There
has always been a collective attitude among White folks that they do not have
to respect African Americans because they are not their equals. The day slaves
were freed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, there was no official
legislation recognizing the edit. The 13th Amendment was passed April
8, 1864, by Congress, by the House on January 31, 1865. Right away White folks commenced
creating ways to sabotage that freedom, further pushing their knees deeper into necks
of emancipated men and women and children. White folks did not care about the
Emancipation Proclamation or Abe Lincoln’s largess, which was not absolutely sincere.
Whites believed that no amendment in the Constitution of the United States applied to the free Black Africans.
To concede that certain amendments were applicable to Blacks meant cutting in
half the elephant in the room: White Privilege. The elephant covers a lot of
White Privilege territory: affirmative action, equal pay, judicial fairness,
police protection, quality educations, freedom to be free, employment opportunities.
White males
in power did not want former slaves to breathe a whiff of fresh air without
their permission. Ex-slaves were mobile black bodies without souls and emotions.
Like children, they needed guidance. They had to be closely monitored, corralled
and beat when they were unruly and disobedient. White women and children did
not have full-fledged rights either, but they had a modicum more freedom than former slaves.
After
emancipation the Black Africans had nowhere to go. No new life awaited them. They
were money-broke, and destitute. They had nowhere to live. No food. No clothing. No
job prospects. They were vulnerable and susceptible to the cruelest forms of revictimization administered by White folks. Because
thousands of them had no choice list to check off, they stayed with their
former owners, working as sharecroppers. Plantation owners provided the land
and seed for a share of the profits. However, some ex-slaves decided to try and
make it on their own in a country completely controlled by White males.
They did
not get the 40 acres and mule as promised by Union General William T. Sherman,
January 16, 1866, that was filed order No.15. The 40 acres consisted of land on the
costal islands and costal region of Georgia. The Union promised to donate mules
it was not using. However, the mules were not packaged with the 40 Acres. The promise
was broken. President Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor, annulled the deal.
On April 16, 1861, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act made it possible for the
government to pay former slave owners $300,00 for each slave they once owned. Around $1 million was put aside to pay the former slaveholders. An estimated 979 plantation and farm owners had around 2,989 slaves. The payees were
compensated to stay loyal to the Union. Reparations for loss of “property”? Or
reparations for loyalty? Manumitted slave got nothing for their years of hard labor.
Black men
and women deciding to make it on their own ran into more brick walls than opportunities. But some were
successful. White folks, poor and rich, did not allow Blacks the privilege of
becoming viable citizens, earning their own way, earning money to buy land and
start a new life. These skilled Blacks were threats to White males,
who feared the competition for jobs and land purchases, which would diminish
their economic status and power. Enslavement was not you scratch my back, I’ll
scratch yours handshake deal between liberated Africans and privileged
Caucasians.
In the
book “I Was Born in Slavery” edited by Andrew Waters, ex-slaves remember their bondage.
Wash Ingram recalled his owner and the treatment they received. He said his mother and
father were sold frequently. Whoever owned them at any given time was the name
they took. Ingram’s father ran away. His mother died. He was left alone. He was sold
to a new owner named Jim Ingram.
“Master
Ingram had a big plantation down near Carthage and lots of niggers. He also
buyed land, cleared it, and sold it. I plowed with oxen. We had a overseer and
sev’ral taskmasters. They whip niggers for not workin’ right, or for riunnin’
‘way, or *pilferin’ ‘round Master’s house. We woke up at four o’clock and
worked from sunup to sundown. They give us an hour for dinner. Them that work
‘round the house had tables with plates.
Them that work in the field was drove in from work and fed just like hosses at
a big, long wooden trough. They had to eat with wooden spoons. The trough and
food was clean and always plenty of it, and we stood up to eat. *(stealing in
small amounts)
“I ‘member the war, and I sees them cannons and hears’em. I toted water for the soldiers what fought at the Battle of Mansfield. Master Ingram had 350 slaves when the war was over. But he didn’t turn us loose ‘til a year after Surrender. He telled us that the gov’ment goin’ to give us forty acres of land, and a pair of mules. But we didn’t git nothin’”.
