Monday, January 20, 2020

When Civil Rights Became Silver Rights, America Got Angry.

The United States of America historically has done a lousy job of self-reflection as she refuses to look in the mirror while encouraging democracy and assorted protests throughout the world. A few years ago in Egypt (and more recently in Hong Kong), the people called protested against the injustices of their governments with cheers from Americans of all stripes. However, when Black Americans did the exact same thing, we were labeled everything but a child of God. Supposedly it was only enough to bask in the glory and pats on the back for finally doing something about the original sin of this nation: racism. It took only 188 years to get to the same inalienable rights that white people have enjoyed either by birth or naturalization (from European nations) all along but do you if you disagree. Yet, as the civil rights movement reached highlights in 1963 and 1964, another battle was born – and one that is not pitted between races alone as much as it was classism.

When Black America demanded appropriate payment of a bad check, why did white America collectively lose their minds?

We know why; if not, I’ll say it for you. A red cent made payable to our parents, grandparents, and other ancestors would have been called socialism by white people – and the argument still holds water today not only in the reparations debate but also when the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare was passed in late 2009. Yet the same benefits were extended even in that period such as low-interest rates on homes; the GI Bill; the creation of land grant colleges; the birth and expansion of suburbia ALL of which was denied to black Americans.
What do civil rights have to do with silver rights? Keep reading.

For one, Black Americans had gotten the short end of the stick since the mid-1600s going from indentured servants to permanently enslaved based solely on the color of our skin. Remember the South has had a hard time dealing with equality – and with the rise of right-to-work laws starting with the one right here in Arkansas passed in 1946 that equated integration with communism, we could be fired for the least of offenses including joining the NAACP, attempting to register to vote, seeking entry into unions, or even looking at a home in white neighborhoods! Not that the rest of the country was progressive in comparison as evidenced with redlining in most cities major and minor (they were equally complicit, but that side of the story isn’t always told truthfully); this is a case of believing a lie long enough that it becomes a twisted truth. As those middle-class homeowners were able to receive low-interest loans to update and maintain their homes, they were able to pass on the proceeds to their sons and daughters as they began their own journeys in adulthood. In this aspect, we find that financial literacy beyond the rote and routine of balancing a checkbook was not equally taught; on one side of the tracks, every little penny made had to stretch out from Monday to Friday even as we were getting stiffed at the corner store for basic goods. Was our money not good enough? If so, why did it take more of our hard-earned income to remain afloat?
Another view of civil rights becoming synonymous with silver rights concerns the poor. Certainly Jesus did say that the poor would always be among us – and the misinterpretation of that statement has caused so many mainline congregations to go astray calling it social justice AS IF the church is not in the business of not only soul saving (well, obviously) but also living out the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:1-10.

Let’s keep it real: Too many people of prominence benefit from capitalism and the falsehoods they tell the working class to make them feel guilty of their lots in life when the only difference comes from where in the lucky sperm and egg club they were born. While they feed us the manure of rugged individualism of pulling ourselves by our bootstraps – kind of hard to do when our own boots are falling apart at the soles, they gorge at the buffets of corporate welfare. See the Walton family; I spent the better part of nine years working for Wal-Mart not only having to overperform a role which my own managers would acknowledge everywhere except for promotion or evaluation day and you could hear the underlying message: Unions bad, hard work good – as they worked the shit out of your own dreams, ambitions, and goals. Here, America forms a caste system that when a few make it out, his or her path becomes a mandatory ebenezer for future generations. Explain to me why people idolize the folks they see on TV or YouTube making stupid money when a path to self-sufficiency and supposed financial equality is pockmarked at best and at worst, riddled with landmines that destroy us with one misstep.

Ain't it mane 
We talk about securing the bag…but what does that really look like?

Does securing the bag allow for us the opportunity to be educated better and in a more equitable fashion? A number of us recall the Lake View school funding case in the early 2000s which poorer schools had to make to with so much less than wealthier counterparts of similar size; to this day, the conclusion is incomplete and therefore, with the rise of charter schools to siphon those public dollars more, does the bag even matter?

Does it look like getting past the gatekeepers in human resources of corporate America to even sniff at an opportunity?

Does it resemble a $5 million dollar check to anyone who can prove lineage to slavery as a onetime reparation payment? #CutTheCheck 

What about having the ability to sit at leadership tables not as a token face of diversity rather one that will speak up and out?

Does it look like living with the dignity and respect we are afforded at birth as tax-paying citizens in the face of covert bigotry and coded laws intended to capitalize our Blackness?

Once we get the bag, will we be able to live with ourselves for how it was earned?

Demanding compensation to atone for past sins just after Jim Crow legally died had America spooked, and to that effect, it is what got Dr. King assassinated. The Poor People’s Movement was to be the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement; tragically, it has never materialized in a society rife with inequities not limited to the haves-and-the-have-nots in our time due to some people always needing someone to scapegoat to assuage their inferiority complexes. It would have empowered not only minorities but also the disaffected majorities as well via transitioning from being given a fish or taught to fish to owning the pond. Doing so would have created a class of stakeholders instead of the economic slaves some of us are today. If this sounds like a financial Juneteenth of sorts, it does share similar tenets. Upsetting the proverbial cart of capitalism – and slandering any other form of getting the bag – has been the American way since the 1700s, if not longer.

The short time period of Reconstruction showed us that. When you exert your power, those who have had the juice view you as a threat - and Brother Martin knew this.

I know we hear the saying "we are better together" quite often and I am choosing to credit both Elder Karl Barnes of Elect Temple COGIC in Benton and Hillary Clinton, but...are we really better together if someone has to struggle without a safety net of any sort as our elected leaders slice the thinning ropes of elevation? (I'm looking at my congressman French Hill; Senator  Tom Cotton cast his lot a long time ago, and we know the warmonger could care less).
People did change their tunes about Brother Martin when he spoke out for silver rights. What was the point of civil rights if we were to be integrated into a larger society still destitute?
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