Legendary female rapper, Lauryn Hill says violence in black communities is a reflection of the past enslavement of black people. Of cos not in those words, but that is a summary of what she is trying to say in her new 1,500-word essay on her Tumblr page. Lauryn is set to start her 3 months tax evasion prison sentence on July 8; she had failed to file tax returns in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
The open letter is really long, put I have extracted some paragraphs that I feel drive hom the point she is trying to make-
"The concept of reverse racism is flawed,
if not absolutely ridiculous. Most, if not all of the negative responses
from people of color toward white people, are reactions to the hatred,
violence, cruelty and brutality that they were shown by white people for
centuries. Much of the foundation of the modern world was built on the
forced free labor of black peoples. The African Slave Trade, the
institution of slavery, colonialism, its derivative systems, and the
multiple holocausts throughout history, where whites used race as the
defining reason to justify their oppression, conquest, and brutal
treatment of non-white peoples, are how race became such a factor to
begin with.
The initial claim by the oppressors, followed a moral imperative (so
they said) that people outside of Occidental and European birth were in
savage and cursed conditions, and that God justified the captivity of
these people, and the rape and pillage of their lands."
Hmm! As much as I don't like to play the blame game as a black man, I think she makes some valid points in her essay. Keep reading...
"Of course there are white people who live
transcendent lives, not exploiting ill-gotten privilege or perpetuating
the sins of their ancestors who used violence and deceit as a means to
gain advantage over others. Humanity in proper order is obligated to
acknowledge the Truth, whoever it comes from, be they Black, White or
other. Righteous indignation is simply a response to long-standing evil.
Much of the world is still reeling from the abuses of Imperialist
selfishness, misunderstanding, ignorance and greed. Black people remain
in many ways a shattered community, disenfranchised, forcefully removed
from context and still caged in, denied from making truly independent
choices and experiencing existential freedom. Their natural homes, just
like their natural selves, raped and pillaged of the resources and gifts
God has given to them. Interpreted through someone else’s slanted lens
and filter, they remain in many ways, misrepresented. Taxation without
proper representation, might I remind you, was the very platform of
protest that began the Revolutionary War, which gained this country its
independence from England. Anger is not only the natural response to the
abuse of power, but is also appropriate when there is no real
acknowledgment of these abuses, or deep, meaningful and profound change.
If we took all of what we deem horrible regarding the criminal abuses
that black people have committed over this country’s history, and add
it all up, it still does not compare to the hundreds of years of
terrorism, violent domination, theft, rape, abuse, captivity, and beyond
that black people have suffered under the ideologies and systems of
white supremacy, racism, and slave based paradigms. I say this only to
say that abuse unresolved begets or creates abuse. How then does the
chief offender become the judge? Might does not necessarily mean right.
Right is right. People forcibly reduced to sub-human existences, so that
they behave in sub-human ways, helps a system to justify itself or feel
less guilty about its blood saturated foundation and gross crimes
against humanity. People, like plants, grow where the light is. When you
enclose a plant and limit its light source, it will bend itself toward
the light, for the light is necessary for its survival. This same thing
happens to people locked in communities where little light and little
opportunity is allowed them, survival then forces them to twist and/or
bend toward the only way of escape."
If I want to sum up what she is trying to say, I'd quote part of Nas's verse on Tripple Beam Dreams (a Rick Ross song feat. Nas)-
"A project minded individual criminal tactics
Us blacks kids born with birth defects, we hyperactive
Mentally sex-crazed dysfunctional they describe us
They liars, the end of the day, we fucking survivors."
We blacks are just a result of the pyschological and mental trauma from past conditions of slavery, segregaion, and colonization. And for the African Americans, they just want to survive in the poor housing communities they were put in. But, even though all these are facts, I think the generation of white people that have this supremacy mentality are passing away with time. The current generation of white kids, or I'd say, the white kids from the age bracket of 15-35 don't have as strong a mentality of being a supreme race as those older. And this is a good thing, cos they are the ones that would rule in the future.
