By: Kenneth L. Hardin
I wonder if free air smelled different and freedom food tasted better to escaped slaves than when they were in bondage? I guarantee the Blacks for Trump group now feel played now with all the orange racist is doing. I hope they feel terrible about willingly selling their souls when their ancestors had no choice with theirs centuries ago. The sanctimonious arrogance of people here who preach inclusion but have fallen silent about the climate of hate dripping heavily down the face of this Country is like biting into an over-ripe fruit and watching the foul smelling juice run down the chin of America. This country wears her hypocrisy proudly like a high school athlete wears a varsity letter jacket, so everyone knows he excels at his sport. America’s sports of choice are hate, denial and hypocrisy.
Last week, while most normal people my age were either watching sports on TV, taking a nap, or out minding other people’s business, I was sitting in front of the computer enthralled in a documentary on the 13th and 14th Amendments. Watching the documentary and the struggle former enslaved people endured in its aftermath during Reconstruction, made my mind wander back to the 1970’s as a wide eyed 3rd grader. I can remember how innocent and naïve I was singing in patriotic themed school plays belting out how “This Land was My Land.” I had no idea where the Redwood Forest was located nor if the Gulfstream waters actually existed, but I bought into the myth that they belong equally to me. As I puffed out my little 9 year old chest and threw my head back holding on to my white wig, I imagined as an adult I would be able to live out the symbolic meaning of the words I was forced to sing. I cringe in disgust now thinking of the indoctrination I endured in being brainwashed to learn and revere all those white men, who led this Country in its infancy, actually owned the people who actually built it.
I wonder if my ancestors felt this was their land as their slave owners freely, “went walking that ribbon of highway.” Did my beaten and brutalized people see the same sky as their owners and say they, “saw above me that endless skyway?” Their skies were probably painted a darker color and filled with storm clouds as they fell down on their knees and looked upward to God to save them from the inhumanity they were immersed in. My ancestors never, “Saw below me that golden valley” or felt, “This land was made for you and me.” For them, “When the sun come shining” they were already in the cotton fields picking at the branches that would tear through their fingers piercing straight through their heart and soul. So no, I don’t feel they believed then nor do I believe today, “This land was made for you and me.”
If this was truly my land, then why does it hurt so much physically and emotionally to exist here? If those Amendments were so powerful, then why do I have so many conversations with other skinfolk about how exhausting it is to be an African in America? If America actually lived up to the lyrics of the song, it wouldn’t be this way.
Kenneth L. Hardin is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.