Ingram eventually
turned his slaves loose. Wash Ingram found his father years later, who had been purchased “a place” in DeBerry, Texas. Ingram lived with him “’til after I was
grown”. He got married and moved to Louisiana, returned to Texas and lived with
friends. His wife died. He said he had a hard time. He had no more living relatives. He
couldn’t find work, so he “managed to git someone to let me work for somethin’
to eat. A few clothes, and a place to sleep”.
 |
| Black boy is tired to pole as punishment |
Freed
Africans moved North, increasing their numbers in various states. White folks were not
happy. “. . . many Whites became resentful. White hostility towards Black
residents grew. Wealthy Whites feared vagrancy and crime, and poor Whites
resented the competition over jobs. . . most White northerners were not
interested in fighting to free slaves, or in giving rights to Black people”. PBS
TV
White
terrorist groups sprang up to keep the Black Africans in place. Desperate plantation
owners, farmers and businesses needed the continuance and security of free
labor. Without Africans the South’s economy would dwindle. Virginia had the
largest population of freed slaves. A year after Black Africans were
emancipated, Virginia’s General Assembly passed the "Vagrancy Act of 1866",
January 15. Unemployment and homelessness were punishable crimes.
The law’s
preamble states: “[t]here hath lately been a great increase of idle and
disorderly persons in some parts of this commonwealth’, which displaced much of
the state’s large population of Africans’”.
If a "vagrant" attempted to escape, and later recaptured, he was sent to prison, or returned to his
previous owner, who could work him an extra month for free. The imprisoned vagrants were forced to wear balls and chains. If no former employers took
them back, they worked on public projects, surviving only on bread and water. Many
of them died from diseases, maltreatment and poor health.
Black
Codes were legislated in southern states (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina). These states were an
economic mess. They lost access to free laborers. The Black Codes allowed
Whites to regain control of the free Blacks and continued free labor. Former slaves could not own land. They could not own themselves, given they had no right to their own bodies unless a White man gave them permission to be responsible human beings.
Freed Africans had to get permission to travel out of state; they could not own guns. In
other words, they still had no rights that White folks had to acknowledge. In
1904 a new law replaced the Vagrancy Act. Vagrancy became a misdemeanor. The
guilty had to pay a bond and exhibit good behavior for one year.
BETTER
OFF CONFINED TO PRISONS
In
“Slavery by Another Name” by Douglas H, Blackmon, the author retraced the
imprisonment of a young man named Green Cottenham, who was arrested, charged with
vagrancy March 30, 1908, in Shelby County, Alabama.
“After
three days behind bars, twenty-two-year-old Cottenham was found guilty in a
swift appearance before the county judge, and immediately sentenced to a
thirty-day term of hard labor. Unable to pay the array of fees accessed on
every prisoner—fees to the sheriff, the deputy, the court judge, the witness—Cottenham’s
sentence was extended to nearly a year of hard labor. The next day, Cottenham,
the youngest of nine children, born to former slaves in an adjoining county,
was sold”.
Blackmon writes that Cottenham was turned over to the U.S. Steel Corporation by the sheriff. “What the company’s managers did with Cottenham and thousands of other Black men they purchased from sheriffs across Alabama, was entirely up to them”.
Thousands
of Black men were at the mercy of White men who held their lives and futures in
their
hands. The odds of regaining their
freedom was against Black men and boys. They were locked in another form of
slavery not even President Abe Lincoln could have freed them from. The corporate White males of privilege refused to take their knees off
the necks of these ex-slaves, all solidly trapped by false charges, White
power, open racism.
 |
| Despite being free Black men and boys were forced to work as convict laborers after getting arrested for homelessness, vagrancy, and being unemployed. |
White
officials summarily concluded that “Black convicts” would be better off if they
were confined to prisons, where they could learn discipline, a trade, and disabuse
themselves of bad habits. It was decided they were better off in servitude
rather than freedom. After the enactment
of Black Codes, a “program” called Convict Leasing came into play. This “program”
was designed to keep Black men in bondage. Convict leasing was finally outlawed in 1928, 63 years
after slavery was abolished. Louisiana was the last state to step away from the
money-making hustle.
