Hello Faithful Reader,
I hope this month’s edition of the Black Birds Eye View finds you will and in good spirit. This month I will be sharing an incidence that I was involved in. Every so often something happens that makes me remember where I am and how I am viewed by a vast majority of Americans. I will begin by asking you to try to put yourself in the place of an African Woman:
She is walking. Minding her own business. One minute she is at peace and the next…. her world was turned upside down. I can’t imagine what she must have been thinking or how scared she was. Think about it, there you are minding your business……doing whatever it is that you do and along comes a gang of people who look nothing like you with whips, chains, and guns…whose sole purpose and intent is to hunt you and the likes of you. They want to catch you alive. You are no use to them dead. In whose world is this alright? Who did they think they were? Why couldn’t they just leave her in peace?
Stock……that’s what they called her. That’s how they justified her enslavement. She was a human being. She was probably a daughter, a sister, a mother, a cousin, a grandmother, a niece…. she was a human being. She was treated like the ship’s cargo and brought her to America to be auctioned to the highest bidder. They stood her up…made her show them her teeth…. they touched her…they felt her…they stripped her of her dignity and her identity. Why couldn’t they just leave her in peace?
They justified the enslavement of Africans for over 400 years by labeling them as chattel. You gotta wonder though…. how did they hatch that plan? What?... A bunch of white folks sitting around one day and were like, “We got a lot of cotton to grow and pick and all kinds of work to do….and we need free labor…. I heard tell there were niggers in Africa. Let’s go get them and make them work for us…. for free.” Is that how it went? If that’s the case how did it last for 400 years? It’s easy to say what you will or won’t do when you are not involved…. but I just can’t see myself giving in and being a slave…. being called boy and whipped and sold. I guess that’s why they had to chain us down. Before I lived like an animal in America, I would have died on my feet fighting before I ever stepped one foot on a ship. Based on the way the white man introduced himself to the African, it would be easy to deduce that punishment could be fatal for the African if he chose to fight. That right there should have been enough reason to fight.
I don’t know what happened. All I know is…. they didn’t fight hard enough. They couldn’t have fought hard enough for things to be the way they are today. Imagine it being normal to be beaten and hung with no protection. You can google and find old photographs of a whole town of white folk dressed in their Sundays best, with their families at a picnic…. better known “as pick a nigga,” where it was common to see a dead African hanging from a noose over little white children frocking and playing as adults laughed. That African probably chose to run to freedom that never existed in America. He could have been some of my family….my ancestor. I don’t even know why they post pictures like that. All it does is make us mad. How could we not be? People get tired of being stepped on.
Fast forward to present day America in Washington North Carolina.
It was early on a Sunday morning when a friend of mine and I just so happened to end up at Pam’s Diner in Washington, NC. We called ourselves getting a cup of coffee and grabbing a quick bite to eat. We googled breakfast spots and went to the closest one. I knew walking through the door that something was not right, call it intuition. To call the diner "Red Neck Central" would be an understatement. The moment we walked through the door, an old white man said "Get you a table in the back. It's cozy back there." I'm militant by nature, so I'm already cocked on ready at the first sign of some foolishness. I sat down at the first booth in the front of the diner. My friend that I was with assured me that I took the old man’s statement wrong. I wasn’t so sure. I sat with a brow raised. I got up and went to the restroom, because you can tell a lot by the way folk keep their bathrooms... As I walked to the bathroom, I could feel eyes bearing down on me. I looked to my right and see at least six white police officers sitting there watching me go to the restroom. I go entirely off energy and the energy in that cafe was wrong. Anyway, I went into the bathroom and closed the door and instantly felt the need to vacate the premises. I came out of the bathroom and went back to the booth I had been sitting at.... right about then...I noticed something alarming….you know how you type a sigh then print it and stick it to a window.....so the person on the inside is reading backward?....well how about I looked at the door and I read the words "Hoodies Enter at your Own Risk" written backward because that is what was taped on the Diner’s door. I stood up and said to the “yuck mouth” waitress " I need to pay for this coffee and leave."
They may as well have plastered “No Niggas Allowed” on the door. When I tell you that just because things “seem” different does not mean things are…. I mean it. The boldness that it takes to be insensitive enough to post that on the front door, knowing its implication, is mind-blowing. The owners of the establishment clearly do not care if they come across as insensitive and prejudice. The sign is clearly meant to keep Black folk away.
This type of thing goes on all the time and people turn a blind eye to it. It left a very bad taste in my mouth. Now more than ever Black People need to support black-owned businesses. We need to stop getting upset when we are mistreated in white establishments. We need to stop insisting that they allow us in. We need to control the black dollar and understand the power we wield in the grand scheme of economics.
Until Next Month. Be well.
Always, Robin
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