Rodney King was supposed to be the turning point.
LAPD officers caught red-handed, on tape, beating him senseless. No way the officers could not be indicted.
Guess what happened.
The turning point that was Rodney King only allowed us to turn a complete circle. A circle that lead to Amadou Diallo. To Sean Bell. To Trayvon Martin. To Eric Garner. To Mike Brown. To John Crawford. To Tamir Rice.
Circling, ever circling around a fact of life in America: Liberty and Justice is for some, not for all.
Of course, even Rodney King was just another circle back from Emmett Till. And James Earl Chaney. And Medgar Evers. And Malcolm X. And Martin Luther King, Jr.
Circling, ever circling from a time when it was clear that a large portion of America saw Blacks as sub-human, as slaves, as property.
The calendar may say we are in the 21st Century as the Earth processes around the Sun, but in the hearts and minds of many Americans, it is still the 18th Century. To them, America has been poisoned by the continual struggle for racial equality. They still hold to Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's credo, that Blacks do not have rights White men should respect. This thread of racism is so woven into the fabric of our nation, that even though it has long petered out, it simply continues to be pulled along.
"Thou shall not murder." There are no qualifiers on that sentiment, no exceptions outlined. A fundamental law of all human societies, it should know no color or creed. And yet, here we are, mere hours after a video of a cop choking a gasping Eric Garner to death could not bring about the indictment of the officer in question and we have to ask: why?
You know the answer.
You see, it's not enough that we see the ugly thread of racism and attempt to pull it, for when there are too few of us doing the pulling, we cannot hope to dislodge it. Those who need to pull are White; the profusion of other races have been pulling a great while now, but cannot make headway because the force resisting them is too strong. That strength is not because the bigoted are strong, it's because the vast majority of White people sit on the thread, inert, generating a resistance others cannot easily overcome.
Yes, you and I, we Whites, we stumble along through life wrapped in the knowledge that our history books tell us we are righteous, we have done many great things, and that we have established a nation built on Peace and Justice for a long time.
And a lot of it is lies.
Maybe lies is too harsh; more like half-truths and obfuscations. Ask any member of a Native tribe if our arrival in North America "improved" anything.
The vast bulk of White America sits upon the thread of bigotry, thinking little of it, assuming that all is right with the world. They refuse to see their place in the injustice that Blacks suffer at the hands of White police and White gun owners. The bigoted simply yammer about "Black on Black" crime, as if there were no other form of crime. A pipeline has been built to line the pockets of investors by shuttling Black children from the womb to the iron cell and there is no hew and outcry by White America.
The blood is on our hands, where we turn a blind eye to such injustices, where we take for granted how secure we are in our rights. The Black man pulled over for a traffic stop may wind up being shot by a police officer for merely attempting to get out his license; the White man is given a scolding and sent on his way. That disparity has never been more evident now, but that evidence seems to only drive many Whites to work harder to ignore it.
The change must come. The change must be led by White America, because, frankly, we are the only ones with the power to force the change. To do this, we must accept our role in the disparity. We must acknowledge our privilege and all that it buys us. We must deny that privilege, forswear it, and work to ensure that the words "Liberty and Justice For All" are more than words, but the code by which our nation is known.
It is high time, that the circle be broken.
Showing posts with label Mike Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Brown. Show all posts
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
American Crucible
Ferguson, Missouri was licked by the flames of unrepentant grief and anger, when her son, Mike Brown, was judged to have been unworthy of being given a voice by the justice system which supposedly protects him and all Americans from the murderous excesses of society. A police officer, who by many accounts took unwarranted action unfettered by justification, was allowed the triumph of spilling blood in the street.
Ferguson burned.
We revile the idea of violence. The violence of police, who seem less interested in protecting and more interested in assaulting. The violence of poverty, that causes a community to be sown with the seeds of despair. The violence of rage, unloosed with little provocation when the mood suits it. Violence in any form is despicable. We cannot condone the actions of those who thought bricks and bottles were appropriate counterpoints to grief and anger. We cannot applaud those who chose to punish innocent shop owners for the failures of a justice system by torches and thievery. No amount of violence makes the thing better or more palatable.