Whoever
sought convict labor were responsible for feeding and clothing them; providing
them a place to stay. Black males made up the majority of the rented labor
force. They worked coal mines, picked cotton, worked quarries, lumber yards,
railroads, plantations, farming, construction. Black men built the Capitol of
Texas in Austin, Texas, and the White House in Washington, DC. They have never gotten credit for their contributions in these projects.
“Instead
of evidence showing Black crime waves, the original records of county jails
indicated thousands arrested for inconsequential charges, or for violations of
laws specifically written to intimidate Blacks, changing employees without
permission, vagrancy, riding freight cars without a ticket, engaging in sexual
activity, or loud talk with a White woman”. Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by
Another Name.
 |
| Evacuation of former slave's graves |
In 2018 in
Sugarland, Texas, 95 African American graves were discovered on a construction
site. Workers uncovered 85 graves of freed slaves. They were estimated to range
in ages from 14 to 70. All were boys and men, except for one woman. The
skeletal remains revealed that they “were malnourished, their bones misshapen
from back-breaking, repetitive labor. They were buried in plain pine boxes,
somewhere between 1878 and 1911”.
BLACK FOLKS
ARE "THINGS", NOT HUMANS
“I can’t
breathe”. Repeat until your mind has traveled all the way back to the first day
Africans were enslaved in America. The knees of White slave masters were on
their necks. The lives of unshackled slaves were on lease from day
one, like that of Black women, men and boys today. The end date of the lease was/is
determined by White cops with badges, gun and a pair of working knees for
choking.
If White citizens decided a Black person is “dangerous and scary”, they could shot him to death. Whites claimed they were scared, hoping the law and juries would believe their stories. Before the public killing of George Floyd, cops and White always walked free.
If White citizens decided a Black person is “dangerous and scary”, they could shot him to death. Whites claimed they were scared, hoping the law and juries would believe their stories. Before the public killing of George Floyd, cops and White always walked free.
Historian,
author, editor and activist W. E. B. DuBois said: “The slave went free, stood for
a brief moment in the sun, and then moved back again toward slavery”.
Convict
leasing was the brutal enforcement of Step Two to the slavery saga. The reimprisonment
of Black men and boys proved to be a bigger enemy than their previous enslavement.
Once again, they lost control of their own lives, which did not matter to White
males who paid other White males to lease them.
The New
York Times Magazine:
“Some American slavery matured into perverse regimes that denied the humanity
of Black people, while still criminalizing their actions. As the Supreme Court
of Alabama explained in 1861, enslaved Black people were ‘capable of committing
crimes,’ and in that capacity, were ‘regarded a person’, but in most every
other sense they were ‘incapable of performing civil acts’ and considered
‘things, not persons.’”
The 13th
Amendment is credited with legally abolishing slavery. Section 1 states:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”. Therein lies the words
that trapped emancipated bondsmen, leaving them up a creek without a paddle.
Vagrant? Homeless? Unemployed? They could be charged with these crimes that
only applied to Blacks.
Neither the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution mentioned slavery, despite forefathers owning and violating enslaved men and women. Although they were full human beings, they were referred to as “three-fifths of all other persons” in the U.S. Constitution.
When cops employ
their knees to put Black men in death holds, they do not see human beings. A
Black man, boy or woman lying belly-down on grass or pavement have no power to
renew his or her lease on life. Cops that willfully kill them, the
majority unarmed-- are reliving the oppression of 1865 vagrant laws. The cops see three-fifths Black
bodies, likened to animals that are treated more mercifully.
SANDBAGS
WITH ARMS, HANDS AND FEET
“In
Greenville, (LeRoy) Percy helped organize a flood fight and held his front
against the river. But just above Washington Country, The New York Times
reported, an engineer who ran out of sandbags ‘ordered . . . several hundred
negroes . . . to lie down on top of the levee and as close together as
possible. The Black men obeyed, and although spray frequently dashed over them,
they prevented the overflow that might have developed into an ugly crevasse.
For an hour and a half this hatred lasted, until the additional sandbags arrived.
The men were convicts, and the Times called the idea ‘brilliant’. But
Percy did not approve. To him men were economic units competing with other men,
not sandbags’”, writes John M. Barry in Rising Tide.
