QUIT PLAYIN: Always Keep Top Eye Open!

By Vincent L. Hall

COLORED PEOPLE OF BOSTON, ONE & ALL, You are hereby respectfully CAUTIONED and advised to avoid conversing with the Watchmen and Police Officers of Boston, For since the recent ORDER OF THE MAYOR & ALDERMEN, they are empowered to act as KIDNAPPERS AND Slave Catchers, And they have already been actually employed in KIDNAPPING, CATCHING, AND KEEPING SLAVES. Therefore, if you value your LIBERTY and the Welfare of the Fugitives among you, Shun them in every possible manner, as so many HOUNDS on the track of the most unfortunate of your race.

Keep a Sharp Look Out for KIDNAPPERS and have TOP EYE open.

Ron DeSantis (aka Ron DeSanitized), who has about as much of a chance of becoming the next president as Flava Flav, gets on my last damned Black nerve. DeSanitized is a newage replica of the Jim Crow era Crackerocracy that kept my great grandparents up all night.

The Black culture edict to Watch, Fight and Pray does not ebb with the tide at night. We must stay woke in our quest for liberation and dignity in this nation. In a recent National Public Radio article, Domenico Montaner pointed to “Woke’s” origin.

Republicans on the campaign trail use it as a catch-all to criticize anything on the progressive side of the political spectrum they don’t like — whether it’s teaching about racism in schools or gender transition policies or even books in libraries they deem inappropriate.

But the term didn’t originate with Republicans — or this round of the culture wars.

“It comes out of Black culture,” explained Elaine Richardson, a professor of literacy studies at the Ohio State University. Richardson co-authored an academic paper examining the word’s use in the Black Lives Matter movement.

“In simple terms, it just means being politically conscious and aware,” she said. “Like ‘stay woke.’ ” Despite that, Republicans have co-opted the phrase, and it’s become the word of the GOP primary.

“We have made Florida the state where woke goes to die,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a recent event in Virginia. “The woke mind virus represents a war on merit. It represents a war on achievement.”

What a crock of BullCaCa! The history of race-baiting in politics is a long and prolific one. It has roots in science and history. Race-baiting intentionally encourages racism or anger about issues relating to race.

This political practice didn’t begin with DeSantis or the master race-baiter Donald Trump.

However, the resurgence of coding and baiting requires us to STAY WOKE. Woke has never disappeared from our radar; we have just had to make some tactical decisions about signaling the need to one another.

Predators code-switch and so must their prey! Among enslaved people, especially during the period when Harriett Tubman and the Underground Railroad, the resonated message was “Keep Top Eye Open.”

Having or keeping your top eye open translates as maintaining a sustained watch. Watching for intruders, “snitches,” and, in those days, slave catchers was an all-day, all-day job.

Staying woke to one’s personal and social environment was and is 24-7-365. The enslaved had to be watchful for slave-catchers and others who would deny them their “inalienable rights”. Today we must keep our top eye open to ensure that the limited privileges we fought to secure on paper and in policy are not revoked and rescinded.

Tubman had to worry about Kidnappers in the same way that we must carefully consider every move of treacherous history deniers like DeSantis and Trump.

This placard posted by abolitionists and formerly enslaved people in Boston could be replaced and edited to warn us today.

“Colored people specifically and White sympathizers generally are respectfully warned to avoid talking to, agreeing with, or assembling with public officials who seek to divide and conquer based on race and ethnicity.

These politicians, pundits, and perpetrators are to be watched at the polls, the courthouse (supreme or otherwise), and in and out of legislative sessions.” There are many “HOUNDS” on our trail. If you value your right to vote, live or otherwise thrive:

Keep Top Eye Open!!!

Vincent L. Hall is an author, activist, and an award-winning columnist.