anotherlook

With the election of the first black President of the United States, I tried to convince myself that things would start taking a turn for the better in the black neighborhoods where, if kids are not killing each other then cops are killing blacks continuously, however with the new year, three (3) senseless, unprovoked, homicidal shootings took place perpetrated by small minded, trigger happy police officers.
Although one of these victims is still in the hospital and even if he lives he will carry the bullet, in his liver as a constant reminder of the violence perpetrated against him by a trigger happy, racial profiling cop, for simply driving while black.
The same police officers that are suppose to “serve and protect” have been killing blacks on the streets for as long as I can remember and just because you do not read about it in the paper or see it on the news does not mean that it is not happening with a frequency that is alarming all across America.
As you rise this morning, heading to your job that pays you enough money to own one of these ostentatious homes, driving to that job in your gas guzzling SUV and arrive back to your comfy home tonight, untouched by the madness that still exists in the black community across town from where you live, recognize that there is a silent, violent war happening on a daily basis, for as long as I have been on this earth, in the black communities of America.
While you attempt to put the blame on the blacks who live in those neighborhoods saying those ignorant people are killing themselves and that’s a good thing, recognize that your view of what is really happening stems from just that attitude and a total lack of empathy for the injustices directed towards a people you refuse to see as human, you disrespect in passing and have ignored our cry for equality for centuries.
Black people struggle in American. They have struggled from the day I was born and before; they will continue to struggle until the day I die and beyond. The reason for this struggle is the attitudes of white America that refuses to change even though they elected the first black president of the United States of America.
Since segregation ended, it took a while, but now there is always that token black that America holds up to the world to say we have changed our perception of the blacks in America but the reality is, behind the scenes nothing has really changed.
Black people struggle to find jobs and keep them; not because they do not want to work but because they are not as readily hired as whites. Once they are allowed on these jobs the racism they experience is so blatant with the attitude of racism it becomes a challenge to remain on the job and to be positive.
Growing up in America and coming from a black community, I heard the stories daily of what it was like in the working world. How blacks got skipped over for promotions, how whites would make racial comments regarding blacks, in the presence of blacks, as though they were invisible or deaf. How blacks were being paid less for the same jobs which paid whites more. Those things have not changed.
Although laws have been passed in an effort to alleviate the harshness of the wording allowed in a racial display of disrespect, those laws have not changed the attitudes or the struggles of blacks in the American society. I know this to be true because I have experienced it first hand. I worked for a state office that was in the business of finding jobs for people.
Within that job setting, I experienced undercover prejudice, and the lies that followed, that was so intense, that I am still affected by the racism and injustices I experienced and, to this day, I refuse to work, up close and personal, in the limited space of an office, ever again.
When I called this to the attention of those people designated to alleviate the racism in the work place, they refused to listen and asked me questions like “did anyone there call you a “nigger” as though that is the only manifestation of racism. Yet, because no one actually called me the “n” word, their behavior, regardless of how obvious racism was, did not constitute racism.
I have no patience for racism and I knew that if I stayed there I would begin to act out in the ugliness I was experiencing. While the experience was just affecting me emotionally (I cried daily), I decided the best thing for me to do was leave this high paying job and so that is what I did. I left the job and left the state but not before saying everything I felt I needed to say to them, in writing.
The damage done by my experience with these racist in denial, has affected my ability to work in an office setting, to this day. I tried on several different occasions, after this, to work in the field I was most familiar with but in each case, the attitudes I had experienced with my state employment had caused me to become hypersensitive to the attitudes whites have towards blacks and I just could not function in that atmosphere for eight, long, restrained, uncomfortable hours everyday.
My experience led me to what I do today. I first started out as a school bus driver. Working with children was a little nerve wracking at first because children today do not have too much respect for other people, they have foul mouths and some of them love to fight but on some levels, I really enjoyed working with them. I was on the bus, no grown white people playing racial office politics and I enjoyed the freedom.
Although, I no longer drive the bus because I have moved back to the state that I ran into my racial experience, I am instead a bus assistant on a special needs bus, I enjoy this even better because I do not have to listen to the foul mouthed kids on a regular school bus and I am just passing my time until I no longer have to deal with a job at all.
My point is, you do not have to be on a job to experience the racism in America, you can be in your neighborhoods being harassed by racist police officers, you can be driving down the street and be harassed by profiling police officers, you can be in a store getting followed around like you are a potential thief by small minded security officers who think just because you are black you will “most likely” attempt to steal something - when will this narrow view end?
My only hope is that with the inclusion of a black man, for the highest office in the country, that people begin to see that blacks are indeed human beings and deserve the same fundamental rights, the same job equalities, the same respect because they indeed have the same needs and responsibilities as whites, but my reality tells me there is a long road to travel to get to that point.
Truth be told, I am scared for Barrack Obama everyday that he is in office, simply because he is a black man in the highest office in the United States of America and I know how that must be affecting some small minded white male in this country - how pathetic is that?

And that’s the way I see it!!

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