Blacks Unite

BLACKS UNITE TO FIGHT FOR 

OUR RIGHT    

CASE STUDY:  REDUCTION AND    

ERADICATION OF RACISM AGAINST   

THE BLACKS    

    

DEFINITION OF RACISM     

According to Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and   

Thesaurus, “Racism is the belief that people's qualities are influenced by their race and that the members of other races are not as good as the members of your own, or the resulting unfair treatment of members of other races”.     

Racism, also called racialism, is any action, practice, or belief  that reflects the racial worldview—the ideology  that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others. Since the late 20th century the notion of biological race has been recognized as a cultural invention, entirely without scientific basis.    

    

 TYPES OF RACES    

The mid-twentieth century racial classification by American anthropologist Carleton S. Coon, divided humanity into five races:    

• Negroid (Black) race    

• Australoid (Australian Aborigine and Papuan) race    

• Capoid (Bushmen/Hottentots) race    

• Mongoloid (Oriental/Amerindian) race    

• Caucasoid (White) race

    

  BRIEF HISTORY OF RACISM AGAINST THE BLACKS (NEGROES)    

    

In August of 1619, a journal entry recorded that “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Virginia and were then were bought by English colonists.    

The date and the story of the enslaved Africans have become symbolic of slavery’s roots, despite captive Africans likely being present in the America in the 1400s and as early as 1526 in the region that would become the United States.    

The fate of enslaved people in the United States would divide the nation during the Civil War. And after the war, the racist legacy of slavery would persist, spurring movements of resistance, including the Underground Railroad, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Through it all, black leaders, artists and writers have emerged to shape the character and identity of a nation.   

 

SLAVERY COMES TO NORTH AMERICA, 1619    

To satisfy the labor needs of the rapidly growing North American colonies, white 

European settlers turned in the early 17th century from indentured servants (mostly poorer Europeans) to a cheaper, more plentiful labor source: enslaved Africans. After 1619, when a Dutch ship brought 20 Africans ashore at the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia, slavery spread quickly through the American colonies. Though it is impossible to give accurate figures, some historians have estimated that 6 to 7 million enslaved people were imported to the New World during the 18th century alone, depriving the African continent of its most valuable resource—its healthiest and ablest men and women.    

After the American Revolution, many colonists (particularly in the North, where slavery was relatively unimportant to the economy) began to link the oppression of enslaved Africans to their own oppression by the British. Though leaders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson—both slaveholders from Virginia— took cautious steps towards limiting slavery in the newly independent nation, the Constitution tacitly acknowledged the institution, guaranteeing the right to repossess any “person held to service or labor” (an obvious euphemism for slavery).     

Many northern states had abolished slavery by the end of the 18th century, but the institution was absolutely vital to the South, where blacks constituted a large minority of the population and the economy relied on the production of crops like tobacco and cotton. Congress outlawed the import of new enslaved people in 1808, but the enslaved population in the U.S. nearly tripled over the next 50 years, and by 1860 it had reached nearly 4 million, with more than half living in the cotton– producing states of the South.    

    

     Civil rights movement: Civil rights supporters carrying placards at the March on Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963.    

Despite constitutional and legal measures aimed at protecting the rights of racial minorities in the United States, the private beliefs and practices of many Americans remained racist, and some group of assumed lower status was often made a scapegoat. That tendency has persisted well into the 21st century.    

Because, in the popular mind, “race” is linked to physical differences among  peoples, and such features as dark skin colour have been seen as markers of low status, some experts believe that racism may be difficult to eradicate. Indeed, minds cannot be changed by laws, but beliefs about human differences can and do change, as do all cultural elements. 

   

REDUCING AND ERADICATING RACISM AGAINST THE BLACKS    

It is a well-known fact that eradicating racism will be DIFFICULT as a result of the values and beliefs already built in the minds of the majority but this does not mean that efforts shouldn’t be taken to curb and reduce racism.     

Although racism has eaten deep into the minds of the masses (particularly racism against the blacks), it’ll take some simple but complex steps to curb it and restore the dignity and honor of the blacks, the major steps are;     

• Peaceful protest    

• Unity among the blacks    

• Self-confidence and belief    

• Standing firm and tall     

The above listed tips are just a summarization of the steps to be taken to get equality and justice.    

We the blacks have to unite, putting our heads together so that we can get justice, not only for #George Floyd but for every one of our black brothers and sisters who have been killed indiscriminately, without due cause and to get justice for all blacks who are repeatedly being discriminated against as the moments go by, and all this because of our skin colour.    

Black or white, red or blue, brown or yellow, we should all be given equal rights because we are all superior in our own ways and no race has the right to look down on the other. This long awaited and desired justice can only be manifested when we unite, setting aside our differences in; character, religion, background and social status.    

In order to achieve this goal, we must treat all blacks like our own flesh and blood as though we were truly brothers and sisters from one big family, ignoring your wealth and financial status, Intelligence Quotient (IQ), academical merits and achievements, and social status or position.    

This is the blacks’ time to unite, assist one another and stand tall because united we can never fall. In times of distress such as these, we must ignore the lies and stories which we might have heard or been told, come together in peace and unity, showing brotherly love to one another.     

THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL WE GET JUSTICE FOR ALL BLACKS.    

A LITTLE POEM I PUT TOGETHER IN HONOUR OF GEORGE FLOYD, ALL BLACKS AND OUR SOON COMING TRIUMPH OVER RACISM    

TITLE:  DEFEAT THE INHUMANITY AND STOP 

RACISM    

The fact that we differ in color     

Doesn’t mean they can take our honor    

And treat us like rags    

While making us carry their rags.    

    

With their white fingers, they point and blame,    

Filling our tender hearts with nothing but shame    

Ripping out our soul piece by piece    

And taking away our solid mind’s peace.    

    

Oh! black community,    

We must oppose disunity    

Holding unto each other’s hands firmly and standing tall, Because united, we can never fall.    

    

SO LET THE BLACK COMMUNITY UNITE AND STAND TALL CAUSE  

TOGETHER WE CAN NEVER FALL.    

#blacksunite    

#justiceforgeorgefloyd    

#justiceforallblacks    

    

    

    

 THANK YOU.