Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man

by Emmanuel Acho

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was the starting gun. All right now, black people, you’re free, start running. Oh, one thing: I know we promised you “forty acres and a mule,” but we’re actually going to give that land back to the white people who started this war. Also, watch out for hurdles—here are laws to make it hard to vote, here are landowning practices to keep you poor and in debt, sharecropping for generations on the land you were promised. Then in the early 1900s, we say, “Yeah, we know we’ve created these Jim Crow laws to keep you segregated, but, black people—you keep right on running. Come on and catch up.” Then in the late 1960s, we say, “Okay, black people, you can really go now, we’ve signed the Civil and Voting Rights Acts. Run harder and faster (we’ve seen how fast you can run) and catch us if you can.”