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Perspectives
FCN Editorial - Nightmare in America
By FinalCall.com Editorial
Updated Apr 17, 2008 - 12:39:00 PM
With the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., America once again debated the state of race relations and the plight of Blacks in America.
The dominant question and theme was how much progress has been made since the fatal shooting of the civil rights leader April 4, 1968 in Memphis on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
Some cited the rise of the Black middle class, the political success of Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, political, business, sports and academic standouts as well as educational gains and the end of legal segregation as proof of progress.
They argued America is not perfect, but the movement toward a more perfect union and Dr. King’s dream of a society where everyone is judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin continues.
But should we be talking about progress at all? In a society where the original intent was to work Blacks to death, it could be argued that anything above outright murder might be seen as progress. The children of slaves don’t need to just make “progress,” which is always limited to the wishes and whims of their former slave masters. The children of slaves in America need to embrace self-determination, the God-given right to make decisions “according to one’s own mind, or will, without outside influence; free will.”
Blacks in America have never had the opportunity to decide their own fate and decide the type of relationship desired with the United States of America. There has been a constant clash between the oppressed and the oppressors, with neither seeing the others point of view. But can the slave and the slave master ever see anything in the same light?
During chattel slavery, the slave master determined our names, our mates, our jobs, our religion and whether we lived or died. The Jim Crow era brought legal segregation and laws that outweighed attempts to amend our condition and endow us with constitutional rights Whites reserved for themselves. The 1950s, ’60s and ’70s were watershed decades where the cry for Black liberation and freedom exploded and legal segregation was abolished.
But in 1978, the Regents of the University of California Vs. Bakke court case decision ushered in legal attacks on affirmative action, a mild remedy to centuries of racial oppression and murder. Now the words of Dr. King are twisted to justify depriving his people of opportunity and to cause confusion about whether race should ever be discussed or considered at all—though the masses continue to go backward and the Black middle class clings to its precarious position in society.
Progress is again determined by how much or how little the White power structure decides to give to its Colored, Negroes, or African Americans, depending on which phrase is in vogue. The former slave masters may feel that another 80 years to become equal with them in high school graduations is fine. Having 1 in 9 young Black men in prison may appear to Whites to be an indication that the criminal justice system is working. The fact that Blacks have only closed the per capita income gap with Whites by only 3 cents on the dollar over the course of four decades and will take another 537 years to reach income parity may be acceptable to our former slave masters.
But with Black youth dropping out of schools, jobs fleeing U.S. shores, Black neighborhoods hemorrhaging hard-earned money, foreclosure, murder, poverty and AIDS rates at tremendously high rates, can we wait another 537 years, 80 years, or even 4 years for things to just get better?
“Some of us look at American society and we see some Blacks doing well, making what we think is progress and wealth and prestige, and we say, ‘We’re moving on up now. Things aren’t so bad. Why look at Oprah, Barack Obama, P. Diddy, Tiger Woods, Clarence Thomas. Look at Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Aren’t they clear signs of progress?’ Much has been said about the growth of the Black middle class and how it appears we have finally turned the corner in our quest to attain the American dream. But is this real? Is it one of the tricks of Pharaoh and his magicians? It is designed to delay our attainment of the true Kingdom of God for His people? In reality we have the illusion, the trappings of progress, but little else to show for our 452 years in bondage and now as free slaves in North America,” said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, speaking in October 2007 at the Holy Day of Atonement observation in Atlanta.
The definition of a slave is one whose actions are not dictated by his own desires or even in his own interests. If we desire to be free, we must decide how much is enough and not be shackled to what we believe the White power structure will accept as right or reasonable.
True progress will occur when we chart our own course and plan for our own future. But as long as we bow down to our former slave masters we will never achieve our God-given potential or embrace a divine-ordained future. That will only doom us to destruction.
