Author: Noah Tesfaye

The first time I listened to 4:44 by JAY-Z, I was lying in my bed in my dorm at Columbia. My roommate was sound asleep, like usual, and I decided to hit play at midnight on June 30th, hoping this album could be everything I anticipated it could become. I played “Kill JAY-Z,” thought it was interesting, but soon after, I fell asleep, with the album still playing…

I woke up later that morning and decided to play it from start to finish going to get breakfast and some good cold brew from UP Coffee Co. Initially, the first impression I had of listening to this album was that it was too short for me to ever enjoy. But, to take advantage of my Tidal free trial, I played it again, and again, and again, and again. I also downloaded a free copy as part of the Sprint promotion where Shawn gave away a million free copies. I don’t know what happened but I think it was the time I started discussing the album with my friends before class. I didn’t know quite the impact it would have on my life for the rest of the year.

That weekend, I exclusively played the album, memorizing the lyrics, interpreting every single bar that was there. And then it hit me. I realized that out of nowhere, this album was my favorite album. Ever. I didn’t understand why. Maybe it was the Nina Simone samples, or the simple drum breaks, or the punchy, punctual bass. But there was one thing I couldn’t get over: the lyrics. Now, I understand that his lyrics aren’t hard to understand. They’re not suppose to be super difficult to understand. What made me appreciate the album so much was his ability to just speak the truth of his own life. His experience being black, the two competing minds of Shawn vs Jay, family feuds, and his legacy. No one I had heard has had this kind of sincerity that I felt came from his lyrics. I have listened to a lot of great music, going all the way back from Rakim, to Tupac, to Cole, and of course JAY-Z. But the albums that spoke to my age and direct experiences as a teenager didn’t connect to me. That’s what made 4:44 so amazing. I didn’t experience losing out on a property for $25 million, or have an affair and almost lose my wife. I don’t have a gay mom either. What I did have was two personalities: the crazy measured. The one who always wants to do every insane thing imaginable, and the one who panics to get through work.

When I was walking to get to the 59th Street station to go to Coney Island on July 4th, I saw a skyscrape filled with nothing but the 4:44 album cover. I knew this album meant so much more to me even at that point, because everywhere I looked, I saw the album, and everywhere I looked, I saw the album speak towards circumstances of my life.

“Kill JAY-Z” spoke to my split personalities I feel at most times of my life, as I alluded to earlier. That idea of feeling like you should do something that you know will hurt you, and that guilty conscious will hurt and punish you for acting that way. Shawn is speaking to Jay in this song, and that’s how I try to reason to myself to get out of the selfish state of mind.

When “The Story of OJ” came on, and I listened to the chorus, I couldn’t believe how simply you could put the African American struggle. Yes, we have different skills, come from different experiences, and want different things, but we are all still the same, under one name.

“Smile” was me connecting to my appreciation of the life I do life. I don’t have the most peaceful and happy life, but I should be able to continue to appreciate my life for what it is. I should be thankful for the opportunities that I have and most of all, my mom is just a legend.

I understood “Caught Their Eyes” as my constant fight to watch out for those who get in the way of my success, attempting to threaten what I want to achieve. The most important thing was that you should watch out for those deceptions that could come in the way at some point too.

Well. “4:44” was… it’s just a masterpiece. No need to connect it to anything else. It’s one of the most important songs in hip-hop ever. Most people don’t know that yet, but they will in twenty years. A true classic. Not much else to say honestly.

“Family Feud” especially was almost laughable at some of the similarities with my family, and I appreciated his simplicity of saying: “I’ll f*ck up a good thing if you let me.” How much more blunt can you be? Really? The Beyoncé sample, feature, whatever it may be is phenomenal that balances out the snares and beautiful piano melody in the background sets this up as the most joyful song on the project

“Bam.” This is the “turn up” song of the album, mainly thanks to the fact that this song is the response to “Kill JAY-Z” from Hov’s perspective. He just attacks every single level of reasoning with just working to constantly go on the offensive, never settling for anything at all. That’s how I pump myself up. I want to and continue to get to the level where I can work harder than everyone else.

I couldn’t stop laughing at “Moonlight” because of its hook: “We stuck in la la land. Even when we win, we gon lose.” I appreciate his shredding of these rappers who sound the same and don’t change anything else. This song connects with me personally because I relate it more to how I see everyone around me doing things because others have done it, never thinking about what they actually want to accomplish.

“Marcy Me” is without a doubt my favorite song on this album. It’s not just the instrumental and the singing chorus, but it’s the idea of reflecting on how far you’ve come. I couldn’t believe just six years ago that I could be at the state I am at today. Also, “Hold the uzi vertical, let the thing smoke,” and the rest of the line about Lil Uzi Vert was appropriate, mainly to point out the stupid actions that these younger rappers are doing today.

