by Tyson Amir
This might also make you think a little differently when you hear people refer to a U.S. city like Chicago as “Chi-raq,” and when a rapper such as J. Cole refers to his hometown of Fayetteville as Fayettenam. There is truth in these descriptions, although some of the monikers are used to glorify the violence in the respective cities. Still, the reality is that blacks who live in America and many urban cities die like they were living in “war zones” in other countries.
I don't think you fully comprehend the pain of looking at children and knowing that a substantial percentage of them will fall in line to fill up the vacancies in all those categories. Not all black children will find their way to these miserable destinies, but the reality that a substantial percentage will should be alarming enough to this society to do something. But we are the cast-offs; we are the ones whose lives do not matter. We are the acceptable collateral damage. And this is unacceptable. I understand how America justifies it and turns blind eye and deaf ear to the suffering of blacks in America, but I will never accept it, and I won't be silent.
The piece commences by reminding my people that we are the only ones who care about our losses and our suffering; therefore, it is on our shoulders to do something about it. Relying on the authorities to make adjustments to help us is an exercise of futility. We've been facing similar issues since the colonial era in America. From 1619 to the present, the tide of terror and oppression has not ebbed. We're four centuries deep, and there has only been one brief respite. The Reconstruction era was that respite, and when I say brief, I mean brief. We're talking less than twelve years, and blacks were still being terrorized during that time.
Reconstruction is that short-lived time in America when the U.S. government actually created legislation, amended the Constitution, and used government resources to make sure rights of "freedmen" were protected. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was a concerted effort on behalf of the American government. Reconstruction gave us the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. The Fourteenth is arguably the most important amendment because it establishes citizenship and “equal protection” of the laws for all who are citizens. We know equal protection is more theory than reality, but the text was born out of a "sincere" attempt to grant citizenship and rights to free blacks. The window of Reconstruction lasted a little more than ten years, and then eventually the U.S. government declared that securing the rights of freedmen was no longer a priority. In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant voiced to his cabinet his belief that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was a mistake, saying, "it had done the Negro no good and had been a hindrance to the South and by no means a political advantage to the North." Grant's opinion was one of many that reflected the nation's lack of commitment to securing black rights even if it meant “a hindrance to the South or no real advantage to the North.” As if giving somebody the rights they are entitled to should be subject to the level of comfort of others. This is how America has felt about black rights since the beginning.
In the almost 400-year history of this colony and nation, Reconstruction constitutes a shift that barely lasted longer than a decade. How do twelve years cancel out institutional hate from 1619 up until 1865? It is not possible, and that is precisely why the end of Reconstruction symbolized the return to business as usual in the white south. For the sake of argument, if we were to make the Reconstruction age a percentage of time in the black experience in America, it would equate to less than 5 percent of our time in this land. Less than 5 percent of the time blacks have been in America, the American government has actively sought to safeguard black rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Reconstruction was far from perfect, and by no means was it the solution to black problems in America. It is a very well-known fact that Reconstruction led to the rise of white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, which was created in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee. The KKK may have been the first major white supremacist organization, but others soon followed in their footsteps, terrorizing and brutalizing blacks because the government was trying to grant them societal inclusion. So while the government was trying to make things better, others were trying to make things worse. And then eventually the government lost interest in trying to guarantee equal protection to blacks and moved on to matters that were more important to the homeland. Our government has kept the same focus ever since.
This is the birthplace of the dirge. Blacks live in a society that places no value on their lives. We look for justice, but there is none to be found because the historical practice of exonerating the killers of black people is firmly established. Between the years 1882 and 1964, more than 3,445 black men, women, and children were lynched in America, and this number doesn't include the thousands of convict laborers who died by the hands of whites. In this time frame of mass lynching, only one white man was convicted of murdering black folks. Only one. The journalist Shaun King described this statistical improbability in these terms:
"What this means is that the conviction rate for illegally lynching an African-American during this time in history was 0.00058%. Fans are more likely to sink a half-court NBA shot than a jury is to convict a white man for lynching a black person."
While all this injustice was happening to blacks, the rate of conviction for murder when the victim was white had "a clearance rate of nearly 90%." We do not find justice while we are alive, and justice is seldom found when one of us dies. How do you rest in peace when your murderers walk freely, especially when those killers with badges are still employed ready to brutalize and possibly murder another black life?
