Let's ALL Tell the TRUTH..........

Black men.

There has been a lot of discussion about this crime bill 1994 and how it destroyed the lives of black men. I’ve tried (Lord I swear I’ve tried to remain silent on this and let you all have your moment). If you don’t want to vote for Joe Biden- because he signed the crime bill-then don’t.

But let’s not leave out the very important nuance and framework that is required to fully engage in this debate. Because none of you have referred to the many areas of that legislation that is required to fully contextualize this debate. None of you use the most important word in the titling of that crime bill and the word is VIOLENT.

The bill is actually called-

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act

The law was enacted not to just throw black men in jail and lock them away without a key- but it was enacted to deal with VIOLENT gang crime, VIOLENT physical and domestic acts against women including sexual crimes against women and children. Joe Biden worked in conjunction with the National Association of Police Organizations and The Violence Against Women Act to expand Clinton’s idea of the law.

The reason Joe can’t get on stage or behind some podium and tell the full truth here is because he knows full well that he can’t culturally discuss what needs and remains to be said and that is that black womens groups, churches, ministers and community leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus ALL wanted this legislation because women and children were in deep peril and danger during that time.

Why? Because violence against women and their children were rampant in the eighties and early 90’s and they ALL- everybody wanted it stopped.

Unfortunately, if we are going to truly do this in plain sight then let’s do it. We have never actually dealt with why this violence was happening. Vestiges of slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination and racial violence and segregation and fighting wars in the military for a country that never actually considered you a full human being created a generational trauma on the black man. That trauma passed down for over 400 years.

It was codified with slave insurance & advanced mortality tables, then faux freedom and a short lived Reconstruction. Then Jim Crow laws and bullshit sharecropping. I know they wouldn’t allow you an education, or approve you for a mortgage. Then they created legislation like the New Deal that left out Black people, and blocked you from applying for credit and then when you to took matters in your own hands to take care of your families they enforced punitive prison labor laws and then welfare laws that broke our families apart and further broke your spirits. And when you failed to be able to husbands and fathers- cause you were suffering from mental illness and alcoholism and drug addiction to mask the pain- they further strung you up by systems like divorce court and child support court and crime bills where you rarely get the opportunity to express or be truly heard.

I know why you’re really mad. And you most definitely should be.

But black women are not your enemies.

The same systems that tried to destroy you also attempted to destroy us- but the difference is- those systems attempted to convince us that we could survive without you.

I get it.

But we can’t be the punching bag for each other’s pain. We have to deal with our trauma in real time and while I am fully aware that there is no rule book on how we get over everything that THEY did to us- I can promise you- that no one person is responsible in totality and no one person can fix this.

This is our shit.

And while I totally believe that we need to vote like our environment, our liberty, our education,

our families and our communities depend on it- come November 4th- whoever wins America’s steering wheel- we will still have our own collective community work to do. And it starts with telling the absolute truth. And unfortunately we may just have to do this one in plain sight.

The world hurt you, you hurt us and then we hurt each other. But we gotta decide who gets what next. I’m not going to participate unless we are ready to tell the truth. The whole truth.

This ain’t got shit to do with tnis crime bill and we all absolutely know it. This has everything to do with the violence and pain we deny and remove from our lexicon to hide our guilt and mask our shame.

I’m tired.