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When 2014 feels like 1964

I don’t know where we are heading but I certainly hope it is better than where we are.
DaRuddest Jones

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12 years ago

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When 2014 feels like 1964.

So…

I have been trying to distance myself from the past events. Not because I don’t care but because I find myself caring too much.

Caring so much that I have been walking around with anger that I know is not safe for me to carry.

For some carrying anger is not good for them because of their health. Well for me, anger is not a good thing because I find myself figuring ways to fight back.

So with all of the black men being killed I have been finding myself feeling broken and question my worth to society.

For example; 2 cops from Baltimore are facing prison time for killing a dog but no one is doing time for killing black men. How does this even add up?

Don’t get me wrong… killing a dog is not okay but what I’m gathering from the American justice system is that a dogs life is worth more than the life of a black man!

I try to tell myself that all of these things are coincidence; but how? Repeatedly?

How is it that a man with his hands in the air can be shot while surrendering? 

I try to force myself to find a way to understand it all. Sometimes I do this through writing. So I was writing a piece about how I feel and the way the N word is thrown around.

When I write sometimes I like to infuse the actual definition of words. SO, I wanted to use the definition of the N word. Now, growing up the definition was described as a person who is ignorant.

But the definition has drastically changed today:

n-·-er
ˈnigər/

noun

offensive
a contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person.

n–ger

[nig-er] 
Usage alert
The term n–geris now probably the most offensive word in English.
Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years,
although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the
RevolutionaryWar. The senses labeled Extremely Disparaging and
Offensiverepresent meanings that are deeply insulting and are used
when the speaker deliberately wishes to cause great offense. It is so
profoundly offensive that a euphemism has developed for those occasions
when the word itself must be discussed, as in court or in a newspaper
editorial: “the n-word.”
Despite this, the sense referring to a “black person” is sometimes used among
African Americans in a neutral or familiar way. The sense referring to other
victims of prejudice, especially when used descriptively, as to denounce
that prejudice,is not normally considered disparaging—as in“The Irish are
the n*ggers of Europe” from Roddy Doyle’s TheCommitments—but the other uses are considered
contemptuous and hostile.
noun

1.

Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive.

  1. a contemptuous term used to refer to a black person.
  2. a contemptuous term used to refer to a member of any
  3. dark-skinned people.

2.

Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive.a contemptuous term 
used to refer to a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible,
 inferior, ignorant, etc.

3.

a victim of prejudice similar to that suffered by blacks; a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised.

When 2014 feels like 1964

Maybe it’s just me but now I feel totally labeled. Now I feel like this term is being widely accepted as a term to describe me. Who do I become mad at? Others; or my own people for being ignorant enough to use the term openly, and now it is on paper a way to describe who we are? What happen to the the definition simply being a term to describe an ignorant person?

See also  Arrest made in slaying of Phylicia Barnes

I look around today and I can’t believe the way some things are going. I can’t believe that the past is really still here.

Every time I turn on the news there is a new story about a Black man being killed for walking while black. And in return we have these marches and rallies.

But I wonder what difference they really make. I don’t know where we are heading but I certainly hope it is better than where we are.

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DaRuddest Jones

DaRuddest Jones is a spoken word artist and entrepreneur hailing from the Bronx, N.Y.

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