Thursday, February 11, 2010

STRENGTH

I felt compelled yet again to share an excerpt from the book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington:
The censuses of the postbellum decades not only perpetuated but also expanded upon the racial libels of the 1840 documents. However, their principal foci were physical illnesses, not mental. By the time of the eight census, that of 1860, superintendent Joseph C. G. Kennedy was predicting the certain demise of black Americans. By the census of 1890, the black birth rate had fallen in relation to that of whites. Life insurance companies considered blacks uninsurable and black extinction was actually predicted for the year 2000. These predictions dwelled upon the inherent and immutable physical inferiority that doomed the negro and offered frequent predictions of his extinction.”

...black extinction was actually predicted for the year 2000...0.”

Wow. Read that once more. Black Americans were supposed to have been wiped out ten years ago...think about that.

This brings to mind these lyrics from a Jamiroquai song-“Stillness in Time”
…and I’m never sad/and I’m always glad/anything you give me today/ I will be thankful for/people find it hard to be strong/ cuz they don’t know where they’re coming from…

words to sum this up?
strength. tenacity. perseverance. fortitude. vigor.

comment. think. obliterate your limitations.

No comments:

Post a Comment