“With our launch, we want to speak from the heart with entries about tangible ways that communities of the majority can reach out in partnership with marginalized communities of color in ways that are not patronizing but collaborative.“

Three-Fifths Magazine, April 2021

We have just passed through a political season that involved so many polarizing arguments that have been rehearsed over and over in our minds, so it seemed as if political ads were relentless and unescapable from our televisions, computers, and phones. Lies and exaggerations, murky answers to easy questions, and the constant finger-pointing by both sides revealed many things about us. Most of those things were well-known, and others were unveiled as hidden truths or nuanced discoveries.  

To be clear, I will not replay the 2020 Presidential election in this article, except to say no matter what else is on the plate, including stats, numbers, and expert opinions, the bottom line is if a financial crunch feels bad enough for the people of a transactional America, large numbers of its citizens will vote for whomever as opposed to the current holders of power. To spend any more time on the 2024 election would be a vast misuse of our readers’ valuable time.

As we are completing the first quarter of the 21^st century, this month’s theme asks the question, what grade would you give America. Before the salivating gets too strong for your resistance, we need to look at the whole picture because we justice seekers are Americans as well. I remember one of the campaigns used the phrase “Forward,” and that is exactly where I plan to travel. In true Sankofa fashion, before moving forward, let’s take a look back.

We are in the post-George Floyd era. Twenty Twenty was a year for the ages, or so it seemed. Only four years removed from our first African American and two-term president. You remember the one whose presidency was supposed to usher in post-racial America. Mark that point as a mental footnote.

Much earlier, in the 21st century, rapid change also came to America’s shores. September 11th, 2001 (911). The downing of the World Trade Centers, the targeted Pentagon, and the Flight 93 wreckage in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania clearly marked the last time that America came together. This time brought many changes to the American landscape, from arriving hours ahead of scheduled flights to get through NSA protocol, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, along with beefed-up security in every aspect of life, from concert venues to office buildings in Corporate America. Americans were clearly focused on the enemy from foreign shores, who breached what was thought to be our sanctuary, separated by two oceans from the rest of the world.

However, in 2008, a reality hit the nation’s psyche when Barak Hussain Obama became the 44th president. And like an episode from Tales from the Crypt, all the ugly and foul ghosts and goblins of racism’s past burst back onto the surface of the U.S. It was as if they were in suspended animation until a catalyst caused an awakening, i.e., they were there all along. This reflected a growing narrative among some that suddenly, the enemy was within and no longer only on the outside.   

In the late 20^th century, pioneers of Critical Race Theory (CRT) began to theorize about these systemic structures in the laws and social reinforcements that breathed life into ethnic bias that lingered beyond the achievements of the civil rights movement. CRT grew and developed in law schools around our nation.

When “Faces at the Bottom of the Well” begin to look up for a way out, often, the proverbial cap is placed over the well in the form of a boogeyman label (the enemy within). Sadly, Americans fall for it every time. Derrick Bell, who was the author of “Faces at the Bottom of the Well,” made the following assertion in his groundbreaking book: “African American struggles for equality are doomed to fail so long as the majority of whites do not see their own well-being threatened by the status quo. Bell calls on African Americans to face up to this unhappy truth and abandon a misplaced faith in inevitable progress. Only then will blacks and those whites who join with them be in a position to create viable strategies to alleviate the burdens of racism. “Freed of the stifling rigidity of relying unthinkingly on the slogan ‘we shall overcome,’” he writes, “we are impelled both to live each day more fully and to examine critically the actual effectiveness of traditional civil rights remedies.” yellowdogbookshop.com

Bell’s assessment was one of the many that resonated as motivation to challenge the status quo in 2021’s launch of Three-Fifths Magazine and it’s ensuing challenge to Americans of every creed in the statement from the About Page “With our launch, we want to speak from the heart with entries about tangible ways that communities of the majority can reach out in partnership with marginalized communities of color in ways that are not patronizing but collaborative.”

Education is the key to debunking these silly memes, oversimplified tropes, and narratives to effect generational change for BIPOC communities and America in general. CRT must be taken seriously and fairly examined, not run away from for fear of negative labels, stereotypes, and labels meant to scare white people. Many influencers use various techniques including algorithms, bots, repeated messaging, and perception management. Perception Management is geared to satisfy our taste for the sights, sounds, taste, smells and imaginations that place us into the clutches of seemingly inexplicable influence. This is done through the act of deception. online source, https://www.thefreedictionary.com/perception+management

One positive lesson we can take away from that is that there is power in staying on message, especially in a Transactional (What’s In It For Me) America. CRT” must be given the same amount of respect as any other theory, such as the widely accepted “Theory of evolution by natural selection, Plate tectonics, Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity, Universal Law of Gravitation, the Big Bang theory, Self-verification theory, Adams’ equity theory of motivation, Vroom’s expectancy theory, Locke’s goal-setting theory, or Cognitive” Theories of Motivation”, they are all no more than theories. Some of the information in the above paragraph was gathered from 5 Nov 2019 by Beata Souders, MSc., PsyD candidate Scientifically reviewed by Maike Neuhaus PH.D.

