There is no ‘new Black’. In the U.S., there are only groups newly experiencing parts of what it is like to be Black.
Being treated roughly by our police, surveillance of all, from the leaders to the led and the certainty that one’s thoughts, opinions and feelings just don’t matter are not new experiences for the Black community, generally speaking. The recent VRA ruling reminds us that no, in America, Black is still Black.
Since its inception, during which decade has America come closest to treating it citizens of African ancestry in accordance with its foundational ideals? I submit the years from 1965 to January 1981. From enacting the VRA to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, whose candidacy was announced in the same city where Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were murdered in 1964, Philadelphia, Mississippi, those few years encompassed the best chance this country ever gave its Black citizens.
School closings and underfunded urban educational systems, reduced and restricted voting rights, stand-your-ground laws, even Cheerios’ commercials and prom segregations suggest that the best times aren’t now and havn’t been for some time. Biases in drug laws and their enforcement and even inequitable administration of agricultural policies can have their decades of origin identified.
For obvious reasons I would ignore the pre-1865 decades but would wonder about the reconstruction years. I would wonder only for a while, though, since the North could not force its ideals on the South and since the backlash from those years proved so egregiously bad for Blacks.
The years 1877 – 1955, those of the Black Laws, many lynchings, the Klan, Plessey, Tulsa, Rosewood, Emmit Till and of the unnamed multitude who experienced unknown horrors, watched by a seemingly uncaring white America may likewise be dismissed with a shudder.
Blacks had those sixteen years of decent chances. While opportunity still exists, it is dwindling quickly and officially. The thing is, opportunity is dwindling for all. Other groups are just being added to the list of those who may be treated like Blacks.
I'm sure it's just me but I feel uncomfortable each time I hear the phrase.