But we can understand.
For in the breast of every decent and compassionate American is a heart pounding, picturing a Black man sprawled on the ground, a White officer standing over him as rivulets of blood soak the pavement. Within that heart, our blood cries out to that blood, as it is forced to our brain, carrying the chemical equivalent of sorrow, grief, and above all, rage. Like the flames that devoured Ferguson, our anger flows into the tiny recesses of our brains, devouring hope and decency, leaving a furious ash, that would have us strike out and smite those who so gleefully revel in the actions of a rogue police officer.
We, too, are consumed by fire.
Mike Brown and Darren Wilson are far from symptoms of the wider scope that is a society still shot through with racism and hatred, unbent and undimmed despite a century-and-a-half's passing. They are the wound, that now should cause the blood of the body politic in America to flow, to bring the platelets that are required to heal the wound and the antibodies to inoculate us from further outbreaks of this malevolent disease that clings to life within. For when invaded, the body will turn to fever to try to burn away the invading organism, to deprive it of the conditions that allow for its growth. The cycles of fever and chills are meant to break the grip of the infection, to give the body time to build immunity.
So, too, must it be with Ferguson, Missouri. Let the fire smolder and let the chill of November descend. Let us cleanse the American body of this vile disease, which blemishes us and cripples us. Let it be known that no decent American will tolerate the denigration and destruction of any among us, no matter color nor creed. Let it be known that all who are citizens of America have equal rights under LAW, and where that law will not protect all, let us do what we must to ensure it does. Racism CANNOT prevail. We will NOT allow it. We will provide the antidote and the American body will take it in full measure.
Ferguson burned.
We revile the idea of violence. The violence of police, who seem less interested in protecting and more interested in assaulting. The violence of poverty, that causes a community to be sown with the seeds of despair. The violence of rage, unloosed with little provocation when the mood suits it. Violence in any form is despicable. We cannot condone the actions of those who thought bricks and bottles were appropriate counterpoints to grief and anger. We cannot applaud those who chose to punish innocent shop owners for the failures of a justice system by torches and thievery. No amount of violence makes the thing better or more palatable.
But we can understand.
For in the breast of every decent and compassionate American is a heart pounding, picturing a Black man sprawled on the ground, a White officer standing over him as rivulets of blood soak the pavement. Within that heart, our blood cries out to that blood, as it is forced to our brain, carrying the chemical equivalent of sorrow, grief, and above all, rage. Like the flames that devoured Ferguson, our anger flows into the tiny recesses of our brains, devouring hope and decency, leaving a furious ash, that would have us strike out and smite those who so gleefully revel in the actions of a rogue police officer.
We, too, are consumed by fire.
Mike Brown and Darren Wilson are far from symptoms of the wider scope that is a society still shot through with racism and hatred, unbent and undimmed despite a century-and-a-half's passing. They are the wound, that now should cause the blood of the body politic in America to flow, to bring the platelets that are required to heal the wound and the antibodies to inoculate us from further outbreaks of this malevolent disease that clings to life within. For when invaded, the body will turn to fever to try to burn away the invading organism, to deprive it of the conditions that allow for its growth. The cycles of fever and chills are meant to break the grip of the infection, to give the body time to build immunity.
So, too, must it be with Ferguson, Missouri. Let the fire smolder and let the chill of November descend. Let us cleanse the American body of this vile disease, which blemishes us and cripples us. Let it be known that no decent American will tolerate the denigration and destruction of any among us, no matter color nor creed. Let it be known that all who are citizens of America have equal rights under LAW, and where that law will not protect all, let us do what we must to ensure it does. Racism CANNOT prevail. We will NOT allow it. We will provide the antidote and the American body will take it in full measure.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
A Black Mark
"All men are created equal."
You don't realize how hollow that statement sounds until you see a picture of a Black man left dead in the middle of a street, surrounded by White police officers. The vaunted "equality" Thomas Jefferson espoused was not real; at the time, if you were Black and a slave, some did not even count you as fully human, closer to a farm animal than a person. For the stirring words of The Declaration of Independence meant nothing to those bound in chains.
