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The Cost of Putting Harriet Tubman on American Money
I regret to inform you that the politicians are at it again
Once again they’re talking about putting Harriet Tubman on money. What sense does this make? What purpose? Can we not think of a better way to honor someone’s legacy, someone’s work, someone’s life than to place her on money?
How about if we collectively and unceasingly worked toward the liberation of Harriet Tubman’s daughters and sons, her progeny? To do that would mean a dismantling of the systems that bond us to begin with. A dismantling of white supremacy for one — not just a verbal rebuke of it, but a floor-to-ceiling teardown. To do that would mean to dismantle the systems that trapped Harriet Tubman in bondage to begin with: an obsessive adherence to profit so deep that it justifies enslaving, beating, dehumanizing, and killing a people simply to increase margins. Prioritizing money over community, family, home. Treating nothing as sacred except wealth.
To work toward the liberation of Harriet Tubman’s afterbearers would mean reparations. Not just for the centuries of stolen labor, but for the centuries of economic disadvantage, redlining, mob violence, poll taxes, lynchings, white supremacy, and racism in schools, government, all institutions…
