wasn’t just us. Back home in Mississippi, my father could no longer afford to fill his prescriptions. He had to get his medicine from a doctor friend just to make it another day. He had to cut pills in half just to make them last longer. He tried. Daddy tried not to die, but I would not see him again before he did. | It wasn’t just us. Back home in Mississippi, my father could no longer afford to fill his prescriptions. He had to get his medicine from a doctor friend just to make it another day. He had to cut pills in half just to make them last longer. He tried. Daddy tried not to die, but I would not see him again before he did. |
| I hated myself for what felt like failing my children, my family’s legacy and my father. Then I remembered Malcolm X making it plain with the hard truth: “Who taught you to hate yourself? Who taught you that?” | I hated myself for what felt like failing my children, my family’s legacy and my father. Then I remembered Malcolm X making it plain with the hard truth: “Who taught you to hate yourself? Who taught you that?” |
| Then I began to understand just how linked capitalism and racism have always been. It’s not new. I followed the bones back to the Devil’s Punchbowl, and those of Tamir and Trayvon, Rekia and Aiyana, Eric and Alton, Philando and Keith, Sandra and Jonathan. And, and, and. I followed the money being filtered into police departments and for-profit prisons and politician’s pockets. | Then I began to understand just how linked capitalism and racism have always been. It’s not new. I followed the bones back to the Devil’s Punchbowl, and those of Tamir and Trayvon, Rekia and Aiyana, Eric and Alton, Philando and Keith, Sandra and Jonathan. And, and, and. I followed the money being filtered into police departments and for-profit prisons and politician’s pockets. |
| So I echo my Mississippi spiritual ancestor Fannie Lou Hamer’s proclamation to white Americans: “This country was built on the blood and the sweat of black people … What you have done in the past – trying to wipe us out as human beings – you’ve done that. But we can’t let you get away with it.” | So I echo my Mississippi spiritual ancestor Fannie Lou Hamer’s proclamation to white Americans: “This country was built on the blood and the sweat of black people … What you have done in the past – trying to wipe us out as human beings – you’ve done that. But we can’t let you get away with it.” |
| The uprisings we are experiencing along the fault lines of race and class decades after she said that shouldn’t surprise anybody. | The uprisings we are experiencing along the fault lines of race and class decades after she said that shouldn’t surprise anybody. |
| See, we inhabit a nation that has the audacity and arrogance to admonish black people to feel grateful for so-called “progress”, as if we owe this country a favor. As if it hasn’t murdered and criminalized us for trying to reap the benefits that we bled for. | See, we inhabit a nation that has the audacity and arrogance to admonish black people to feel grateful for so-called “progress”, as if we owe this country a favor. As if it hasn’t murdered and criminalized us for trying to reap the benefits that we bled for. |
| But, I tell you what: we won’t let them get away with it. | But, I tell you what: we won’t let them get away with it. |