We Love Maya Angelou, But We Don’t Care That She’s On A Quarter
The dominant society continues to disrespect Foundational Black Americans by throwing symbolic gestures in our faces
Let’s just get straight to the point: the Democrats and the powers that be are patting themselves on the back because they got this Maya Angelou quarter. They’re going around like, “Hey look at us! We are doing something for Black people. We gave you a symbolic nothing-burger.” This is what this is; this is all that this is.
So we got a Foundational Black American— Descendant of American Slavery — on the back of a quarter and George Washington, a slave owner, who’s on the front of the quarter. You notice how they don’t want to show you the other side of the quarter. They don’t want to highlight that part of the story. You got one of the most known white supremacists in American history on the front of the quarter, George Washington, who we know was a slave owner. But we know their symbolisms are not lost and the white supremacists know this as well. “Massa” on the front, slaves on the back.
“The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and real justice” ~Malcolm X
I swear every time I read a Malcolm X quote that relates to what I see in today’s time, it just proves the fact that Black people are still in the same situation as we were decades earlier.
But look at what they’re trying to achieve — let’s further analyze this situation because it gets deep. They got knock out many birds with one stone with this symbolic nothing-burger. Notice how they say she’s the “First Black Woman” — this is that whole gender divide thing that they’re trying to promote with Black men and Black women. They stay keep trying to promote a gender divide. Giving all of this phony praise and props to Black women and, fortunately, Black women aren’t falling for the trick bag because they see the con game for what it is. They try to cause a divide and a rift between Black men and Black women by showering Black women with phony praise like “Hey, we’re going to treat you a little bit different than we treat your men, but not really.” You know, we still have the Breonna Taylors of the world out here suffering at the hands of these race soldiers, a lot of sisters are losing brothers, sons, and fathers to white supremacy so they’re not treating us any different. Black men and women are the same; there is no separation. When one hurts, the other hurts. We are one and the same.
Another way that the white supremacists try to use this Maya Angelou quarter situation against us is by using this as a way to deflect from giving any tangibles to Foundational Black Americans. So now, they can give millions and millions of dollars to these other groups (Asians, LGBTQ community, immigrants, etc.) They give us statues of Black men like George Floyd that the race soldiers murdered or paint “Black Lives Matter” on the street yet they give other groups money. That is a complete and utter insult to the people that built this country. So again, I, along with many Foundational Black Americans, could care less about you but Black faces on money, why don’t you do what’s right and pay us our money!
Jaron Mays. 2022. All Rights Reserved.
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