Any support I give to the white structure is purely accidental. I work hard and get paid for my work (not enough, of course). The money I make goes towards providing my family with a home, food, clothes, video games (try to avoid that one with kids) and the likes. What the white structure does with that money after I put it in their hands is out of my hands. But in no way do I support their actions of what they do with it like wars, racists authorities, their own perverted sexual & drug habits, etc.
So, am I a part of the system? No I am not. I have no say in their decisions made on a daily basis. They have erected a ceiling to keep me from rising beyond a certain height, and beat me if I even come close to it. So that means that I am not a part of their system, nor do I support it. And if I am wrong for putting them all in the same basket (I do not trust cops; PERIOD!), then I learned from the best.........them.
Brother Kamau ... Peace and Blessings ...
I understand what you are saying. I believe trust and respect are two different things, not necessarily contingent upon each other. But i do understand the place from which your thinking flows. I've been at that place too, and am probably still there, when it comes to some topics and stuff. I believe it is a growing process, continually having to climb up, to get to where we can begin to view each other the way we want to be viewed. It seems we have the unique ability, to easily disassociate ourselves, from each other. When none of us are a stone's throw away, from the other.
Brother Kamau ... notice above how you have removed yourself from any responsibility for your actions. You say once the money leaves your hands, you are no longer responsible, even though you know it is going to maintain a system of white supremacy, killing people all over the world, everything ... but you are exempt from responsibility because you spend the money to feed your Family (as most all of us do), and therefore you're somehow different from the Black Cop ... who feeds his Family.
What of the Black Military Personnel? Are there no good Brothers or Sisters there either? They are the ultimate police. Parents are listening to their children right now, ask to sign up. There are no jobs. They provide bonuses upon sign up. MANY Black People have served in the military of this country, and valiantly so i'm sure. Do we wipe all of them out as well? Trust none of them? Respect none of them? I have heard a Brother go on and on about Black Military people, beating them down in the ground, talking of them as though they are the lowest scum of the earth, while never admitting he served himself.
If one has no responsibility toward the end result, once the money leaves their hands ... then that means ... when each of us shop for groceries with the white vendor, for whatever reason we choose, we have no responsibility for the economic despair of the Black store owner.
If one has no responsibility toward the end result, once the money leaves their hands ... then that means ... all of us can do no better, than we do, because that's all any of us do ... work on their jobs, where we make money to live, and then we spend that money for the services white folk provide. That's the circle. That's all any of us do. If we aren't willing to review what we all do, microscopically, and figure out a way to change it ... come out of the vicious cycle ... then all any of us are ... are folk within it ... complaining about the other Brother or Sister ... that's in the same vicious cycle, as you.
We need solutions and not more finger pointing.
We have a host of Sisters and Brothers, from every walk of life, that we could point some fingers at ... paint them all with a broad brush, easily. You know what, even the walk of life you are on ... whatever it is ... within it, there are some that do low down and dirty things ... i don't care what walk you walk.
Does that make you lowdown and dirty, just cause some other folk are? I don't think so.
There are lowdown and dirty Mothers. Sisters that kill their babies intentionally. Let men have their Daughters. Fight their Daughters over Men. Abuse their children. Neglect Them. Sisters that know their children are selling drugs, out of their home. We got some of the stories, posted here. That don't mean all Mothers are bad.
My point is, we could move from one group of us, to another, and never finish showing how lowdown and dirty Black Folk can be. We could do that, and it might yield us something great at the end. But the way i figure it, is that we've got to move beyond looking at each other as suspects, the villian, the most evil, the worst, the lowdown and dirtiest. That is what they want us to think of each other, and that is what we do. When we could never be our greatest enemy, for all of us are subject to their tyranny. Each and every one of us.
Perhaps we will one day be able to see with our own eyes, whether we are in fact, our own worst enemy.
I propose that we can never know that, while the greater enemy, an enemy to us all, still has dominion over us.
Love You!
Destee
