THOUGHTS ABOUT WHO BUILT THIS (Country)

THOUGHTS ABOUT WHO BUILT THIS (COUNTRY) – WE did Some years back I wrote a poem titled “We’re Growing Up” – the opening line was I Saw Us When We Were Born Covered By The Slime and Blood of Slavery… On one occasion I recited the poem at a gathering of follow artist and art lovers. An artist came up to me at the end of the session and quietly informed me that we, black folks, did not come into being in slavery – that black folks were in existence when white Europeans were still living in caves. The conversation continued with the artist pointing out an objection to saying African American as a racial description, preferring to say African instead. I listened intently to being identified as African rather than African American but could find no compelling reason to prefer one over the other. Slavery was a barbarous, dehumanizing act that transformed African slaves into a different people – African slaves eventually became Americanized Africans: African Americans. We are not the same people as were our African parents. Thanks to the blood and resilience passed on to us by our African parents we maintained our humanity through slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic discrimination to the present day. Black groups saying We Built This (Country) is really an over reach, a spin on reality. Now in rebuttal some Irish groups are saying We Built This (Country). Like black Americans white Irish Americans who use the mantra are over reaching reality. History records the struggle of Irish people to become a part of the American fabric. Some Irish need to be reminded that once the door of opportunity was opened for them they joined other white Europeans in closing that door to black Americans in the building trades and other skilled jobs and that denial continued well into the 1970s. All white American and Europeans need to be informed or reminded that black labor has been employed in every aspect of American and European development. Whether it was black hands laying brick molding steel, building roads and rails or changing the course of rivers, whether it was black unpaid labor that created the money that filled the banks that paid the wages of the Irish and other Europeans, America as it is would not exist without the active participation of Americans of African descent – black folks. www.adolphusward.net