SAS Corner: Stop the Slaughter
W.E.B. Du Bois once said “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” Although Du Bois was not referring to the chattel slavery that is minimally discussed in our school textbooks, he was suggesting that Black Americans in the United States have yet to experience true freedom because of institutionalized and systemic racism. The murders of Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin have provoked unrest in many communities and have caused the question as to whether Black bodies have ever, or will ever be valued in what is known as the “United States” of America.
The word “genocide” is most frequently associated with the Jewish Holocaust, the massacre of countless Rwandans, and sometimes even the extermination of innumerable indigenous populations in North and South America. However, this word is rarely used to identify the centuries of violence to which Black Americans in the United States were and still are subjected. From the selling of Black bodies from town square auction blocks and hundreds of lynchings , to minstrel shows, the assassinations of prominent sovereigns and activists, and this generation’s mass incarceration of Black lives as a means of combating what is publicized as The War on Drugs, we are facing only a small portion of what is the Black American genocide. We continue to be slaughtered and trivialized, this is only recognized when our children are blatantly murdered and left to die on sidewalks and street pavements. And although the existence of Black on Black crime cannot be ignored, it must be recognized that since birth, as a population of people, we have been taught that our lives have little to no value or purpose, a recurrent product of institutionalized racism.
As Black Americans it is time to take progressive action to demonstrate that we matter too and that we too are Americans. It is time to say that how we dress does not determine our character or aptitude and that whether or not tomorrow was to be our first day of college, we are human beings that deserve to live and have the right to live. We must make it known that we will not conform to the mold that has been created for us by mainstream white society in order to appease their deeply rooted fears. Most importantly, we need to finally value lives as a whole.
And although the Black American genocide must stop, there is civil unrest around the world and additional cries from those who also continue to be oppressed. As a population of marginalized people, we cannot ignore our brothers and sisters whose human rights also continue to be violated. Instead, we must act in solidarity and recognize that we are human because they are human and that we all have a universal bond that connects humanity. Thus, we must also emphasize freedom for Palestine and acknowledge
It is time to STOP THE SLAUGHTER of people of color on American soil and for students to take a stand.