Sometimes we need to just look at all we have compared to others, instead of concentrating on what we don’t have.
There are so many people lying in comas, in pain and suffering, that we all need to stop and take a moment to be thankful for what we have in our health and how we must implement prayer to help these people heal or pass, whichever is God’s will.
What if we were born in the Middle East, in one of the war ravaged countries?
Trump and an ultra conservative party controlling the White House, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, as well as most of the State Houses, is not the worst we have faced. For those of us who read or have a little bit of age, at one time we were stolen from our country, Africa, and forced to not only be slaves in this country, but were treated worse or at least as bad as any group of humans in history. But somehow we overcame that 200 plus years ago.
When slavery was eliminated in 1865, after thousands died during the Civil War, the same White southerners regained power within five to 10 years and implemented the Jim Crow system that was basically slavery with another name. It put Blacks at the very bottom of the work and social spectrum, and at the mercy of the White man. It existed for around 100 years.
We must be thankful for the many Blacks and Whites who suffered and gave their lives so that we could survive slavery and move past it; so that we could survive Jim Crow, which was in the North and South, and move past that as well.
But now the people with the same mindset of those who enslaved us and created Jim Crow, are trying to pull us back into that “You have nothing to lose, it couldn’t be any worse” mentality.
It has been worse and will get a whole lot worse if we don’t stand together and fight for a better life for all people, not just rich people, White people or White males.
We as Black people have suffered a lot, but we still have a lot to be thankful for in our personal lives; and much of that was made possible by the struggles of not just the national leaders, but our parents, grandparents and relatives, and the millions of average everyday people who did not accept the status quo, but were determined to make life better for their kids, and their kids’ kids.
Now we must stop and take time to thank our ancestors for all they did for us, and then move forward to make sure our children are better off than we are.
With that, I thank my mother, father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers, teachers, doctors, politicians, friends and associates, and anyone else who has helped me, my family and the world move forward in God’s name. But above them, even though I’ve often thought that He had abandoned us or asked, “Where is He,” I thank God. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. We need to use Trump and the conservatives as motivation to continue the fight for equality.
(Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)
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