Since I was 10, I have seen how my friends of color have been treated differently, have been viewed with contempt and have systematically been held back, down and out by the "majority" culture.
I taught Sociology and Cultural Diversity for eight years at a community college.
I have seen what I have seen and have studied what I have studied, and it has led me to understand that those who accuse Black Americans of being the cause of their own victimization do so out of deep seeded guilt and a residual fear and hatred that have evolved for hundreds of years.
Cumulative Causation is the concept that there is a cumulative effect from consistent practices over time that affects circumstances in the present.
So, enslave people for hundreds of years based on their race, make them and others believe that that is their plight because they are "inferior", regardless of their rich history and accomplishments...
Refuse them their freedom, ownership, education and the practice of their original culture and religion...
Subject them to your religion and beliefs that it justifies victimizing them and that it rationalizes how you treat them...
Then, free them from their slavery, but only because you are forced to do so...
Then, as they begin to RECONSTRUCT their lives in freedom (1875 Civil Rights Act and 16 black Congressmen elected)...
As they begin to gain property, teach their children in schools, build businesses and form associations that promote progress...
DECONSTRUCT IT ALL (late 1870's segregationist Southern Democrats elected to Congress)...
by writing legislation that disenfranchises them intentionally, systematically... (1890-1908)
and by "allowing" terrorist organizations (KKK and others) to terrorize them...
keep Jim Crow laws on the books that keep them from having power (poll taxes, tests, etc.)...
arrest their men for minor offenses and give them ridiculously long and harsh sentences...
when they finally get out, take away their right to vote and eliminate their ability for gainful employment...
segregate... refuse to fund their schools, keep public services from their neighborhoods (rural AND urban)...
Lynch men, women and children publicly and for no "reason"
scapegoat them for any problems in society so that future generations will believe the myth of inferiority and learn to fear and hate them...
And when they rise up and participate in society, even contribute to the good of the nation...
Harlem Renaissance (1917, ff.)
ignore it (WWI soldiers) and treat them badly even while they are doing it... and when they protest, kill them (Red Summer 1919)...
Then, when the depression hits because of the mismanagement of the nation's wealth by the robber barons who disproportionately benefitted themselves and other white citizens at the expense of black citizens, it will naturally destroy the fragile accumulated wealth of those who have most struggled to gain, despite systemic efforts to keep them from getting them...
Keep them out of public universities by ANY means necessary... and if they set up their own schools, publicly de-value them compared to the other schools...
And where they are STILL thriving, despite attempts to hold them back, down and out... ATTACK them openly, sometimes with government forces (1921 Greenwood, Oklahoma - U.S. Air Force bombing), or "allow" whole communities to be murdered (1923 Rosewood, FL)... and even bombing those who protest or stand up to the bigotry and discrimination (Philadelphia, 1985), even burning down whole communities (65 homes)...
Base school funding on property taxes, so that the poor (rural and urban), disproportionately people of color who have already been held out, down and back, get fewer resources, books and less qualified teachers for their schools...
Red-line neighborhoods so that people who are gaining economically cannot buy homes there, solely because of their race...
Flee any neighborhoods where people of color move in, build suburbs so that white folk can be separated from "those people" for decades... build up your schools, businesses and other social institutions that keep them out...
Where people of color live, give sub-standard public services... besides schools... like clean water, landlord laws, affordable housing, public safety, trash removal, transportation, grocery stores... and with the stereotypes the police will a. view the population as adversaries, b. arrest young black men for minor offenses and c. ignore the plight that drugs have on the population, allowing drug trade to go unchecked...
Then, when property values have been destroyed, "re-gentrify" - encourage the wealthier and whiter to move back in, raise rents and property taxes to eliminate the population living there, renovate the properties and rent or sell for higher profit and "take back" the city for those who once fled it, put more money into the schools and public services and bring in "better" businesses, driving out the unique, culturally rich businesses that were there...
And where will the people go? Who cares? Where they can afford - other ignored areas with poor public services and schools and businesses...
then, later, give different penalties for drugs used in poor areas (crack cocaine, pot) from those popular in affluent areas (powder cocaine), until the epidemic of hard use (heroin) hits the white population in the suburbs...
Profile black drivers, pedestrians and homeowners in their own homes...
Resurrect the lynching practices of the last century by the police... refuse to prosecute or to convict those who do the murders, like those a century before did... then, when folk protest, provoke riots with riot patrols... blame them for being unreasonable to violent... jail participants and send them to for profit prisons...
Privatize education and make it for-profit, so that those with no money have no chance at all anymore, and then use them as profit fodder for the for-profit prisons...
But make sure, throughout this history of intentional and systematic hateful discrimination, you blame the victims of it for being lazy, violent, prone to addiction, ignorant and therefore "inferior" to the bigoted, ruthless, unconscionable, immoral folk who created it and perpetuate it still today...
And, just as an added kick in the head, reverse Affirmative Action efforts that were an attempt to combat and counteract the effects of cumulative causation, claiming that it is "reverse discrimination", also claiming, like ancestors a century ago, that it is the white folk who are in danger of being disenfranchised (or American Christians by American Muslims)... to further drive home the hatred and justify discrimination in the future...
THAT is cumulative causation... or at least my meager attempt to explain it...
Yes, there are exceptions who rise in spite of these realities. They were supported by people who did all they could to give them opportunities, and they were just as bright and driven as anyone else, as are so many others who have not had quite the same favorable conditions within which to grow. They are not lauded by society, but used as tokenized excuses to continue doing what is being done because they "prove" that others could do the same... some of them reach back and do all they can to help fight the barriers to success and bring others along... others take what they can and claim that it is their "superiority" alone that has brought them to their success... and some of them even promulgate the negative stereotypes about people like them in order to elevate themselves, if no where else, in their own minds...
It is hard for a people to accumulate familial wealth and build strong communities, promote higher education and build successes when this has been their reality for generations...
All the white folk I know who think they are "self made", were made by a system that promoted them just for being white, above those who are not... had doors opened for them... no barriers put up in front of them... and were told throughout their years that they were "superior" just for being white... even if they were poor, because at least they were white... so, if they did not succeed, they had a ready made scapegoat to put all of their bitterness and hatred on...
I recognized that I had doors open to me that my friends did not have opened to them, just because of the color of their skin. I recognized the hateful stereotypes, de-humanizing efforts and vilifying practices that hurt people of color. I resented it, because I loved many of them. I still resent it. I still love them.
We continue to live this reality in 2016. It is not 1866. It is not 1916 or 1966. Gerrymandering, Voter Suppression, mass incarceration, uneven sentences, unequal education, unaffordable housing, red-lining through gentrification, unavailable employment, unsafe living conditions, unequal pay, privatizing for profit public services (education, prisons) and other factors have been revived to continue this CUMULATIVE CAUSATION at the expense of many of my sisters and brothers. I resent it. I love them. I will continue to expose it and fight it.
Pastor Jamie
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