It is now brought to public memory that perhaps we are reentering The Gilded Age — an era marked by rapid prosperity, technological advancements and economic growth, its golden exterior of prosperity disguising the destitution within.
I remember sitting in my grandmother’s home in Jamaica, in the sweltering heat, confused as to why George Zimmerman was acquitted after killing Trayvon Martin.
I was twelve.
Since then, countless people have died at the hands of police — their killings preserved on dashcam or bystander video, while many others were never filmed.
An officer on the front lines of the Minneapolis protests has been put on two weeks paid leave after he failed to fire pepper balls at a local news crew. The Internal Affairs Committee for the Minneapolis Police Department confirmed that Percy Cutor had decided not to fire on reporters even though they had identified themselves as press and were wearing safety vests.
The grotesque, inhumane, evil killing of George Floyd has burst the dam of Black Patience again. Black people are appalled. Black people are pissed off. Black people are fed up. Black people are heartbroken. But most of all, Black people are tired.
The pillaging of Africa’s resources by some of our nation’s most revered companies serves as a brutal reminder that even with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, American corporations do not practice this formal equality beyond its borders. With the onset of globalization, they have merely transferred their system of exploitation overseas.
Pelo malo, which literally means “bad hair,” was a constant refrain in my home. The term is part of what it means to be Dominican, yet it was meant to be an insult.