#38

African-Americans make up only twelve percent of the entire American population. If you do not understand what I mean by African-American, I mean natural born American citizens that are decendents of humans taken from the African continent and brought to North America as slaves. 

Those people are the ones I am speaking of. 

I am an African-American. 

As a future/current African-American leader, my heart goes out to the families of the black men that are no longer with us. In today's United States of America, far too often are police too quick to lethal action when involved with black men. Far too often are police too quick to use an excess of force when involved with black men. Far too often are police guilty of more severe crimes in their methods of apprehending criminals than the actual so-called criminals.

I hear criticisms of my people: Ignorant, Noisy, Aggressive and Lazy.

In all actuality these negativities are lingering imagery from the slave era into our modern day lens'. They are extremely out dated. But, I know most non-African-American's will still maintain that we still embody these negativities. 

So let's really break this shit down.

Why are we "Ignorant"? Maybe you forgot, my people were not allowed to learn to read and write. Thus making teaching my people to read and write illegal in a number of states. The same way marijuana is illegal in states and legal in states. To really bring this home to you, me writing this post so elegantly, in this country in the 1800's would have gotten me killed and possibly would ever taught me too. The African-American most associated with pushing for the literacy of his people was Fredrick Douglas. I learned to read and write at Fredrick Douglas Elementary School in Jacksonville, Texas. Coincidence? I think not. But, to combat the literacy of African-Americans, many states enacted laws like the one below to make sure African-American's remained IGNORANT to the English language.

["Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion to the manifest injury of the citizens of this state" - North Carolina]

Why are we "Noisy"? As previously mentioned, my people were not allowed to read or write, that means we could not communicate through the various means that were available. So we used the one God allowed for, our voices. We made our presence felt in the cotton fields with negro-spirituals because our voices surely were not heard in through the ballot box as the founders of this great country intended. Or did you forget that African-American's were not allowed to vote? Progress came slow, even to the point of compromising to see my people as 3/5 of a human. But now NOISY African-American's are the focus of every entertainment station and our songs are taking over the internet and mainstream radio, generating more revenue for non-African-American than we generate for ourselves.

Why are we "Aggressive"? If you are not African-American this one will be difficult to understand. We are AGGRESSIVE to protect our own. In times of slavery all African-American men were beaten in front of their female mates, to show that they could not protect their family which has caused many long lasting effects on the African-American family dynamic and our culture in general.

Lastly, why are we "Lazy"? After African-American's were slaves to this country for hundreds of years and built this country from the bottom up on their backs, without reparations or compensation, we still are NOT LAZY. If anything, those who benefit from white privilege and do not have to step outside of their comfort zone to survive ARE LAZY. What is lazy? Does it mean not doing manual labor? Because if that's the definition we are using, then the owners of NBA and NFL teams are lazy. Any person making passive income is lazy. My people are not lazy. I wish more of them could afford to be lazy but this is not the case in the United States in 2014. 

All of these negativities associated with my people have stemmed from a very dark time of brutal slavery in this country and just pure blindness from non-African-American's to the lingering effects that are still plaguing MY PEOPLE. The simple fact that I can use my scholarly wisdom to draft this post shows that we are more than we receive credit for. I am my people. My people are who I am.