time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor.
truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor.
you don't need anything else.
-malcolm x (1965)
every individual should be free no matter skin color, sex or sexual preference. this is a lovely dream each one of us shelter within our heart, and even if some of us are lucky, even after living in a society where social status tends to separate people, some people do find their existence somewhat more complicated in this world than others. throughout history, human beings have been catalogued, in the aristotelian way, according to their main features, both physiological and psychological; and this is how societies have been able to maintain themselves through history, as in theory, every person here on earth is meant to be here for both himself/herself and the people around, but what happens when a society is meant to struggle in order to fit the mentality of "the labelers"?
negro culture is a quintessential example of a segregated and catalogued society, which has lived by a quite strange reason repeated struggles throughout history. in ancient rome, slaves used to be brought from africa to be sold and used as servants or gladiators, which means people used to purchase an individual in order to serve, amuse, or die for the pleasure in front of the eyes of another. sometimes these kind of injustices happen at their own country of origin, like the segregation held in africa during the apartheid, where negroes could not be free at their own homes, and could not even share the same privileges white men used to have in matters like education, public transport, or leisure, an example of this, the inability to sit on same public benches in order to get some rest.
having these background ideas in mind, it is not difficult to imagine that things for an specific culture would tend to repeat themselves in other societies and other periods of time. at the united states of america, negroes were taken to the country in order to serve as servants and peasants, stolen from their country of origin by people who were not even from the country of arrival itself, all this, just to be sold and exploited as animals.
since their arrival to the states, negro culture was separated and held against their will in cotton and tobacco plantations in the south, in huge estates as servants, or in worst cases, completely set apart within the same cities or suburbs, having the lowest conditions of life, health and well-being. but what happens nowadays, when slavery has already been abolished and everyone in theory, has the same rights and opportunities in life?
first of all, their label as culture has changed, they are no longer referred to as negroes, nowadays any member of this society is called an "african-american," yet, they still are a separated culture within what is considered to be solely american. a second factor has also emerged in the states in order to name the coexistence of different cultures around the country, this is called the "diversity" factor, but what is this diversity concept every one seems to be affected by? it is quite simple actually, it is the newest label americans (republicans, to be more specific) use to merge every culture they consider alien within their own society; but african-americans are not the only ones located inside this whole diversity subject, hispanic, puerto rican, italian, asian, and an endless number of other cultures are nowadays just an inch separated of what is considered, according to a smaller number of people, to be in fact american people.
we are talking now about a second separation within the same country, and as said before, it is rather easy to understand what this means. today, every african-american (and people from other cultures too) has the right to have a social service number, job, health-care clinic, insurance, and so on; this all certainly sounds brilliant, and fair too, but as almost everything in this existence, someone must learn to read between lines to understand what is really happening.
for sure every one in the states, including african-american people, have the right to have jobs, no one is questioning that; but why is it then that a third separation starts to become visible once you think about the jobs they usually have?
it is well known that americans tend to class their workers according to the kind of trade they are involved in, we are familiar with the blue/white collar worker classification, which is, once more, quite elementary as everything else said before. if you work in a factory, or inside the industry, then, you are a blue-collar worker; this absolutely brilliant concept was created after the clothes people wear when working, generally blue jumpsuits people at factories must wear to be identified. now, let us talk about the white-collar distinctive, the second kind of worker. White-collars, mostly white people if you think about it, are all those people who work behind a desk at an office, sometimes even giving orders to all those blue-collar bunch of people; and these white-collar-white-face persons obviously earn better wages, hence, they have better chances of life…
this job subject could be tackled endlessly, as a vast number of examples could be used in order to explain different situations; this also happens with the other rights every ewtonn is supposed to have, for things are unfair for the diversity cultures in other aspects like health-care and insurance, but let us drop these subjects and continue the thoughts on negro culture in the states.
It is important to say that not everything has always been completely terrible for this culture in the states, as in historical terms, black people have been famous for having people who raise against those who try to oppress them; who could forget rosa parks’ decision to “break the rules” on a public transport truck and sit where she could not? Or martin luther king’s struggle to achieve an equal church, hence, an equal god for both blacks and whites? How about the black panther party movement of fight against white men and political ideas to achieve respect once and for all?
i expected to die. at no time before the trial did i expect to escape with my life. yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. it could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.
-quote by huey ewton, co-founder of the black panther party
something is crystal clear from the beginning: even after being a downtrodden culture and society in different countries and different times, it is certainly difficult to find another culture with such an amazing feeling of brotherhood, and it results even more complicated to find people who feel that level of identification just for being on the same place at the same time.
so maybe all of us people who are lucky enough to live in less segregated conditions should take more time to think what is truly happening in the world amongst societies; we should think about the real struggles different peoples throughout history have had to overcome. but maybe the most important thing is it would be nice to consider your equal as your own brother or sister, not as inferior or superior, black or white, rich or poor, catholic or jewish; this does not matter at the end, as the blood inside us all shares the same color, so it is not fair to treat others as if they were different, because they sure are not.
