COLORNUITY FOR RACE NEUTRALITY (Part 1)

Part 1 The Facts

It’s the year 2022 of the 21st century and America today stands in one of the most enviable, and unenviable positions a nation can find itself. On the one hand, her success as a world power made her the envy of all nations. On the other hand, misunderstanding that success has her hunted by sovereigns and political predators worldwide. As we look at this black history month, we all have to admit it is like none other before it. However traumatic, and detrimental or sorrowful it has been for black people in the past, we are presently gripped in a curious paradox. Socially it seems our citizenship in this country is largely unchanged. Institutions still fight against us causing our dreams of justice to appear idyllic, no more than a fantasy of a future age. Yet, anyone with an iota of honesty has to admit the plight of the black American was changed significantly by a very fiery determined man named Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin’s triumph forever changed Black America’s racial complex. While all is not entirely in our favor, what he did, shattered the disfavor that locked us out of our country’s prosperity. His success caused what threatens our nation today to affect its black citizens as well.

The pulse of our national uprisings today can be summed up as “retro racism”. It reaches back to the past to justify contemporary race agendas. To reverse it, America must replace bigotry with colornuity. That means redefining itself without its demeaning color credentials. Colornuity rejects color blindness as a means of achieving race neutrality. Instead, it creates systems and entities that colorlessly rely on its populations to continue as a nation. Colornuity does not deny its racial diversity but rather uses it to effectually become one nation. I recently published a comment on Martin Luther King's birthday with these grave realities in mind. In it I questioned if “Our country is being thrust into a racial rollback. Is Martin’s racial triumph that cost him his life, expiring?”

Martin Luther King’s victory entwined the black race’s destiny with that of the United States. Thus, our collective success and progress are at risk as the perpetuity of our nation is, making its threats our threats. To prevail, Black Americans must update their traditional perspectives on race and citizenship. As current events force us to realize, cultural issues need a homeland to promote, exploit, or enjoy them. Doing away with any nation assures its cultural issues, like race, go away too. These truths make preserving one’s homeland every citizen’s responsibility. The term “racial rollback” as used here speaks to activist reversal of our people’s racial headway. Could race regression or resurgence be rolling our hard-earned black liberties back to widespread contempt for our skin color? Are we victimizing ourselves with the age-old stratagem called racism? Is retro racism subtly sabotaging Black Americans with the age-old bigotry that Martin Luther King battled to uproot in his lifetime? Our nation’s riotous uprisings suggest so.

Martin Luther King took on and dealt a crippling blow to the insidious (and hideous) systemic machine called racism. Our progress since his demise proves his posthumous success is a matter of record. This is why I wonder about his victory suffering a rollback. The cruel beast called bigotry lurks to fracture every nation, and none of them escapes its agenda. In our case, it chose this era to resuscitate its bias to take advantage of this generation’s unawareness of its virulent devastation. Exploiting our country’s foundation, it rebooted color hostility to propel its overthrow campaign ravishing our nation today. Using rewriting our history as a ploy to nullify our future as citizens of this great land. To this, I say, “we do not have to rewrite our history to correct its flaws.”

There is no denying that Black Americans had to fight vehemently for the American piece of our inheritance to fall to us. What group doesn’t? But that did happen though Martin Luther King’s struggle against racism, bigotry, segregation, and national denial of basic human rights. He achieved an unthinkable, that may have been a long-range vision of the nation's founding fathers. Perhaps, postponed for his day. Martin set a people free to thrive in its free nation. A nation that prizes liberty and despises captivity. Although, until Martin, it did not see itself as a captor. Through his prayers, messages, sermons, and speeches he ripped the veil of blindness to release black people to prosper in their homeland. Sadly, his death, as with all change agents, became the grain of wheat that had to fall to the ground to yield its harvest. Black people’s freedom and prosperity are that harvests.