My Perspective on Black Lives Matter

What is Black Lives Matter (BLM)? You need to understand that there is an organization called BLM and there is the movement for the fight for black lives to matter which is a basic human right. However, I will not be talking about the organization here. So when I talk about BLM in the subsequent paragraphs, I am referring to the movement and not the organization. 

                                                                          

When George Floyd was brutally murdered (May 25, 2020), and the protests began gaining momentum across the US and the world, I was asking myself personal questions about why we were even at that point after years of slavery and civil rights struggles. Questions such as why are the black woman the most underappreciated person and the black person in general so disregarded? I had to go back in time to find a befitting answer to my queries. African-Americans have a history of struggle and this shows in their position in society. From slaves to free men without food, wealth, or capital. That is to say, a running competition/relay match is started and the white people are made to run 100m ahead before the blacks start running. To make this 100m gap even wider, think of the Tulsa massacre and burning down of black wall street on May 31st and June 1, 1921. Picture that and ask yourself if you understand what white privilege is. Yes! I hope you now understand why.

Afro-Americans they say, are the highest group involved in crime, which is not surprising if you are conscious of the previous point I made. It's a survival of the fittest as biology can bear me witness. Given that with nothing, these people had to survive one way or the other, some former slaves had to go back to their masters to work just to eat. Jim Crow laws never helped and today the trend of black men and women being used to fill up government and privately owned prisons continues and the police mentality from that time, unfortunately, lives on till today (that's also why reform is needed). We all or at least I know how ex-convicts are rejected at job interviews and most fall back to their old ways to try and survive. A question for you though, which race do you think USES drugs more? black or white? If associations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) celebrate, it is because some of these people despite starting 100m behind have been able to attain a certain level worth the appreciation. 

Blacks are scattered throughout the world today as a result of slavery that began majorly around the 15 century. Pre-colonial Africa had thriving kingdoms before the Europeans arrived. Whatever the Europeans used to gain so much control has to be paid serious attention to. That strategy worked wonders for them and indeed that gave birth to the destruction of other people socially, politically, economically, and religiously. Where are you going if you don't even know where you came from and who you are? This is a general characteristic I tend to attribute to some fellow black persons these days. African-Americans and Westerners themselves are terrified at the idea of visiting Africa. Europe doesn't even teach its history to its students. There is a void when black westerners begin asking themselves who she/he is and what's with her/his past/present that makes them perceived so differently (the majority of Africans are so too). Go back to Africa now and every standard we have is referenced to those of the West. We still struggle to dissociate ourselves from the colonial mindset and most often fail to acknowledge these struggles. Such failures have made it impossible for the continent to move past the consequences of slavery. Making us adopt every European model; politically, democracy has breath corruption and incompetence, economically, dependency on the west and mismanagement, socially, our culture degrades and colonial educational systems maintained, and religiously, our traditions and norms have been termed black magic and carry hefty fines and have been substituted for by a western brought Christianity and middle eastern Islam. 

Police brutality is very evident in Africa even more than in the US. Yes! you read that right. It's more than in the US and there is even military brutality daily. Read the book "Thinks Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and you can understand how the African community was policed and not these new thugs instituted by the colonialist. Not that they're all irrelevant but they could certainly do and be better to society. We all saw the tip of the iceberg with the END SARS protest in Nigeria. However, the point here is not that there is black-on-black brutality but we must look to the variables responsible for the outcomes and address them. For how can we be draining off the water coming off an open tap when the tap is still open? I am not writing a whitepaper, hence I am not presenting solutions. I'm however suggesting that instead of focusing on outcomes and denying that there is no white privilege, or saying all lives matter (which they do) or asserting that black on black crime also exist, or saying Africans hate other Africans, governments should rather look into the root causes and address them. Some of which are pre and post-slavery institutional structures and colonial institutional structures.

 

Every one of us, individually should look to ourselves and correct our faults. Don't be like David in the bible who swore to prophet Nathan to make a man pay for crimes against another out of anger without knowing Nathan was referring to him for sleeping with another man's wife and having him killed in battle. So, let's not criticize the world but look at ourselves and see what we can do good right. 

Mr. Positive Man JB