I hope that my “Legacy” can play out something like Shawn’s. The intro from Blue is appropriate for this one especially, and I want to create a legacy that I can leave for the world one day. I want to truly change the world.

With the Grammys tomorrow, I’m rooting for 4:44 to come home with the victory. But to be completely honest, no Grammy or two or eight or none will take away from the impact this album has had on my life. When I ranked it as my number one album of 2017, I should have been more clear about the fact that everyone who loves music should listen to this album because it will become a Picasso. I’m just fortunate enough to realize this now, and maybe in thirty years, I’ll remind you, “I told you so.” Thank you Shawn Carter for making the most important album of my life and I wish you and the family all the more success in the future.

So what the hell does any of this have to do with Get Out? As I watched the film, I couldn’t believe the precision Jordan Peele was able to describe some of the subtle, yet race-based conversation that continues to arise with black people in this country. The main character, Chris, gets into discussions with his girlfriend’s parents, who are white, about what it’s like to be black, and later at a party, a group of people at a party at the Armitage house question Chris about his athleticism and the unique features of black people. Besides this all being extremely awkward and disturbing, it continues to portray more of the same stereotyping that exists with particularly black citizens in this country. They are amazed that he can speak so eloquently and it only continues to the point, and reaches a climax where he gets literally hypnotized by his girlfriend’s mother to get his eyes extracted for a customer. This family literally sells features of black people to the highest non-white bidders, and this famous artist just so happened to be blind and wanted to see again.

I can speak for other black people that there couldn’t quite be something we fear as much as being crippled and at the mercy of white racists who pick apart our best features and throw everything else away for scraps. This movie showed me, and lots of other black people, is that these types of irrational fears that seem like true terrors are in actually nowhere near the magnitude to the kinds of real fears we have everyday. I pray everyday that when I do get pulled over by a police officer that I stay as calm as possible and any movement I make could result in the end of my life. I live in constant frustration by the fact that I will get wrongly accused of something I didn’t do just because of my skin tone. These fears seem extremely irrational and for most of the time, I can exist free of these fears because where I live isn’t too bad. Nonetheless, I feel insulted every time I hear a racist joke about black people because they somehow believe my existence as an Ethiopian is different from any other black American. Sure, my last name is different, and I may have the ability to trace my roots of my family, but that’s it. I still get treated the same. No racist is going to be less harsh to me because I’m Ethiopian. No police officer is going to be less harsh because I’m African. No court of law will be less harsh because I’m not the typical black teen ethnicity-wise. Just because I am first generation, doesn’t make it mean I’m less of a black person. My family just happen to have moved from a sh*thole country voluntarily and only thirty years ago.

In many ways, this is why I think that sense of security and support for one another and its significant lack of it is why we aren’t able to ensure our true success. Maybe if we weren’t so caught up in getting upset at each other, with the Ta-Nehisi Coates vs Cornell West debates, or with the fact we aren’t demanding more from our legislation without bringing enough people to compete at that level. Get Out presents us with the opportunity to reflect on the status of black people and really check if the true enemy we are going after is the white supremacist in Alabama or the white liberal/conservative intellectuals who we are only starting to challenge now. I am glad that for once that the fears of liberal America were put on such a display in this movie, and Jordan Peele shared the unfortunate story about the fact that those who even appear to help us are also not willing to let us reach an equal summit of power.

So let us take this year as an opportunity to intelligently tackle the issues of black people. Let’s try to think and continue to look at the great parts of our community taking up the arms in legislation, changing communities. We could use more politicians like Jewell Jones, citizens who are willing to impact their communities and take the most methodical legal approach to eventually one day securing the true equality of black people. We may never be equals in this life, but what we can do is to continue to work as hard as possible to one day be on that level and at the very least put the next generation at a better place than we are at today. Dr. King would be proud of the steps we have taken the past few years, but in his words: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Hope you enjoyed reading this week! Be sure to follow me on Twitter for some of my thoughts more immediately as well as some fun tweets as well! See you all next week at the same time.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/noahbball1

 I. Why write about this?

I don’t know where to start with this one. This has been the issue that I initially didn’t know how to speak on. Being a first generation African American with no connection to the black American culture, I didn’t know at first how to feel about this issue. That being said, I knew this much before I embarked on this journey. Throughout the history of the United States, there have been and still are systemic problems with this nation and its treatment of African Americans. From the prison industrial complex to land lords refusing to lease to black people, there is no shortage of issues that are placed upon African Americans purely based on their race. All of this came from the institution of slavery and the social construct that is race. If you asked anyone hypothetically about whether it would be fair for a group of people responsible for building a significant part of the most powerful nation in the world not receiving any sort of compensation for their contributions, any good person would call that flagrant. This hypothetical group is the African American people of this nation that was brought here against their own will between the mid 1600s to mid 1800s. This is my case for reparations for those people.

