Do Black Lives Matter to Black Folks?
QUESTION: Why should black lives matter to white folks when black folks treat each other the way they do?
Yes I know many do not want to hear this or even talk about it because after all white folks owe black folks and by God all white folks are responsible for the ramifications of slaver, and it is the duty of the white man to kiss the *ss of every single black folk.
We play this blame game to the detriment of the future of our children because we are never to be held responsible for our ACTIONS. We blame it on poverty, lack of housing, lack of resources etc., yet look at how we treat our communities. Our men walk around with their dirty underwear showing, and our women are baby factories who constantly fight each other over their ‘baby daddies’. Seriously?
And we want people to respect us when we have no respect for ourselves? At what point do we do better? In Jamaica we fight each other over politics and politicians who in reality are the best of friends. They live in luxury, while we live in squalor. They drive the best vehicles, while we shuffle on the bus or in a taxi. Their health care resides in places like America and Canada, while the taxpayers who pay THEIR wages suffer at KPH, the University Hospital, etc.
But yet here we are praising them an fighting hard to ensure the party and politician we favour wins the next election. Truly we are our own worst enemy. At what point do we decide to do better? At what point will black lives matter to black people? How long do we continue to blame the system? How can we even blame the system when we help to create and facilitate said system with our behavior?
In America thousands of black men are in prison and we blame that on RACISM. What do we blame it on in Jamaica? When in July of 2015 the murder rate has surpassed 600, and we have the audacity to talk about the JLP being better than the PNP or the PNP being better than the JLP. BOTH parties share the blame! BOTH parties have created MONSTERS out of people who lack critical thinking, and suffer from ignorance and illiteracy.
It’s shocking that so many people think that SHOWER OR POWER can fix a broken nation where the people are hell bent on destroying each other. It’s truly amazing how we can raise our voices in defense of Portia or Andrew or any other politician, but have yet to raise our voices in defense of each other. That is truly sad. We take to the streets in America shouting black lives matter when the white cop guns down one of us, but remain silent when black thugs turn their guns on black children, men and women, and we have the audacity to want RESPECT?
At what point do we get it that respect is earned, not freely given away? Truly the enemy of the black man is not the white man. We are our own worst enemy and until we are ready to face that fact and ADMIT that there is a problem, we can change governments, take down the confederate flag, march in the streets, shout “BLACK LIVES MATTER” and so on
Nothing will change until we are ready to change.
WELL SAID!!!…
This is so true. But there are other underlying factors. Indeed which came first
We suffer from brain washing
Stop victim blaming. We are at the intersection of race and class when we talk about black culture, politics and society. Black identity and society has been inalienably linked to lower class problems. We don’t need to “respect ourselves” like Kendrick Lamar, Don Lemon and many others proclaim, the issues of black communities are a direct result of white capitalistic terrorism and FURTHERMORE, the fact that black people suffer from these class issues and thereby resort to extreme and dangerous behaviour for their suvival does not give the STATE the right to kill them with impunity.
WELL SAID!!!…