Let’s Level the Playing Field

My friends are burning up Facebook with their posts about social justice and equality. Here’s another that needs sharing widely. Thank you, B.E. Shaw Sr. for this powerful statement. At the end, I’ve added some books he recommends that will help us understand the Black experience.

We (Caucasian and African Americans) need each race working in tandem to finally put an end to systemic racism…

Truth be told, Virginia, and all my Caucasian sisters and brothers on social media, We can’t do this without you… If you go back to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad as it pertains to the horrific plight of the Black race … we’ve had (and needed) many white soldiers that stood by our side…

Unfortunately, in 21st Century Trump-America, we need your support and allegiance more than ever before…

I mean really, aren’t y’all tired of seeing black men, women, and children being utterly disrespected, humiliated, scoffed and laughed at? And not just by myriad white folks, but other races as well.

Lastly, every since my ancestors were kidnapped, forced into centuries of chattel slavery, mass incarceration after emancipation, all Black folks have attempted to do is just “get in where we fit in,” to occupy, and share a level playing field.

I’ve always wondered (even as a precocious child), “is that too much to ask?”

Harriet Tubman statue in Women’s Rights Museum

B.E. also gave some book recommendations.

Two great reads for my Caucasoid brothers and sisters: (1) Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, and (2) White Privilege … The late J. H. Griffin was Caucasian and so is Robin D… both books are powerful tools to give White America a glimpse of what it’s like to be African American in a land where we have been perpetually hated solely because of our dark skin.

 Black Like Me White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism White Privilege

“We must be willing to consider that unless we have devoted intentional and ongoing study, our opinions are necessarily uninformed, even ignorant. How can I say that if you are white, your opinions on racism are most likely ignorant, when I don’t even know you? I can say so because nothing in mainstream US culture gives us the information we need to have the nuanced understanding of arguably the most complex and enduring social dynamic of the last several hundred years.”

Excerpt from the book “White Fragility” written by a Caucasian American female.