Underclass View of American slavery

I’ve seen lately on Hub pages an attempt to insult by inquiry black people in general and African- American in particular. “Why do blacks carry a chip on their shoulders about slavery?” “Were you ever a slave?” “How comes blacks in Europe never say a word about slavery?” Why do they kill each other? Why don’t they teach and educate their children? Why don’t they get a job during this recession? Why don’t they pull up their pants? Why do they blame slavery for everything? My question is why do people who blame African Americans for everything wrong with America and with African Americans ask African Americans such insulting questions. I have a question for the questioners, if neither you nor your forefathers were ever African slaves or victims of racism, what held you back, not blacks? Not even affirmative action, racism and slavery is the black man’s reasons, is the black man your reason, or the lack of free labor?

The Negro and American slavery are hard to separate like today’s liberals and minorities. Before I look back to that painful and shameful time I must look out at today. What is said about black people is painful and shameful to me. The way I see it, Negros don’t behave like any other people on earth. The majority of African Americans are poor unemployed and uneducated. They are mostly urban dwellers living in poor cities abandoned by white’s years ago, but now Regentrification is the word of the days and night. In an attempt to show the connection between slavery and today’s African American’s lack of advancement I must use a word I never liked, Negro.

Slavery in world history is different, and nothing like the brutality, inhumanity, and dehumanization of American Slavery. No indentured servants and slaves throughout history suffered the existence of the American Negro in and out of slavery in America. Now for those who really want to understand the connection between American slavery and today’s Negro and slavery, I want you to imagine that Negro didn’t mean black and your people were brought to America against their will. They were brought to America because they were hard workers. The black men and European

who stole them from all over Europe called them Negros. Now stick with me, these black men bought and sold your people for hundreds of years. During all those years there was no such thing as family life for Negro slaves. Education of a Negro slave could mean death to the teacher and student. Your forefathers couldn’t protect their wives and children from the black land owners. Those who choose death over dishonor die, most lived. After hundreds of years of the Negros being slaves they were freed. Your people were free to leave but had no place to go. They didn’t get no homestead, no 40 acres, no mule, so most of your people stay on the plantation and paid the black slave owner to work the land.

Many freed Negros headed to cities and towns looking for jobs. Slavery was over, and most European Negros were poor and ignorant. Racism replaces slavery And Negros were held down and held back until about the time you were born in the in the early 50’s. When you were 15 or so civil right, voting rights, desegregation and stuff like that gave you and your parents hope for Negros for the first time since 1865. Black people just left the cities and move to the suburbs and took their money too. For the first time in the south European Negros could drive city buses, be mayors, and city council persons. The police chiefs of most big cities were Negros, and so were the fire chiefs imagine that, a white police chief. The blacks move away and built schools, firehouses, and city halls away from the poor and uneducated European Negros. The Negros were calling for white power in cities across America as the city’s tax base suffered from the lost of the black tax payers. City services declined and education failed in most urban schools. The Negros didn’t want to be called Negros anymore; they wanted to be called Euro-Americans. Your parents didn’t know from where in Europe they came because they had no knowledge of their history prior to the end of slavery. As far as they could remember, you are the first family member to go to college since your forefathers arrived in America. The 60’s 70’s and 80’s were the best years for Negros as far as economy development and good jobs. Then came the 90’s and the southern strategy, next jobs began to disappear and move off shore. Crack came to the Hood just as the job began leaving. Those Euro-American got hooked from coast to coast and it was another blow to the Negro family structure. By the time Negros got over that introduction to Crack, the jobs were gone and we were in two wars. The door was open for about 30 years after being closed for hundreds and it closed tight again in the last 20 years. Only about 10% of all the millions of Euro-Americans were successful getting through the door in that 30 year opening. Today Negros have lost ground. Other Europeans don’t identify with Negros because neither they nor Negros know the nation they are from in Europe. The Europeans know Negro history better than Euro-Americans know their own. Europeans, Africans, Asians, Arabs, etc, they all do better in America than Negros who have been here since the beginning of America, Why is this true? Is it because white people just don’t want to live better lives? No, it’s racism and not slavery. It has been for over a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Black Racism against White Negros has stopped the progress of Negros in America, their only known Nation.

This story was created to illustrate that any race or people under the same conditions would be in the same position today as African Americans. American slavery through breeding turned Africans into Negros; it could have been any people. In honor of Negro history month, my next hub will be about Racism and its impact on the advancement of Negros in America. You can see much more of what blacks experienced through American brand of slavery. @http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

junko