Race and Gender Essay
The choice I made is a podcast by the New York times gathering items to use in commemorating four hundred years since the first slaves set foot on Virginia’s shores. Slaves who were twenty in number were heckled over like pieces of meat. Reduced from humanity to pieces of a trade. These slaves were Africans and had a different skin tone from the English colonialists and the American continent’s general common population. The black slaves were economic tools themselves, and, in their slavery, they generated more economic prowess for American society and wellbeing. The slaves built the economies by putting in back-breaking work, blood, and sweat. These same black people cannot do the basic things any white person can easily lay their hands on. The whites are privileged to access these things inaccessible to blacks by simply being white. The text I chose to help navigate my argument is White fragility-why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism by Robin Diangelo.
After independence, a white woman could vote since 1920, while a black woman was accorded this voting right in 1964. White men decide these black people’s fate. Same to that of the white women in 1920. This black person who is marginalized and definitely has no privileges is not privy to any white person’s healthcare advantage. Coming into a country as a slave, a black person did not have any say in his fate or direction his life purposes to take. He was directed and shown which way to go. The brutality that was beyond animal insensitivity was first experienced on a plantation. A black person was raped, sodomized, overworked, underfed, and still built the economy on their knees.
When independence was attained, preach about democracy and freedom was the cry of white Americans. Fighting ill-treatment from an English man yet hypocritically enslaving the black person like an animal without humanity. Some white people even argued that a black man did not sit with white men as he was not a human being. Whites only accessible amenities exist up to date. Some social places of leisure do not allow black people to enter. With the liberation of the black man, the question that needs answering is even the natives of America themselves are racially profiled. The white American is in America too by chance and is not originally from here. Then why does a white person feel superior to even the natives themselves?
Being a black man in the United States of America is a liability itself. A white woman’s tears could land you in jail or dead much more easily as a Blackman without a fighting chance to or being able to plead your case. Why, then, is it so easy to condemn a black man yet a white man is still a criminal like any black man. A white man always does mass shootings, yet this is never stereotyped and believed of every other white man. A black man is guilty without a chance to prove innocence whole a white person is free until proven guilty. The bias even when it comes to job offers where a white man has reassured a chance without even trying, but a person of color needs to bend backward to attain minute milestones. When Robin Diangelo stands up to train a few workmates on being racially aware, a white man bursts out to say as a white man; you can not land a job anymore. The privilege that accords other special humanity while others, especially those of color, do not deserve a seat at the table.
The oblivion ignorance of exploited people without a chance to voice their needs or desires. Second-class citizens face brutal daylight murder with the perpetrators getting a slap on the hand for such heinous acts. A sad reality where people are detached from injustices claiming it is not our problem because the injustice is not toward one of us. From the film twelve years a slave, we see black people’s exchange like a goat in a market and the brutality they faced. A free Blackman did not walk around freely but constantly reminded to watch their back. The same applies to today, where a black man’s freedom is like a chess game where he is constantly careful to watch his surroundings.
The campaign by the New York times is a reminder to us as a people that four hundred years as slaves, a black man landed in America. The Blackman might be treated like an unwanted guest, but he did not ferry himself here. The constitution accords a person of color the same human rights as a white person. No clause specifies that only white people are privileged to have any form of human rights. Creating awareness that injustice on a few and being blind to their plight is not a solution to the society and the racially segregated population. A reminder that they did not bring themselves here but were brought here against their will. Separated from their families with nowhere else to call home. We brought them here in shackles, and they helped build our sovereign nation. Why not acknowledge them instead of treating them as a tolerated nuisance. Why not create a place for them because the economic prowess rests on their hands. Capitalism is rooted in those cotton fields the black man plowed to generate wealth for the American people.
This circulation seeks to create awareness of the underplaying of the black man’s plight. It seeks to remind us of the brutality a man of color has faced. Awareness is high time; we see them hear them and accord them chances like any other person of color. We need to see ourselves beyond race. Try to compensate for the brutality by treating a black person as humanly as possible. Music is a black man’s strong point. He is the source of widely affected tunes and creations of art. The embrace of their creativity should be carried all the way to them as humans. We need not segregate Blackman according to their prowess. Good academic performance should not be undermined with meaningless semantics, denying a good brain a chance due to their skin color. We all need access to education and healthcare that serves all of us humanely.
This podcast’s message is that enslavement is an ugly practice that we subscribed to and help propagate. A person from Africa brought in chairs is not problematic to himself but our problem rather. The society needs to live up to their sins and embrace the evils they brought to themselves. Being impartial to the Blackman’s presence is akin to burying our heads in the sand. Advocating for democracy and freedom, yet we leave a group of people in chains of bondage, is extremely hypocritic. When we are punishing people of a certain complexion, there being amongst us is selfish and without insight. Our forefathers all were settlers; why then do we as a people segregate those we forcefully brought here without consent?
The picking of quotations from different authors shows that it is a recurring thought in most people’s minds. The spreading of the message of black people’s equal treatment needs to be voiced more. They need to be invited to the table when making crucial decisions about their lives. Black basketballers rake in billions of dollars for especially basketball club owners, yet they do not partake in these billions’ pie. Reflecting plantations and being workers but not reapers. The message is reinforced because it seems the fight has always been there, and soldiers are recruited by the passing day. The propagation of the message on this platform is genius, as this site is accessible countrywide. The whole world needs a glimpse of the truth about enslaving the Blackman. No one is born knowing hatred but rather learned. If a conscious decision to deliberately be conscious of everyone in our country despite their skin color, we won’t need to be reminded of enslavement. If we are truthful to humanity’s truths, sitting back and folding out hands is not doing something. Requiring the eradication of downplaying the slave trade when taught to children should be a criminal offense punishable by law.
Bibliography
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html?smid=pl-share