This is specifically for black people. In the spirit of the great el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (formerly Malcolm X) when speaking at length on white people’s interest in participating in the civil rights movement: “the black man has got to help himself.”

America, the Bully

Have you heard the saying “when America gets a cold, black America gets pneumonia?” Or MLK’s “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?”

Well, as you read this, there is an all-out, unbelievably real attack on Muslims in the United States. Of course, this government-led domestic terrorism is nothing new to black people as we’ve been accessorized with targets on our backs for more than 400 years. 

Still, we cannot turn a blind eye to our immigrant and Muslim sisters and brothers. We simply cannot ignore injustices to other groups, first because it’s just wrong, but also, you gotta know we’re next. 

Stay Woke, My Pretties

For some of you, your comfy middle-class life could very easily lull you into thinking you are different, protected. Sorry, sweet pea, you are not! 

Sure, you are zoned to great schools with unlimited access to a robust variety of fresh and healthy food choices, and may even have the means to emigrate. Still, there are infinitely more black people who are tied to failing schools, live within vast food deserts, and barely have cash for a meal. Alas, I’m not speaking hypothetically.

Do I need to mention the daily attacks er, state-sponsored terrorism against black males? Trump has already called for federal intervention in Chicago to “deal with” the city’s murder rate. Who do you think will be crushed, no decimated, under arbitrary and heavy-handed federal intervention? 

So even while some of us have ‘made it’ others of us have not escaped the mental, economic, and political bondage first imposed on our shackled ancestors. Let’s be clear, when some of us suffer, so does the rest of us. 

Complicity Sleeps With The Oppressor 

God help us if we abandon our own. Love thy neighbor and fight like hell for your village. 

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images