I tossed a boomerang into the future, and it returned with the residue of racism from tomorrow. Being black in Whitemerica is an Olympic sport. You cannot walk into the event of life and think it will be a fair competition.

While we still dream of freedom, white America basks in it with no measure of equality on their minds or in their hearts.

Privilege!

Since the days of slavery, we have been hoping our children would walk into a better day of freedom and equality. Instead, we encounter overseers now carrying a badge and gun.

Jim Crow did not fade into the annals of history. It is now James Crow, and he is just as harsh as his forefathers. Three weeks proved some people do not think of us as human, but as animals left slain in the streets. The aftermath of George Floyd.

Some walk among us who feel black skin is a stain on society—a stain on the country we built and continue to build. 

While still in chains, Black America defined the culture of the United States. Black America is the backbone of a society that claims not to see color at the drop of a hat. I finally agree with that statement, because a large swath of White America does not see our blackness. 

White people did not exist until 1619. What I mean is, the term “White People” did not exist until then. Colonial Virginia needed a method by which to create social control. You can learn more in the book “The Invention of the White Race, Volumes 1 and 2 by Theodore W. Allen.”

At the beginning of the colonies, Black people and European alike arrived in the colonies as indentured servants; they were not lifelong slaves. Once their servitude ended, they were free. It allowed them to buy land and marry whoever they chose. The colonies permitted interracial marriage.

With the invention of the White race, men of color could not marry “white people.” That included stopping Native Americans from marrying white women, too. Thus began the separation of classes. Then chattel slavery began, and the rest is American history; an American history, they do not teach us. 

There are millions of George Floyds scattered across The Middle Passage and every piece of dry land on the planet. It hurt me in a way I have yet to express when I watched his torturous death. 

The visceral effect it had on me was a slow burn into a roiling rage. I had to remind myself that the thoughts I had were not fair to all of White America. For a moment, it felt as though it was time to take it to the streets! 

I am a black man in the biggest propaganda machine ever devised. AMERICA!!

America is an idea whose time has come to the precipice of destruction or change. Racism runs rampant in every corner of this United States. Far too often, Black and Brown America are on the brutal end of the batons, swung in the name of policing our streets. 

We are no longer afraid to stand up. We are no longer running through swamps in search of freedom. There is no Underground Railroad with markers leading to safe houses. 

We are looking at white America in the face saying, “Give us our rightful place in this society!”

And we are still praying for our sons to come home each night. Praying we do not have to purchase grave markers in this tainted society. We are trying to make a wage that allows us to feed our children. We are trying to afford a better education for our children. We are trying to get equal pay for equal work. Systemic racism did not go away; it morphed into a polished version of the midnight raids that burned towns and hung many of its citizens. Systemic racism is now the police officer, the prosecutor, and the judges who will sentence a person of color much harsher than a white counterpart. 

We elect some Judges and prosecutors. Pay attention to the people running for office. If a prospective candidate has a history of unequal sentencing, make your voice heard, VOTE! Make a difference!

Voting for President, Congress, and the Senate is not the government level that controls your daily lives. The supreme court may listen to eighteen cases in a year, maybe! A local judge will hear hundreds, and your freedom may hang in the balance if you did not cast your ballot in the interest of yourself and your children.

The human some people called the president quietly put judges in place all over the country with his views. That is a lose-lose outcome for Black America. 

I have cried for George Floyd. I will weep again for George Floyd. I pray his family will find peace as the world looks on to see if his death will change racism in a country where all men have inalienable rights. 

America has alienated us since the first slave ships brought us here. 

We are a divided nation. Much as we were during slavery. Some people believe we were born to serve.

No! We are not here to serve any man! 

We have reached the boiling point, and there are individuals about to get served. It is just a matter of words or actions that will unleash several lifetimes of hurt on a color-blind America.

George Floyd should not be dead. He should be at home loving his daughter, but the overseer lost control. Thought it better for the world to have one less Black Man in it. He saw the young lady filming him, and he and his accomplices murdered George Floyd in broad daylight, anyway!

I speak most sincere prayers for the daughter of George Floyd. I pray her path leads her into a world where her daddy changes the world. 

I mourn him and every African who died on this piece of land in the name of democracy. 

I mourn for Black America because change is hard. Change is dangerous. We remember that we have died for far less than equality. If we remain righteous, death is deliverance into the hands of God. Find the strength in your soul and demand that change comes to America. I mourn the loss of America, but I cry with tears in one eye. The other must remain open just in case misguided white justice picks me next.

I have to remind myself that America was never America to us.

Let us not forget that black men were not the only ones who made the ultimate sacrifices for Black America to get a foothold on the road to equality. They also beat black women in the name of freedom. Black mothers and sisters felt the attack with water hoses and bitten by dogs just as the men were. Do not let the names and faces of our mothers, sisters and daughters fade into obscurity because sound bites glorify the men of the civil rights movement.

I threw a Boomerang into the future, and it returned with the blood of my people dripping in my hand. I will continue to throw it until it returns dripping with the equality Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Height, John Lewis, Diane Nash and countless thousands of others dreamed.

© Q. Javon Overton 2021