II. The consequences of the past still affect the present

As a journalist at school, we are taught to gather as many perspectives for any story, and especially with this serious of a topic, I decided to call one of my conservative friends about this issue. His explanation for why reparations shouldn’t exist in the form of direct payment is that first, it happened too long ago in the past. He also argued that, for the time period, it was acceptable to own slaves, and because so few people owned slaves anyway, it would not be worth it for the US government to spend money on this issue that so few people were responsible for. I challenged him with the reparations to Israel from Germany, and he refuted that it had never been acceptable to gas millions of Jews. And while I do agree that it has never been acceptable to massacre Jews or any race ever, there is a clear double standard going on with these two persecuted groups, a race-based double standard in my opinion. Slavery was the most violent, outrageous, and government-supported institution in American history that took place over two hundred years in this country. The consequences of perpetual racism that has taken place then and now are responsible for the plights of black people in this country every single day.

There is a reason why African Americans make up only 13% of the American population yet 38.6% of the federal prison population. There is a reason why only about 23% of ALL black people ages 25–29 have any sort of bachelors degree. There is a reason why for every $100 a white family holds in wealth, the average black family only holds $5.04. That is a 20 to 1 wealth ratio. Let that sink in. That is completely different from the perception the psychologists from Yale found when conducting this study. When they asked black and white Americans of varying incomes about this wealth gap, they estimated that black people had approximately $83 for every white family’s $100 in wealth, 16 plus times the amount they actually have.

This inequity is what our nation was built upon. When you bring over half a million people to America over the course of two hundred years with the intention of never paying them, and then just releasing them from slavery in 1865 in hopes they could just “figure things out” is ludicrous. Rather than slavery ending, it just transformed into sharecropping. This eventually led to Jim Crow laws later being established in the South during the late 1800s because society continued to perpetuate that black people were inherently worse than white people. When you can’t provide equal opportunity to go to college and gain an education, you won’t have black people ever see the light of Congress and representation in local government necessary to change public perception of race. This continuous cycle of subordination without the chance to correct this idea even in children at an elementary school level is what led to the persistent racist and white supremacist behavior that has become normalized for the better part of our nation’s history.

For those who’ve seen 13th, then you know that the 21st century slavery is the prison industrial complex. Once slavery was ended with the 13th amendment, state and local governments all across the South and even other parts of the country would arrest black people for “loitering,” and send them to jail for irrational and racist reasons, resulting in unfair sentencing. Privatized prisons only exacerbated the issue and harsher sentencing against black people has led to corporations profiting significantly off of prison labor that they can pay pennies on the dollar. All of this stems from slavery.

III. Government inaction

As much as I think our government has helped pushed the United States into a much more equal opportunity nation, there has not been enough of an effort towards even the research of the consequences slavery and racism have had on this country. Every year from 1989 to 2017, former Representative John Conyers (who I think you can judge for yourself after all his allegations found here) proposed the famous H.R.40 bill, or the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. He wanted to create a commission to help study the effects of slavery and approve of possible solutions to these consequences. Every single year since 1989, it has never passed, and with his resignation, there is little hope this bill may ever be pass.

Not only has Congress feared the idea of granting reparations, but they have feared even the study or research of the subject altogether. Not only does this speak volumes for how much they are afraid of discussing race, but they are more afraid of uncovering how bad the nation has been towards black people in particular. The Senate did pass an apology for the institution of slavery in 2009, but one, this happened in 2009, nearly 144 years after the 13th amendment and with the first black president, and two, all it was was a written statement, with no courses of actions to take attached to it. As much as it was a step forward to acknowledge the problem, the next step should have been how to address the injustices caused by slavery. Unfortunately, that has never happened.

IV. It has been done before

Well, the first reason I came up with respect to why we should have reparations was quite simple: if the US and countries across the world have given monetary reparations to other marginalized groups, why can’t African Americans in the US get reparations too? In 1988, President Regan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which granted $20,000 to each survivor of the Japanese Internment during WW2. Now, I understand that direct monetary reparations for African Americans could end up going to millions of black people and cost billions more than what was sent to the Japanese, but the US has granted reparations before.