They want to see us jump, rap, sing, and dance. Corporations steal from our culture for the benefit of the greater American society, while the greater American society has no concern for the general well-being of the black life. Exiled to the fringes of American life, we are left to survive the best way we can. White faces pull back black triggers, firing bullets that carry black death down the barrels of black guns, that rip through black bodies, killing black dreams and destroying black homes. The trigger pullers then go home to their families, and we are left to mourn our loss. We bury our dead in cold black holes, never fully able to heal or move on. They are remembered as hashtags, faces on T-shirts, and memes. We compose black poetry and black raps, and sing melancholy tunes backed with the slow dirge in their remembrance. The media wants to tell us that black people are mainly killed by other blacks, but the reality of so called, "black on black crime" and state-sponsored murder of black lives are two sides of the same coin. There is no difference behind who pulls the trigger and extinguishes a black life when the problems and hate are byproducts of the same racist and greedy practices grown, perfected, and applied with brutal efficiency here in America.
“Letter to Johnetta” (2015)
She's that fast talking,
lip popping,
teeth sucking,
often annoyed
quick to start something
with anybody over nothing
allowing everybody to push her imaginary button
forever beefing with her dude
and quick to cut him,
black girl.
Johnetta I see you.
I mean like for real for real I see you.
And I wish I had some magic power
or some latent mutant ability
that could allow you to see you for you.
Not what America tells you is you
not what these dudes in these raps songs say about you
or what the streets say you need to be
but who you are for you.
The story goes
Your Pops probably wasn't around
you and your moms might or might not be on good terms
probably been to jail a few times
life took a couple u-turns
that's probably how we met,
I was teaching at the county and there you were.
My job was to teach you some math,
or some new
words.
Open up your mind to a new world
but in the process noticing how lost you were.
I asked you about your family
and you told me about your new girl.
What's your baby girl like?
She extra smart, she real cute
but she hates it when I'm gone.
Where her daddy at?
Oh, he locked up
he ain't gonna be coming home.
How you deal with that?
I 'on't even know.
What you gonna do when you get out?
Shoot, I ain't gonna do that much boosting anymore.
Or I ain't gonna be getting high,
I'm gonna get my babies this time.
Go back to school get me a GED
get me a cool 9 to 5.
But when they back to the streets
so often them dreams get cast off,
she go back to selling that kat off
or getting them packs off
dreams of getting them stacks and them racks tall
not understanding how we so thoroughly blackballed,
and this ain't no judgment
because it ain't our fault.
The government has historically made us into outlaws.
See, in slavery days the slave master would make us watch
as he forcefully deflowered y'all,
then crept to your quarters at night making them house calls.
And sadly, your king, meaning me
was without claws
because without cause
he could hang me by my neck
from a tree with a string
until my heart paused.
Pause!
The system made it so we failed y'all
and the strong women you are
you showed your resolve and evolved.
You had babies to raise.
Meals to cook and homes to make
to help your babies to grow in hopes that they won't break
in the face of this American hate
that attempted to emasculate your man
and put us at odds in the first place.
Since then we trying to get our rhythm back.
America hating on everything that means living black.
Then we end up hating everything inside of us
that means the same thing in fact.
See, Johnetta I know all that
but what I want now is our men and our women back.
The devil been feeding us lies
all that bitches and hoes,
bad bitch
trap queen
thug misses,
that ain't you,
that ain't us.
We are the inheritors of cultura filled with riches.
They say the greatest of tricks ever performed is by the devil
making us doubt his existence.
And what I see happening to my brothers and sisters clearly
bares the mark of his imprint.
This letter is penned with hopes that you'll remember your beginnings
before this cloud of white hate descended
and sent us down a path or self hate and resentment.
This letter was penned in hopes that you'll remember your beginnings.
Please remember your beginnings, my beautiful sisters.
Please remember our beginnings.
__________________________________________________________________________
Reflections of a Black Boy
Hypothetically speaking, if I were to somehow be born a fully functioning adult with a mature intellect and somebody was to attempt to explain the concept of God or higher power to me, if I then went out into the world to try to find a parallel for that idea, the closest approximation of what I'd understand in my head would be that of a woman. And sadly, just like "sacred" traditions, the truth of who she is has been coopted and mutilated by men.
