Last week, I watched Season Two, Episode 5 of Apple TV’s Swagger, and I have to admit, the storyline just confirmed why I believe it is one of the best shows on television today.
As many of you know, the show’s central character, Jase Carson, has been suspended from the team for admitting on social media that he and three of his boys – a few of his Swagger basketball club teammates really – beat a black man up in a dark alley four years ago after learning the black man had sexually molested Jase’s female friend Crystal. Not trying to post any spoilers. here. All you need to know is last week’s episode was an emotional rollercoaster. But what I will do is talk about the episode’s central theme – freedom.
Most, if not all of you know, that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and that enslaved Blacks in Texas did not learn that this proclamation freed them until June 19, 1865. I’m not going to lie. Knowing that I have been free since birth is great. All made possible by black ancestors who saw their women raped by white slaveowners and the sight of their family members being publicly whipped and chained and hung by their necks from trees. So, when I hear that a small group of educated Whites in Florida approved verbiage that whitewashes U. S. History by saying enslaved Blacks benefitted from slavery, and that both black people and white people perpetuated a riot, I scratch my head and ask why? Is it because unenlightened white people, in the words of Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men, can’t handle the truth?
The answer to this question is obviously yes, but it goes much deeper than not being able to handle the truth. I believe it has more to do with the leaders of the unenlightened American populace – white conservative Republicans mostly – blatantly using our racial differences to sow hate and division, all in an effort to free white people of any guilt or remorse that their members may feel from their ancestors being responsible for the inhumane treatment of American Blacks. Just look at what the U. S. Supreme Court just did. They took away the one tool – Affirmative Action – that American colleges and universities were using to diversify their campuses. They did it while saying very little about legacy admissions, which allow colleges and universities to admit new students whose parents earned degrees from their college or university. It is important to note that the main beneficiaries of legacy admissions are white.
When you couple this recent Supreme Court ruling with the MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republican Party’s efforts to rig local, state and federal elections so that they favor MAGA Republican Party candidates, you have a recipe for disaster.
The leaders of the MAGA Republican Party know that they can play the white American electorate like a drum, resulting from the fact that a large number of white people don’t want things taken from them. But what the white populace needs to understand is many of the things they have today are directly related to how white people have been treating black people and other persons of color since well before 1619.
It’s an undisputable fact that their white ancestors failed to compensate their enslaved Blacks, my ancestors, for their labor. It’s also an undisputable fact that many of the white slaveowners and their white foremen took sexual liberties with our black women. And let’s not forget what they did when our black ancestors endeavored to build self-sustaining black communities and businesses (i.e., Black Wall Streets). While it is true that the rioting and looting of black businesses and neighborhoods were perpetrated by conservative, white Democrats, and more socially-conscious, white Republicans advocated against slavery and later Jim Crow legislation, the unenlightened members of the white majority are still keen on keeping black people in positions of servitude.
The overriding message from my BLACK Novel Series is, “The only cure for WHITE SUPREMACY is BLACK EXCELLENCE.” Black people, and their white and nonwhite allies, must continue to call for the removal of Confederate statues. The Confederate States of America lost the Civil War, allowing enslaved Blacks to attain a semblance of freedom during Reconstruction. Consequently, allowing Confederate statues to remain in town squares instead of in museums does nothing but allow white people to feel proud about the subjugation of others, which has nothing to do with their racial/ethnic identity. All U. S. citizens should draw pride and inspiration from the countries that their ancestors originated from, not from the unmerited privilege they obtained from applying knees to other human being’s necks.
We black Americans and our nonblack allies must show up at voting booths next year during the 2024 elections fully aware of MAGA Republican’s long game. When Florida’s MAGA Republican governor Ron Desantis tells us that Florida is where Woke comes to die, we have to read into what he’s really saying. Desantis is telling us – and he has told us – that he is against programming that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion.
We now know, however, that his racist crusade is also about rewriting U. S. History so that white supremacists from a bygone past are considered American patriots instead of the monsters they were.
During the next election, it is incumbent on all of us – red, yellow, black, brown and white – to send one singular message:
We The People have the right to be free of WHITE SUPREMACY.
However, the only way we’re going to be truly free of White Supremacy is to “get our swagger on” when we step into the voting booth next year. Because MAGA Republicans have no desire to govern, it is incumbent on all of us to vote all MAGA Republicans out of office on all levels of government – local, state and federal.
Let’s endeavor to CREATE A MORE PERFECT UNION, not Make America Great Again.
Jeh Allen CREATIVE 