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    Desperation

If you ask what kind of people have to remind others that their lives

actually matter and during times of unrest it is not uncommon for

some of them to burn down their own neighborhoods? Frustrated

people demanding to be treated like people. Oddly enough through

the years I have had people including other black people ask me,

why would anyone destroy their own neighborhood business during

times of unrest.

I have been asked this question enough times to give it some farther

thought and without justifying these actions, I have come to the very

simple conclusion, that these actions are done by hopeless individuals.

Even when it is opportunists looking for something to loot, it is still

likely there is desperation and hopelessness to some degree.

These are individuals who commonly see just about anyone who

wants to set up a business in their neighborhood can, but most

black people not having access to capital to get business going in an

adequate way. There is a bit more on the justice issue later on in the

following chapters.

So, what is it about us as a people that there are so many unfavorable

things happening to us by law enforcement and the justice system?

We know things are going on in other communities with other 

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D. Audrey

races of people, but ours tends to stick out in the crowd. Despite our

struggles, some great accomplishments have been made in civil issues

and others.

There are those who have made it and are living the dream, but by

and large, too many are struggling just to get by from day to day.

I have lived in areas where it was very common to see bumper stickers

that made mention of them picking their own cotton, if they knew it

would be “like this”.

Go on to college and listen to instructors /professors mention

how prejudiced they were by intertwining their lectures about the

importance of not being prejudiced in certain lines of work. The

popular subject for some of the students that were not a minority of

color, was affirmative action comments.

The required literature at some of these colleges often contained

books that used derogatory names for black people. At the workplace,

at a distance but audible, one coworker tells the other coworker that

they can be a slave that works inside the house if they do a good job,

all in the name of a good joke.

I’ve heard racist comments directed at me from individuals driving

by while I was outside my home. Pulled over while driving by patrols,

so often, I knew the routine. Listened to individuals not just talking

to me, but also other black people mentioning how they hear a lot of

the things that are said about black people and there is no way they

would want to go through what we go through.

Diss Difficulty Success

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There are a number of individuals that have dealt with much worse

racism than the occurrences mentioned here, yet it doesn’t make it

any less senseless to deal with.

Let’s examine some of the hurdles of opinion that are encountered by

black people, the other term for this is negative stereotypes of course.

Just and few of the comments that have been said about black people:

Not willing to work

Only want something for free

Only want to assault others

Won’t pull themselves up

Keep complaining about what has happened to them and why don’t

they just get over it.

There are far more comments about us as a people; one could easily

say don’t spend your time on what others say, and just do what you

need to do to improve your life.

There is truth to this comment, however a brief consideration of these

points shines more light on the attitudes of some that are not on the

receiving side of difficulty, and in turn makes improvement harder

to obtain.

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D. Audrey

If guess who was described as what race is likely to live in this

neighborhood, and the following questions were asked, most would

guess blacks in the top three answers. Questions such as high crime

rates, high rates of poverty, incarceration including those who are

innocent, single moms and single women who have never been

married, unsafe environmental issues, and poor access to healthcare.

The black neighborhood is often used as a starting point for poor

immigrants from third world, undeveloped and underdeveloped

countries. The significance of this is, black people in these

neighborhoods have been there for a number of years, and some

families for generations yet, are at the same level or near the same

level as some of the poorest people in the entire world, that come to

America with little or nothing and are at the same standard of living.

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Sitting in the shade

We don’t just deal with the routine regular things it takes for everyone

to make it financially and maintain an overall quality of well-being.

For black people, we deal with monumental obstacles that have came

down from the beginning of America to the new challenges of now.

An old guy once told me of how the African people needed to help

themselves and made mention of the laziness he saw when working

for an international company in Africa. He went on to say that many

would rather sit down under a shade tree than accept jobs offered

to them.

Little did I know that the time mentioned would have been during

the colonization era, not a favorite time for Africans. For many that

see the plight of African-Americans living in a prosperous place

and say surely this means these are lazy people that aren’t taking

advantage of the opportunities in the country in where they live.

Where there is room for improvement there is room for improvement.

However, there is a whole lot more to this story that doesn’t get an indepth discussion. 

Oh, the ease of us to view our people in a negative

light, and oh the ease of others to view us in a negative light.

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D. Audrey

These views prompt a closer look at what got us to this valley of diss

in terms of how we are treated, and some inspiration to go forward.

There are many components to living life, some of these important

components in terms of living a good or decent standard of living is

education, what you do for a living, and any advantage your relatives

before you provided.

The one thing all of these have in common is they all can have a

tremendous effect on wealth/cash money and the things that wealth/

cash money can provide. Your job, if you have or need one and

financial entities play a pretty large role in the lives of most people.

When dealing with these entities the experience can be either good,

bad, or neutral.