by Dr Neals J Chitan
“Black Lives Matter” is the common social awareness mantra which is now belting across the globe, driven by the recent knee-in-the-neck death of George Floyd to the hands of white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on 25 May 2020.
The vivid picture of a nonchalant Chauvin digging his knees into Floyd’s neck and choking the airway into his lungs as the world listened to the ebbing sound of “I can’t breathe,” has sent the world into a mad frenzy for social justice.
Since its inception, the “Black Lives Matter” mantra has repeatedly come to a head on collision with another mantra “All Lives Matter” which was skillfully engineered to tone down the serious specific call for social justice for blacks in North America, throwing it into one homogeneous mixture of human issues. With a specific objective to derailed the attention from a perpetrator to victim focus, the arguments continue about semantics rather than putting our shoulder to the wheel ourselves and healing the social dysfunctions that will ensure that black lives do really matter in every sense of the word. Instead, we show up, protest, and go back home to our same old same old waiting, for another incident to come back out and protest again.
And so, several questions come to mind as I look across the Caribbean and see racism’s unjust cousins digging their knees into the necks of our people. Here are just a few:
(1) Do black lives matter when as Caribbean people we make darker skin people feel so underprivileged that they resort to bleaching their God-given, health privileged, ebony hue for fairer complexion, just to be accepted?
(2) Do black lives matter when a young teenage black girl who grew up to the hands of abusive black parents gets pregnant and must continue the cycle of parental neglect and domestic violence without any form of social interception?
(3) Do black lives matter when a black teenage boy is wrongfully blamed by a black teacher, negatively profiled, suspended, expelled as a trouble maker and pushed into a life of crime by the same school system that is saying that education is important?
(4) Do black lives matter when our black students go to school hungry, traumatised, and emotionally abused and still expected to focus and learn?
(5) Do black lives matter when a black child is sexually molested and killed by a black stepfather who was supposed to be her protector, but instead abused her to fulfill his warped sexual desires?
(6) Do black lives really matter when a black man is dumped into a jail cell with no form of relevant social rehabilitation to help him get back into society successfully thereafter, thus feeding the cycle of criminality and recidivism?
These are just a few of the issues I face as a Social Skill Interventionist on a daily basis, where homes, schools, community and society at large have failed our citizens, making them believe that their black lives don’t really matter. As a result, another popular mantra “Don’t just talk the talk, but walk the talk” needs to be adopted If we indeed believe that black lives do matter!! Our efforts, finances and programmes would definitely have to be “walking the talk” towards social reform that will make “black lives matter” believable. Hence, along with marching the streets with “BLACK LIVES MATTER” placards for social justice, we will also be marching and chanting with our children, youth, men and women to the celebratory drumbeat of social progress, accomplishments and achievements.
Systemic racism has no problems with protests and marches! As a matter of fact, they will even join us to make us think that they are so interested in our progress. However, the victory for them is that, after making noise on the streets we return back to our homes, schools and communities to continue the cycle of self hate, jealousy, abuse, revenge, anger and criminal activities that keep us self-victimised and socially subservient.
And so, my question still is, “Do black lives really matter?” If the answer is unequivocally in the affirmative, we will see a significant paradigm shift in the way we speak, relate, respond and encourage each other, thus rising from the ash heap of social dysfunctions and degradation to the mountaintop exuberance of social awareness and empowerment, indeed reflecting the fact that our “BLACK LIVES DO REALLY MATTER!”
Dr Neals Chitan is an International Social Skill Consultant and Crime Reduction Specialist who holds a PhD in Social and Behavioural Sciences and currently works in Grenada. He is the President/Founder of Motiv-8 For Change International a Toronto-based Social Skill Agency and can be reached from North America at 647-692-6330 and locally 473-416-8377 or at [email protected]
Greetings,
This commentary isn’t about “Black Lives Matter” which it self is specifically about racial injustice and inequality where it concerns Black People. This commentary simply highlights several social problems concerning citizen on a whole which should be of concern to all black or white. For example this commentary will work if you were to replace (almost) every instance of “black” with any other race or ethnicity. This reads as an attempt to ride the Black Lives Matter wave. Let me clarify. These are all very important issues that needs the attention of everyone but its not a “Black Lives Matter” issue. Most of what we face in the Caribbean is Classism, Favoritism and Nepotism.
Placing the burden on people who have been throttled by centuries of hatred is the best example of self-hate particularly when that misplaced responsibility is put on them by other people.
Calling Continental Africans “buffonish” comes right out of the playbook of White Supremacists and in the English Caribbean started a spiral throughout our education with the Anansi series of stories. The comments above sadly reflect a conditioning that hides behind a veneer that perceives Black people do lack personal responsibility or that we create our own psychoses. These noises are not unusual and we sympathize with our own folk who, despite their mature ages are in a stage of personal growth in understanding the dire straits that global Oppression can breed – one of the worst being stereotyping.
