Speaking My Truth

Sometimes life imitates art, and I have to speak up (and it’s long because I’ve been holding it in).

I don’t want to upset anyone when I say that while the No Kings Protests were well-planned and well-attended, I don’t see a clear outcome or benefit.

And I’ve heard people wonder, “where are the BIPOC protesters?” Perhaps Facebook friends wonder where I was, since I am one to openly express my opinion about the current leadership of this country.

I only speak for myself when I say, “Been there, done that. Where were you then?”

Protests were born out of need

Black Americans are the orchestrators of the protest movement. From the time they were forced to come here and work under draconian laws that didn’t even recognize them as full human beings, they have protested. They fled. They undermined authority. They found ways to educate themselves. They helped others escape to freedom. A small percentage of white Americans helped, but what they didn’t do was work to change the systems that had been created to keep Black Americans from being fully recognized as citizens. Reparations were offered and repeatedly tabled. The wealth of this country was built on their free labor and the slave trade.

Know the history before it gets erased

During reconstruction, Black Americans set up public schools that welcomed all children. They voted. They ran for positions of leadership. And then military protection was pulled by President Andrew Johnson—a Southern sympathizer. The government returned land that had been promised to freed men and women to the plantation owners. Laws were enacted that made slavery still possible by using prisoners. And they enacted other laws that made it easy to throw Black men in prison. They worked these prisoners to death, literally, and went back for more. And more laws were passed to prevent Black Americans from voting. And the South wasn’t the only place where Black Americans experienced extreme racism.

In the Jim Crow era, Black Americans were not deterred. They served in wars and returned home and opened businesses in thriving Black towns.  And white Americans beat or lynched Black men who wore military uniforms on the way back home. And they burned Black businesses down and then destroyed whole towns where middle class Black people lived separately to keep the wiles of white men at bay. And when Black Americans lived in areas where white people lived, everything from neighborhoods to schools, bathrooms to public pools to movie theaters and lunch counters was segregated. And it got harder and harder to vote. Black Americans were asked to guess how many beans were in a jar and they had to pay a poll tax just to get to vote. While white women fought for their right to vote, they argued that while they believed Black Americans had a right to vote, too, they felt white women should be awarded the right first.

During World War II, the United States fought valiantly for freedom and Black Americans were right there in battles across Europe and Africa. But when they returned home, they were no freer than before the war. And that’s where protesting and large-scale boycotting began. You want us to be your garbage collectors for low pay? We won’t collect it anymore. You want us to sit in the back of the buses? We’ll walk to work instead. We’ll go to the Supreme Court to desegregate schools so our children can get an equal education. And what did white people do? Use authority to stop protests. They sprayed fire hoses and sicced dogs on protesters. They burned crosses in the yards of civil rights leaders. They firebombed Black churches. They beat and killed people who protested. They brought out long-forgotten Confederate flags and rewrote the narrative of the Civil War and said it was about states’ rights. 

They paid the price

Protesters understood the price to be paid for freedom in the United States and took the risk anyway. They willingly paid the price so the next generations would live in freedom. And that’s what each generation of Black Americans has done since the birth of this country. They paid the price. Right into the present day when Black Lives Matter protests sprung up around the country. Sure, lots of white people participated. And some certainly paid a price. But Black Americans paid with their lives, at the hands of radicalized white nationalists and the police. 

Hippies, a predominately white, antiestablishment, loosely organized way of life, adopted the ways of Black protesters when they protested the Vietnam War and women’s rights. They unceremoniously left out Black women from the feminist movement, used BIPOC and poor women to clean their houses and watch their babies when they entered the workforce, and somehow ended up making returning soldiers from the war, who were mostly drafted, feel as if they were the bad guys. Yes, some paid the ultimate price, like the students at Kent State. Then, after years of free love, they returned to the upper middle class as doctors, lawyers, and corporate executives. 

I’ve learned some things about race relations in the United States

I’ve been in an interracial relationship for over fifty years. I’ve learned some things about race relations in America along the way. And I’ve paid the price for making the choice to fall in love at the age of 18 and stay with the man I wanted to spend my life with. Discrimination, threats, estrangement, and violence was the price I paid. Whenever I spoke out, there was always at least one helpful white person who said, “but you made the choice,” and, in those few words, blamed me for the things other people did to us and to my husband. Well-meaning individuals told us to not read into everything and make it racial, as if we were the problem when the seller wouldn’t honor our purchase contract for a house and clearly stated her reason for refusing to sell to a Black man. She didn’t want to ruin the neighborhood. Liberal friends told me we were militant and asking for trouble. For speaking out. For filing discrimination complaints. For trying to raise our kids in a home and for living our lives.

As an author, recognized as a voice in contemporary social justice literature, even liberal friends and family told me that I needed to stop hitting people over the head with my stories about racism and injustice. I warned in both memoirs what was coming: a return to mainstream white supremacy. Critics said I was histrionic.