Another childish, yet justifiable reason I came up with was “Well, Germany did it. Why can’t we do something on a larger scale?” Following WW2, the German government has continued to pay for Holocaust survivors’ medical treatment and in 2013, pledged to pay over $900 MILLION to help establish a fund for Jewish Victims of Nazi Aggression. Whether you think it is possible to have the US pay this much is one thing, but the very fact that Germany is pledging this much to correct for their wrongdoings over the course of around 13 years shows us that we should pay back reparations of some form towards the descendants of the millions of slaves that were brought to the US over the course of over 200 years. Again, although the population receiving reparations today from Germany is minuscule compared to the black population today in America, monetary reparations have been granted before, and the German government is an example of a governing body who has taken responsibility for its past.

V. What can we do?

Even if we cannot accept the fact that payments to millions of people is possible, although I certainly think it can and should be done, there are methods besides just direct payment that can reduce the inequality between white people and black people in this country caused by slavery. The first step must be education. There must be no division between what the South and what the rest of the nation views the Civil War, or segregation as. How can we accept reparations when it was only 22 years ago that Alabama recognized the 13th Amendment? There has to be no misconception about the Civil War was the “War of Northern Aggression.” That was a war for slavery and to preserve the oppression of millions of black people in this country. Period. I do think that it is unfortunate that the rest of America has failed to help those in rural areas in changing how they view slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. Everyone in this nation should be granted through school a comprehensive understanding of the gravity of slavery and how brutal the institution was.

Once we can truly understand how horrible the enslavement and segregation of black people was, we can then be equipped with the necessary knowledge to address the subject of reparations. I want to make one thing extremely clear. Reparations aren’t a partisan issue. They are a correction for the past wrongdoings of black people by this nation. If you don’t support any form of reparations, even in building institutions to support the African American youth in this nation, then you do not believe that our government should be responsible for slavery and its ideas that continue to threaten the success of black people today. Considering how much this nation profited upon the backs of slaves and following Reconstruction, I don’t think there is any reason why we would not grant reparations of some sort towards African Americans.

Legally, there is a basis to grant reparations. If there is a specific way for the descendants of slavery to prove that they were brought here against their will and were profited off of their unpaid labor, then the debate towards granting those specific people reparations can be made. This would cause many people to at first evoke the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause as a reason why monetary reparations could never be legally possible. These reparations would be treated as if the state was responsible for the lives that were lost during those 200 years. The US government is responsible for the rapes, lynchings, and brutal murders of millions of African Americans during slavery and through post-Reconstruction/Jim Crow era America, just like they would be responsible for the pollution of a state-owned facility that caused someone to die of an illness. If you can prove that your descendants have been enslaved, you should be granted some sort of compensation for your family’s suffering, whether that means getting a better mortgage when buying your family’s first home and/or access to better educational opportunities, starting in elementary school.

Ultimately, I would be remised if I didn’t mention the fact that there are plenty of marginalized groups in American history. Native Americans got a country stole from right under them. Mexicans were kicked South because the US won the Mexican-American War, yet weren’t allowed to return to the US. I could go on and on with these groups, but I struggle to genuinely understand how the treatment specifically of African Americans and their enslavement and continued marginalization in the country they were responsible for helping become the most powerful nation in the world can go unnoticed. Social justice and reparations for slavery are two connected, yet very different topics, and in many ways, this is why I wholeheartedly disagree with Senator Bernie Sanders on his stance against reparations. Reparations aren’t just about bringing the socioeconomic statuses between white and black people closer as it is about the state being responsible for the torture of black bodies for the better part of this country’s history. This nation’s government has never claimed full responsibility for slavery and segregation, and their inability to correct for these injustices is why white supremacy and socioeconomic inequality will continue to be perpetuated in the United States. The one thing I do know for certain, through my research and self-reflection this past week, is that if this country cannot truly acknowledge how slavery, segregation, and racism is responsible for what America has become, we can never begin to correct the consequences these institutions have done to our country.

I would like thanks for taking the time to read this. This piece was inspired by The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates, so if you can, send it his way and hopefully he can read this! Please leave your thoughts in the comments either here or on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter @noahbball1 to engage in some insightful conversations. Please share this article with your friends and family and have some candid discussions this holiday. See you all next week.

