Imagine navigating city streets without traffic lights.
Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have jazz, reggae, the blues, rock and roll, hip hop, R&B, and soul music, among other genres.
Imagine if we had no home security systems.
Imagine not being able to transfer certain types of foods without refrigerated trucks.
Imagine desktop computers without color monitors.
Imagine if we still had to risk injury or death by manually closing elevator doors.
Imagine what basketball would have been like without Michael, LeBron, Kobe, Magic, Steph, Dr. J, Bill Russell, Wilt and Kareem. Just to name a few.
Imagine if our light bulbs didn’t stay on for long.
Imagine how many more spam calls you’d have without caller ID.
Imagine poetry without Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou or Gwendolyn Brooks.
Imagine New York without subways.
Imagine laundry without ironing boards.
Imagine if America didn’t have workers to elevate our nation’s steel, automobile and shipbuilding industries that helped catapult America.
Imagine films without Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Sidney Poitier, Samuel L. Jackson and Jamie Foxx. Or without Viola Davis, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett or Kimberly Elise.
Imagine life without the music of Count Basie, Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Prince, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Run DMC, Art Blakey, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Alicia Keys, Diana Ross and John Legend. We know the list never ends.
Imagine if we still heard a busy signal when trying to call someone who was on another call.
Imagine literature and journalism without James Baldwin, Alex Haley, W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells.
Imagine wedding parties and other events, or even our iPhones, without microphones.
Imagine if the modern high-speed supercomputer had never been invented.
Imagine sports without the athletic genius of Mohammed Ali, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Jim Brown, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Hank Aaron, Bo Jackson or Bob Gibson.
Imagine how even more unevolved we’d be as a society if nobody ever got into good trouble. If we never had Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X. Or Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Cornel West, Angela Davis and Sojourner Truth. Or if there never was a Bayard Rustin, Jo Ann Robinson, Dorothy Height, John Lewis and Julian Bond.
Imagine how many more American soldiers would have died of smallpox without new techniques to administer vaccines a century ago.
Imagine comedy without Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Kevin Hart, Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle. Or Tiffany Haddish, Wanda Sykes, Dick Gregory, and Key & Peele.
Imagine if chefs never had Worcestershire sauce.
Imagine a world without blood banks to preserve plasma.
Imagine if we didn’t have lamps so we could read before bed.
Imagine sweeping your floors without a dustpan.
Imagine if farmers never discovered crop rotation.
Imagine if we didn’t have folding chairs.
Imagine if DJs and musicians never learned about sampling and mixing music with other music.
Imagine if the gas mask was never invented.
Imagine golfing without tees.
Imagine there was never a Jackie Robinson or Jesse Owens.
Imagine if people didn’t have suspenders to hold up pants. Actually, don’t imagine that.
Imagine scooping ice cream without ice cream scoopers.
Imagine how ugly our front lawns would be without sprinklers.
Imagine if we still had to use rotary dial telephones.
Imagine the Supreme Court without Thurgood Marshall.
Imagine television talk shows without Oprah Winfrey.
Imagine that nail art was never popularized.
Imagine if sneakers were only worn playing sports and we were still stuck wearing penny loafers for our everyday shoes.
Imagine how inconvenient it would be to pick up our mail if we didn’t have mailboxes.
Imagine cleaning your kitchen floors without a mop.
Imagine snacking without potato chips.
Imagine, ladies, if there were no hoop earrings.
Imagine where your loved ones would be without lifesaving pacemakers.
Imagine if we couldn’t treat our elderly or others with cataracts without causing extreme pain.
Imagine if none of our cool clothes had logos on them. Or awesome hoodies were never popularized. And so many countless other fashion styles.
And imagine your childhood without the super soaker water gun.
Take a deep breath and be grateful we don’t have to imagine.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
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The post Imagine America Without Black People appeared first on The Good Men Project.
