A CONVERSATION WITH AMERICA

America,

Happy Belated Birthday. Wow 238 years! You are still very young. You have the potential to be the best there ever was. With the proper guidance of course. I’m having this conversation with you on the behalf of most black people. We’d like you to understand how we feel about you and how hard it is for us to do things such as “celebrating” your birth. It’s not that we don’t acknowledge who you are and what you have done for us. I mean how can we forget. But we often times feel as though you have forgotten. But I want to remind you and some of your children on our history together. And maybe, after then, you’d actually see that it takes a lot for us to not only celebrate your birth, but to serve and die so that you can continue to live.

The Introduction

Our introduction wasn’t the best. We would have liked for it to go a little smoother but on the day that Thomas Jefferson wrote those beautiful words, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable RIGHTS, that among these are LIFE LIBERTY and PURSUIT of HAPPINESS,” ALL men didn’t include black people, African Americans, colored people, niggers, negroes or whichever you choose to call us,had no rights we weren’t even considered HUMAN  (Now before the feminist come complaining about them not having rights either, your man did, and since he did, you were able to reap certain benefits from his “unalienable rights” If the father of your child wasn’t being sold off, do one or two things stop reading or stop being selfish and put yourself in our shoes). We were nothing more than property. You forced us to breed, then took what we created and sold them off. Teaching us that the black family had no value. Teaching us not  to trust our men. Teaching our men how not to lead and that he was only as good as how many seeds he could reproduce. America, does that sound familiar? You America started a slave patrol, hmmmm do you remember what your slave patrol did? They rode around in cars, I mean on horses (sorry i get the times confused), picking up slaves that ran away, they brought them back to the plantations sometimes dead, sometimes alive. Could you imagine black women telling their black sons, fathers, and husbands (oh we weren’t allowed to marry because we weren’t human) to watch out for the slave patrol? Hmmmmmm America I wonder what became of the slave patrol, do you now call them police officers? I know I know, you are thinking, well they wouldn’t have gotten killed had they not have tried to run away. I mean that’s what you tell us now, isn’t it? Had she not have talked back, Had he not have sold loose cigarettes, had he not tried to run away, he had not have been black, my bad you won’t admit to that last statement. But we get it though.  There were a few of us that decide to fight back, The most famous, I’m sure you know is Nat Turner, surely you remember him. He learned how to read and started a rebellion. He was killed of course and then slaves were killed if they were caught reading. Some slaves didn’t know what happened with Nat Turner and all they knew was NOT to read because if they did, they were killed. So it was passed down from generation to generation NOT to read. Wow America, some of this stuff sounds so familiar. You know there’s a saying, “if you want to hide something from us, put it in a book.” I know I know, you are wondering why I’m giving you a history course on you, right? Well America I think you sometimes forget where you came from.  And you know what they say, if you don’t know HIStory it’s bound to repeat itself and we don’t want your story being repeated. So as i friend I think it’s best to talk about this in hopes of you humbling yourself.

Well America you decided to free us, I know you say that the 16th president freed us, but He didn’t care about slaves. He didn’t want to be known as the President that lost the country so his hands were forced. And the Proclamation was put to law when he didn’t have control of the Confederate states. So in my eyes he couldn’t free what he couldn’t control.

I’s a free man now (what?)

Now we are free and what did we have? After all, we had just spent the last centurie(S) building wealth for others. And we were left with nothing but the clothing on our backs. Nowhere to go. I heard a pastor say, “it was like sitting down at a table to play monopoly and everyone got $200 to start but us, Now how are we supposed to play a game from behind.” And that’s where we are today, behind. Now I could go on and on about our relationship and how we were treated over the years but I’ll save that for next time. America, you have to know its hard for us, you freed us on paper but you have a modern day enslavement. You created poverty and make money off of it.

As we just celebrated another birthday, exactly one day later, another black man was killed by your slave patrol my bad the police. Then the very next day, another black man was recorded by his girlfriend being killed by the police. And before you mention black on black crime, A) what about white on white crime. B) you created black on black crime. How did you create black on black crime?  By creating poverty. How did you create poverty? Come on America you are very intelligent, you know how. Oh you truly don’t know, my bad. I’ll explain. You created poverty when you denied Deandre Jones (made up black name) a small business loan when he tried to open up a business that would have employed black people. Or by putting drugs (the war on drugs) into our communities that allowed people to get introduced to crack and sent black men to prison (creating stricter laws on crack). And dividing the black family and the black community. I know America you thought you were being slick but we caught on. Yeah I know it took us awhile. But you know all those chemicals found in our water supplies kind of slowed us down.

You fooled us, well we kind of fooled ourselves, but as we integrated, we realized decades later that we didn’t need to integrate. What we truly needed was equality and we still don’t have it. Because integration was the death of the black community. Since we so badly wanted to be accepted by you, America. We lost ownership of our communities, making you rich in the progress or should I say retrogress. We even had organizations that kept your drugs and slave patrol  (my bad police) out. We had gangs and the black panthers. But you America, infiltrated them divided them then conquered. Black churches even taught us that we deserved equality, now all they tell is to suffer now because a heaven is waiting for us. Oh you know about heaven, you forced it down us when you owned us. Now instead of banning together and taking our communities back, all the black churches (not all but some) do is preach about heaven, sin and hell.

But America, I need you to know that there is a new awaken. More and More the new generation isn’t buying it. We are talking, sharing and spreading the word. And we are calling you out on your hypocrisy. I’m a veteran. I served my country and I protected you so that you could have more birthdays and  I know a lot of black men and women that died so that you can have more birthdays. All we ask is allow us the chance at what we truly deserve, I mean you told us that we deserved it in your declaration, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that ALL men (black white man woman gay straight christian muslim atheist) are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable RIGHTS that among these are LIFE LIBERTY and the pursuit of HAPPINESS.”

Erica L. Tolbert