Numbers

1619 - 1865, 1865 – 1965, 1619 – 1965, 1619 – 2007 = 388 years. 1619 - 1865 = 246. 246/388 = 63%. 1619 – 1965 = 346. 346/388 = 89%.

What do those non arbitrary dates and numbers represent? 1619 is the birth of the black collective in this land later called America. It is the date that 20 indentured black servants were brought to America and who later became the first black slaves in America. 1865 represents the freeing of the slaves marked by the end of the civil war, which by the way was not fought to free the slaves, but to preserve the union. 1865 – 1965 was the unofficial era of American Apartheid, which came to a legal end with the Civil Rights Act of 1965, although it carried on criminally long after. 2007, of course, represents the present.

What the numbers means is this. The black collective, i.e. black people, has been in this land 388 years. We, the collective, have spent 246 of those 388 years in a state of bondage. That represents 63% of the time the collective has existed in these lands. The collective has spent an additional 100 years in a state of racial apartheid which denied blacks equal opportunity and access, as well as, inflicted racial violence in the form of lynching’s, rape, castration and assaults with impunity. This period of Apartheid represented 26% of our collective existence in this land. Combined, the period of bondage and apartheid equals to 346 of legalized black oppression out of a total of 388 years of existence in this land. That represents 89% of our collective existence in this land under a legalized form of oppression and 42, out of 388, in theoretical, if not practical, legal equality. That’s 11%.

In light of this, does it makes sense that the black collective today is more greatly influenced by the state of oppression than from the state of theoretical legal equality? How could humans spend 346 out of 388 years under oppression and their present condition not be heavily influenced by that oppression? One could make that argument if and when our collective existence in this land under legalized oppression drops below the 50 percentile, but to make that argument near the 90 percentile (90% of our existence in the state of oppression) is absurd. Therefore, economically, culturally and psychologically, the contemporary black collective is immensely influenced by the aftermath of oppression. Every action creates a reaction and 346 out of 388 years under the act of economical, cultural and psychological racial degradation is reverberating strong reactions upon the contemporary black condition, notwithstanding legal freedom. Moreover, the degradation and discrimination did not end with laws, but even if it did, the damage to black people will naturally last for decades to come.

Life is a continuum. Each generation does not start anew independent of the condition of the previous generation. Each subsequent generation inherits the condition passed onto it from the previous generation. Life is also a competition, like a rely race. Where one gets handed the baton of life is dependent upon the previous runner. If they are behind in the competition, when they pass off the baton to the next generation the next generation will start off behind as well. The only way to make up the difference is for a runner in a leg to be extraordinary and superior to the competition, lest he or she be equal and never make up the difference. The reason that the black collective is so far behind others today is that we inherited a disadvantaged start passed to us from our oppressed previous generations. Now that we have not made up the difference people who are blind to the past only see us as inferior runners in the race of life, which makes them, as the corollary, seem like superior runners. Hence, the expectation for a solution rest upon the premise that black’s are or can be superior to other groups of humans and can therefore make up the difference, as the failure to be actually superior will mean that we can never make up the difference as a collective.

This brings us to the point of management of expectations. Who is to say that black people have not performed in a manner typical for humans in regards to the odds against us? Who are we being compared to and coming up short in our recovery from 346 of 388 years of oppression? Who are the other groups who have had the same experience in degree and kind? Unless one thinks that blacks are inferior, how can anyone conclude that a group has had a parallel experience in degree and kind yet not manifest the condition that blacks are in? What would be different about our humanity that we cannot recover from oppression like others supposedly have? The proof of a similar oppression as blacks is a similar contemporary condition as blacks, relative to the beginning and legal end of the oppression.