By TJ Edouard, a creative writing student
As an African-American, there is one statement that drives me to froth at the mouth as if I had a rare strain of rabies: “Get over it.” The “it” is the institution of slavery, the Jim Crow Laws, and its unwritten predecessor, the Black Codes; but I have no idea how to “get over it”, Especially when these events still effect America as a whole today.
I remember reading an article that conservative Glenn Beck wrote, which is awkwardly titled “Is Massive Health Care Plan Reparations?” My first thought before reading this article was, “Isn’t the fact that African-Americans could not afford healthcare a problem to be reformed, not ridiculed?”
Reparations are not something that some militant black group decided to demand from the government. No, they were a promise made at emancipation that has not been followed through. I’m not an advocate from reparations, it is far too late, but the ignorance concerning the matter repeatedly irks me. In this article, he goes on to spout ridiculously formed arguments, first distancing himself from the “sins of his ancestors”.
In order to not resort to ad hominem as Mr. Beck often does, I will acknowledge his arguments as valid opinions that many of the majority may actually have. However, the fact remains that slavery did happen, blacks were subjugated and are often still oppressed today. This oppression is not legal, as it was 50 years ago, but comes from stereotypes, stigmas and groupthink. This is just a branch of the tree; the root began in the 17th century.
Even Beck admits these facts before his intellectual “step-to-the-side” as his rant begins.
The reason I decided to write about this topic is because of a conversation a few of my friends and I had been engaged in this weekend. We were speaking of the “Obama Effect” on African-Americans, the need to prove your “worth” as an African-American, and the origins of black stereotypes. I fully acknowledge that stereotypes do not percolate from nothing. Nevertheless, they are the laziest thing mankind has used as a defense mechanism. This is present on both sides. Reverse racism is just as much a prisoner of progress as Jim Crow ever was. There is a broad line between race-consciousness and racial paranoia.
In the conversation, we came to the conclusion that to “get over it” instead of discussing it as a current problem with Americans is a form of avoidance and regression. “Get over it” insists that there are no effects that are prevalent today and that once the Supreme Court decided to integrate, everyone began skipping together through tulip fields holding hands and singing songs. “Get over it” insists that it is wrong to still be angry about these events. Surely, Jews have not been asked to “get over” the Holocaust or Native Americans asked to “get over” the genocide and confining ghettos of their people. I feel these events are often incomparable due to of the distinctive horrors experienced by each ethnic group; yet, all are events that still affect the entire system today.
In 1996, former Senator Charles Davidson once wrote, “People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and hateful against God and His Word, because they reject what God says and embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery … The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater, today, in the housing projects than they were on the slave plantations in the old South.” This is a direct representation of avoidance and regression, which sadly brings in the religion of over 90 percent of African-Americans in America. In this excerpt, he indirectly has stated that slavery improved the black race and that there is no reason to be upset with such an institution. In essence, he said, “Get over it.”
