When offering commentary on the slap seen around the world, NBA legend Kareen Abdul-Jabbar put the mantle of responsibility for the image of all Black Americans squarely on Will Smith’s shoulder. However, the very act of putting the burden of upholding the reputation of an entire community on one man’s shoulder is racist at best and at worst, it deprives us of the most human right of all - the grace to learn from our mistakes.
The requirement of us to be twice as good is a racist concept used to impose intentionally unfair standards on our people to receive equal opportunity and treatment. It is and has never been a good thing for any of us to endure.
Now, there is little doubt that these thoughts are by-products of the early indoctrination into the battle to overcome white supremacy and racial oppression that was commonplace in Black households since we left the plantations post-slavery.
And though, we should always strive to be our best selves in all we do, we should do so only in good faith and not as a means to justify our God-given right to exist. To do so, only serves to make the moving of the goal posts of equality appear as something we should accept, and even worse - deserve.
As we continue to strive to overcome the worst of America’s nightmare, we have to teach our collective progeny that they are worthy of the equality that is promised and rooted in the very foundation that our country was built upon. But to do that, we must abandon the regressive mentality of the oppressed and demand our due as every other ingredient in this melting pot. It is our constitutional right.
We cannot truly be free until we free our minds. And for that to occur, we must love ourselves in totality - even in our worst moments - to allow ourselves the grace to grow. We cannot fight for equality while justifying holding the collective ‘us’ to discriminative inequitable expectations. That would be the worst form of mental and emotional slavery - one of our own making.
Be’n Original
