Month: June 2020

Corporations Owe Black Lives More Than Lip Service

by ADRIAN MARIE JONES (AJay), posted in race

Beyond corporations giving financial support to groups that are defending the lives of Black people, corporations have an obligation to work on equality in the workplace. The disparities in salaries, promotions, visibility is often overlooked because no one is overty racist.  But Black people get paid less, promoted less and are given less opportunities in the workplace.    Corporations have to dig deep to address these issues.  A hashtag will not do.

We Are Not Our Ancestors

by ADRIAN MARIE JONES (AJay), posted in History, slavery, Uncategorized

“WE ARE NOT OUR ANCESTORS” is disrespectful AF. WE have had almost 150 years of “freedom” and what have we done… without shackles? 40 million Black people in the U.S. and a few thousand Black protestors out in the wake of the murder of to #GeorgeFloyd. Get a grip. Don’t let them lie to you. Our ancestors were killing slave owners! Know your history. Don’t let these white people tell you that our ancestors were just singing negro spirituals waiting to be saved. Because that’s a lie. That’s them making you think that good white folk freed you. No. We were fighting before the civil war.

There was wide spread attempts to escape slavery. There were plots to kill the slave owners and the overseers. Black men and women risking life and limb to escape to “freedom.” According to brittanica.com, “Estimates of the total number of slave revolts vary according to the definition of insurrection. For the two centuries preceding the American Civil War (1861–65), one historian found documentary evidence of more than 250 uprisings or attempted uprisings involving 10 or more slaves whose aim was personal freedom.”

We have to be careful. We have to understand our past in order to move towards our future. We can’t just assume that our formerly enslaved ancestors were weak people who just prayed to a Christian God for freedom. This is historically inaccurate and does not serve us.

Constitutions can be rewritten and laws can be changed. The freedoms of Black people are, at this time, wholly dependent upon people who don’t GAF about us. Unless we fight for real change…. real freedom, it will be more of the same. We have to continue on this path of active agitation. We are not our ancestors, we have a long way to go.