To the people who thought those 300 bundles of ‘grass’ were just window dressing, open your eyes and educate your mind.

by Betty Jean Grant

Betty Jean Grant

Those were bundles and stalks of sugar canes, which just like cotton, supported industrialized slavery and made this country rich, over the bodies of Black and Brown enslaved people, not just in Puerto Rico but in North and South American, in places such as Haiti, Brazil, Cuba and on course, and the State of Louisiana!

The extracted sugar was sweet and moist, but sugarcane is also prone to being dried out, by the sun, soon after it was separated from its hollow bed within the cane. Sugarcane was tough and, in most cases, machetes were wielded by both men and women, to cut the sugarcane from its stalk. In addition, it has been documented not only were fingers and hands cut off by inexperienced plantation workers while handling machetes but, they also suffered many infections from cuts from the sugarcane itself. Also, to prevent the starving or malnourished enslaved persons from eating any of the sugarcane they harvested, a crude, metal face barrier, much like a football helmet, was locked over their mouths and faces. Because of infection, starvation, beatings and overwork, many of the poor souls on these sugar cane plantations lasted no more than six or seven years before they died or were killed because they had become too sick to be productive.

We Black and Brown persons in the Western Hemisphere—both of the Americas, share more than enslavement and colonization among ourselves. We share the burden of being treated worse than the livestock of those so-called civilized brutes who raided Africa and enslaved the Indigenous people there or traveled in ships to the Americas, where they poisoned with old world diseases or drove into the jungles, all of the native population whom they did not slaughter, outright. Just like the Kendrick Lamar, Super Bowl 59, Half Time Show and the movie, Sinners; there are more than being entertained in these and other movies and documentaries that are being developed and produced to a younger generation of artists who are talented, fearless and proud.

They are using their creativity and foresight to reach and teach the current generation of movers and shakers who have become tired of waiting for we older folks to get it right. These young Gen X, Y Zer’s and the other ones I don’t know the names, are not politically correct; they don’t mind calling out corrupt or anti-community leaders and elected officials that are not serving the needs of the people. This new generation of activists are also running for and winning political offices as independent candidates because they are still continuing to be ignored or dismissed by the two major political parties.

It seems like Bad Bunny has the love and support of his island territory. I believe he could win any political seat he wants, if he goes into politics. I say this because I see and can almost feel the love, pride and trust the people of Puerto Rico has for him. I am happy for my Brown ‘sisters’ and ‘brothers’ but doggone it, when are we Black Americans, who taught the world how to peacefully protest and advocate for equality, going to get back in the saddle and finished the assignment we got during the civil rights era of the 1960s?