John Logan
Jul 22, 2017 · 2 min read

“ But in these actions I see the same cold truth — that Black people, brought to this nation as items of property to be auctioned or traded — have perhaps never made it past the bar of being three-fifths human in the eyes of the state.”

I cringe when I see “it’s us versus them” statements like this. It’s simply not true. But the more you perpetuate that lie the more it will continue to permeate the ideology of those feeling downtrodden. Last I heard the 44th POTUS identifies himself as a black Chicagoan from the South Side. Or does the fact he didn’t come from slave descendants disqualify him? Or maybe that his mother was white puts him in a different category of success curve. How about Loretta Lynch or Eric Holder, or Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice? Or Melody Hobson or James Reynolds Jr.? What makes them exceptions to the idiom that “the state” (your poorly veiled metaphor for non-black America) holds Black people down?

No Black person is alive today that came into this country in bondage. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find the grandsons/daughters of any slaves still alive, yet that broad brush is used as if EVERY Black person in Chicago comes from that cohort of DNA and that, today, it makes some difference what your lineage is. Face it, where you see color, others see character and until the community stands up and takes accountability for it’s own character, others will see a need to control it.

The “we” in “We have to do something.” needs to be the people that live in that community. First. Not outsiders. Only then will you see real change.

    John Logan

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    Multi-industry entrepreneur, father, husband, innovator, instigator