America loves catch phrases. We use them so thoughtlessly they easily morph into mindless cliché’s. Yet, some of our most common cliché’s are rarely questioned to find the true meaning behind their origins or even challenge the accuracy and validity in their use. Now, before you click the “x” at the top right corner…HEAR ME OUT! This will not be a boring recount of American clichés’, I’m merely setting the tone of the post and challenging you to consider taking a deep dive in the words we so commonly use because as one of our newest cliché’s affirms, “words matter.” Right?
Now, lets get our hands dirty. One of the most overused and inaccurate cliché’s is “America’s original sin is slavery”. If you’re triggered, first, TAKE A DEEP BREATH as this proud African-American and graduate of a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) elaborates what I mean. Slavery was NOT America’s original sin. In fact, America has accumulated three significant “original” sins and some may dare to say crimes against humanity. Do I have your attention now?
It’s time for the citizens of this country to have the uncomfortable conversation we’ve avoided for far too long. This conversation will be painful but running from it will not save this democracy or more importantly, our morality as an American collective. First, let’s set the record straight. American’s greatest original sin was the decimation of the Native American populous. Before Christopher Columbus, before colonization, this country was the home to over one hundred and forty-five million Native Americans. Now, only two hundred years after Columbus arrived, one hundred and thirty million Native Americans perished from European disease, conspired extermination, and fighting to resist European colonization.
Let me repeat that number in case is washed over you too quickly. One hundred and thirty million Native Americans, that’s ninety percent of the indigenous population wiped out over the course of three to four generations. In a vast land where everyone looked similar and spoke their own native dialect before Columbus arrived now live an existence where the great-grandchildren of those who first encountered the “pale face” man now live where their native language is rarely spoken outside of their reservations. Running from this truth will not save us.
This brings us to America’s second greatest sin. Slavery! The kidnapping and enslavement of twelve million African people. After stealing an entire country from the Native American, someone had to build the infrastructure of this country, right? So America trafficked—yes, you heard me correctly. America human-trafficked twelve million people from their homes along the west coast of Africa and forced them into slave labor. But that number, twelve million, is only a fraction of the overall accounting of lives stolen. Lest we forget not all Africans who were kidnapped from Africa arrived in the Americas safely. Approximately six million died as captives in the overcrowded bowels of the ships transporting them across the Atlantic. For over two hundred years kidnapped Africans endured mutilation, torture, starvation, rape, and murder while America rode their whipped backs to wealth and prosperity. Running from this truth will not save us. America would not have risen to world prominence had the African not been forced to build this country for free.
Finally, we’ve arrived at America’s third original sin. Ladies, the following I suspect many of you already know but it still must be said for those who have chosen to live under the veil of willful ignorance. Specifically, Caucasian women. Lie to yourselves if that helps you sleep at night but know this unequivocally fact. America does not love you either. Ladies, this country only tolerates you. It tolerates you because it genuinely only wants you to cook its food, serve its meals, lie on your backs for its pleasure, birth its children. And maybe if under unrelenting direst, it will tolerate you working but only for less money than of your male counterpart.
Need more convincing of your forced station in this country? Okay, lets look at the facts of American history. Ladies, especially my Caucasian sisters, during the same time Africans were forced to endure slavery, you also were a second class citizen. Remember, during the same time period slavery began, ran rapid, and ultimately ended you had NO right to vote. (The following is Not man-splaining its just a recount of historical fact).
It wasn’t until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment gave women a voice in the political process. As of today’s date you have had the right to vote for a just over a century. Now, I know that sounds like a significant amount of time because a century is considered and milestone number. But that milestone shrinks in significance when you examine the date 1920 with scrutiny. In 1920, when women were finally allowed to vote, African slaves had already been freed from slavery for fifty-five years. That’s fifty-five years this country decided what they’d done to kidnapped and human trafficked human beings needed to be corrected. Yet, this country still did NOT think its very own white women deserved to vote. Let’s put this into more perspective. Caucasian women, your own fathers, uncles, husbands, brothers, nephews, and the adult sons you birthed into existence allowed fifty-five years to pass after they freed SLAVES who were foreign to this land. Fifty-five years passed before they deeming you, their own women, worthy to cast a ballot in your own country.
Still not convinced? Ask Hillary Rodham Clinton. Over a decade ago America elected its first African American president. Yet, only eight years later this country shook in terror at the idea of electing its first female President. Every election cycle too many men in this country are overcome with acute paralysis as our pens hover over check boxes adjacent to the names of more than qualified female candidates. Our paralysis, yes I’m generalizing now, is brought on by insecurity, fear of reprisal, or simple ignorance. Running from this truth will not save us. And that truth is…the only thing America hates more than brown people . . . are women!