By Carla Thomas<\/p>\n
The Truth Contributor<\/p>\n
There was a time when it was illegal for Black people to read. When we couldn\u2019t own anything because we were owned.<\/em> When we couldn\u2019t eat in the same restaurants as white people, couldn\u2019t go to college, and were written into the Constitution as three-fifths human.<\/p>\n Ohhh but look at us now. We don\u2019t just eat in those restaurants, we own them. We run businesses, cities and even became president. This didn\u2019t start with us.<\/strong> Our ancestors built towns and schools and led movements that rattled America awake. We didn\u2019t just make history, we changed it.<\/p>\n But I have to ask, have our progress and accomplishments diluted our desire and ability to fight? Has this progress allowed us to slow down in a way our elders couldn\u2019t afford to? With respect to what we\u2019ve achieved, we can\u2019t afford to pretend the work is done. It\u2019s easy to believe we\u2019ve already arrived. We got money now. Titles. Followers. Access. There\u2019s nothing wrong with celebrating that, as long as we remember, better than is not good enough<\/em><\/strong>. Not when Black men are still being lynched in 2025. Not when police are still killing Black people at disproportionate rates year after year. Not when Black pregnant mothers still face medical racism and die from childbirth complications at more than three times<\/strong> the rate of white mothers. Not when this administration continues pushing policies that target Black and Brown communities and protect systems built on white supremacy.<\/p>\n We talk about progress as though it\u2019s liberation, but progress inside a progressively anti-Black system is not true liberation. We\u2019re still surviving the same harmful systems, dressed up to look like success.<\/p>\n So the real question is this: with all the progress we\u2019ve made, are we truly seen as equal in this white-supremacist America, or just more comfortable with what we\u2019ve been given? Because individual progress doesn\u2019t mean collective liberation. A few of us may be winning, but if even one <\/em><\/strong>of us is still being killed, targeted, or discriminated against, we haven\u2019t arrived as a people.<\/p>\n Roland Martin said something that should make us all stop and think:<\/p>\n \u201cWe have Black infrastructure: D9, Prince Hall Masons, Eastern Star, The Links, but that infrastructure is being used for personal gain, inward gain, not external Black gain. That is our greatest problem. We get a little piece of something and become satisfied. These groups are thousands strong, 17,000 members, 20,000 members, but what are we doing with that power? Issuing letters of \u2018disappointment\u2019 isn\u2019t action. If we think we\u2019ve overcome, we\u2019re delusional. We haven\u2019t. There is work to be done.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019s right. We\u2019ve built organizations with thousands of members, but what are we doing with that power?<\/p>\n Somewhere along the way, we got comfortable being included. We stopped expecting change. Corporate America learned how to sell \u201cdiversity\u201d back to us and call it progress. They turned our fight into hashtags and job titles. Meanwhile, the same systems still decide who benefits and who doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve mistaken access for autonomy and proximity for power.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the point in having a seat at the table if you can\u2019t control what\u2019s being served?<\/p>\n Maybe the real question isn\u2019t whether we\u2019ve made progress, but whether progress has quietly softened our urgency. And if that\u2019s true, then the greatest threat to us right now isn\u2019t oppression, it\u2019s complacency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Carla Thomas The Truth Contributor There was a time when it was illegal for Black people to read. When we couldn\u2019t own anything because we were owned. When we couldn\u2019t eat in the same restaurants as white people, couldn\u2019t go to college, and were written into the Constitution as three-fifths human. Ohhh but look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[324],"class_list":["post-17988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17990,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17988\/revisions\/17990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17988"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=17988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOur ancestors fought like their lives depended on it, because it did. Every step forward cost them blood, sweat and time in jail cells. They didn\u2019t have the luxury of sitting back and saying, \u201cWe\u2019ve made it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019ve gotten so individualistic that people feel like they\u2019ve \u2018made it\u2019 because they\u2019re in this group or that organization, instead of using that power for our people.<\/em><\/p>\n