OF BLACK LIVES MATTER, SUPREMACISTS’ VIEWS AND REALITY

Many are those who are confused and have refused to acknowledge the plight of Black people in the world. Funnily enough, those “many” are mostly White people who would never want to step into the shoes of their Black counterparts; not even for a second! Now you have many of those people saying emphatically “All Lives Matter”, forgetting that the comfort that they live in is an impossible luxury for even wealthy Black folk (who, by the way are a minimal percentage). I’ve always maintained that I won’t ever settle outside Africa. This is because wealth to me, is 30% peace, 30% family, 30% impactful work and 10% monetary gains. Also because racism is something too painful to think let alone live it.
White supremacists feel comfortable when the police pull them over, because there is no nervousness of being killed before getting the chance to speak. Those people have no fear living in their homes, because a law enforcement officer would nicely interrogate them even when they commit crimes; won’t plant drugs on them; won’t barge into their homes to kill them, as they do to Blacks who live upright lives. Let those other people even kill multitudes; they would be fed and given water even as they are in handcuffs and be gently walked to their holding cells. So long as those people involve a little ambition, they have fair chances of succeeding in life. Their intelligence is never treated as a burdening trophy, and they’re never expected to censor their speech. There are more opportunities for these people, so I can understand their complacency, indifference or even disgust at the existence of Black Lives Matter (BLM).
One would think the privileged White would be interested in knowing why BLM exists at all, but no, that is hardly their concern. This is because all lives mattered when Black people were tortured and murdered as slaves, all lives mattered when Black people were murdered and their Flourishing Tulsa was burned down by some of their White heroes amidst their textbook celebrations of such icons. All lives matter even as Black history is a mystery in their textbooks. If all lives matter, why don’t you try living Black for a moment?
For a long time, some White folk, for their laughter, depended on the ridiculing of Blacks and other minorities. So we now hear them whining “Why can’t we laugh at ourselves anymore?” They forget Blackface is not a funny joke to any Black person. They forget calling Blacks “monkeys” is not funny to any Black human. It is a fact that calling White people “pink” annoys them no end. So what left-behind laughter are we talking about?
I remember a Check-In Agent at Narita Airport, upon seeing my natural black hair burst out laughing while pointing at it. I thought “…what an ignorant Japanese.” Then looked at her, in my confusion, to figure out whether it was her first time seeing a Black person wearing her own hair or whether she had never seen pure Black hair on any television … or whether she was just plain dumb. I got no answer; she got my pity though. I silently wished she also had to work hard to get money to travel the world. One thing was certain, she was amused at my natural self. Prior to that, a White woman had approached me with her children in Tokyo, asking to touch my hair. I told her absolutely not because I’m not displaying curiosity about her hair, so she shouldn’t be curious about mine.
If you can’t enjoy the entertainment some Blacks can give through their songs, athleticism or comedy and want to ridicule them through their sad history and mock their beautiful nature, you sure have a big problem. If you think all are treated equally, then you really live in another world. Imagine you visiting Ghana while my grandmother was alive—oh she disliked White people! She told me repeatedly that even when I dream of them, I should make an effort to open my eyes. Can you blame her? The woman lived before Ghana gained independence and she saw the cruelty, felt the hurt and knew what the White people on our land were capable of, even though she never went to school. So based on what she told me, if you come here and I ask you to go back to your country, call our cops on you, lie about some criminality and have you jailed; if your children are booed and compared with (excuse my language) pigs … with chants of snorting anytime they passed … would you feel safe, let alone feel that your life mattered? You know the answer.
I believe in the art of human change.
I outgrow my prejudices by the day and will not hold it against any one who had ideas of supremacy and has schooled their ignorance to live better because I also have, and am still working on myself. But if you live like your skin defines you being put on a pedestal, and feel other skin-types matter less, then you’re living in a delusion. Black Lives Matter is a prompt for you to do better; to put them at par with your “All Lives Matter” fantasies. Black Lives Matter is a call on you to use your privilege to help redesign the system made to incriminate, jail and murder innocent Black people. Black Lives Matter is a statement which pleads with you to work in adding the “too” or “also” at the end to help defend humanity. Black Lives Matter is history’s demand that you wake up today, to defend the colour your unborn generation will bring into your family through love. Black Lives Matter is your truth to living right and turning bright the world whose sky is always clouded for a section of people. Black Lives Matter is a reflection of your doing, your undoing and your overdoing. So see it not as an unjust protest. See it as a human duty.
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © June 24, 2020. Edited by Koku Dotse.