Whites, Racist, and African American Responsibility

Whites, Racist, and African American Responsibility

As we look at our current administration and ponder how we, as a nation got here, let's not forget that not all White people are racist. There are many who have fought and died for the abolition of slavery and equal rights in this country. The NAACP was co-founded by White socialist, just to name a small tidbit of history revolving Whites who understood the evils of oppression. 

Let's also be clear about something else. The terms: racist, White supremacist, and prejudice, are synonymous with each other, but do not mean quite the same thing. Being a racist means one who has the POWER to oppress another culture based on race. Therefore a racist can be all three of those terms, but someone who is a White supremacist may or may not be a racist if he/she does not have the power to oppress. 

I think we focus our attentions too much on those that oppress and not enough on unshackling our minds from our oppressors. Racism is built into the structure of the world and it runs like clockwork with very little effort. Everybody has a responsibility in changing the system. WE need to understand that it takes great effort to create a paradigm shift in our minds from centuries of brainwashing. 

On the flip side of that, White people have been brainwashed too and in some warped ways are victims as well. However, they don't need to change because the system benefits them. It's going to take a conscious effort on both fronts to change the structure of racism and its oppressive nature. 

In the meantime we need to focus more attention on loving ourselves, and uplifting our communities by taking active roles in education and the politics and policies that impact us in meaningful ways. We need to stop making excuses and jump back into the trenches like we did during the Civil Rights Movement. But this time it's not about equal rights. It's about cleaning up our neighborhoods. It's about getting drugs, gangs and prostitution off our streets. It's about demanding resources so that we have healthy food and water in our communities. It's about giving our young people a shot at life through education and economic development. 

We don't need the dominating powers to do that because we've done it before with a lot less. Our mental and physical survival depends on it. Otherwise those that are in power are going to continue going for our jugular and our lives. This is our country too. We built it and with our brains, hands, hearts, wills, arms, legs, shoulders, backs, blood, sweat, and tears made it strong. We are not resident aliens. We are founders and we need to believe it, and with the faith of our ancestors, start acting like it. When we do, the entire world changes.