Let me share the story from the beginning. In January of 2017, I was trying to find something I could do over the summer, and I stumbled across this program called Columbia’s Summer Program for High School Students. I thought it was super interesting and I thought I might as well apply for it. I wrote my application through Chemistry class with the support of my teacher. I was excited to get the opportunity to go, and then I saw the cost. That brought my jaw straight to the ground and sprung tears into my eyes. I so very much wanted to go, and realized that my family could not afford to pay the nearly $11,000 for being a boarding student, all for a summer program. Nearly no parents can afford that, and so when I saw the option for a scholarship, I jumped to it and prayed that I could get some money off so my parents could pay for the tuition. I get my acceptance email a few weeks later, which was great to hear, but no word of my scholarship, the one true acceptance letter. I begin to panic and fear that they didn’t accept my financial aid request. So I waited, and waited, and then one late spring afternoon, I saw the email that changed my life. Before I even got to New York, a city I have always loved and dreamed about living in, I knew that Columbia gave me the opportunity to pursue a passion that I didn’t I would have, but I made it my duty to take advantage of that opportunity.

Fast forward to June of last summer, and I’m on my first flight alone to JFK. I couldn’t contain my excitement the days leading up to check-in the Sunday before class. I jumped into my dorm, so thrilled to be at this position and opportunity, determined to tackle class the next day. At this point, I had little to no understanding concretely of what Constitutional Law was, but I knew I wanted to argue in the Supreme Court one day. That first day, I saw so many bright, excited classmates who, in all honesty, intimidated me. I was that one black kid, in my mind, here with the opportunity of a lifetime, amongst some of the smartest young minds I have ever known. But the second class began, I noticed something so profound that I had never noticed ever in my life. I felt my race disappear. I only was myself. Noah Tesfaye, not black, but a student determined to thrive in this situation. In that one moment, I realized that this was the beginning of something special, and boy did I underestimate what would happen.

Never in my life had I received the autonomy that I was granted those three weeks. Over the first few days, I began to connect with people on such an intimate level at a rate unprecedented in my lifetime. They didn’t see me for all the baggage that I carried with me. They were empathetic, yet they didn’t care about anything surface level. The types of conversations about the law, reading through our book of cases in Riverside Park, were moments I will never forget because never in my life had I seen so many people just connect with academia and law in a way that evoked such emotion. We argued about gun control, affirmative action, and everything else in between. Yet, I realized that I found friends who were human too. We could be discussing our idol Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Notorious RBG, and instantly flip to our obsession with Kanye West. There would be discussions about Roe V. Wade that would somehow evolve into our agreed opinion that cold brew is life (something I still cannot get out of my life might I add).

The three weeks I spent in New York gave me the break I needed. Living in Silicon Valley, although I do enjoy my home, the stress I feel being black in my town disappeared. Completely. I have visited almost every major city in the US, and no place has, and never will, give me the sense of true safety like New York. The fact that I could walk down the street to go get coffee and not receiving any judgmental looks felt like I could run free for the first time in my life.

Another conclusion I made through my experience in New York was that I saw the extent to which real friends can support you. I struggled for years trying to understand why my social anxiety brought me to friends who I did appreciate, yet did not appear to want me to succeed as much as I did. What my friends, or RBGang (for obvious reasons), made me realize was that we could all succeed. Together. There was never a friend left behind. There was never a moment where any of us were left out. We all picked places to eat, museums to visit, and random things to do. Sure, I’m sorry I had to drag them to Magnolia for bread pudding every few days, but other than that, we had a true give and take relationship that I never knew was possible.

But more than anything else, Columbia made me realize that there could be a place where I belonged in every sense of the word. We all shared one common interest and were all determined to work to achieve our goals. Up until that point in my life, I had never known that there was a place where people could merely accept me for who I am. Again, for a person who isn’t a black person isolated, or any minority for that matter, it is hard to understand what that is truly like. I could be me, in my purist form, unencumbered by any obstacles. When you’re the only student, working day to to day, living in isolation from anyone like you, it’s hard to believe that there could be a place for you somewhere in the world. But if only for just three weeks, I was able to live that dream that I never knew was possible. It was the happiest three weeks of my life because I could not believe that so many people my age were able to understand me for who I am.

So I want to say thank you. Thank you Columbia University for giving me the chance to come to your program, granting me a scholarship to come to New York and begin the study of the subject I plan on studying for the rest of my life. I hope that more students like me can get that same opportunity I did, and I wish there was more awareness for students less fortunate than I am to one day attend this gram in the future. Thank you to Camila Vergara, the best professor I could have asked for, both as a teacher, and as someone I can talk to when I have any questions to this day. And most of all, I want to say thank you to my friends, RBGang. You are the greatest group of people I have ever known. Your insights, personalities and energy gave me the motivation to continue to pursue my dreams because I know what I am working towards. The way you guys made me feel honestly gave me the courage to believe that it is ok to be just me, and no one should make me change who I am. I will always keep in touch with all of you, and even though we don’t all live in the same places, we share a connection that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life.