Deep-rooted hatred is a deadly poison. What took place in Charleston is unfathomable. It’s hard for me to conceive how such deep hatred could fill the heart of a person who has only experienced twenty-one years of living. I remember after the September 11 (9/11) tragedy, a little child asked the question, “Why do they hate us so much?” Now I’m asking myself the question, “Why do some white people hate black folks so much?”
Black people are America’s best friend. We have been more loyal than any other race. With our sweat, tears and blood, we significantly helped build this country, and—even though we never got the forty acres and a mule as promised—we continued to love white folks. We nursed their babies from our breast milk. We took care of their children while leaving our little children at home to fend for themselves. We birthed babies from seeds their men implanted in our wombs, with no consideration given to that offspring. Black men accepted the white man’s seed and provided for the child, without complaint; he went along to get along.
Blacks were beaten and killed for attempting to learn how to read. The welfare system refused to assist a needy black family when the father was in the house, therefore forcing the black man to leave home in order for his wife and children to get a little help to survive. (Revisit the movie Claudine). Black men had to leave town, leaving their wives and children behind for merely talking back to a white man or for an accusation of looking at a white woman. Remember Emmitt Till, the young teen murdered in Mississippi in 1955? Many black men escaped the South because they feared for their lives. Some of them never got enough money to return for their families and they started new families, therefore causing fatherless children. Maybe Tulsa, Oklahoma needs to be revisited when black folks had an enclave community with thriving businesses that was destroyed by a white mob.
Maybe America needs a review of black history, where black families, children, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands were separated and sold as slaves to new masters. Let’s teach on how white men have continued to perpetuate wealth from inventions they stole from blacks—inventions that changed lives for all Americans for the betterment. The list is too long to include in this article—Google “black inventions.” Let’s fast forward to the “NEW SLAVE SHIP” that does not sail—the prison industrial complex that separates black men and women from their children and families.
My point is simple. It is time that all races learn the history and conditions forced upon blacks in America. If the shooter had known the history of how America has treated the black race as a whole, I believe his hatred for the black race would not have been as such. Black folks’ condition is a by-product of the inhumane treatment and injustice served them by the establishment.
We cannot undo what has happened, however, we can all work hard at doing our part to ensure this type of tragedy – based on race – never happens again. As adults and parents, we must teach love in our homes and not leave that responsibility to our children to learn on their own. The love blacks have for white folk was demonstrated via the response the victims’ families shared nationally toward the shooter when they expressed forgiveness.
I pray we all learn a great lesson concerning sharing our views with our children. They know how their friends feel about other races, they hear their thoughts, they see and hear the media’s perspective, but they also, more than anything, need to hear from us—their parents and elders. We must do a better job in communicating about social issues and we cannot omit discussing race in our homes, our churches and schools. I want to share much more, but I realize this is an article and not a book. I know what has happened is real; I still want to see it as just a dream/nightmare or something like that. This should not happen in America in 2015.
Dr. Rosie Milligan, minister, author, senior estate planner/credit consultants, talk show host of Express Yourself Hour, and owner of Professional Business Consultant and LA Credit Consultants, 1425 W. Manchester Ave., Ste. B, Los Angeles, CA 90047, 323-750-3592, email: [email protected].
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