Race in My Community

Race In My Community

“They say, if you’s white, you’s all right,

If you’s brown, you can stick around,

But if you black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back.”

— Big Bill Broonzy, “Black, Brown, and White” (1951)

By

Robin Bennett-Mazyck

The lyrics by Big Bill Broonzy are very true as it was then and it is today. This brings me to the question what does it mean to be Black in America. I wish that I could sit here and write about what my community is really about but, it would give you a false sense of what life really is in the black community. One thing I can write about and write about it very well and that’s being black (African American) in America and what does it mean to be black in American. As a black woman what does it mean to me to be black in America? If I can be frank being black and living in a black community is not a walk in the park or a big bowl of cherries. As I see it and think back on my years as being black in this county. I can say that my race have struggled more than any other race. However, for me I’ve experienced a richness of life that comes only from a strong black family and a rich family history.

When I look at my community I see very well-to-do working black people. Most of us can say we’ve made a pretty good life for ourselves. However, this is what I see daily in my community that I live in but, when I look at the African American community as a whole then we still have a lot of work that needs to be done. June 18, 2009 the Senate voted to apologize for slavery and President Bush delivered the apology. I can remember my reaction to this. “Really!” this is all we get is an apology? “Really!!” I do believe that we (African Americans) need more reckoning, love, and a whole lot of logic might help that process- where there are enormous cries that always accompany the subject matter why do we still need to continue the subject of slavery and whether we still need to reckon with it. There is something very wrong with...