How many times after some unarmed Black person gets gunned down by the police or some 20-something sister or brother dies of a preventable disease have you heard one of us say, “It was just their time. God called them home”?
And you know what we say when some non-melanated person gets away with horrendous crimes against us: “Never you mind; they’ll get theirs in the end.”
And what about this one: “If it didn’t happen for me, it just wasn’t meant to be.” We use that one to blow off structural, institutional injustices like the racist undervalued appraisals Black homes get that cost us collectively over $156 billion annually… or the centuries of redlining that blocked us from billions more in potential generational wealth… or the GI Bill benefits Black veterans fought and bled for; benefits that brought millions of poor whites out of poverty and into the middle class; benefits denied most Black vets.
These sayings are stealing our power
These childish, idiotic sayings, which have become beliefs meant to comfort us, are keeping us locked in second-class citizenship. They are our way of punking out and accepting realities that are far beneath what we deserve and what God wants for us.
Some say, pointing out these ongoing injustices rather than accepting them as God’s will or some other nonsense is “playing the victim.” I say, not accepting our responsibility to confront these evils so we can create the world we want, need and deserve, is truly victimizing ourselves.
Let’s stop telling ourselves and each other these lies that coddle our cowardice and kill our confidence (and lives) both slowly and immediately.
No 20-something sister or brother should be dying of hypertension or death by cop. No amount of waiting on the Lord is going to deliver God’s wrath upon those who profit off the Congo’s child labor abuses or the apartheid violence money that funds today’s billionaires. The white domestic terrorists who overthrew that multiracial, democratically elected government in Wilmington, NC in 1887 didn’t receive God’s wrath. They’ve been celebrated as heroes for nearly 140 years, with their names adorning street signs, government buildings and K-12 schools.
Be the change
“Never you mind; they’ll get theirs in the end.” Justice doesn’t work like that. It didn’t in the Bible, Quran, Torah, Odu Ifa, Bhagavad Gita or the Husia. And it doesn’t work like that in 2024. The God of yesterday, today and tomorrow helps those who help themselves.
The late, great Prince has a cool line from one of his songs that speaks to this. It says, “The only love we have is the love we make.” That’s true for power too… and respect… and a self-determining existence. The better lives, healthcare, civil and human rights our youth, elders and all of us deserve will only come via the work we do, not from the deadly lies we continue to tell ourselves.
