Where is the End of Suffering?
The latest social uproar occurred after the Republican Party tweeted remembrance of “Rosa Parks bold stand and her role in ending racism.” People all over America were puzzled as to how the Republican party could possibly believe that racism is over and accused the party of trying too hard to appeal to African American voters. The message the Republicans distributed only shows how the government continues to undermine the on-going mistreatment of African Americans. Racism has no sight of ending because for centuries the economic and social gaps between African Americans and Caucasians have steadily increased, and it will be impossible to close if we depend solely on time to fix it. Other races have received reparations for what they went through, but for some unknown reason African Americans were expected to get over their trauma because a couple of laws were passed to free them from state recognized slavery. Silence needs to be broken against racism in order to open the government’s eyes to the continuous discrimination faced by African Americans daily, in addition to the centuries of torture. Jews in Europe were victimized by Nazi Germany for a small fraction of the amount of time blacks suffered and Germany paid both the individuals and the state. Enslaved Africans, on the other hand, had slavery “abolished,” and were allowed to buy stale pieces of land in order to make crops to sell and use that money to pay back their white oppressors. The government expects people to believe that racism ended, but they see nothing wrong with Caucasians getting paid for unfair treatment that only lasted twelve years when African Americans were abused for nearly three centuries and counting and received nothing.
The U.S. government is currently settling a lawsuit with Native American tribes, which entails spending $2 billion on 10 million acres of land as an apology for mutilating their people and taking over their land. The government also paid the Native Americans over $1 billion dollars to settle lawsuits from 41 Native American Tribes, but in 1915 when Cornelius J. Jones filed a lawsuit against the United States Treasury for $68 million of accumulated cotton tax to pay back slaves, the case was dismissed because “a federal appeals court held that the United States could not be sued without its consent,” (Robinson, 297). It is a tragedy that the Native Americans were killed and stripped of their land, but it is just as horrific as thousands of Africans being kidnapped from their home and forced to bleed, sweat and cry over another man’s land for 246 years and they didn’t receive an apology until Bill Clinton.
Before the Civil War slavery played a crucial role in the economic development of the United States. The south was responsible for 60 percent of the world’s cotton; slaves were responsible for growing and picking cotton. More than half of the United States export gross came from the cotton picked by slaves. President Lincoln was in favor of compensating ex-slaves, but following president Andrew Jackson later vetoed the bill. Slavery played a pivotal role in southern economics, but blacks have nothing to show for it except hundreds of year of torture summed up into history books, recognition during the shortest month of the year, and a selected few are chosen for better opportunities as a result of affirmation. Even as African Americans matriculated into the corporate world they were not seen on an equal plane as their Caucasian counterparts, despite government beliefs of equal opportunity in the work place. Affirmative action was created to give African Americans the illusion that they are given equivalent opportunities in universities and in the work force. Due to the raising unemployment rate and the idea that things could be worse, blacks are afraid to speak out against mistreatments, allowing Uncle Tom to fill them up with Novocain as they “suffer peacefully,”(Malcolm X, 69). The government believes they are doing blacks a favor by requiring companies to have a specific level of diversity. In these companies where diversity is mandated blacks are paid only a percentage of their Caucasian coworkers, but it is suppose to be seen as a place of equality. African Americans are expected to be thankful for being in a place where they are often unwanted and uncomfortable.
African Americans should no longer allow the government to pretend that they are no longer suffering. As a race, blacks are behind because they have been oppressed for so long. There are still places in the south, where slavery was heavily concentrated, that blacks are terrified to go because racism still lives on and for the Republican Party to believe that racism had ended is sheer madness. It is obvious by the government’s generous plan to compensate Native Americans that the United States has the funds and resources to pay for their wrong doings. Blacks cannot allow themselves to suffer peacefully any longer. The Native American tribes stood together and spoke out to get what they were rightfully owed and African Americans can do the same.