They let a few of us inside the house to dine, but the majority is expendable.
I lost a best friend, David “Smiddy” Elcock, to gun violence and police brutality. He and I would make beats, write songs, and dream about a different world where we had equal rights and equal representation. We both had our kids young, and having that responsibility was always top of mind for us. It was the reason he and I focused on our goals more than our other friends. David was fatally shot over a dozen times by police in Paterson, New Jersey, 10 years ago. He was 25 years old. I could turn this post into an hour-long Ted Talk on race relations and the history of being an African in the United States of America. But, I’d like to keep today’s message brief, because the fundamentals are simple. Equality.
The US Constitution grants me, you and every citizen of this country, “inalienable rights,” privileges, and freedoms. Humanity is evolving, and we’ve outgrown the old systemic abuses against black and brown citizens, and we’re holding all in charge accountable. We’re slowly breaking the chains of Western European dominance, but its fracturing the infrastructure we all helped to build at the same time. Racism is cancer, feeding on the economic, judicial, and legislative bodies of the world’s oldest democracy. Racism has been used to justify Western European aggression and their extinction-level genocides. Over the centuries, racist and barbaric policies have empowered classism and lead to rampant inequality. Racism is continuously used to justify the economic and human injustices against black and brown communities. The main reason? Our communities are looked at as nothing more than a workforce, here to manage the intense labor while the ones at the top reap the majority rewards. It’s why racism was created. It’s an asymmetric reward system, beneficial to only those at the top. Racism is used for filtration, ensuring the wealth goes to affluent “whites” who continue to manipulate our government in their favor. They let a few of “us” inside the house to dine, but the majority is expendable, and that is where the dehumanization begins. Outside of what you can do for them, there’s no regard for your life or death.
The good news is the old system is dying out but not without a fight. Our communities have to step up and join forces to change the status quo. The age of physical protests and rioting is almost out the window because now, the internet and photoshop make it too easy for agent provocateurs to infiltrate and hijack a movement’s agenda. New protests should be organized strategically and safely behind closed doors on computers and telephones like a research project. The energy has to be channeled differently, or we’ll stay divided and conquered. It’s an election year, and I have no doubt foreign interests are manipulating the things we read and interact with online daily. There is so much more noise in the news and social media. We have to get out of our echo chambers and organize and educate our communities on law, economics, and self-care. We have to work harder and smarter for an equal stake in society; otherwise, the system will never fully be on our side.
