“Some White People may have to die for Black Communities to be made Whole.”

By

Dan Perkins

I did not make up the headline; it is a direct quote from a teaching assistant at the University of Georgia named Iram Osel-Frampong. When I saw the headline, one question immediately came to the surface, Iram, what about the 600,000 American men who gave their lives to get black people out from under slavery and eventually the right to vote? By the way, Iram, did you know that for the most part, Democrats were against black people getting their freedom. Did you know it was Abraham Lincoln and the radical Republicans that fought for the black people?

In the passage of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Republicans fought to get the Act passed, not the Democrats. The KKK was founded by Democrats, the Black Laws, or sometimes referred to as the Black Codes that were designed to suppress black people were set up by Democrats’. Since the Civil War and after, the Democrats have been against freedoms for Blacks.

In San Francisco, protesters wanted to take down the statue of President Grant because he once owned 1 slave. That slave was a gift, and when Grant ran into hard times, and he could have sold the slave he owned, but instead, he gave him his freedom. Grant was picked by Lincoln to come east and defeat Robert E. Lee and end the war.

Iram, if one of the things the Black Lives Movement is about removing any display remembering people who at one point in time were involved with black suppression, then why do over 50 buildings and places named after Robert Byrd of West Virginia still carry his name? The Senator was a member of the KKK, and yet unlike Grant, when given the slave, he gave the slave his freedom instead of selling him. He went on to lead the Army of the north and defeated the Confederacy. The Southern leaders are being judged today: yet they had their actions over 150 years ago, yet Robert Byrd, who passed away 10 years ago, still is honored.

The scariest thing about what you said is that you have students who agree with you that white people may have to die. These college students who supported what you said scare me because I wonder what criteria they will use to decide who lives or dies? Will any white person be okay to kill, because surely, they must have somebody in their family involved in slavery?

I turned to the parents of students at The University of Georgia and asked the question, are you aware that your children are being told that white people may have to die? Are you going to brush it off as just being silly, or are you going to take it seriously and asked the question of what else my child is being taught?

I think that parents who have children in college anywhere in the United States need to find out if their children are exposed to the teachings of Iram Osel-Frampong or people like him. It is time for the people who pay the bills to get involved in what their children have been taught. Now that your children may be back home because of the COVID 19 pandemic would be an excellent time to find out what your children believe. Start a conversation and, at some point, ask this question, A teaching assistant at the University of Georgia told this to his students, “Some White People may have to die for Black Communities to be made Whole.” Do you agree?