Do you know why I post dumb silly stories about stuff like Hello Kitty or Fifty Shades of Grey? I like to think of them as palate cleansers. Nice, innocuous little tidbits to break of the monotony of me always ranting about racism or sexism or classism. Keeps me sane. Anyway, back to normal.
Everytime I decide to write about race, I expect some amount of backlash from some white (at least usually, but not always) guy who sides with the racist, saying that the victim was out of line or that it’s my typical liberal bias siding with the obvious criminal… stuff like that. First, let’s get things straight, I’m not really “a liberal.” If anything, I’m more of an anarchist. Only, most people don’t really know what that actually means politically. Anyway, when I wrote about the Ferguson/Michael Brown case the other day, I got some comments like that, though not on the post itself. One guy, commenting on someone else’s Facebook page who linked to me, argued that I was full of shit because he interprets the statistics differently than I do and black people are more likely to be committing crime in Ferguson. I pointed out that what I wrote wasn’t really about the statistics, so even if he was right (he wasn’t) it didn’t matter, but he didn’t really care because, his interpretation was based on the fact that police only stop and search someone if they have probable cause to do so. And uh… yeah…
Another guy sent me a direct message telling me that I wasn’t being fair to Wilson (the cop) because the video of Brown in the convenience store clearly shows that he was a “violent individual” so it isn’t too much of a stretch to give the cop the benefit of the doubt and assume that Brown was being a dangerous threat and trying to kill him. I asked this person why he was telling me this in a direct message rather than posting a comment since all my blogs and Facebook posts have open comments and he told me that he doesn’t like to do that because when he gave his open and honest opinions over the Trayvon Martin case he ended up “losing too many friends” who called him racist because he felt that Martin was in the wrong. As a general tip to anyone, white, black, green, whatever: If you want to say something, but you’re worried that something you strongly believe in is going to be “taken wrong” and racially offend a bunch of people you care about, chances are you are about to say something that is hella-fucking-racist.
Anyway, a little earlier, my friend, Rod Roscoe, posted this story about Chris Lollie, a black man who was tased and arrested by the police while he was sitting on a bench waiting to pick up his kids after work. Sitting While Black (SWB) is apparently a crime in Minnesota. Anyway, once the cops showed up, Lollie had the foresight to start recording everything that happened to him on his cellphone and the footage was used to exonerate him during his trial. The video is below:
First of all, I want to mention a great idea for an invention I just had. You know how everyone is always trying to figure out a use for robot drones? Amazon wants to use them to deliver packages and stuff? Well, I want to get them and attach GoPro cameras to them and sell them to black men. Basically what I’m looking for is a little robot like Skeets that follows me around 24/7 and records everything I do. Whenever I’m walking through an expensive store, driving through a middle class neighborhood, eating a chocolate chip cookie, or fucking a white woman, I want constant video proof of my innocence! People worry about Big Brother. I welcome it! In fact, now I’m inspired of a name! That’s what I’m gonna call it. “Brotha’ Eye!” (patent pending)
But back to Lollie. Let me anticipate the casual racism response: “If he had just done what he was told, listened to the cop, given his name, and moved, none of this would have ever happened.” *sigh* Well, maybe… maybe not. And yeah, if it had been me, I probably would have been far more cooperative than he was (the Levar Burton technique I linked to before). Mostly because I’ve been tased before and getting tased sucks. That said, Lollie really wasn’t out of line. Sunil Datta wrote a little op-ed piece for the Washington Post last week where he tells people to “ido everything the cop says and they won’t get hurt.” I guess that’s nice wishful thinking, though they’re also the exact same words that every bank robber in every film ever has said the second they start a heist. Furthermore, even if it were true that black people had nothing to fear from the police, — even if it were ok to blame the victim (remember when people basically said Trayvon was asking for it by how he was dressed? Where have I heard that before?) — the fact that we have created a culture where at least 10% of the population fears (with good cause or not) unwarranted violence and discrimination from law-enforcement based purely on their genetics is really kind of a problem.
Back to Levar’s advice for being stopped by the cops. I ask my white readers, when you’re pulled over by a cop for speeding or running a red light or whatever, does it ever even occur to you “Ok, keep calm, because you don’t want to get shot here?” Do those words ever pass through your mind? Because they pass through my mind every time. And that’s scary as fuck.
