The frog was captured and put in a pot of slowly boiling water, though the frog had the ability to jump out of the pot, it did not. Perhaps it reasoned that it could tolerate the heat and things would cool off by and by, but the water got hotter and the frog adjusted its tolerance level to accommodate the heat. Perhaps it reasoned that the one controlling the heat would take pity on it, after all it would be inhumane to put a live creature in a pot and watch it slowly boil to death, such a person would have no soul, no conscience and surely everyone had a soul, a conscience. Perhaps it trusted the humanity of the one with his hands on the controls, occasionally the frog would splash around, then settle back down when the level of the heat seemed to remain constant, but just because they’re not turning up the heat at that moment in time does not mean that the frog was not still in a pot of boiling water. The heat was being turned up ever so slowly that the frog could hardly tell that it was hotter now that it was then. The frog slowly boiled to death over a period of time, at the point of its demise the question was asked of the frog “why didn’t you just jump out of the pot?” the frog responded, “I don’t know.”
Are you the frog, Black America? Captured and put in ghettos and ‘hoods where you are slowly being boiled to death, slowly being shot to death by runaway slave hunters, worked to death in corporate plantations, imprisoned to death, taxed to death, disenfranchised to death, profiled to death, low-waged to death, marching to death, shooting each other to death. When did you join hands with your oppressor and said “till death do us part?” Was it during your civil rights era, Black America? As you adjusted to the heat of being called a n—– to your faces while the racist terrorists spat in your faces, threw rocks at you as you marched hand in hand refusing to jump? Did you adjust your tolerance to the heat when they murdered those beautiful innocent four little Black girls? Why didn’t you jump then, Black America? Nonviolence does not mean non self-defense, Black America, every creation has a built-in “fight or flight,” instinct, even the rose bears thorns to protect itself. When you feel the temperature rising you merely splash around, march, riot, loot, burn down your own neighborhoods, but that’s not jumping, that’s merely complaining. You complain about the lack of quality education even though you can jump and educate your own children. You complain about police brutality even though you can jump and police your own neighborhoods. You complain about lack of opportunities even though you can jump and create the same opportunities for yourself that you are creating for everyone else. You complain, you splash around just like the frog, you refuse to jump just like the frog. How many Emmitt Tills have there been, Black America? What would it take for you to jump, Black America?
Are you the frog, Black America? Gathering yourselves on FaceBook, Twitter, and other social sites just to tell jokes, just to follow lifestyles of the stars they placed in your heavens, your minds? Don’t you see the pot you’re in? Don’t you feel the heat? Is it the Black looking president they gave you who may have had Colonel Gaddaffi assassinated to keep him from helping to unite Afrika that has you sedated?, is it the sports stars, movie stars, rap stars created by the Federal Banking Cartel for purposes of sophisticated money laundering, where their net worth is reduced from ‘invaluable’ to a few millions of worthless fiat currency, that has you duped Black America? well here is a wake-up call to you Black America Trayvon Martin is dead because you didn’t jump, Tamir Rice is dead because you didn’t jump, Freddie Gray is dead because you didn’t jump, Mumia Abu Jamal is still imprisoned for a crime he did not commit because you refuse to jump, Assata Shakur is being hunted like a wild animal for a crime she could not have committed because you refuse to jump. You are dying one by one as you are hunted by the hunter and the hunted because you will not jump Black America.
You have the strongest legs, you have the strongest leverage more than ever to demand reparations and enact your separation from the pot of boiling water, they so much as told you in their Constitution that slavery is only conditionally abolished, that means that you are still in the pot, the same mess, and they did not turn down the heat, they simply resorted to turning it up slowly. They are killing you softly while you sing and march, so why don’t you jump, Black America? Why don’t you jump??
–written by Rudwaan for The Lions tale
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
