White Supremacy, Systematic Racism, and The Illusion of Black Progress

(I will use Black and African American interchangeable to refer to people of African descent)

White supremacy and systematic racism have been in existence since the founding of America. And Black people have been the most victimized by their warped systems of racial discrimination. From the days of being forcibly separated from our homes in Africa to citizenship in the United States; white supremacy and systematic racism have reduced Black people down to the lowest realms of society. To protect itself from any fundamental changes to the African American community, America’s racial caste system has created an illusion of Black progress in America

White supremacy and systematic racism have made Black people a permanent underclass. And has refuse to give Black people any form of reparations for the damages done to the African American community due to American slavery and segregation.

For more information on African American reparations, please click the following hyperlinks:

https://youtu.be/kcCnQ3iRkys

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/361631/

To keep Black people racially subjugated, white hegemony created an American legal system that established laws to protect the racial mistreatment of Black people.

For more information on the US Constitution protections of the enslavement of Black people in America, please click the following hyperlinks:

https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/09/17/constitutions-biggest-flaw-protecting-slavery/

https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson

As a consequence of an American racist legal system, African people experienced hundreds of years of legal slavery; African people experienced the legal outlawing of marriages; African people experienced the legal outlawing of speaking, reading, and writing in our own African languages; African people experienced the legal outlawing of womanhood; African people experienced the legal outlawing of manhood; African people experienced the legal outlawing of youth-hood; African people experienced the legal outlawing of possessing African names; African people experienced the legal outlawing of reading; African people experienced the legal outlawing of African cultural traditions; African people experienced the legal outlawing of practicing African spirituality; African people experienced the legal outlawing of practicing any religions; African people experienced the legal creation of Black codes; African people experienced the legal separation of the family; African people experienced the legal outlawing of the family; African people experienced the legal outlawing of parenthood; African people experienced the legal criminalization of Black leaders; African people experienced the legal denial of education; African people experienced of oiur history; African people experienced the legal denial of the right to own property; African people experienced the legal denying of receiving business loans; African people experienced the legal denying of our fight for justice in the courts; African people experienced the legal support of white racial violence towards our people; African people experienced the legal justification for police brutality; African people experienced the legal justification of the annihilation of Black towns in America by racist whites; and African people experienced the legal establishment of segregation.

By the 1950s, Black people got tired of centuries of racial subjugation and daily racial discrimination by racist America. In mass demonstrations, Black people fearlessly began to fight back against racism and White supremacy in America.

For more information on the struggle for African American civil rights, please click the following hyperlink:
https://youtu.be/q1_KtW-9tIg

Black people forced all kinds of coalitions and alliances to give our people justice. The African American community challenge the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, liberal whites, and other non-Black cultures (i.e., Latinos, Native Americans, Jews, etc) to change racist laws that legally subjugated Black people down to the lowest realms of American society.

Black people put the Black agenda on the hearts and minds and lips of all people in America.

As a result of years of mass rallies by Black leaders, the African American community won major civil rights and voting rights protections.

After the decline of the civil rights movement by 1965, Black power emerged from 1966 to the early 1970s. This form of Black liberation helped African Americans develop a high level of Black cultural pride while holding racism and white supremacy accountable to social justice.

For more information on the Black Power Movement, please click the following hyperlinks:
https://youtu.be/075G1_nQy5U
https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/history/article/kwanzaa-history-traditions-information
https://youtu.be/O_dCL2F571Q

As a result of the Black liberation movement of the 1950s through the early 1970s, America's racist caste system had to make concessions to the African American community for a minute. White supremacy and systematic racism allowed some Black people into mainstream white society.

By the 1970s, we had more Black Mayors, Black Councilpersons, Black judges, Black Congressmen, Black Businesses, Black educational opportunities, Black TV shows, Black entertainers, Black athletes, and Black Freedom than we have ever experienced before in America.
Black people made tremendous gains during the 1950s, 60s, and the early 70s, due to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in America

When these new social changes happened in the United States, many white and Black people believed African American freedom was achieved.

But full equality was never achieved.

