4[00] Years in Hell
by Christopher Carmona
It did not start the day he was elected president 4[00] years ago. I remember the day after the election in 2016. I walked to my office to prepare for my classes. I thought about everything he said on the campaign trail. Everything that we knew they thought about us. I heard it and felt it that day when in a class of mostly Latinx students I was asked— “What is going to happen now?” I didn’t have an answer then. I wonder if I do now. The fear was thick in the air. It just felt like we were being punished for 8 years of our first black president. Now I know that is true. Because it was never named. It has been simmering under the American skin since it was born. But it did not start there.
It did not start when they charged the capitol. Their fury so white it burned itself into the empty sky. It did not start 4[00] years ago when he took the oath of office. Breathing a voice into being, saying—“No more hoods. We can march upon Charlottesville. Torches in hand. Proclaiming that white is right.”
It was the secret that America kept for years. Under wraps like the uncle that married his niece. No one would ever say anything at the Saturday pachangas. It left a trail of destruction since the first ships crossed the Atlantic and saw that gold and land are more important than lives and knowledge. It was here when the first ships brought black bodies in bondage to work lands that were not theirs. It was here when thousands lost their lives defending their way of life. Feeling the pain of Wounded Knee twice. First when the soldiers opened fire on unarmed peoples on Christmas 1890. Then again in 1973 when the FBI tried to silence your voices again. It was here when their children were rounded up and taught: “To save the man, you must kill the Indian.”
It was here when we swung from trees…black, brown, red, and yellow alike. When they laid eyes on us. Angry they had lost their grip on Progress and decided that their shortcomings were because others could do it better. When they couldn’t buy and sell bodies anymore. When they couldn’t find a reason for their failure, they saw the rope as their best recourse. It became the worst crime of these United States as Ida B. Wells spoke to a crowd in Chicago in 1900:
Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an ““unwritten law”” that justifies them in putting human beings to death without complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without an opportunity to make a defense, and without right of appeal. The ““unwritten law”” first found excuse with the rough, rugged, and determined man who left the civilized centers of eastern States to seek for quick returns in the gold-fields of the far West. Following in uncertain pursuit of continually eluding fortune, they dared the savagery of the Indians, the hardships of mountain travel, and the constant terror of border State outlaws. (Wells Lynch Law In America).
It was here when they burned Antonio Rodriguez in Rock Springs, Texas. A 22-year-old vaquero who was in the wrong town when a white woman was shot. At the spark of a match. Doused in gasoline. His body forever burnt away. It was here when they massacred thousands of Mexican Americans on the border for their lands and their wealth. It was here when they deported 1.6 million Mexicans, 61% were American citizens in ’31 and again in ’54. They called it Operation Wetback.
It was here when we fought back. Shouting “Huelga!” Shouting “Si Se Puede!” in the streets. It was here when we fought for the right to take a bathroom break while we picked your fruit. It was here when they turned your dogs on us. When we sat at counters not meant for us. It was here long before he rode that escalator and proclaimed himself the next President of the United States.
It did not start with him. But it remains because we refuse to name it. We refuse to call this thing that is burnt into the fabric of this country. That has blackened its soul since men were only worth 3/5 and others not at all. We never named it when King was shot down. When Malcolm spoke his truth with his AK. When we were beaten in the fields. When our language was washed out of our mouths in school because the sound of it offended the fragile white ears. We shouted “Blowout! Blowout! Blowout!” and walked out of your schools.
But worst of all, it did not stop when we learned that Black is Beautiful. When we fought in your wars. When we were spat on and told we were still not American. We still had to come home to not being allowed to eat in the restaurants. We had to order our food from the window. No Coloreds. No Mexicans. No Women. No Dogs Allowed. We did not name it then. We did not name it when he was elected. We still don’t name it. It is just as much our fault as it is theirs. Because…
It was here when we fought back. Shouting “Huelga!” Shouting “Si Se Puede!” in the streets. It was here when we fought for the right to take a bathroom break while we picked your fruit. It was here when they turned your dogs on us. When we sat at counters not meant for us. It was here long before he rode that escalator and proclaimed himself the next President of the United States.
It did not start with him. But it remains because we refuse to name it. We refuse to call this thing that is burnt into the fabric of this country. That has blackened its soul since men were only worth 3/5 and others not at all. We never named it when King was shot down. When Malcolm spoke his truth with his AK. When we were beaten in the fields. When our language was washed out of our mouths in school because the sound of it offended the fragile white ears. We shouted “Blowout! Blowout! Blowout!” and walked out of your schools.
