Tuesday, September 30, 2014

The Call (for Michael Brown and other Casualties)


The Call (for Michael Brown & Other Casualties)

A mother grieves.  A father is left brokenhearted. A city is divided.  And a nation waits with baited breath to see how it all turns out.  All of this after an 18 year old man-child is gunned down on the streets of America by those whose car tags say “Protect and Serve.”  But who, in actuality, are they protecting?  For certainly it is not those of black and brown skin in this land, as time and again we are racially profiled, falsely accused and almost always assumed guilty until proven innocent….if we are ever given a chance to prove that innocence.  As the lifeless body of Michael Brown, lay shot and uncovered in the street for hours, the people were met with aggression and intolerance by law enforcement, as our rights to gather and for peaceful protest were ignored.  Our first amendment rights ignored, then violated.

The message was clear: You are not welcome here.  Your life has no meaning.  Know your place.  You are expendable.  No matter what we do to you, accept it and don’t raise your voice against it.  You are just another nigger and don’t you ever forget it.  And we heard it – loud and clear.  It’s message traveling through the airwaves like the sound of light.  To a nation it said: Wake UP!  To a people it said: Things have not changed, no matter how things appear on the outside.

We have become complacent.  Confused even.  From the time of our entry into this land through the hundreds of years leading to the Civil Rights Movement, as a people, we knew our place.  We were under no misconceptions that we were looked at as less than second class citizens.  That our road would be harder.  That no matter what we had, how much wealth we amassed, we were still seen as worthless.  We understood how to navigate this world we’d been thrust into, born into.  We understood the necessity of sticking together as a people.  We knew that we were not safe.  We knew to look within and to each other for help.  We knew to keep our hands laced in the hands of God for wisdom and for protection.

But somehow we’ve forgotten.  Perhaps it was the ability to live in their neighborhoods.  Or maybe it was the openness we could flaunt our interracial relationships,  marriages, children.  Who knows….maybe it was being able to assimilate their schools, work alongside them or join their exclusive groups.  Oh….perhaps it was being able to spend our hard earned dollars in their stores, helping them to amass a fortune.  Whatever it was, it’s like we’ve forgotten that underneath it all, no matter how calm things appear on the surface, we are not them.
 
Our recent successes have clouded our eyes, made us think that our degrees made us better than the mother on welfare.  Our good diction and ability to speak the king’s English set us higher than our more flat or “ebonics” speaking brothers and sisters.  Our fancy clothes, spit shined shoes and 401K’s made us think we were better than those who made their living on the streets of urban America.  Hidden behind stock options, corner offices, initials behind our names and McMansions, we have forgotten that there is an entire system in place that is not meant for us.  Was never meant for us.  Oh don’t get me wrong. I am not in any way saying that we should not work for and desire a better life.  That is certainly not my point.

It started me to thinking.  Why is there such hostility between blacks and whites?  Specifically, why are black people targeted and consistently mistreated by white Americans in this country?  Why the double standard?  And it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Because we were brought here as slaves and they never expected to have to deal with us as equals.  As we know their system, their plan lasted for generations, hundreds of years.  Since the Civil War and our supposed “freedom” that it granted us, they’ve been trying to re-enslave us one step, one person, one system at a time.  It makes me wonder are we oblivious to what is going on right around us?

The overall plight of my people in this country breaks my heart.  Again, I find myself asking, don’t we see?  The same drugs we are catching convictions for are the same drugs they infiltrated into our communities.  Shall I remind us that we had no boats, planes or other means of being able to get that stuff here?  But they played on our poverty and lack knowing that at some point the survival of the fittest would kick in and folks would be willing to sell father, mother, sister, brother, neighbor, and child to make a fast buck and give themselves a chance to rise up.  Even if it meant destroying our families, our communities, and killing each other to stop their individual suffering.

Through it, they have managed to put us back in a form of slavery – this time instead of selling off our sons, brothers and fathers, now they kill them, we kill them, or they are incarcerated, leaving yet another generation to have to fend for itself.  Through it, they have managed to take even the mother figure and have her working so hard at so many hours there is no one to raise her children or she gets hooked on the very substances that infuse the fiber of urban living. Another generation is lost – this time to incarceration, our children being put in a completely inept foster care system, more poverty as young women have babies out of wedlock with no fathers to help raise them.  Despite our successes, none of us is immune to its effects. 

For a while we were complacent.  Comfortable even.  Now the unarmed teen running to the store murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the famed historian arrested by cops at his home share the same story as the female professor groped on the campus streets where she worked like a common whore and the unarmed man choked to death while handcuffed on the city streets.  And the common denominator is their race.  No one is off limits.  We can no longer convince ourselves that it’s “their problem.”  As a people, it’s our problem.

It’s time to put aside the petty differences of territory; of she looked at me wrong; of he stepped on my shoe and disrespected me and realize that we need each other.  There is no demilitarized zone.  This whole attitude of us four and no more, and “I ain’t looking out for the next man” is the very division that is used against us to defeat our own people.  Any of these scenarios could so easily be me, you or someone that we know.  It’s time to get back to the basics of community.  Of unity.  Of togetherness. It’s time to bring about a change that says life is so much more than the labels on our backs.  Am I my brother’s (or sister’s) keeper?   You bet I am, and so are you.  It’s time to look each other in the eyes and acknowledge our shared struggle.  It’s time to get back to loving each other.  We can accomplish so much more unified than we can as independent agents.

The call has sounded…will you hear the call and come to action? For all the ones we’ve lost in the struggle, let’s not let their lives, their stories, their deaths be in vain.

To the parents of Michael Brown and all the others whose stories never make the news, we feel your pain.  Our hearts grieve the loss of life, just as yours does.  You are not alone.

Changing lives one word at a time….Tumika Patrice Cain
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Tumika Patrice Cain is an award-winning author, media personality, and motivational speaker. Through her imprint, Inkscriptions Publishing & Media Group, she provides high quality, affordable, mentor-based publishing services to indie authors, as well as inspired, empowering messages of hope and abundance through her media outlets. Her works can be found in many publications, including Fresh Lifestyle Magazine. To learn more about Tumika, her books, and her services visit the following websites. http://www.TumikaPatrice.com and http://www.InkscriptionsPMG.com



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