Have you ever been stopped and questioned by the cops? It’s an extremely intense situation. It really puts you on edge. The fact that people expect African-Americans (who whether you believe are racially discriminated against currently or not, you must acknowledge there is at least a history or such discrimination in this country and that shit is hard to get over) to be more trusting and conciliatory than normal in that situation is indicative of the problem. Let’s just say black people are just naturally (genetically, socially, whatever) more aggressive and belligerent towards authority than white people. If that were the case, don’t you think there’d be a bunch of nice counterexamples of “proper behavior for when the police stop you?” Hey, maybe there is! Let’s check. I’ll just open Youtube and search for “white man stopped by police” and watch the top result:
ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?!?!?! Cops catch dude with no gun permit visibly carrying a gun in his holster and dressed like discount GI. Joe. His excuse was “well, I’m not from around these parts.” Well that makes sense. So lets take you to jail and… wait, letting him off with a warning? Offering him a ride to his next destination? HE WAS WALKING DOWN THE STREET WITH A GUN! So yeah, I mean, I guess you could try to argue that this guy was being calmer towards the cop than Lollie was, but he was still arguing… not that he wasn’t breaking the law, but that the law was stupid. The cop was also way calmer towards him, and other than the handcuffs, much nicer.
Huffington Post had a nice piece the other day about the way we perceive race in this country based on news headlines. White suspects: “Son in Staten Island murders was brilliant, athletic — but his demons were the death of his parents.” “Oregon school shooting suspect fascinated with guns but was a devote Mormon, friends say.” “Ohio shooting suspect, T.J. Lane, described as ‘fine person’.” Black victims: “Trayvon Martin was suspended three times from school.” “Montgomery’s latest homicide victim had a history of narcotics abuse, tangles with the law.” and my favorite “Police: Slain Lakeland Teen Had Been Shot Before; Death Possibly Drug Related.” That literally translates to “he might have been doing drugs, and he was shot before, so it was ok to shoot him again.” And that, is called institutional racism.
Jon Stewart had a nice little tirade about this on the Daily Show on Tuesday:
Which both echoes a lot of my feelings pretty much perfectly and shows that some white people out there do understand. Is it exhausting? Yes, Jon. Yes it is.
0 comments for “In case you were wondering, here’s the difference between black and white…”
Mentions
Photo Credit: New York Times
As I begin writing this, it is 5am and I have spent nearly 12 hours watching around the clock coverage of the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson/Ferguson, MO situation. I thought about writing about it yesterday before the decision came down (I’ve written about it a couple times before, here and here). I know my mother addressed it, saying on Facebook that she expected an indictment because it was taking so long for decision to be released. Her logic was that they were attempting to decide which charges to pursue. I was far more pessimistic about it. My belief was that the delay was due to St. Louis’s attempts to 1) get riot responders into place and 2) delaying the inevitable. Instead of writing a big long rant like I usually do, when I saw the announcement that the decision was expected to be released at 5PM, i just sent the following tweet:
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
That’s actually not as damning as i sounds. See, my expectation was that things were going to go to shit no matter which way the Grand Jury decided. So I crossed my fingers, hoped for the best, feared for the worst, and turned on the TV. The decision didn’t come at 5. It didn’t come at 6. By 7, I was completely certain at what it would be. They were absolutely delaying the inevitable. See, if they were going to indict, they would have announced it at 5pm, because it never would have occurred to them that Wilson’s (mostly white) supporters would riot. It occurred to me… but obviously I’m a lot smarter than any of them.
It was after 9pm when prosecutor Robert McCulloch finally took the mic and said… pretty much exactly what I expected him to say.
So yeah, I have problems with the decision. I have problems with the way McCulloch pursued the case. I have problems with the idea that the the Grand Jury looked at the evidence and found that “there was not enough there to take it to trial.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear the rationalization that “they saw all the evidence that we didn’t see,” but that’s just the thing. Grand Juries are not trials. They didn’t need to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. All they had to do was decide whether there was enough evidence there to warrant a trial. That shouldn’t even be a question. Enough evidence has been released in the media to warrant a trial. If Wilson won the trial, such is life. But that’s what trials are for. That’s not what I really want to complain about either.
What I have the real problem with is the rhetoric that has followed the aftermath. I have heard half a dozen Ferguson and St. Louis officials on the news in the last 8 hours saying that they are shocked by the violence of the protests that have happened in the aftermath. They didn’t expect it. Well, you’re fucking idiots. Read my twitter feed, dammit. I gave you five hours notice. And I’m not a legal expert. I’m not a politician. I don’t live in Missouri. I’m just a guy who has lived in this country for the last forty years and I PAID ATTENTION.
