It began with reports of tragic incidents in parks senior centers even churches. Older people were taking their lives singly, and in small groups. Older Black people, and 'only' Black people. It was just a few at first. Local news gave minor coverage.
Reporters interviewed family, and friends of the departed. They had no answers. To all it was inexplicable. There were some doctors giving chapter, and verse about depression among the elderly but that was it.
These "departures" as they would soon be called went on for several more days. Then stopped as suddenly as they had started.
Life carried on. The suicides were buried as other news cycles piled on top of them. Celebrity scandals, and other trivia took their places as the centers of interest.
However a few months later it began again. This at the start of the Holiday season. Once more just a few happenings. Again no apparent reason. Slight coverage, and once more forgotten.
Then came Christmas night.
All across the country from coast to coast came reports of not just handfuls, but of whole communities of Black people departing. The dead were found everywhere. In places of worship homes their cars public transportation even sidewalks.
As the night progressed it burst onto the many mediums. What was this "Black Death"!? Some suspected everything from poisoning by the government to space aliens.
Emergency medical teams all over the country were trying to save those they could. How could this have come to pass. The truth though before us was unseen.
Except for a few.
Then came Christmas night.
All across the country from coast to coast came reports of not just handfuls, but of whole communities of Black people departing. The dead were found everywhere. In places of worship homes their cars public transportation even sidewalks.
As the night progressed it burst onto the many mediums. What was this "Black Death"!? Some suspected everything from poisoning by the government to space aliens.
Emergency medical teams all over the country were trying to save those they could. How could this have come to pass. The truth though before us was unseen.
Except for a few.
Some more thoughtful commentators noticed that it was mostly the "Civil Rights" generation of Black Americans. The late middle aged, and elderly that had decided to leave.
An "Exodus" of a kind was in progress.
The year 2017 had seen the spread of regressive politics all over the world. America with it's recent election of a President sympathetic to white nationalism was no exception. Violent incidents against the "usual suspects" in the wake of that election. Especially in the summer, and fall of 2017 was particularly troubling.
...the leavings continued.
Emergency services were overwhelmed. Mass burials commenced. Parks ball fields even playgrounds became final resting places.
This as political, and religious leaders pleaded with those likely to depart to reconsider.
As the new year came, and went others applauded the horrific "Event". David Duke spoke at an early spring mass Nazi Klan rally in Atlanta. A city with now with only a portion of it's former Black population.
Duke said to cheering tens of thousands of white nationalists, "...I see the hand of G-d in these glorious days!" "He has made his judgment, and returned America to it's rightful owners!"
'And so it went.
The National Guard performed regional mass burials. Regular Army units defended the former communities of the departed where there were still many Blacks living. This defense was against organized raids by white nationalist militias. They were looting shops, and homes of the departed. That, and lynching what living blacks they could find.
The president had no coherent response.
However the vice president in a rare show of humanity made a special nationwide media appeal to those yet to perish.
He said, "....I know,...we know how our great nation has failed many of her loyal citizens. Yet we have made progress. Yes I admit slow painful progress towards justice. I plead with you to have the faith in this great republic you have always shown in the past. We are brethren."
The departures continued even increased.
The numbers are not complete, but as of the present date December 25th 2018. The first anniversary of the "Great Departure". It is estimated that one fourth of the Black population of the United States is gone. That is 9 million 400+ thousand people of African American decent have taken their own lives rather than live within our borders.
The Departures continue.
1 comment:
In the year 2012 the Centers for Disease Control reported that "non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rate (27.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratio (435 abortions per 1,000 live births)."
According to an article published by the American Prospect:
"in the early 2000s, the National Center for Health Statistics found that while contraception use in American women had been climbing for decades, it stalled in the 1990s. Loss of access for poorer women seemed to be the sole reason for this troubling trend, which led to an explosion in unplanned pregnancy, and therefore abortion."
Rates of homcide in the United States are higher then our NATO allies. We are and have been a violent nation. It is an embarrassment.
A 2016 U.S. News article gave the following statistics regarding homicide in the United States:
"Of the 13,455 cases from (2015) in which the FBI listed a victim's racial information, 7,039 victims – or 52.3 percent – were black. That compares with 5,854 cases – or 43.5 percent – in which the victim was white."
For those cases were both the ethnicity of the attacker and the victim were known 89.3% of black homicide victims where killed by a black attacker.
""You hurt people who are a lot like you. That's how it works," says David Kennedy, a professor and director of the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City."
Your fable is heart breaking.
The real world is, in its own way, as heart breakingly horrific.
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