A Black Man's Lament

I could tell you why I'm the way I am But I don't want to and You don't give a damn

--Langston Hughes

(Mr. Vann is a Black student in the Harvard Summer School. He attends Dillard University, New Orleans.)

If the American Dream is ever to become a reality, then the White man and the Black man must come together in peaceful societal coexistence or they must separate completely. There are many who believe that they cannot and must not live together. When black and white come together in the color spectrum, a dull gray color is created. This gray is generally used to denote a scary, horrid gory situation. Have you ever washed black clothes with white clothes? The black dominates, and the weaker white fabric fades.

Since a little over 400 years ago when the Black man was robbed and stolen from his habitat along the banks of the Nile and herded onto American soil like cattle, Black and White have been together, yet separate. But from that very moment that the first black foot was planted on undeveloped American soil, the Black man has toiled long years, tilling the soil, building the bulwark structures of this country, and permeating the earth with his tears, blood and even his life.

With 400 years having gone by, the earth filled with black blood and broken black bodies, a nation of few having grown to a nation of 200 million, transportation extending from one tip of the country to the other in just a matter of hours, communication connections in seconds, shanty log cabins having grown into giant skyscrapers, and intelligence and education at an all time high, Blacks and Whites have not yet learned to live together. The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant power structure has made an all out effort to impede the upward mobility and social assimilation of Black Americans. But despite this continued unjust act, some Blacks have pushed their way toward the top. The going has been all uphill but there have been occasional peeps at how life is at the foot of the rainbow.

You don't know what it is to live in the broken down shotgun shacks of the slums, to smell the stench of the streets and watch the sore festered babies crawl along the floors among the roaches and rats and dirt and filth.

You don't know what it means to see the prostitutes and pimps operate (because it's an easy means of income), illegitimate babies born (many of which die), and to see the children swim in the gullies and play with rats because there is no other place for them to play, and to come home for the evening meal with flies for the main course of the supper. Blacks are continuously and sadistically being attacked by the dogs of the White police department and beaten on the sidewalks in front of their own homes by clubs from the White hands of National Guardsmen, because they're dissatisfied with the way the so called "justice" of Whites seems to be so one sided. Can it be that White America got confused when they coined the term "justice"? Noah Webster in his white dictionary defines justice as "the quality of being correct or right, honest, impartial and fair in representation of facts." Plato defined justice as "every part doing its own work and not interfering with others." Aristotle taught that justice included both the legal and the fair. Can it be that from the chairs around the table of the smoke filled room that the Black man was not included when someone uttered the words "Liberty and Justice For All"? I along with H. Rapp Brown and other so dubbed militants by White America contend that when the term "justice" came up at the table, White folk meant "Just Us" (meaning just Whites).

When I see Black men being beaten in front of their women, I lose a bit of my manhood. When I think of how I'm not able to protect myself nor my little woman from the greedy, sadistic hands, mean cruel White hearts, and evil minds of the "White Devil," I lose a bit of my manhood and I shudder and hide my face in shame.

The White folk got all the guns and ammunition and the White folk hold all the key positions. Can it be, Dear Lord, that they're protecting a vested interest? Can it be that there really isn't very much room at the top and they feel insecure that some of them will be displaced? Or can it be, Oh God, that we just aren't to live together in harmony and there is a "Black Heaven" and a "White Heaven" and you just haven't told us about it? Or can it be that they're afraid that when Black and White are thoroughly mixed that Black pigments will dominate White pigments and they'll no longer exist? For this is all that it really amounts to (color). We all (Black and White) breathe the same air, cry the same tears, bleed the same blood and in many instances even dream the same dreams.

One Black man, Charles Nesbitt, once said that "many Blacks have middle-class values but lower-class pocketbooks." Is this a reason why we can't live together? I tend to say yes, especially when part of this reason is White oriented. But even this isn't completely true, because some Black men have middle-class values and pocketbooks and still there is that gap between White and Black. Many White "Do Gooders" try to appease the Black man and fill this gap with what the old black schools of thought call "Tokenism," "Gradualism," and "See How Far You've Comeism."