But worst of all, it did not stop when we learned that Black is Beautiful. When we fought in your wars. When we were spat on and told we were still not American. We still had to come home to not being allowed to eat in the restaurants. We had to order our food from the window. No Coloreds. No Mexicans. No Women. No Dogs Allowed. We did not name it then. We did not name it when he was elected. We still don’t name it. It is just as much our fault as it is theirs. Because…
“Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them—inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men. But race is the child of racism, not the father.” (Coates The World Between You and Me 15).
For 4[00] years we lived in the world that most of us have lived in for 400. The only difference was now is it visible. We can see their faces. Their anger has a bullhorn, and it is loud. He said they were good people. It is still loud. Even when a white woman was killed. It sounds loud and clear that this country was born white and would be again. Born in Native American blood. On the backs of Africans and African Americans. Brown bodies and Mexican lands are not theirs by right because they aren’t white.
For 8 years they waited. For 8 years they filled the seats of politicians and pundits. They listened to their radio. Watched their news. They waited for the right voice to launch their attack. To put kids in cages. To shoot us down in the streets with no consequences. To have entire peoples frightened that they were to be deported or shot down like the buffalo of old. Because now they didn’t have to name it. It sat in the White House for 4[00] years.
We have always had to name it. We have to constantly name it. Even when they are tired of hearing it. We must always name it. Because America has a short memory. We are not just workers for their fields, for their factories, for their homes. We are more. We must not forget that the greatest gift we have is the ability to educate. As Angela Davis once said, “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
It is a burden that we never asked for. It is a burden we don’t want. To constantly remind Whiteness that it also has a past. We cannot learn to forgive if it is always forgetting. During the last 4 years we have spent walking around Dante’s nine circles of Hell. We have grown tired and bolder. We have had to, because we can only be afraid for so long before hands stop shaking and turn to fists. We felt this when George Floyd was crushed to death. When it happened to Eric Gardener. The words, “I can’t breathe” forever choking the air. When it happened to thousands of niños left to freeze to death in la hielera. We felt that fist tightening. So, we fought back. Because that is what we do in Hell. We fought to get our classes into schools. We fought to climb our way out of here. We fought against his voice. Loud and clear. We are America too. This is our land too. Or as Woody Guthrie once crooned in his song, “This Land Is Your Land,” and was later removed by his recording company:
For 8 years they waited. For 8 years they filled the seats of politicians and pundits. They listened to their radio. Watched their news. They waited for the right voice to launch their attack. To put kids in cages. To shoot us down in the streets with no consequences. To have entire peoples frightened that they were to be deported or shot down like the buffalo of old. Because now they didn’t have to name it. It sat in the White House for 4[00] years.
We have always had to name it. We have to constantly name it. Even when they are tired of hearing it. We must always name it. Because America has a short memory. We are not just workers for their fields, for their factories, for their homes. We are more. We must not forget that the greatest gift we have is the ability to educate. As Angela Davis once said, “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
It is a burden that we never asked for. It is a burden we don’t want. To constantly remind Whiteness that it also has a past. We cannot learn to forgive if it is always forgetting. During the last 4 years we have spent walking around Dante’s nine circles of Hell. We have grown tired and bolder. We have had to, because we can only be afraid for so long before hands stop shaking and turn to fists. We felt this when George Floyd was crushed to death. When it happened to Eric Gardener. The words, “I can’t breathe” forever choking the air. When it happened to thousands of niños left to freeze to death in la hielera. We felt that fist tightening. So, we fought back. Because that is what we do in Hell. We fought to get our classes into schools. We fought to climb our way out of here. We fought against his voice. Loud and clear. We are America too. This is our land too. Or as Woody Guthrie once crooned in his song, “This Land Is Your Land,” and was later removed by his recording company:
As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
It did not start here. This 4[00] years in Hell. It does not end here with the turning of the page. It continues…as we continue…in this fight against forgetting. We must continue to ask of ourselves. How deep is the red when blood is turned to rust? How loud the cry of a gunshot? How long is the memory when the ghosts are forgotten? How long can the earth swallow us after we have become ash? How long must pasts sins live until our genes can finally forget?
Comment Box is loading comments...
|
|