“Chitan asked “Do Black Lives really matter?” Is he putting this question to the victims of slavery, colonialism, imposed poverty? Yes and it is sad that he is putting this question, incredibly, to us as Black people! It is heartbreaking to consider the audacity of the premise: we are responsible for our own condition. Now, in the perfect world that is true. But the question lacks honesty or it is grounded in ideas taken from a book not the lived reality of black people.
In thinking about this I happened upon an article in the NY Times this morning that i’ve copied for sharing. (The editor should not worry since by naming the source of the extract this site is freed from legal liability for its reproduction).
To understand how poverty is imposed by corporate policy and not by the failure of Black families to be “responsible” or to care about their “Individual growth” consider the following:
The financial industry can close the wealth gap and serve as a model for a nation struggling to reckon with racism.
Corporate chief executives have been tripping over themselves to demonstrate their support for racial justice. They’ve taken a knee, tweeted that black lives matter, donated money to advocacy groups and affirmed their commitment to inclusion.
That’s all well and good. And following through on their promises — by hiring and promoting more people of color, diversifying boards and executive suites and paying all workers decent wages and essential benefits — would be even better.
But business leaders who are serious about fighting racism will hold themselves accountable for the bitter inequities they have helped to create and sustain, and from which they have profited. Every industry must now use its power to repair the damage and heal the wounds.
The financial industry is a good place to start. Banks have been underwriters of American racism — no industry has played a bigger or more enduring role in black oppression, exploitation and exclusion. Banks financed the slave trade and in some cases “repossessed” humans in bondage.
White-owned banks refused to serve black people who left the South escaping brutality and seeking opportunity during the Great Migration of the early and mid-20th century. Bank policies and practices contributed to segregating every major city and denying black families the two most important toeholds to the middle class — ownership of homes and of businesses.
Federal legislation beginning in the 1960s prohibited the most blatant discrimination in banking and lending. It banned redlining, the practice named for the color-coded maps that lenders used to deny mortgages in black neighborhoods.
But banks and real estate agents found ways to exploit the desire of black people to own homes, leaving many in foreclosure. Racial disparities in access to the conventional mortgage market endured, leaving black home buyers vulnerable to fraud and risky loans, as the subprime mortgage fiasco exposed so painfully.
The collapse of the housing market in 2008 and recession that followed wiped out half of black wealth. Black families have been slower to recover, in no small part because they are still rejected for home mortgages at more than double the rate of white families.
Similarly, banks deny loans to black-owned businesses at twice the rate of white-owned ones. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for small black companies to grow. But the industry doesn’t only suppress black wealth, it aggressively strips it, through excessive interest rates on consumer debt, egregious overdraft penalties and higher fees even for simple A.T.M. transactions.
It’s no surprise that the median black family had roughly one-tenth of the wealth of a white family as of 2016. The gap not only limits education and career options, it’s also a source of gnawing anxiety about how the bills will get paid in the event of a job loss or costly illness — setbacks facing millions of families, again disproportionately black, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moreover, the wealth gap hurts the nation’s economy. McKinsey & Company calculates that closing the black-white wealth gap could increase G.D.P. by 4 percent to 6 percent, or more than $1 trillion, by 2028.
A federal reparations policy is unlikely to come anytime soon. But banks and financial institutions don’t have to wait. First, they must apologize for their culpability for and complicity in structural racism. Next, they must commit to serving black people as they do whites. Then, with these four bold policies, the industry can start to close the wealth gap, repair the harms and serve as a model for a nation struggling to reckon with racism:
Cancel consumer debt for black customers
Americans carry a lot of consumer debt, but as Christian Weller reports in Forbes, nobody bears a heavier burden than African-American families. They are the only racial group that owes more than their belongings are worth — they could sell all their possessions and they would still be in debt.
Black families on average had $8,554 in consumer debt in September 2019. And they pay more for debt — about $735 a year in interest on every $10,000 they borrow, compared with $514 for white families. Because they have less access to conventional banks and the mortgage market, many black families are forced to rely on high-interest alternatives such as payday loans.
Additionally, black people are hit with higher bank fines and harsher punishment, including wage garnishment, for loan defaults, making it harder to climb out of debt. Freeing families from the drag of this debt would help them build savings and obtain financial security.
Eliminate banking fees for black customers
Nearly half of black households have limited access to retail banking services or none at all. And black customers who have bank accounts pay more — $190 more for a checking account — compared with white customers, according to one study.
That’s because banks in communities of color generally require higher opening balances and minimums to avoid fees, and they charge more for A.T.M. transactions and overdrafts. Seemingly small differences in bank fees pay off handsomely for the industry.
Of the more than $11 billion that big banks collected last year in overdraft-related fees, the bulk came from just 9 percent of account holders — consumers who generally have low bank balances, according to a study by the Center for Responsible Lending.
