When America's first people and its captured Africans were destined for slavery, the masters selected them for their strength and expertise. People from both cultures had more knowledge about medicine, agriculture and health than did European newcomers.
Amerindians knew how to fertilize beans by burying dead fish while planting them. American Africans knew more about planting and processing indigo and other crops than their masters–why those with expertise on growing these crops were captured, with their children and parents left behind to flounder in a lost economy.
Dear Ones,
For their military skill West Point studied First Americans' stealth, surprise attack and camouflage as the institute adopted their tactics and stratagy. General Braddock marched his bright red-coated soldiers out in the open as the natives picked them off row by row with bows and arrows.
Slavers and plantation "owners" also tortured them by forbidding their read anything about inherent place of birth, not even Uncle Tom's Cabin. These tortured human beings–after years of slavery with those in bondage disfranchised by being called blacks as documented in census books–didn't call themselves black.
But after centuries of discriminating name-calling they couldn't beat the extreme power used against them. So they eventually joined them in "black power" which pleased the descendents of the masters tremendously. They wanted them to lose track of their ancestry and homeland of the beautiful continent of Africa by pegging them "black people."
Besides, it's easier to hate someone demeaned as "black" than hate an entire continent or its individual nations. History has proven that to put people down, just call them black. At one time–beside American Africans–American Indians, Hebrews, Italians, Latinos, Mexicans the Irish and Indians from India were all cast as black.
Today we reap the harvest of poverty and inequality as we all are affected by those protesting their children being killed. When any culture has a past of not being permitted to read, write or have knowledge about their origin, their spirits die within their souls. Anyone who has not studied the history of brutality of American Indians and Africans can't understand why those who have been so oppressed for centuries are rebellious even today.
Many non-Indians and non-Africans forget America's history, but those suppressed by bigotry carry these memories with them as their parents relate vicious scenes of yesterday. First Americans and African youths through the Internet, TV and books can now see the whole picture. No wonder why they revolt and disobey rogue coops.
The case against killer cops that followed New York resident, Jonny Gammage, in his cousin's Jaguar and beat him for braking as he passed a traffic control station is still being protested with petitions against out-of-control policemen.
I called coroner Cyril Wecht when I was writing about the tragedy in 1995. He told me the cops smothered Jonny after flashing a flashlight in his face. They knocked him to the ground and cuffed him. His name belongs on the recent list of deaths by unlawful behavior. Non of the policemen, known for gross bigotry, were prosecuted. They got away with murder.
The case is still open with a petition for righting the wrong–a tragedy remembered to this day.
Hands up for peaceful protests and to demonstrate how all human palms are one shade from the sun not reaching or their soles after thousands of years of living near the equator, now in human DNA.
The best jewel that shines the brightest is the gem of knowledge.
Mame.
helenessmith1.blog spot.com historian, author, poet of Sallie Civil War Dog, that is compared to the epic poetry of Stephen Vincent Benet–John Brown's Body–author historian founder of Erase Black-White Labeling (EBWL)
