The system is not broken. It is working exactly as it was designed. The United States of America remains a white supremacist and sexist nation today because it is deliberately woven into the fabric of our founding laws.
“Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere.”
Kareem Abdul Jabbar summarizes our current reality with a poetic, eye-opening observation.
I’ve been choking since my first heartbeat in my mother’s womb. I have two stories to share. One is personal, the other is more universal. Both originate in Philadelphia. We’ll start in September, 1968. Only six months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Philadelphia, 1968
My mother was born out of wedlock to a white woman and black man in Philadelphia. This didn’t sit well with my family. My Grandmother was pressured to give up her daughter because a black child in the family was unacceptable.
You see, my mother’s family were seen as good people. A conservative, middle-class family that was well-respected in their community. They did not want to be judged by their peers because of a “bastard” child. My mother was abandoned at 6-weeks old.
A year later, my grandmother had a change of heart. She regained custody of my mother who was still in foster care. No one else wanted her.
However, it was too late. Irreparable damage was done during the most critical stage of child development. My mother’s family had disowned her, ergo, disowning me. My own flesh and blood wanted nothing to do with me because we differ in skin color. What kind of toxic ancestral blood runs through my veins if my own immediate family walks the earth with such callousness?
My father was also placed in foster care because his white mother had a mixed-race baby in segregated Kansas City. Both of my parents joined the armed forces at 17-years old. An honorable sacrifice for the same country that clipped their wings before they could fly. It’s a miracle that they smile so bright after the abuse they endured.
My parent’s journeys are eerily similar, but far from unique in America. A family nucleus that maintains unconditional love, belonging, support and growth has been stripped away from black households. Centuries of unjust laws continue to hold Black Americans in a position of inferiority, as intended.
Philadelphia, 1776
The second story takes us back to 1776 Philadelphia, a city that presents the Declaration of Independence with pride.
We’re all familiar with how it begins — “We the people”. Who is “we”, exactly?
Jump 30 lines and we discover that “we” is not inclusive at all. “We” does not include women, Africans or indigenous people of this continent. The document goes so far as to call Native Americans “merciless savages”.
Our founding fathers were slave owners. They created laws that were designed to protect their status and right to property, dehumanizing the existence of others who were not white landowners. They upheld an extremely narrow classification of “men”.
Thank God our founding fathers have a lasting legacy through the namesake of our states, cities, capital, governing law and even their precious money. They ensured their intentions for America were abundantly clear in the US Constitution.
US Constitution, Article I Section II clearly defines who is protected by the document.
- Women are not mentioned. Not once.
- There are 51 gender-specific pronouns listed in the document. All 51 pronouns are male (his, him, he).
- Africans are 3/5 a human. It actually says in the document that Africans are a fraction of a human.
- Native Americans are intentionally excluded from the document (also, not recognized as human).
Travel back another 300 years to a time when the Vatican had unbridled power. The Doctrine of Discovery was issued as a Papal Bull (direct order) by Pope Alexander the VI.
The document declares that Christians can claim all new territories “discovered” in the Western Hemisphere as long as they are the first to document the discovery (with pen and paper, of course). Any non-Christian occupants of the land were not entitled to property and could be “reduced to perpetual slavery”. The Doctrine legally justifies colonization in the name of God.
Europe proceeded to colonize all of Africa, the Americas, and large swaths of Asia in the 1500s, raping, pillaging and eradicating indigenous people under the authority of the Catholic Church. There were about 12 million indigenous people in North America when Columbus arrived. War, genocide and disease decimated their numbers. By 1900, there were less than 275,000 Native Americans*.
The country’s highest court has held up the Doctrine of Discovery as recently as 2005 when Ruth Bader Ginsberg decided in favor of settlers maintaining land titles over the Oneida tribe. Land that rightfully belongs to the indigenous people was denied, alleging that too much time had passed to right the wrong. We saw a similar colonial land grab occur in April 2016. A vital water supply was claimed for the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Oil now runs directly through the tribes’ drinking water, which also serves as irrigation for their sacred land.
The architects of systemic white supremacy did not hide their deeds. The US Constitution continues to work as designed.
- White men retain land ownership (98% of private US land is white owned).
- Women have little-to-no representation in decision making (less than 7% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women).
- Black people are brutalized and treated as less than human (more than 37% of the US prison population are black).
- Native Americans are clinging for survival (less than 1% of the US population is indigenous).
There’s a book titled ‘100 years of Lynching’ by Ralph Ginzburg. I’m not going to recommend it because most people can’t stomach two pages of the demonic atrocities. I just want you to know it exists.
Slavery, public lynchings, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, police brutality, red lining, underfunded schools, disenfranchisement and lending institutions denying loans is the norm. Black Americans have been hindered from thriving as a people since the beginning. Perpetually propelled into poverty and self-hate. Don’t be fooled, black is beautiful.
This point in time is an inflection. A moment of reckoning for the Western world. The masses have decided that now is the time to rise up in defiance of a system built on racism and injustice. Those in favor of the status quo will stand on the losing side of history.
We will no longer be silent and absent in the fight against racism and inequalities across communities, including but not limited to those who identify as LGBTQ, indigenous, Asian American, LatinX, and/or people with disabilities. We must actively practice compassion to solve the tough challenges ahead. Protect others from harm. If we continue to transform as individuals, we will collectively transform the world.
White privilege reaps the benefits of our horrific past without addressing how we got here. This revolution will shine a light on the centuries of human rights violations without prosecution. Any outrage about Colin Kaepernick or opportunistic looters is a distraction from what’s really going on. Now is a good time to listen, inform yourself about the problem and take action.
America is ready to face our demons. Loud echos intensify as they bounce from city to city, country to country, in unison. It’s no longer OK to sit on the sidelines. Those who oppose #BlackLivesMatter are standing against the prosperity of all humanity. We will only persevere through our toughest times with peace, love and unity.
The system works as designed. It was never broken in the first place. We wear the scars to prove it. Our societal structures must change because the framework was tainted from the start. If we want true equality, we must dismantle and rebuild the system. Where do you stand?