It took The Civil War to break the physical chains, but such a bloody confrontation could do nothing to break the mental chains that held many Americans to the belief that Blacks were sub-human, and had "no rights which the White man was bound to respect." Freedom in law did not equate to freedom in society. Slavery in fact was replaced by slavery in deed. Jim Crow was as much a slave master as any White plantation owner had been before the war.
The modern Black person is the bastard child of a system that took natives of the African continent from their homes, worked them to death, cut loose those that didn't die, and claimed they were free because it said so on a piece of paper. Hundreds of years have passed and though the Black person is not bought and sold in the public auction house, their lives are still just a commodity to the White world. It is, as if, turning Black people from valuable property into human beings reduced their value to zero in White eyes.
So it happens that Blacks are marginalized, stigmatized, and pushed to the margins of American society. Even now, after wars, civil rights movements, legislation, and court cases, a Black person cannot walk down a street without the nagging worry that their presence will trigger events that will lead to their death. Perhaps many put it out of their minds and go about their business thinking it can't happen to them...
Then along comes a Mike Brown, an Eric Garner, a Renisha McBride, a Trayvon Martin.
As so often happens, there is a Black person in the "wrong place at the wrong time," as if there are only certain places and times a Black person is allowed to exist within. Armed with only cans of iced tea, bags of Skittles, a wallet, a cell phone, and walking down the middle of a quiet suburban street, breaking up trouble in their neighborhood, or simply looking for help, they are the victims of White aggression. A society built on White value systems reduces their value to zero and deems it necessary that they die.
The death of an unarmed Black person at the hands of a White person engenders rage, and why shouldn't it? Shouldn't we be past this now? Skin color does not alter a person's humanity; we have known this for so very long. Yet here we are, in a world of computers, the Internet, global travel, and still the Black person is looked down upon by a nation that spilled so much blood to free their ancestors from the bondage it first put them in.
Why should anyone be surprised when the Black community rises up in indignation, shaking its collective fists in earnest rage at a system that refuses to treat them as equal, refuses to respect their right to exist, let alone be free. Do you honestly believe nightsticks and tear gas and curfews can simply anneal a wound so grievously deep and so constantly fresh?
The Black person lives, not as a person, but as a stereotype, for far too many segments of the American landscape. They are couched as shirkers, deserters, layabouts, thieves, thugs, and animals, even though American history is replete with a procession of educated, hard-working, fierce Blacks who were there from the start to build, maintain, and defend the nation that treats them in such an egregious fashion. Even now, they are holding communities together, working to build up from the depths into which they have been cast time and again. Wracked with poverty, they struggle and fight and claw to make a better life.
And then they die.
Is it not enough that we deprived their ancestors their freedom and liberty through our colonial aspirations and greed, that we now plunge the children of the African continent into a crucible, seeking to burn them away as an impurity in our society? Is our land, so steeped in the values of freedom and liberty, still so shot through with callous disregard for Black humanity, that it must shoot them down in the street? Where is the breaking point? When does America draw a collective breath and shout "ENOUGH!"?
The Black community cannot be expected to continually suffer the depredations of White culture in silence. We cannot tell them, constantly, to "just calm down" or "let the system provide justice," when it is their blood being spilled in the streets so regularly, because the system of justice does not punish the perpetrators of the crimes against them. What White person would hold their tongue or keep their finger from the trigger, when time and again, few if any of their brethren have been punished for murdering a Black person in cold blood?
There was no reason for them to die. Plenty of Black people do commit actual crimes, but that is weak justification for the thinly-veiled genocide we see every day. Our system of justice in America has been primed to accept the guilt of the Black person before their innocence, all law to the contrary. A White person can slaughter a dozen people with a gun and they walk away in handcuffs; a Black person can walk home from the store and die for lack of any offense. Tell me again about justice.
Until the endemic racism that plagues this nation is brought to the surface and dealt with harshly by an outraged citizenry of every stripe, expect Mike Brown to have more company.
You don't realize how hollow that statement sounds until you see a picture of a Black man left dead in the middle of a street, surrounded by White police officers. The vaunted "equality" Thomas Jefferson espoused was not real; at the time, if you were Black and a slave, some did not even count you as fully human, closer to a farm animal than a person. For the stirring words of The Declaration of Independence meant nothing to those bound in chains.
