The Fourth of July is and has always been a holiday of confliction for me and for many African Americans. The very first “self-evident truth” of the Declaration of Independence – “That all men are created equal” – was a hypocritical mockery of my enslaved ancestors when that hallowed document was signed in 1776. Here we are 232 years later, and even with Barack Obama’s Democratic primary victory, Black people still wonder, “Are we really free?”
In deciding what I was going to write for my weekly Street Team ’08 report, Frederick Douglass’ immortal speech “The Meaning of July Fourth to the Negro”, delivered in 1852, immediately came to mind…
The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
But, I hesitated. First of all, white folks get upset when Black people talk about race and discrimination in America. An uncomfortable silence fills the room, and many people just stop listening. We ignore the economic and social disparities that still exist between whites and Blacks because no one wants to talk about the obvious racial origins of these problems.
And I’ll admit, Black folks can get defensive when the discussion turns to the racism that we still feel here. The constant criticism is that Blacks sometimes “play the race card” when no discrimination exists. In the end, many of us are guilty of spending too much time fighting the ghosts of racism and not enough time taking advantage of the real opportunities that do present themselves in this nation.
But then I thought about it… There’s a Black guy running for president, and race has been a constant issue throughout the campaign. I’m also the only Black male working on MTV’s Street Team this year. Now is DEFINITELY the time for me to talk about racism in America!
The first African slaves were brought to these shores in the year 1619. The U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1787. Slavery ended in 1865. The fact that it’s 2008 and we are just now seeing an African American candidate with a serious shot at winning the White House shows both how much and how little progress America has made over the past 400 years.
There’s a lot of history that we could talk about here. Most of our high school and college history classes glossed over Reconstruction, the period between 1866 and 1877 when Blacks in America were freed from slavery, gained considerable political power and were then betrayed by the government and thrown back into the virtual bondage of the Jim Crow/segregation era.
But who wants to talk about history? Ours is the first generation to experience racial integration in the United States. We all went to school together. We grew up seeing Black artists’ and white artists’ videos on MTV. Most of us don’t know and don’t care about the legend that then CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatened to boycott MTV if they didn’t play Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” video in 1983 at a time when the young network just didn’t air videos by Black artists. MTV founder Les Garland denies this story, but that’s beside the point.
The point is we’re living in a 21st century America where all citizens legally enjoy the same rights. In this environment we can have Oprah Winfrey AND Ellen Degeneres. We can have T.I. AND Justin Timberlake. We can have Barack Obama AND John McCain.
So why do the subjects of color, race, ethnicity and equality still cause such a stir? How can Bill Clinton go from being called “America’s first Black president” to being called a racist for his comments about Obama during the Democratic primary season? Why would a vendor at the Texas GOP convention sell buttons that say, “If Obama is president, will we still call it the White House?”
Because this is politics, baby, and race still divides America. Young people can claim that it’s just the old folks who have these issues, but a lot of white kids still wonder whether the Black person they hang out with is “a nigger” or “my nigga”. High school students in Jena, Louisiana still get into fights over the right to sit under a tree and the right to hang a noose from one of its branches.
Race is on the ballot in three states in 2008 as Arizona, Nebraska and Missouri vote on whether to ban affirmative action programs or not. Michigan voters banned affirmative action in the state in 2006 after two high profile Supreme Court rulings involving the University of Michigan. Michigan’s history, it should be noted, is that it had the highest membership of the Ku Klux Klan outside the South during the height of that organization. My town of Westland is the headquarters of the American Nazi Party.
Opponents of affirmative action point to Obama’s success as evidence that the initiatives are no longer needed. Obama and others are proof that all minorities are finally considered equal by all Americans.
But if this is the case, why are there disproportionately more Blacks in prison than whites based on percentage of population? Why are there so few Black CEOs of major corporations? Why are Black test scores so much lower than the scores for white students? Why is there so much inequality?
The answer to most of these questions lies in the history of racial discrimination in the country. After 232 years, African Americans are still working to unchain ourselves from the shackles of slavery and segregation. All of us, no matter the race, are still struggling to shed our own racial prejudices.
When it comes down to it, America has made a lot of progress, but we still haven’t overcome our history. On this conflicted Fourth of July I can honestly say that all men – and women – are created equal. When will we learn to treat each other that way?
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Dr. Martin Luther King