Underwater I can’t breathe. It’s only a matter of time before my lungs, then my heart and ultimately my brain stop functioning.
America is very much like a luxury cruise ship … on its face it looks beautiful, joyous, fun and full of opportunity. But if you have ever seen underneath that ship you would see all the dirt, rust and the built-up bile from the seas .. This country, although pretty and glamourous on the outside, has an ugly underbelly due to its sorted history.
I am a descendant of kings and queens. We were living life in our native land that nurtured and cared for us in a way that was commensurate with our stature. We lived with pride, respect and dignity. We cared for each other and were considered a tribe, a family.
Over the water, like a thief in the night came our enslavers. So many from our land were sold, forced into boats and sailed over the water to a life that we would ultimately live beneath it.
You see, as slaves we had no voice from our lungs. The feelings from our hearts didn’t matter and our thoughts were suppressed, just like being underwater.
In time our cries began to gain substance and some of us were able to get our mouth and nose out just enough to inhale the refreshing breeze of freedom and liberty. The more we felt it, the more we fought for it and the more we fought for it, more of us could taste it.
Centuries passed and soon we celebrated our freedom and a piece of paper declared our emancipation. We were finally breathing. Breathing the air that we had so desperately fought for throughout generations.
We began to realize the air we had coveted and sacrificed so much for, was rightfully ours to begin with. It is a human right given to us by our creator and being held underwater was not only a tactic to demean the descendants of kings, but also to render them as a footstool upon which the founders of this country stood — while on the beaded brow of slave labor, America was built.
Today many can look back at those days and cast them away as long-forgotten misgivings and arbitrary wrongs of the past. But just as eye and hair color, as well as other physical genes can be passed through genetics, so can mental and emotional scars.
We live in a society that continually attempts to convince us that we as Black people are now walking on the water that we were once submerged in. But just like our ancestors spirit lives in us through our genes, many in the majority continue to see us in our underwater state, unable to breathe, unable to care and unable to think.
So when you ask yourself why does this continue to happen? How can we continue to be treated as a second class? And how come our rights only count as long as we stand upright and do what we’re told? Think about from whence we came.
There will always, if not naturally be conflict between those who come from royal blood and those who attempt to suppress them. Kings throughout all of history have died rather than to kneel.
All Americans need to embrace the fact that even though Black kings and queens were brought over the water to live under water, we are yet breathing. So stop looking at us as a subservient people, fortunate just to breathe “your” air. Fight your genetic urge to see us as less than and embrace us as equals.
It’s no coincidence that in these times of racial oppression we see many White police officers submit to strategies that invoke reason and negotiation while dealing with conflict involving White suspects, while defaulting to taking the breath and ultimately the life of a Black man in similar circumstance.
Are any of us more fortunate to have breath than the other? Should I feel more grateful than a White person that I am able to live free? Absolutely not!
The truth is that an understanding that goes beyond comfort zones has to take place. In order for there to be harmony in a singing group, the more dominant force has to take away from themselves in order to achieve true harmony.
In America the same has to apply. Let’s look past our engrained and pre-conceived thoughts of other races. As African Americans we may have started underwater, but we do not want to be seen in that light any more, nor do we want sympathy because of how our existence in the U.S. came about.
We do however want it to be acknowleged that starting off breathing for 400 years before we took our first breath provides a level of privilege that may never be overcome. But at the same time, see the Black man for who and what he is today. A capable, strong and equal member of society. While we are yet flawed in as many ways as everyone else, give us the same benefit of reason.
It has been said that riots and protest represent the voice of the voiceless. Now here this: As Black people, we refuse to live underwater anymore, simply because underwater We Can’t Breathe!
Effie D. James Jr.
Mansfield, Ohio