Nomenclatures of CRT are commonly used in the academic sphere at all levels, and in corporate, industrial, and manufacturing, as well as many others; these include Racism, Intersectionality, White privilege, Race is socially constructed, Oppression, CRT is an academic and legal Framework that recognizes that systemic racism is part of American society. I also recognize that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. Google AI Overview, Sources UPDATED: Glossary of CRT-Related Terms -The Center for Renewing America, What is Critical Race Theory? | FAQs – Legal Defense Fund Critical race theory -Wikipedia

Though Racism is an emotional issue and evokes a litany of emotions, let’s take emotion off the table for a moment to listen to the wise words of Isabel Wilkerson:

“Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred, it is not necessarily personal. It is the worn grooves of comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place so long that it looks like the natural order of things.”

― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Former Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States, Alan Greenspan, spoke a great truth when he said, “Racism is not only despicable, but it is unprofitable.”

Now, let’s move forward together, BIPOC communities, allies, and advocates, with education fiscal viability, inspiration, and boldness, recognizing that together, we represent an influential and powerful market positioned to contend for racial justice in nuanced ways. The boldness is clarified by our fortitude and resistance to being captured, conflicted, caricatured, and ultimately conquered by repeated childish but effective narratives about who we are and what we represent. The reality of a Transactional America comes to the forefront in a variety of ways. First and foremost, when it comes to economic viability and wealth, i.e., “what’s in it for me.” It is not by accident that the most diverse nation the world has ever seen is also the wealthiest country the world has ever known. America dramatically profited from the Transatlantic Slave Trade, so much so that it held onto slavery much longer than any other Western nation. It took a civil war to separate it from the drunkenness of the extremely profitable chattel slavery.

The reality of chattel slavery, genocide, forced assimilation of indigenous people, mistreatment of Asian and Latino builders of the gateway to the West, the American railroads, and the arrival of different immigrant waves from Europeans and Middle Easterners became the America we now know. The profit, collateral, trading shares of stocks and insurance company coffers were all underwritten by the unending potential wealth provided by chattel slavery.

What grade would I give The United States of America in this first quarter of the 21st century?  In this period, we have had our first African American President, the first African American and AAPI Vice President, The first indigenous woman to serve as a Cabinet Secretary, (U.S. Secretary of the Interior) the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, the first African American Woman Supreme Court Justice, The first Indigenous congress woman, and the addition of Juneteenth as a National Holiday, just to name a few. With all these great accomplishments in the books, I would grade America with an Incomplete for a few reasons.

The backlash that commenced with the election of Barack Obama only intensified post-George Floyd. Many got caught up in the fad of the racial reckoning, caught flat-footed and left ill prepared for the coming backlash. Our 2020 national racial reckoning morphed into a racial remembering. We need to also ask ourselves the honest question. Have our DEI and DEIB programs seemed inclusive also to the majority population? Divide and conquer also contributed to the malaise experienced by the racial Justice community. The so-called Black and Brown Divide is one dreamed up by the powerful and used at different times throughout the balance of U.S. history. However, it is false on its face. This is not to ignore that work needs to be done between these communities. That work is minuscule in comparison to systemic racism involving both.

In a March 7^th Defender article entitled “2024 State of Black America spotlights 1964 Civil Rights Act 60 years later.” Author, Ashwad Walker quotes Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial.

“The 2024 Equality Index, the National Urban League’s semi-annual calculation of the social and economic status of African Americans relative to whites, is 75.7, an increase of 1.8% from the 2022 Index

 of 2022. Rooted in the Three-Fifths Compromise of 1787, which counted enslaved African Americans as “three-fifths” of a person, the Index would be 100% under full equality.

“In 20 years, the overall Equality Index has moved 2.7 percent,” Morial said. “At this rate, it will take another 180 years to achieve parity.”

Long story short, there’s work to be done.

The challenge we have before us is to not lose our way and become apprehensive. “Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.”

Isaiah 41:10 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”

― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

What’s in it for Me? Americans are asking. The Racial Justice Community has the market, the answers America is looking for as long as we stay committed to one another.  

Believe, don’t back down, know your truth.