Democratic
Governor of Mississippi, James K. Vardaman, a devout racist who “fed on, and
fed the hatred”, did not like the notion of Black citizens getting an education.
He said education “renders him unfit for the work which the White man has
prescribed and which he will be forced to perform”. He recommended repealing
the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Vardaman
declared that Blacks were “lazy, lying, lustful animals which no amount of
training can transform into a tolerable citizen. . . “[I]f it is necessary
every negro in the State will be lynched, it will be done to maintain supremacy”.
Rising Tide
African
Americans have been referred to as “animals” by Whites throughout history,
expressing exactly the same attitude as Vardaman. Former President Barack Obama
and his family were referred to as monkeys, gorillas, orangutans. Cops, whose
Facebook and other social media ramblings have been exposed and caught calling Black folks
all these names and more.
On
lynching Blacks, Vardaman said he did not care if they were innocent or guilty,
because “[t]he good [negroes] are few, the bad are many, and it is impossible
to tell what ones are . . . dangerous to the honor of the dormant race until
the damage is done”. Vardaman held office 116 years ago.
A DILEMMA: COPS
CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD BLACKS AND BAD BLACKS
After
shooting a Black person, no matter the age or gender, White cops assert they feared
for their lives. They do not have the same fear when confronting a White person
pointing a weapon at them. They suddenly feel the need to be reasonable as they
try negotiating with the White individual. Unfortunately, being Black is a
crime punishable by physical abuse or death.
Louie White
(deceased) became a cop in Austin, Texas in 1959. At the time a Black cop could
arrest a White person, even if they were caught committing a crime. If a Black
cop was assigned a downtown beat, that was limited to a couple of blocks. They
had to call for a White cop to arrest a White person. Black cops could not control,
handcuff or touch any person perceived as White. On the other hand, White cops
could go on the East Side to arrest, beat, kill or harass any Black person they
wanted to. Black cops could only deal with Blacks.
In Psychology
Today, Allision Abrams writing about “The Psychology Behind Racism”, says,
“Attitudes of extreme hatred are usually based in fear. They come from
primitive survival mechanisms or instincts to avoid danger—to fear anything
that appears to be different, which leads to fear of the other.
“When one
race of persons unconsciously feels fear in response to a different race
group—fears that their own level of security, important or control of being
threatened—they will develop these defensive thoughts and behaviors. They will
create exaggerated and negative beliefs about the other race to justify their
actions in [an] attempt to secure their own safety and survival”.
MSNBC News
“Think” (Opinion, Analysis, Essays), Damien Jones, writes about his fear of the
police, who sees his height as dangerous. “As a 6-foot-3 Black man, I’ve been
trained my whole life to protect my safety by trying to make myself seem less
threatening—dressing in professional clothing, smiling extra hard, not wearing
my do-rag in public. But it shouldn’t be my duty to undo hundreds of years of
stereotyping of Black men. It should be the responsibility of officers to
unlearn their biases, and to be trained to distinguish real threats from
nonthreats”.
Rather
than sounding like he is chairman of Urban Justice and Equality, PAC, Jones
sounds like a manumitted slave having to watch his behavior, appearing
nonthreatening around White folks, especially cops. In the year 2020 he is still
scared not smile “extra hard” for fear he won’t appear friendly. This
professional Black man’s life is very much akin to the rules set by the 1866
Vagrancy Act, created to keep a White man’s knee on his Black neck if he is identified
as someone he is not.
“American culture is imbued with fears that African Americans will someday repay the violence and oppression that has marred their history in this country”, said Noam Chomsky, linguist and cultural critic. He emphasized the ongoing impact of Black enslavement and subjugation in the U.S., saying, ‘fears that the victims might rise up and take revenge are deeply rooted in American culture, with reverberations to the present’”. Alternet.org
Knowing
they could do whatever they wanted with run-away slaves or liberated slaves
without freedom papers signed by their former owners—organized, armed paddy
rollers took advantage of their power over their helpless captives. If they severely
beat, tortured or killed their prisoners, they did not claim they “feared for
their lives.” They did not fear the sizes of their prisoners. Their bloody deeds
were executed without consequences.
