Chris Jepson: What's a brother to do?

I cannot get my head around why some white folks don’t get Black Lives Matter. Are they racist? Are they stupid? Are they uninformed? Are they brainwashed? Perhaps they don’t read and have no understanding of American history, unexposed to our sordid, racist past. They have no knowledge on the impact that slavery and Jim Crow laws have yet today on American society. Is that it?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Slaves were first introduced into America in 1619 in the American colony of Jamestown, Va. By 1624 slaves were found in Massachusetts. Our American Constitution counted a slave as three-fifths a person for reasons of determining how many seats a state would have in the new United States House of Representatives. This allowed the slave-holding South to have a disproportionate influence over the U.S. government until 1861. Let me reiterate, slaves were codified into our U.S. Constitution as three-fifths a human being. A morally strong “legal” start, huh.

After the Civil War, Jim Crow laws (marginalizing blacks) were institutionalized throughout America. Such discrimination was not confined to the South. Here in Central Florida, overt racism was the norm until nearly 1970. With the passage of federal civil and voting initiatives in the 1960s, blacks had the semblance of equality but not the reality. Blacks, for example, were limited to where they could buy homes, let alone their ability to secure the financing to purchase one. This fact alone (home ownership) has had a tremendously adverse impact on the amount of wealth and assets black families have been able to pass on to successive generations.

A quick recap: Slaves were “imported” into America for nearly 200 years and ultimately counted as three-fifths a human being at the creation of the United States. Once “emancipated,” our black brethren were harshly discriminated against (regularly lynched) for the next 100 years through Jim Crow laws. De facto segregation is the norm in many cities and communities yet today.

There is what is known as “racial wealth gap” in America. According to federal data, the median wealth (assets minus debt) for white families in 2013 was roughly $142,000, for blacks that figure was approximately $11,000. Use these dollar figures as a metaphor to visualize the economic reality confronting many of America’s black citizens.

America has a history of racism that persists today. That is fact. That is the American reality.

My entire life I have been hearing and reading about police brutality of minorities. It has only been in the last few years that we are seeing the graphic reality (via cell phones) of the disparate treatment between whites and blacks.

Please take a minute now and review the June 2015 Austin, Texas “incident” involving the 26-year-old black woman, Breaion King. She is a second grade teacher pulled over for speeding. Here is a link: http://bit.ly/BreaionKing

Imagine now your white daughter being similarly slammed into the pavement.

Now take a look at the recent incident in Miami involving a black man named Charles Kinsey who was shot while lying on his back with his empty hands-up straight up in the air. Watch: http://bit.ly/CharlesKinsey

Kinsey was flat on his back and still he was shot. What more can a brother do?

If, after watching these two examples of American law enforcement, as well as acknowledging America’s long and continuing history of racism and yet you still reject the call that “Black Lives Matter,” you’re probably racist.