Where are our missing women and girls? As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day 2019, we should come to grips with the fact that something terrible is happening to our women and girls, and that there has not been a sufficient outcry regarding this issue. According to multiple news sources, over 64,000 Black women and girls have gone missing in the past few years in America!
One online op-ed piece entitled “How over 64,000 Black women are missing in the USA and we don’t know why” written by Adesayo Talabi notes, “Sex trafficking, domestic violence and organ harvesting are some reasons why Black women go missing and are often never found. The latter being one of the most unspoken reasons despite this being a huge problem in missing cases of Black people globally.” In addition to this, she goes on to say, “Despite only representing an estimated 12.85 percent of the American population, Black and Missing reports that 37 percent of missing minors and 22 percent of missing adults in 2013 were Black.”
What is happening? How can we let this go on right under our noses? Have we not learned anything from the past? Ironically, and very, very sadly, recent arrests have shown that a large number of those allegedly kidnapping our women and girls are Black men and women! In other words, during this age of renewed discussion about reparations for chattel slavery, Black people are actually participating in the re-enslavement of Black people! And more ominously, as pointed out in the previously mentioned op-ed piece, some of those missing have, in fact, been found without their organs! Human beings have become marketable commodities in the United States!
Yes, it is true that the Thanksgiving holidays are a time to give thanks for those things that we have, but it is also true that there is a damper put on the holiday spirit in many families because of missing relatives due to trafficking.
There are reports that many of those missing are snatched into suspiciously parked white or other colored minivans that are parked in various places, and people are being admonished to stay clear of them. There is also, unfortunately, a scheme that has been connected to Uber drivers! Some of them have been arrested and implicated in kidnapping people for the purpose of sex trafficking. Unbelievable! And some of the drivers arrested were Black!
Yes, it would be nice to have a feel-good Thanksgiving season with intact families, but we must understand that there will be many families for whom this season will be bittersweet due to missing family members.
What is wrong with us? Do we harbor that much self-hatred that we would voluntarily kidnap and sell each other for sex trafficking and/or organ harvesting? Are we witnessing a re-enactment of what happened during the slave trade more than 400 years ago when indigenous Africans helped white slavers enslave the ancestors of American descendants of slavery? If so, this is extremely ironic, and requires immediate action on the part of every conscious Black person in America.
We can’t wait for white people to save us, especially in the hostile anti-Black climate currently exacerbated by a white supremacist-leaning American presidential administration. We need to realize that we are on our own! No one can save us but us! And for those who will inevitably make excuses for those enemies within who are participating in our re-enslavement and murder think on this – we all face obstacles, and we all make choices as to how to surmount them. In other words, economic excuses are invalid; NOTHING can justify what we are doing to ourselves!
If you are able to sit down with intact families to Thanksgiving dinner this season, think about offering up a few prayers for the families impacted by this deadly, creeping slide back into involuntary servitude that is visiting our community.
It is time that we wake up and take care of ourselves! We need to decide how we are to move forward as a community, and this Thanksgiving holiday might be a good time to resolve to reaffirm our commitment to each other. We have to stop harboring and excusing Black criminals.
With this said, the Crusader wishes a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving Holiday for you and yours. A Luta Continua.
