As many of you know, I recently published my debut novel BLACK: The Bear on Our Backs. It took me about three years to complete this project, as I had to also contend with family obligations and a full-time job. But like they say, “Better late than never.” However, I am not going to use this space to offer specifics about the book. You can draw your own conclusions about the book’s plot by reading the description on my Amazon page. All I want to do today is explain the common thread that will run through the BLACK Novel Series‘ first three books.
The book’s title, BLACK, is more of an acronym than a callout to my two main characters’ race. It stands for Building a Legacy of Activism, Community and Kinship. It is at the heart of what Jason Black and Mitch Newman will ultimately do after they successfully overcome their respective complications in Book One. My hope, though, is their losses and triumphs will serve as admonishment to you, my readers, to be more vigilant in countering schemes designed to make it impossible for us to fellowship peacefully with people from other racial/ethnic groups.
What I and so many others know is black people, both past and present, have served as this country’s conscience. Our more than 400-year struggle has always been about overcoming white prejudice, racism and discrimination, unenlightened Whites looking down on us because of our dark skin. But what they failed to understand is all men desire to be free, to live happily ever after wherever they may be. They also failed to understand that when you try to restrain black people whose only aim is to be excellent, you’re going to be filled with guilt and remorse for not giving others the space they need to self actualize, to grow.
Building a Legacy of Activism, Community and Kinship isn’t a call for more of us to be like Martin and Malcolm. Being BLACK means we’re going to be the best versions of our black selves, and then we’re going to mobilize within the diaspora, before doing so with other like-minded individuals of all hues, to stamp out White Supremacy once and for all. We will proclaim in one voice that White Supremacy is not welcomed here, for it impairs our ability to become a more perfect union.
That’s why being BLACK is mostly about calling out White Supremacy, and White Supremacists, whenever we see it, them. It is true that what we see playing out in our politics is disturbing. All we black parents can do is scratch our heads when we see white parents complaining at school board meetings about their K-12 children being subjected to Critical Race Theory (CRT) in their classrooms. They know goodness well CRT is only taught to graduate-level law students, but that’s beside the point. We have to recognize what is undoubtedly going on here. These White Supremacists blow their dog whistles, all for the purpose of conditioning the most gullible within the white majority to be more in favor of what the United States Supreme Court did just a few short weeks ago, which is end Affirmative Action, the policy that colleges and universities once used to diversify their student ranks. Some of them (not our enlightened white brothers and sisters) falsely believe that white prejudice and discrimination don’t exist anymore, but I have a news flash for them. It does.
In the coming days and months, we must grapple with the question, “Why now?” After that, the second question to be grappled with is, “What can we do to get white people to work with us to alleviate the pain that they inflicted upon us?”
Ultimately, though, we must decide as individuals and collectives what our measured response will be, and which leaders are best motivated to restore and preserve, in the absence of Affirmative Action, diversity, equity and inclusion programs. I believe all of us have been called to wage this fight. Many of us, myself included, just have to be willing to counter false narratives that say enough has been done to repair the effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Jim Crow legislation on Black Americans specifically.
Yes, this country, the United States of America, is indeed the land of the free. But more White Americans must be enlightened to the undeniable fact that the system has been rigged for them, and them alone.
Jeh Allen CREATIVE 