If you are a person of color living in the modern world, you are certainly living under a system of oppression. The political structure of the majority of the world is built on a system of oppression. Inequality, racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia. All of these structures have been kept in place for centuries. They have been necessary to the operations of Western civilizations.
It is unfortunate that we live in this reality that has been created for us. For centuries, people of color have been fighting these oppressive systems; Dying, to break free from the chains that dominate every aspect of our lives. Once physical, the chains now dominate our lives. From social to economic, we are constantly living under the influence of a racist system. An oppressive system that is willing to do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo of hierarchy. In other words, what I would like to say is:
America was never built to protect us.
America was created to dominate us.
It is a child birthed out of imperialism.
The moral code of the United States, the core of it, is founded on the domination of people of color. Even prior to the three-fifths compromise, the African Slaves brought into this country, and the descendants of those slaves were treated as less than human. The three-fifths compromise is legal confirmation of the social mores that have been put in place to maintain the subjugation of colored people in America. There are so many mechanisms in place that help promote this environment.
The police just happen to be one of them.
There is no denying that the United States is one of the most militarized political bodies on the planet. We spend billions on maintaining this sophisticated war machine annually. However, why has it become necessary to militarize the police?
The police force of America has been effectively policing communities of color prior to the civil war, but even more so after it. The loss of American slavery meant a loss of socioeconomic power. The system that maintained slavery had been working effectively, even down to the system of capturing rebel slaves.
Those men? The slave catchers. Prior to? The overseer. These men became the police force in prisons that captured free black bodies and placed them in horrible camp conditions, which was literally slavery. As discovered by Douglas A. Blackmon author of the book Slavery by Another Name, conditions were corrupt from the courtrooms to the prison camps. A black man, or sometimes woman, was kidnapped, convicted on trumped-up charges, and placed in prison conditions that caused such severe psychological damage, that rape became a common occurrence in the camps.
I’m no statistician, scientist, or anthropologist, but there is a common theme in the fabric of American police culture; and I’m sure with continual studies, you will be able to see a developing trend over time. And not to keep everything black and white, or incite division over race, but police culture developed out of slave culture. They have been effectively policing the black community for centuries.
What we are saying now as people of color is that there is going to be a systemic change or we will be taking other options. We are not going to continue to sit idly by as we experience an increasingly effective cleansing by the state.
We want our freedom. Our freedom and equality have been denied us even by the very constitution.
We want to be able to walk the streets, drive our cars, get an education, enjoy the night of our bachelor party, follow police instructions when they ask to see identification, shop at a local Walmart, play on the playground, enjoy a night out with our friends, ask for help after a car accident, and live for our families. Freely.
We want to dress how we want, love who we want, live how we want, and do what we want, without being under constant scrutiny of the state.
It is time for the liberation of blackness. We should be able to live life free, and even one day live in a society that doesn’t define us by race.
We have to take our freedom and we are no longer asking for it. We shouldn’t be asking for it. You cannot ask for freedom from a country that was not built to give it to you. It has to be taken. Our society is built on a system of remuneration. You have to earn things.
And you cannot convince me that the torture and distress that black people have faced over the centuries is the kind of “earning” that is required of us.
You cannot convince me that the genocidal cleansing of the Indigenous peoples of this continent is the required due for equality.
We want to live because we deserve to live because it is our human right to live.