Yes, we as a Black people received civil rights and some degree of voting rights legislation. But only a few of us have benefited from American integration. And none of us have experienced total Black independence in America.
Over the years, the interests of the African American community have been pushed aside in the United States by both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
The coalitions that Black people created with other non-Black oppressed cultural and religious groups (i.e., Native Americans, Latinos, Jews, Asians, Mexicans, women, Gays, and lesbians, etc), to help empower Black people, broke apart.

By the late 1970s, Black progress was stopped. Black leaders and Black organizations on a national and local level were not around anymore to give push back to white supremacy and systematic racism to make room for Black progress in this country.

For more information on the abandonment of the Black freedom struggle by mainstream white America, please click the following hyperlinks:
https://theconversation.com/amp/after-the-civil-rights-era-white-americans-failed-to-support-systemic-change-to-end-racism-will-they-now-141954

By the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s, the co-optation of the civil rights movement and the destruction of Black power, left the masses of Black people in the dust. As a result of the demise of the civil rights and Black power movements by forces outside of the interests of the African American community, the oppression of the masses of Black people tightened again.

Incarceration rates soared in the African American community. Disproportionate numbers of Black people began to be locked up in the penal system compared to whites. Police violence against Black people increased. Good paying livable wage jobs dried up in and around the Black neighborhoods. Poverty and joblessness increased dramatically. Black people began to live under depression levels of poverty. Black wealth never became equal to white wealth. Black drug addiction increased in America. Substance abuse in the African American community has become criminalized. Senseless violence in the African American community increased. Black people became the majority of Black homicide victims in America. In the African American community, Black people were giving limited input into the direction of our schools.
White supremacy and systematic racism drained the African American community of leaders, money, jobs, good schools, and resources. Eventually, these poor conditions increased Black ghettos in America. These horrible conditions set the stage for Black people to become self-destructive.
Black progress has lagged further and further behind whites and even other non-Black cultures in America.
White supremacy and systematic racism have re-established themselves to continue subjugating Black people in America down to the lowest realms of society.

For a deeper analysis on the conditions that created long term inequalities in the African American community, please click the following hyperlinks:

https://youtu.be/qT7PZeBYMcE
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/07/09/segregation-still-blights-the-lives-of-african-americans?fbclid=IwAR0RCCPVxBMrDbtOiRrgElaAFbSzq85oUqFk_Tbmskt7pDYUE0WAmVqyaOI
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/systematic-inequality-economic-opportunity/
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/05/politics/black-voting-rights-suppression-timeline/?fbclid=IwAR3erFsYDLHzAGcyRSiz6SXnHmTWoyQyu42P68CJGfY_Vbl7QkYYGYJpfH8

In this context, the sons and daughters of the civil rights and Black power movements are calling for a new Black agenda. We are working to force America to finally address the plethora of neglected problems in the African American community stemming from centuries of white supremacy, systematic racism, slavery, and segregation. The organizers call it the National Black Political Convention (NBPC). We are planning to commemorate the NBPC in Newark, NJ. Fifty years ago, the NBPC happened in 1972 under the leadership of the late Black power leader-Imamu Amiri Baraka. In that same year, Amiri Baraka successfully helped to elect Ken Gibson as the city’s first African American mayor right after Black people rose up to fight back decades of racial oppression in the form of the Newark rebellion that occurred in 1967. The conveners of the NBPC are Newark, NJ’s Mayor Ras J. Baraka, Jackson, Mississippi’s Mayor Chockwe Lumumba, and the late legendary Jazz and R&B producer James Mtume.

For more information on the upcoming National Black Political Convention of 2022 in Newark, NJ, please click the following hyperlink:
https://www.nbpc2022.com/
Change must come to the African American community now. Black progress is stagnant. We are still unequal in America.

-Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele is a community activist, a member of the Muslim community in New Jersey, and a member of ASCAC (the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations). He is also a history and Africana Studies (Black Studies ) teacher at Weequahic High School in Newark, NJ.

Peace!

Hotep (An Ancient African Egyptian word for Peace)!