So…
Since the win and successful transition into the 46th presidency of the United States, Joe Biden restarted the conversation on getting our beloved ancestor known as Harriet Tubman, to replace known racist Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
For those who may not know, and despite what seems to be the current assumption, the original campaign to get Harriet Tubman onto the $20 bill was not begun by Black folks at all. It was begun by a liberal white women’s organization, Women on 20s (do your Googles). Initially, the idea was to dedicate the $20 to women. There were 85 candidates. In the primary round leading to the finalists, were both Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger, known white supremacists. Predictably, the Black women’s greatest hits (almost as if to diminish the phenoms that these ancestors were in life) Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks. Honorable mention to Shirley Chisolm and Barbara Jordan. These are all women who have been used time and again by white liberals and leftists as a means to claim an anti-racist, inclusionary identity. They and their accomplishments have been remolded into a narrative that tells America that it’s made so much tremendous, righteous, racial progress. That narrative does not fit those women and does not fit America. But I digress…
Mother Harriet ended up on the shortlist of finalists. I didn’t agree when she was selected in 2015 and I don’t now.
We, as in, America… they don’t love Mother Harriet. She opposed racism and enslavement. At the very least. If they really loved her, they would love Assata. Harriet Tubman was not her given name. Neither was Assata Shakur. But you can usually tell how someone feels about her when they casually refer to her as “Joanne Chesimard,” as I’ve personally witnessed. If you did not know before, Assata was a member of the Black Liberation Army in the 1970s. On May 2, 1973, Assata along with comrades Sundiata Acoli and Zayd Malik Shakur were stopped on the NJ Turnpike by a New Jersey State Trooper, resulting in a situation that ended with two dead and two wounded. Assata was one of the wounded. Despite evidence proving that she could not have killed anyone, Assata was convicted in the death of the slain officer in 1977. In 1979, she was broken out of prison and eventually made it safely into political asylum in Cuba where, as far as we know, she still lives healthily today. Her surviving codefendant, Sundiata Acoli, still languishes in prison, just having celebrated his 84th birthday in January. Mutulu Shakur (still incarcerated), Silvia Baraldini (remained in prison until 1999, then transferred to prison in Italy and eventually pardoned), Sekou Odinga (released in 2014) and Marily Buck (released from prison in 2010 due to terminal cancer and subsequently passed) were charged with breaking Assata out of prison in New Jersey.
From one Black woman subversive freedom fighter to another, it must be rough to know that folks use and remix your story to soothe their own fears and insecurities.
Not only is Assata Shakur not-celebrated, but not long ago, she was placed on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list, with the cash reward for her capture being raised to $2mil.
White progressivism, leftism and liberalism would always have you believe that they are on the right side of things. Every current generation of white folks always says and want to believe that they would have been the abolitionists. Yet, where is the abolition work in their current era in which they actually live? These are the narratives and myths that folks tell themselves about our collective pasts as if we currently live in a vacuum, void of injustice and inequality. Everyone always wants to believe that they’re not part of the problem; they’re not the bad guys. Just like we Black folks like to joke and mention how resistant we would have been during enslavement. Most folks want to believe that they would have been the ones. In truth, most folks are not. Most regular citizens are not activists or revolutionaries in any way. Evil things persist because so many folks do absolutely nothing about it. Inertia. Most folks just live their everyday lives, no matter what goes on in society. The cognitive dissonance is unbearable.
If they really loved Harriet, women political prisoners should be released. If we love Harriet so much, we need to love her legacy in others who’ve taken up the mission of liberation. Assata needs to be free.