Bert Samuels | A 20/20 vision of the black experience at last!

As the year 2020 is about to close, one of its positive achievements certain to make recorded history is its recognition of the truth regarding the black experience. The world opened its eyes in ways it failed to do in the past, to the painful truth surrounding the suffering of black people.

During this year – exactly midway into the United Nations’ ‘International Decade for People of African Descent’ (2015-2024) – the mistreatment of people of African descent has become a focus.

Wikipedia sums it up well:

“The seeds of the International Decade for People of African Descent were sown in 2001 with the Third World Conference against Racism, which led to the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. The Durban Declaration, in addition to declaring that the people of Africa had been victimized by slavery and continued to suffer as a result, called for states to adopt specific steps to help combat racism and xenophobia and to protect its victims.”

A whirlwind of activity caught on camera ensured the entire world’s awareness of our suffering, with protests and demonstrations shown on our screens, and opening up renewed calls for truth and reconciliation from youth all over the globe, pressing their respective countries to move immediately towards equality for people of African descent.

The most encouraging feature of the Black Lives Matter movement is it being a peoples’ movement not directed or controlled by the respective governments of the world. Mainstream media quickly got on board, proving wrong African-American Gil Scott Heron’s 1970s lyric that “the revolution will not be televised”.

SILVER LINING

So, we’ve seen the taking down of statues originally mounted oblivious to the genocide many past and celebrated non-black ‘heroes’ imposed on black people.

In one example, black, brown, and white protesters in Bristol, England, were no longer willing to tolerate the celebration of 17th-century merchant, slave trader, and former Member of Parliament Edward Colston. In June 2020, protesters tore down his statue and threw it into a river. This action must have had biblical support as the prophet Amos envisioned, “… let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like an ever-falling stream” (Amos 5:24).

The discarded Colston statute was soon replaced by a sculpture of Black Lives Matter protester, Jen Reid, who said:

“When I stood there on the plinth, and raised my arm in a Black Power salute, it was totally spontaneous, I didn’t even think about it. My immediate thoughts were for the enslaved people who died at the hands of Colston and to give them power. I wanted to give George Floyd power, I wanted to give power to Black people like me who have suffered injustices and inequality.”

2020’s pro-black efforts could be seen as the fulfilment of the prophetic words of Marcus Mosiah Garvey in 1920, exactly 100 years ago, that we should look for him “in the whirlwind or a storm, look for me all around you, for with God’s grace I shall come back with countless millions of Black men and women who have died in America, those who have died in the West Indies and those who have died in Africa to aid You in fight for liberty, freedom and life.”

When 2020 is written into history, the black movement will prove the silver lining to the tyranny of COVID-19 and Trumpism. In 2020, as predicted by Garvey, God’s grace visited with us as a people, in ways we will reflect on and celebrate for a long time to come.

Bert Samuels is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to bert.samuels@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.