Someone Doesn’t Want Harriet Tubman Or Rosa Parks Put On The $20 Bill … Can You Guess Why?
V. Saxena
April 13, 2015
A grassroots organization known as Women On 20s (W20) aspires to replace the image of Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with that of a woman. It has over the course of five weeks reduced an initial list of 100 candidates down to four: Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Wilma Mankiller.
I believe that all four women potentially deserve a place on the $20 bill. However, The Root contributor Kirsten West Savali disagrees. She in fact opposes the idea of either Harriet Tubman or Rosa Parks being placed on the $20 bill, and the reason should frankly not surprise you an iota:
This country was founded on the idea that all white men are created equal and no one else. As such, Andrew Jackson—slave owner, seventh president of the United States and current face on the $20 bill—represents exactly the values and ethics upon which this country was founded. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig: the pig in this case being a capitalist structure hell-bent on the expansion, maintenance and protection of white supremacy at any costs.
I guess the fact that 239 years have passed since the founding of this nation matters naught to Miss Savali. Not surprising, given that the minds of most racial grievance mongers exist so far back in time that even Bill O’Reilly can’t relate with them.
I especially dislike what she said about “a capitalist structure hell-bent on the expansion, maintenance and protection of white supremacy at any costs.”
Does she mean the “capitalist structure” that permits black elites like Azealia Banks, Shawn Carter and Beyonce Knowles to get rich off voluntarily peddling pure garbage to children? Or does she mean the “capitalist structure” that provides millions of black men and women with gainful employment, thus keeping them out of the welfare lines?
Specifically, there is something both distasteful and ironic about putting a black woman’s face on the most frequently counterfeited and most commonly traded dollar bill in this country. Haven’t we been commodified and trafficked enough? Slapping a black female face, one of our radical icons, on a $20 bill as if it’s some attainment of the American dream would be adding insult to injury.
Placing revolutionary figures like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill means that countless Americans — young ones included — would be constantly reminded of these amazing women and their achievements. Sorry, but I see that as a positive …
When nearly half of all single African-American women have zero or negative wealth and their median wealth is $100—compared to just over $41,000 for single white American women—it is an insult. When black women are the fuel for the prison industrial complex, with incarceration rates increasing 800 percent since 1986 and black girls being the fastest-growing population of a corrupt juvenile-criminal system, it is an insult. When African-American women earn on average 64 cents (pdf) for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, compared to the 78 cents that white women earn for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, it is an insult.
Two of the things she mentioned — wealth and crime — can be traced back to a very important concept: personal responsibility. Every American has within him or her the right and power to work hard, earn money, stay out of jail and become successful. Sorry, but she cannot blame people’s personal failures in life on the “capitalist structure.” I mean she can, but nobody would take her seriously …
As for the non-fact factoid about wages, I urge Miss Savali to check out Slate magazine.
I don’t want Harriet Tubman’s face on a $20 bill; I want our people to be free from the chains of institutionalized racism and economic slavery. That’s how we honor her.
And I want black people to be free of black-on-black crime and a sub-culture of ignorance, but alas, we cannot always get everything we want in this world …
I don’t want Rosa Parks’ face on a $20 bill; I want black people to be able to travel from point A to point B without being targeted by discriminatory and violent policing tactics. That’s how we honor her.
And I want black people to stop committing so much crime so that “discriminatory” profiling isn’t necessary. I also want black people to stop resisting arrest so that they can live to tell their story.
Anyway. Miss Savali does make one great point:
WomenOn20s has stated that its goal is to petition the White House to make the change by 2020, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which purportedly gave all American women the right to vote.
Let’s be clear: All women aren’t white … it was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that finally allowed African-American women to vote somewhat freely.
Honestly, this is an awesome point! Everything else, however, is … lacking.
I sincerely apologize for being so tough with my criticism, but I stand by everything I wrote. Though just for the record, I only chose to run with this lead because hearing Beyonce’s “Partition” — as well as a bunch of songs about smoking dope and throwing money at strippers — on a kid-friendly public radio station earlier today put me into battle mode. Perhaps a progressive somewhere could argue that it triggered me.
*shrugs*
http://downtrend.com/vsaxena/can-you-guess-why