During a
traffic stop in Virginia in 2019, one cop on the scene proved the “I feared for
my life” is a lie; a myth. The episode began with the cop letting the young
Black male know that he was in charge. The Black man, stopped for an expired
inspection sticker and suspended driver’s license, immediately began taping the
interaction. He made sure his hands were raised and visible.
"He said to the cop
standing at the window, “Sir my hands
are up. I’m in no threat to officers”. The cop, opening the car door, said:
“You are going to get your ass whupped”. His bodycam was not on. The Black man
was pulled out of his car. His cell camera stopped but not the audio. After
pulling the driver out of his car, throwing him to the ground, the cop said,
“How do you like that, motherfucker? How do you like that”?
The driver
reminded the cop he was not resisting. He asked the cop to get “off my neck”. The
cop did not exhibit fear of the Black man. He retained his supremacy. The young
black man, who sustained several injuries, was the Constitution’s three-fifths
of a human, his dignity pinned to the street like his body.
Norm
Stamper, former police chief of the Seattle Police Department, wrote: “Simply
put, White cops are afraid of Black men. We don’t talk about it, we pretend it
doesn’t exist, we claim ‘color blindness’, we say White officer treat Black men
the same way they treat White men. But that’s a lie. In fact, the bigger, the
darker the Black man the greater the fear. The African American community knows
this. Hell, most Whites know it. Yet, even though it’s central, if not the
defining ingredient in the makeup of police racism, White cops won’t admit it
to themselves or to others.
“I’ve
studied fear for years. I’ve learned how it affects our bodies, out perception,
judgment, and actions. [R]ecently I’ve tried to dig up empirical evidence to
support my particular theory that White cops are afraid of Black men. [T]here
are studies showing that Whites, in general, are likely to view Blacks as more
violent than Whites.
“So, why
am I so certain that White cops are afraid of Black men? Because I was a White
cop. In a world of White cops. For thirty-four years. From the earlies days of
academy training, it was made clear that Black men and White cops don’t mix, that
of all the people we’d encounter on the streets, those most dangerous to our
safety, to our survival, were Black men”. A Top Cop’s Expose of the
Dark Side of American Policing, by Norm Stamper
Whereas
Stamper said White cops are afraid of big African American men, during slavery
the bigger, the blacker a slave, the more favor he received from his White
owner. A big, black buck was perceived
as valuable. He was perceived as a good worker and breeder, worthy of living
not killing. For decades White cops have been shooting Black men, women and
children without regard to their
size, despite of Stamper’s assessment.
“In Amite,
Louisiana, fifty miles north of New Orleans, several farmers were indicted on
charges of kidnapping a family of Negroes for a twenty dollar bill; the Negroes
were forced to work without pay for weeks under armed guards”. Rising Tide
 |
| George Floyd |
May 25,
2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 6 feet, 7 inches, George Floyd, 46, was
murdered on a Minnesota street as people watched in horror and disbelief. His
murder was videoed in real time by a person on the scene. While in police
custody, Floyd was eventually wrestled to the pavement, held down by Thomas Lane,
Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng. He asked not to be put in the back of police car because
he was claustrophobic and had recovered from COVID-19. He was eventually wrestled
to the ground. He had volunteered to lay on the ground rather be locked in the closed
police vehicle.
Derek
Chauvin was the nonchalant cops that held his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight
minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd begged and pleaded for Chauvin to get his knee
off his neck. He could not breathe. The cop refused, Floyd died, handcuffed,
held down by three other cops, lying face down on the street, begging to let
him breathe, calling for his deceased mother. He predicted the cops were going
to kill him.
His crime,
other than being Black? The owner of a grocery store called the police, telling
the 911 dispatcher that a customer was trying to pay for a purchase with a
counterfeit $20 bill.
In 1928 a
Black family sold for a $20 bill. The White farmers who snatched the family, taking
them to Mississippi, were indicted for kidnapping. A Black was man murdered by
four cops, because he was accused of trying to pay for a purchase with a phony $20
bill. The four cops will stand trial for George Floyd’s murder. His life and the lives of a Black family was worth less than $25.00
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