It took The Civil War to break the physical chains, but such a bloody confrontation could do nothing to break the mental chains that held many Americans to the belief that Blacks were sub-human, and had "no rights which the White man was bound to respect." Freedom in law did not equate to freedom in society. Slavery in fact was replaced by slavery in deed. Jim Crow was as much a slave master as any White plantation owner had been before the war.
The modern Black person is the bastard child of a system that took natives of the African continent from their homes, worked them to death, cut loose those that didn't die, and claimed they were free because it said so on a piece of paper. Hundreds of years have passed and though the Black person is not bought and sold in the public auction house, their lives are still just a commodity to the White world. It is, as if, turning Black people from valuable property into human beings reduced their value to zero in White eyes.
So it happens that Blacks are marginalized, stigmatized, and pushed to the margins of American society. Even now, after wars, civil rights movements, legislation, and court cases, a Black person cannot walk down a street without the nagging worry that their presence will trigger events that will lead to their death. Perhaps many put it out of their minds and go about their business thinking it can't happen to them...
Then along comes a Mike Brown, an Eric Garner, a Renisha McBride, a Trayvon Martin.
As so often happens, there is a Black person in the "wrong place at the wrong time," as if there are only certain places and times a Black person is allowed to exist within. Armed with only cans of iced tea, bags of Skittles, a wallet, a cell phone, and walking down the middle of a quiet suburban street, breaking up trouble in their neighborhood, or simply looking for help, they are the victims of White aggression. A society built on White value systems reduces their value to zero and deems it necessary that they die.
The death of an unarmed Black person at the hands of a White person engenders rage, and why shouldn't it? Shouldn't we be past this now? Skin color does not alter a person's humanity; we have known this for so very long. Yet here we are, in a world of computers, the Internet, global travel, and still the Black person is looked down upon by a nation that spilled so much blood to free their ancestors from the bondage it first put them in.
Why should anyone be surprised when the Black community rises up in indignation, shaking its collective fists in earnest rage at a system that refuses to treat them as equal, refuses to respect their right to exist, let alone be free. Do you honestly believe nightsticks and tear gas and curfews can simply anneal a wound so grievously deep and so constantly fresh?
The Black person lives, not as a person, but as a stereotype, for far too many segments of the American landscape. They are couched as shirkers, deserters, layabouts, thieves, thugs, and animals, even though American history is replete with a procession of educated, hard-working, fierce Blacks who were there from the start to build, maintain, and defend the nation that treats them in such an egregious fashion. Even now, they are holding communities together, working to build up from the depths into which they have been cast time and again. Wracked with poverty, they struggle and fight and claw to make a better life.
And then they die.
Is it not enough that we deprived their ancestors their freedom and liberty through our colonial aspirations and greed, that we now plunge the children of the African continent into a crucible, seeking to burn them away as an impurity in our society? Is our land, so steeped in the values of freedom and liberty, still so shot through with callous disregard for Black humanity, that it must shoot them down in the street? Where is the breaking point? When does America draw a collective breath and shout "ENOUGH!"?
The Black community cannot be expected to continually suffer the depredations of White culture in silence. We cannot tell them, constantly, to "just calm down" or "let the system provide justice," when it is their blood being spilled in the streets so regularly, because the system of justice does not punish the perpetrators of the crimes against them. What White person would hold their tongue or keep their finger from the trigger, when time and again, few if any of their brethren have been punished for murdering a Black person in cold blood?
There was no reason for them to die. Plenty of Black people do commit actual crimes, but that is weak justification for the thinly-veiled genocide we see every day. Our system of justice in America has been primed to accept the guilt of the Black person before their innocence, all law to the contrary. A White person can slaughter a dozen people with a gun and they walk away in handcuffs; a Black person can walk home from the store and die for lack of any offense. Tell me again about justice.
Until the endemic racism that plagues this nation is brought to the surface and dealt with harshly by an outraged citizenry of every stripe, expect Mike Brown to have more company.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)