Furthermore, I have a problem with the turn the media has taken since about midnight. In accordance with McCullough’s, President Obama’s and the Brown family’s pleas to keep the protests peaceful and non-violent, the media has turned to chastising those who didn’t listen. Complaints that I have heard over the last several hours are:
They are pointlessly destroying their own community.
This is just a few bad seeds looking for any chance to riot.
This is not the way to call attention to the cause.
All this does is distract from those trying to make change through proper peaceful protests.
Violent protests and destruction never accomplished anything.
You know what… fuck you!
I can’t decide if they’re being knowingly disingenuous or they’re just idiots. I’ve been watching this stuff for more than half a day and I don’t really care anymore.
Violence does accomplish things. In fact, real cultural change almost never occurs without violence of some kind. Sometimes this means that a Martin Luther King or a Harvey Milk has to be assassinated. Sometimes it means that you need a Rodney King L.A. riot. Tienemen Square. Egypt and the Ukraine. The Luddite Revolts of 1812. The fucking Boston Tea party. People don’t pay attention until something bad happens. And when you’re at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, sometimes the only way you can make enough noise for people to listen is to self-destruct. That or wait for those with power to destroy you.
It would be great if violence was only a last resort. It would be great if when there were violence it were only against the aggressors. It would be great if the world had enough of a pretense of justice that those at the bottom of our social-economic ladder didn’t feel so put upon (whether justly or not) that they feel they have no remaining recourse but to destroy their own neighborhoods. That would be awesome. That won’t happen.
It would be great if something like this would happen and the people would stand in the middle of the street and sing Kumbaya and this would result in no unarmed black teenagers ever being gunned down by police ever again. That would be awesome. That won’t happen.
Do you want to know why? Because if that had happened, if Ferguson had accepted the grand jury’s decision, if they’d gone home to write their congressmen and letters to the editor in disgust, even if they’d stood around and non-violentnly marched and chanted for a couple hours, the news media would have moved on by 11pm to make sure they were discussing how important it is that Alfonso Ribeiro overcame adversity to get a perfect score on Dancing with the Stars. We’d be speculating whether Hilary Clinton or Chris Christie is going to run for president next year. We’d be debating what the hot toy is going to be at the Black Friday sales this week.
I know some people think I’m exaggerating. I’m not.
I’ve been teaching freshmen at Duquesne University for a year and a half now. My students are good kids. Smart, middle-class, mostly white, mostly catholic, good kids. Every time an issue of race comes up in a class discussion I get to listen to many of them… actually most of them… refer to “the old days” back when racism still existed. They really don’t see it. They’re completely unaware. It’s not that they’re bad. It’s not that they’re trying to ignore it. They just are completely unaware that racial discrimination exists at all in this country. They don’t remember the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case and that was only a year ago! They don’t see racism. They have no idea who Leon Ford is. Do you know who Leon Ford is? Leon Ford is a black man who was shot by Pittsburgh police in a traffic stop in 2012. He was left paralyzed and charged with assaulting the officers who shot him. He was ultimately acquitted but will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. That was two fucking months ago. HERE! And I’d be amazed if more than 2 of my 22 current students have any idea who he is.
It is now 6am. Ferguson is still burning and the news is still covering it. Yes, they’re covering the issue for the wrong reason, but at least they are covering it. They repeat the headline every fifteen minutes. And every single time they say “all of this because a grand jury refused to indict white police officer Darren Wilson after he fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.” Maybe if they say it enough times people will remember.
Probably not.
Related articles
FERGUSON RIOTS – Protesters Shut Streets Down Awaiting Mike Brown Trial Verdict
Watch All of Alfonso Ribeiro & Witney Carson’s Dances Before The DWTS Finals!
Police shooting unarmed black men is nothing new
Could Alfonso Ribeiro Be Forced Off DWTS?
‘LA Riots With Rodney King Is What Should Be Expected
‘Dancing With the Stars’ semifinals were all weepy
Lessons of the Ferguson Rebellion
Injured Alfonso Ribeiro Might Not Be Able to Continue on ‘Dancing With the Stars’
Black Ferguson activist – target area with people that don’t look like me VIDEO
Share this:
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
Tumblr
Reddit
More
LinkedIn
Pocket
Email
Print
Also on: Tumblr icon
Tumblr
Related
Mentions