The Essence of Freedom

They say insanity is repeating the same thing over, and over and, expecting the same results.  Einstein is the ‘they’ that I am referring to. The ‘They’ currently perpetuating this insanity is America.

Our slip on racism is so thin, it is the open-face casket of Emmitt Till full of deep, gaping lies; wounds so deep that they are metaphysically and psychologically damaged beyond repair.  Water nurseries poisoned with extrajudicial justice and soil beds where trees are fed with the blood from our own ancestor’ necks.

This America, this bed of lies, is a disappointing parent who keeps faltering on a promise.  Or better yet, something that requires punishment, like a student defaulting on loans.

America is the cesspool of fraudulence, the beginning, and end of all things thought to be inhumane, boorish, unrefined and crude are all seeping from the ground.  Right here in the United States.

Our groundwater is polluted by it.

Our air is turned a mucus gray by its presence, us breathing it in willingly.  It permeates our very beings through media, social or otherwise, via the air and radio waves.

I am so angry my stomach is churning and I’ve been wearing a permanent grimace for two days since the news of Charleston broke.  At first, I had the identical numb, mind-blanking, silent brain, brain hits a brick wall, reaction to the news as most Americans do.  The American media and propaganda machine would make Goebbels jealous.

Americans are so used to the murder of Black “Americans” that they don’t even blink an eye.  And if they do so happen to blink an eye, they pacify themselves into believing it could never happen in their neighborhood.  I barely noticed my lack of reaction or apparent avoidance of the story until two days later after seeing snippets of Jon Stewart’ monolog of our country’ racial status.  Even outside of my own personal experience living in Baltimore.

Abysmal, that in this era, our racial dialogue is reduced to the satirical opening monolog, of a satirical news and politics program and there is no satire to be found.  The “true” media outlets are once again finding the comedy and complacency of such events.

I for one am shaken to the core.  And not just because I am a Black American.

I am shaken by the lack of humanity. Non-existent.  The lack of compassion, the sense of normalcy, that even I feel as I sit here uncomfortable.

Us Blacks!  My soul weeps for us.

Still docile, innocent dogs, waiting on the porch for Master to return.

Still, being force-fed genitals in the back cabins of the plantations, on any given night.

Still, waiting for our sons and fathers to return from wars with their badges of honor, purple hearts, forty acres and a mule.

We are waiting for forlorn promises never to be fulfilled, by an unforgiving autocrat, an oppressor of unforeseen consequences.  But what more could we expect from an adolescent following in its abusive fathers’ footsteps?

Who taught America how to rape, kill, and thingify the coloreds? Was it not the crowns of Europe?

I mean, since I write this with a sense of anger and frustration, my point may be unclear.  Until we fully examine the systemic and historical bonds of racism, we will never experience true freedom.

Until African-Americans stop looking for the leftover and aging covenants of yesteryear, we will continue to be disappointed by our neglectful father; one who only needed us until our job was done.

What is it that we can’t see? It wasn’t until post-slavery, post-civil war, that lynching became an extra-curricular activity.  Once a tool for torture, a simple display of force to maintain plantation dynamics, you can now turn on your TV and see it.  Once a month or every two weeks if you’re lucky.  Another black man; Gone. Another black woman; Gone.  Another child, gone. Another promising future, shattered by lead.

America hasn’t made good on any of its’ promises to us.  When are we going to start collecting on their debts?  They’re still hunting us down for theirs.

When are we, the people, going to take the ornamented, highly decorated and fabricated ideals of the nation, by its’ reins and create change? Are we even going to plant the seeds for the change?

Why aren’t we able to gather up our own guns, our own intellectual artillery, and walk up to the barriers of our government, and CREATE change?!

It is never going to be given to us.

America has never GIVEN, anyone, anything.  The American dream isn’t even founded on giving.  You are supposed to earn it. Take it. You are supposed to come to this land, that was previously stolen from others and, take your dreams.  When are we going to take our freedom instead of waiting for the returns of a four-hundred-year-old promissory note?

America is still treading on us and, the niggas as always still have the gall to be hopeful.

Pray.

Be hopeful.

Be patient.

Be steadfast.

Be forgiving.

Give them a chance.

No. no more.

As for me America, there will be no more treading on my back.  It is a disgrace to the millions that have died, as we sit and patiently watch the continuous genocide of our people.  A centuries-old massacre that is spiraling further into the future