Ending these egregious practices would make banking more attractive to black consumers.
Provide interest-free mortgages to black home buyers
The long history of blatant racism in mortgage lending is well known. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was supposed to end it. But today, the rate of black homeownership, 43 percent, is barely higher than when that law took effect — and much lower than white homeownership, at 70 percent.
Given the persistent racism in the mortgage market and the subprime mortgage disaster, which not only resulted in homeownership disparities but also limited the value of homes owned by black people, banks must provide interest-free mortgages to black home buyers.
These loans could be capped at the regional median loan value and should be in place until black homeownership is on par with white homeownership. Expanding secure homeownership for black families and creating opportunities for them to buy in markets where real estate enjoys healthy increases in value will improve economic mobility and begin to create generational wealth.
Provide interest-free loans to black-owned businesses
Black Americans, women especially, start small businesses at higher rates than whites. From 2007 to 2012, the number of black-owned businesses increased nearly 35 percent. But almost all are sole proprietorships or partnerships with no employees, in no small part because they lack access to capital.
More than half of black-owned companies are turned down for bank loans, twice the rate of white business owners. Black businesses need investment to grow, especially during the pandemic, yet baked-in racism in the Paycheck Protection Program meant that only 12 percent of black and Latino business owners received the loans they requested.
Going forward, banks should provide interest-free loans to black-owned businesses at the regional median amount until black businesses are sufficiently capitalized to be competitive in the markets in which they operate. Unleashing the creativity of black entrepreneurship will reap huge benefits for the entire society.
Inevitably, the industry will assert that laws, regulations or shareholders prevent taking these steps. But legal obstacles have not stopped banks from pursuing bold, sometimes risky, strategies in the past. They use their mighty skills, money and influence to make a way when they believe profits and benefits await.
Now the industry must make a down payment on a secure future for black America, which really is a secure future for America.
Ultimately, no single industry can get at the root causes of racial inequality. But collectively, banks and all corporations must use their outsize power to end systemic racism, move the nation toward racial and economic equity and drive significant change in policy.
That requires more than taking a knee. It demands taking a stand.
On my return from Grenada in 1995, I went to university to study women studies and I wrote my final essay on: Caribbean prejudice, English racism, the similarities. By the time I finish writing I felt so ashamed of my culture of what we as Caribbean people do to each other . Many of the issues written here do happen with many parents and family members perpetuating it to continue and not looking at the damaging effect it can have on young lives. We need to look at ourselves first before looking at white society. If we as black people cannot respect and give love willingly and learning to respect and love ourselves, how can we expect another culture to do it to us.
I am certainly not holding my breath for change. The simple-minded and buffoonish self-hating Africans that sold us into slavery could not have anticipated they were inflicting an existence of eternal humiliation and degradation on future generations. This was the gravest and most egregious crime possible against your race – a sin of biblical proportions. White people won’t give up their position at the top of the food chain ever. Racist white cops in the US will continue the slaughter unabated- that is how emboldened they have been allowed to become. Thirty plus million Blacks in South Africa could not free themselves from the shameless racist tyranny of just five plus million Whites under Apartheid. Sadly, Black people all over the globe have never ever understood that FREEDOM ISN’T FREE. I don’t think they will ever muster the strength to methodically and tenaciously set about dismantling the systems and structures put in place to oppress and shackle them; these are deeply embedded and tough to dislodge. It requires UNITY and SELF-LOVE – two qualities we have never ever had in abundance. And, it is going to be HARD WORK – protesting on the streets and showing outrage is EASY WORK. I feel so sad writing this, because the BLACK STRUGGLE has gone ON and ON and ON and ON, this is Twenty Twenty- when is it going to end? Unborn Black Children don’t yet know what awaits them, poor babies; and it isn’t as if life itself does not have enough of a mountain of other stuff that we have to be dealing with, but for the black child, your lot is quadrupled. GOD HELP US.
That is a question each of us as Caribbean parents, teachers, policy and lawmakers, politicians, and people must answer collectively and individually. The answer from an individual standpoint, if it is in the affirmative is the only fuel that would fire the change that we so desperately need in the region.
Judy
This commentary is rather interesting; however, I am puzzled by a few of the points raised:
• It would have been helpful if the question to whom black lives matter, if it does matter, was addressed.
• It would have been helpful if the concept of social justice was explained since the term justice seems all encompassing and is not necessarily specific. By the way, the dictionary’s definition of justice is subjective so the people who are asking for social justice is dealing with a moving target. How is social justice differ form any other so-called kinds of justice?
• On the subject of systematic racism, it would have been helpful if this was also explained as it seems that racism in itself is a system; otherwise, it will not be functional. I wonder what is the difference between plain old racism and systematic racism? Does systematic racism mean that we are dealing with two systems?