Comedian Dave Chappelle uses humor to make his point by stating that he is envious of the LGBTQ+ community due to their quick rise in progress in their movement, and we still can’t get reparations. “I can’t help but feel that if we had baby oil and booty shorts, we would have been free a hundred years sooner.”

With the current backlash against DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and the mass deportation of brown and Black people seemingly at random, there is a reminder that Black folks tend to catch more hell than anyone else. Historically, Affirmative Action has benefited any other group before it filters down to those at the bottom of the totem pole. 

In 1920, Black and white women protested together, standing arm in arm, fighting for their right to vote. However, it wasn’t until 1965 that Black women actually received it while their white counterparts moved forward without them.

Whenever quotas were imposed on institutions, the numbers could be satisfied by hiring women, and you could get a two-for-one deal by hiring a woman of color. So the beat goes on, stuck on one repeated refrain: “If you’re white, you’re alright. If you’re yellow, you’re mellow. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re Black, stand back.”

When will it be that we open our eyes as a nation and realize that we’ve been hoodwinked by a political system that pits us against each other for the sake of protecting the wealth and power of a tiny minority of wealthy, powerful, male, white landowners?

We are so quick to fall for the okie doke, not realizing that we have more in common with each other than not. And yet we continue to go after the lowest hanging fruit on the tree of hatred and submit to the tactics of divide and conquer.

It’s those savage Indians who are standing in the way of our progress. It’s those lazy thugish Negroes that can’t be trusted. It’s the immigrants who are taking our jobs and threatening our way of life, and now, they’re eating our dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. It’s those left-wing liberals. It’s the right-wing Republicans. It’s everybody but the puppet masters at the top who continue to build their wealth off the backs of all of those demographics below them economically while showing an ever-changing classification of “white” folks shiny objects to keep them distracted and preoccupied, hoping for a change that is never to come on a large scale.

The story is told of one of the many occasions when Dr. King was incarcerated, and engaging in a conversation with a “white” prison guard. When made aware of his low salary, Dr. King is rumored to have commented, “You’re just as poor as Negroes. You should be marching with us.”

When traveling in various parts of the African continent, I would sadly see billboards advertising skin bleaching creams and see several women using them to lighten their beautiful, naturally dark complexions.

While in India, I watched the caste system play out between complexioned Indians in an age-old color hierarchy where it was accepted and normalized that lighter-skinned people were at the top. 

Some marry lighter-skinned or “white” spouses to produce lighter-skinned offspring. Racism and white supremacy can be accepted and promoted within darker-skinned people groups as well. We learn it in our formative years as children and are seldom challenged to cleanse this poison from our mentalities. And when we are challenged, it is often rejected, as it has become a part of who we are. 

But we have to change it. Our mental health as a people and as a healthy society depends upon it. Knowledge and awareness are imperative, as is recognizing that we, as Black people, are the original people made in the image of God. We house greatness within ourselves, just waiting for it to be released. 

But what is it within sinful man that has us gravitating toward looking down on others? Why must we feel that our group is superior to others, instead of appreciating each other’s uniqueness? I wish I knew the answers and had the ability to flip a switch and change society, but until then, it’s just a broken record singing the same old song with just a different beat.