__________________________________________________________________________
We live in a patriarchal society, meaning that men, more specifically wealthy white capitalist men, have shaped the contours of American life. If you are interested in a more authoritative definition, then I suggest our dear scholar, bell hooks, and her definition of patriarchy from The Will to Change. For the purposes of this text we'll define patriarchy as a local and global system based upon the false assumption that men, particularly white men are superior to all living things. This assumed superiority grants them the "right" to dominate in all areas of human interaction. Their domination is reinforced in multiple ways in all institutions they create to further perpetuate male dominance and female subservience. Patriarchy is the very reason why our society exhibits a heightened focus on the male, placing greater importance on his place in the world. This is the language western society speaks. It's certainly the language that America speaks.
I can easily discuss the male experience because it is my native experience. At times, I even question if as a man I should broach the subject of the female experience. I do not like it when other groups appropriate my experience and attempt to speak on it or use it for their own personal gain. I would be hypocritical to do the same to another group, especially women. I write this conscious of that fact.
With all of that in mind and in pen, let us proceed lightly. The black woman, who suffers for the same reasons as the black man, isn't granted the same forum for analysis, discussion, and healing. Her struggle and suffering most often has to occur in silence. She has to perform the incredible feat of being the comfort for her man who is beaten down by this world while at the same time knowing full and well there is nobody responsible for providing comfort for her. Who is her shoulder to cry on when the world treats her all the harmful ways it does? She is the first to rally and fight for her man and children but often left alone when allies are needed to rally to fight for her. When it comes to the harsh realities of the struggle, the woman can be seen amongst the ranks of the politically imprisoned and fallen, giving life and limb for the survival of her family and people. She mothers the next generation while fending off the attacks of the society she has to raise her children in.
When conflict turns to fighting and blood is spilled, she is brutalized by rape and other forms of torture. When captured and in the hands of tyrants, she is bought and sold for the pleasure of her tormentors. The woman under patriarchal domination has been put through so much, but we do not respect her suffering the same way we do a man's suffering. If the black man's existence in America has been hell, then the black woman has experienced hell to an exponentially higher power. She has experienced everything the black man has plus some. We don't know the pain of having our bodies violated the way black women have been abused and raped by white America and black men as well. We don't know the pain of seeing the babies created from your body sold off into slavery, or being gunned down in the street. Or the pain of simultaneously having to nurse the physical and psychological wounds of your man and children, as well as your own. There is so much in the struggle of black women that goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
Like black men, black women live in a world that does not allow them to fully reach their potential. They are physically imprisoned in a society and then oftentimes imprisoned again by the men who make up their community who are supposed to love and support them. The black woman in America suffers from at least three major layers of oppression. First, she's black, and automatically she is undervalued because of the color of her skin. This undervaluing affects black men and women alike. Second, she's a woman, and equity between the sexes in America is still a theory. The reality of the inequity is that the gains white women have received via various iterations of women's movements have not been shared equally by all women, specifically black women. This is why there exists a sharp racial critique of "feminism." White women have benefited a great deal from their organized efforts, but the fruits of the labor have not been shared equally by all sisters in the struggle.
Third, she's a black woman, which puts her in the lowest stratum of society. The oppression she faces as a black person is something all black people, regardless of gender identity, face. The oppression she faces as a woman is something heaped upon all women regardless of color, but her designation as both black and woman puts her in a category all to her own, which subjects her to the worst forms of oppression from white and black men, as well as white women. She is attacked on the three fronts that are used to define who she is.
Audre Lorde said about her role as a black feminist:
“I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable.”
I will never speak on behalf of a woman because the women I know are more than capable of advocating for themselves. I am at best an ally in the black feminist movement. My mother, my sister, my partner, my aunts, cousins, nieces, friends, my colleagues, and classmates are all capable of discussing the plight of women of color in America far more eloquently than I could ever do. I have been surrounded by incredible, brilliant women all my life. I would never dare to talk at or down to, and if I did, they would put me in my place real quick.
This poem was an attempt to have a conversation with the women that I know from the neighborhood or the streets, or those that I've crossed paths with on the inside. “Letter to Johnetta” is similar to another piece in this collection, “Out.” I wrote that for the men I encountered on the streets and in jails. The more time I spent teaching women, the more I began to feel guilty about not giving attention to my experience with them. Sadly, that lack of attention reflects a greater societal trend of devaluing women. Consequently, incarcerated women are the most exploited and underserved incarcerated population in America. Most programs and services in jails and prisons have been designed for men. Very few services are allocated for women, and out of those services, very few programs have been created to meet the needs of incarcerated women. I could not allow my pen to show the same type of neglect.