And yet, here we are

When I see No Kings protests, I am not compelled to join. It isn’t my protest. I’ve already paid the price. And I didn’t even pay the price that millions of BIPOC have paid over generations in hundreds of years and are still paying.

I’m not telling you not to protest. It’s your right. It’s your fight. And you’re good at it.

But understand that you are fighting a single battle, not the war. Trump is a nobody, who has a certain appeal to a certain group of citizens. He spews grievances and hatred. It’s what they want to hear. The far right needed him for that reason only. In the future, he won’t be remembered as anything but a puppet and for his profound stupidity.

Know and understand the real danger

Powerful, wealthy white men who want to control our economy and enrich themselves are behind this. They made pacts with the devils of fundamental Christianity and white nationalists. These men care little about individual rights and freedoms. They only care about their own self-enrichment. Do you think they care if immigrants are deported from this country? Only in as much as they need them for cheap labor. Ask Tyson’s chicken how well it’s doing these days. Do you think they care about equality for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals? They do not. It’s about the money. Prisons and detention centers make men rich, especially when full to capacity. Public schools are a drain on the economy in their minds because cheap labor doesn’t need to be educated, and their children have private schools and universities. 

Powerful, wealthy white men formed this country on the backs of enslaved people and at the expense of the Indigenous Peoples who were already here for thousands of years.

Are we looking for change or the status quo?

After they have taken control back from “the people” they won’t mind throwing you a few nickels of freedom. They will let everything go back to the old systems that were designed to benefit the few. And most white Americans will be happy with that. Having to think about the logistics of real democracy is too much. They’d have to know the history and understand the systems and their own privilege. They’d have to support reparations for the descendants of enslaved labor, loss of generational wealth, stolen lands, broken treaties, and the government-backed erasure of cultures. They’d have to pay the price. And they won’t.  

Being woke and liberal is not so different than being part of the far right. Each group is fighting for a select group of freedoms for their benefit. Fighting for the right to choose is not so different from fighting for the right to bear arms. Though a certain right may be proclaimed “for all Americans” and the laws will back that right, it will not be that way in practice. How difficult was choosing an abortion for someone who is poor long before the GOP stepped in and made it hard for everyone? A Black man carrying a weapon, even if it is a toy, has a high chance of being a dead man when the police come. A white man, like Kyle Rittenhouse or George Zimmerman, will be praised as a hero. It’s the difference between legal citizenship and social citizenship, or the ability to live peaceably with the comfort of knowing the laws and authority will protect you. 

The Democratic Party doesn’t get a free pass for being the party of diversity

I also bring forth the interesting story of the Democrats, my party. I’ve been a member of the party longer than I’ve been in an interracial relationship. They call themselves the party of diversity and inclusion. It all goes well while people are playing nicely, but don’t go speaking out like AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley. Or Maxine Waters or Al Greene. You may get censured. How many times did one of my sheroes, Nancy Pelosi, rebuke them for speaking truth to power? She once said of them in an interview, “If you don’t want any results, you don’t ever have to do anything. But if you have something that you want to pass, you’re better off not having your chief of staff send out a tweet in the manner in which that was sent out. Totally inappropriate. I’ve never seen anything like it.” It’s the party of diversity when it’s convenient and for votes. God forbid you actually express a differing opinion to the status quo.

Are you willing to pay the price?

If you aren’t prepared to pay the price for equality that encompasses both legal and social enactment, then your battle is not my battle. Nor is it the battle of most BIPOC. If the battles were the same, Kamala Harris would be president today. Every American would have recognized the terror that choosing the other side would unleash upon us. But they didn’t. They claimed they didn’t like Harris, or that she wasn’t experienced enough (although she and Hilary were the two most experienced candidates in the history of U.S. presidential elections), or that a woman would not be respected by world leaders. Like Trump is? He’s a joke and a threat to world stability. 

Others just sat out the election, hoping the Black vote would do what it often does, save our asses. Unfortunately, some BIPOC individuals are also caught up in racial ideologies and questioned Harris’ racial identification as a mixed race individual. They were not the majority by a long stretch.

I’m not calling you out or trying to make you feel bad

I’m not saying this to make you feel some kind of way. Guilty or ashamed or like I am attacking you personally. I’m saying this because the battle that has been fought and paid for over hundreds of years and with millions of lives is still raging, but not enough people are willing to forgo their sense of place and privilege to fight alongside the victims of the construct of race in America.  

Keep protesting. It’s your right. But be clear what you’re protesting for and what price you’re willing to pay. I am sitting this one out. For me, it’s too little, too late.

A small price to pay for freedom

As for the man who wants to be king? Spend your energy on the elected leaders who support and kowtow to him as they get wealthier and wealthier. Get out and vote like our lives depend on it. It’s a small price to pay for freedom.