There is a constant struggle for the preservation of the Black male image. White America has labeled the Black man as "Boy." Whether he be 15 or 70 he's still just plain old "Boy." "Why yes, I know him, he's a good colored boy." The White welfare agent keeps a constant check on whether the Black father is coing home nights. This splits the Black family just as it's been split since the late 1500's and early 1600's. So it seems that "Whitie" is a chief symbol of success while little Black children are being robbed of a strong Black male figure to look up to. Destroying the Black man's image in his home and community has not been enough for "Whitie." Now his White Vietnam war is jeopardizing the Black man's total existence. "Mass Black Genocide" is what it's become known as in the Black communities. A lot of credit and respect is due the Black man. He in spite of the White pressures, White chains of oppression and White discrimination has managed to maintain a family structure. He has managed to work his way onto the stage of life where the lights of opportunity shine brightly. And he has made his mind up to take himself a major role in the modern American Drama. Little Black children everywhere can hold their beautiful black heads high and beam with a black pride that no one can take from them. For the Black man has shouldered the weight of this country's evils and yet maintained a kind of cool perseverance, drive and stick-to-itive-ness that can never be overlooked nor forgotten.

Oh God my heart is heavy with the unjust acts of the "White Devil." Can it be that he has created a hell right here on earth? My heart is so heavy. So I ask you, who will police the policeman and who will correct the "White right." The "White right" (fairness, honesty, impartiality, correctness, efficiency, etc.) has always been to exploit and keep the Black man down. He has had a full White program going for him in brainwashing the Black man with such myths as "White is Right," "Yellow is mellow," "Black stay Back," "Devil's-food cake is Black and Angel-food cake is white," "The White Knight rides a white horse, wears all white and is good and the Black Knight rides a black horse, wears all black and is bad," "You're black balled from groups," "You're wicked an devil because you're blackhearted." "You wear black to funerals and white to weddings," "You can tell a good guy because he wears a white hat," little Black children see a cleanser on TV that cleans all black dirt and grime like a white tornado and they see the tooth decay villain dressed in black (causing the teeth of kids like them to hurt) and they see a toothpaste agent all in white destroying the nasty ugly tooth decay villain, "If a Black cat crosses your path, it's bad luck, "If you want to tell a lie, it's all right if it's a white lie," and TV viewers see a single-handed super white honkie who swings from trees for miles, fights the jungle's beasts for hours, can swim for miles, run at top speed for miles and still have enough energy left to out smart, out hunt and even defeat whole tribes of natives. And you, Oh God, even you are pictured across the country by the Whites as having blond hair, blue eyes and white skin. You wear a white robe with white wings and you have white angels who wear white robes with white wings. They too have bond hair and blue eyes. I can remember very vividly how my mother used to tell me all about the hangups of life. She would sit me down sometimes and explain from the scripture, "Christ had hair like unto that of sheep's wool and as white as snow," she would say. "The hair of all Black people turns white at an old age (what we call gray hair)." She would go on to say that only the hair of Blacks was knotty and kinky like sheep's wool. As she would read on further she would say, "His feet were like fine brass, as if they had burned in a furnace."

Dear Lord, Your Chief Servant, the Minister of Church has been led by the whites to preach and teach, "If you're hit on one cheek, turn the other." But Blacks across the nation have adopted the philosophy "If you raise your white hand to hit or misuse me or mine, whoe gonna put out the fire at the fire station?"

There is much talk about the burning (even fire stations), looting, shooting and overall rioting. But how long could the Black man sing the same old song, "WE SHALL OVERCOME." He in many instances has changed that tune to "WE SHALL OVER RUN" and wherever his beautiful black hands strike a note, the cold, bitter, angry music leaves a melody that lingers on.

It is the general feeling of many White men that Black men want their women. Many Whites don't want Blacks around their women. The truth is that black hands, black love and affection took care of many of their own mamas. The Black man can be proud that his own black women gave birth to the whole thing of love and affection in countless American homes.

The Black poet and author Langston Hughes wrote a poem for White America to read. "I could tell you why I'm the way I am, but I don't want to, and you don't give a damn." Can this be the plight of the "American Dream"? Dear Lord what can it be, "justice" for all or from the White man's perspective, "just us" (meaning themselves)? Dear God in spite of what many say about your having turned your back on the Black people, I still want to be a minister. But what can I tell my Black congregation? How can I face them and say, "Love thy neighbor as thyself and love thy enemy" when they feel that the White man is their enemy and I don't blame them. What shall I say to them on my first bright Sunday morning? Dear Lord, What Shall I Say