I'm Judging You (10 page)

What wounds my spirit the most is that these cops walk away without punishment, getting free vacations and high fives for killing Black people. They get
rewarded
for executing unarmed Black people. These authority figures use their power to uphold the system of brutality. We are forced to know our place, because if we don't, our safety, freedom, and lives are at stake. When Black people assert our agency by challenging or questioning police, even when we are within our rights to do so, we could lose things and people we love. How do we navigate a world that wants us to do nothing else but submit to its will?

A woman was stopped for not signaling properly while changing lanes in her car. She questioned why the cop was detaining her after he gave her a ticket, and he made her get out of the car, mishandled her, and arrested her. She spent three days in jail but never made it out—the police say she committed suicide. Whether or not she killed herself in the cell, she was murdered by an unjust system.
Sandra Bland
.
Some people said she brought it on herself for arguing, when what she did was assert her legal rights.

Two people can commit identical crimes, and if one is Black, their punishment will likely be harsher. We make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, yet we're fully half of those in prison. We're used as convenient scapegoats for crimes, even when we're not involved. We are all disposable, and when something bad happens, blaming the Negro Boogeyman is always a safe bet. He's always described the same way, too: medium build, brown skin, short haircut. He sounds kinda hot and I wonder if he's single.

Meanwhile, white people can cuss out cops, wave guns in their faces, even assault them, and walk away with probation at the end of it. The complexion for protection is real, and when coupled with affluenza, what you have is a racist-as-hell criminal justice system. When you're white, breaking the law might get you escorted home by a cop who wants to make sure you get there safe. When you're Black, you might end up dead and gone.

Racism is not always white hoods and burning crosses. It is behind teachers' desks and in principals' offices.

Black students are three times more likely to be suspended and expelled from school than white ones. There are three-year-olds being kicked out of school for essentially being rambunctious babies. Separate has never meant equal, and public schools in majority-minority neighborhoods are being defunded. Kids are using outdated textbooks and sitting in overcrowded classrooms with overworked teachers. Yet they are being held to the same educational standards as those who have much more.

Racism is not always white hoods and burning crosses. It is on anchor desks and in headlines.

The media has been the spokesperson for oppression since forever. It is the mouthpiece of prejudice, and it has easy access to us all, telling the stories, framing the narratives, and highlighting only what serves the larger prerogative. Racism is in easy-to-miss things like when a large group of white people gather, they are referred to as “revelers,” but a bunch of people of color are called “rioters.” It is what's at work when people of color are called “immigrants” and white people are referred to as “expatriates.” Words mean things, and the ones they use for us are usually negative.

Racism is visible in the reporting of crimes committed by Black people way more frequently than those committed by white folks, creating the widely accepted perception that we are the face of delinquency. In spite of the fact that mass shootings are largely committed by white men, the language used for those crimes is often neutral and doesn't pathologize the criminal's fellow whites for crimes committed by an individual. White criminals are treated much more fairly, their crimes even justified by sympathetic media. If you're white, you can shoot up an entire movie theater, walk out with your life intact, and get painted as someone who is “disturbed” and worthy of pity. You kill nine Black people in a church and admit that you did it because you wanted to start a race war, and the press might report that they still cannot figure out what your motives were. You can shoot up a Planned Parenthood and be described later on as a “gentle loner.”

Racism is in the media calling every brown person who commits a crime in which two or more people died a “terrorist” before the facts of the case are known, yet when a white man flies a commercial plane full of passengers into a mountain, the word “terrorist” rarely appears in any coverage about him.

Because the media has done its job so well, folks will parrot these fear-mongering and ignorant justifications for the mistreatment of Black and brown people. People feel the need to point out that crime rates are often higher in black communities, so I guess we should be used to it or something? Let's talk for a minute about how “Black on Black crime” is not a valid argument for anything. Ninety-four percent of murders of Black people are committed by other Black people, and 86 percent of murders of white people are committed by other white people. Why? Because we mostly interact within our racial groups. People victimize other people who look like them. You might as well talk about white-on-white crime, too, but you've been led to believe that Black people are somehow special in this terrible way. We are not. Also, any Black crime is
handled
by the system. In fact, it's
overhandled
. Our prisons are full of Black men and women who are in there for things as small as stealing candy bars. The system doesn't like Black folks getting away with
anything
. So you ain't gotta worry about that.

The media's obsession with “Black-on-Black crime” is just one of the many ways to blame Black victims of violence for their own victimization. They ask what the victim may have done to deserve being shot in the back, killed while in bed, choked until he could not breathe. They ask whether the cop was acting in self-defense. They actively participate in smearing the deceased, posting pics of him trying to look tough, frowning at the camera. As if every teenager doesn't have a picture of themselves mean-mugging.

When people of color are killed or we become victims of gross injustice, people ask what we did to bring it on ourselves. We seem to always ask for it, as if people go out looking for trouble that will leave them full of bullet holes, with a heart with no beat. Because to be considered a
true
victim, you need to be a saint who never even raised your voice, talked back, or took any selfies where you weren't in a choir robe. To defame your character is to place the onus for your death squarely on your shoulders. If you're in a hoodie in any of your online pics, beware. That day when you felt like rocking some Timbs and a baggy shirt? The media will find that pic and try to paint you as the “thug” they want to believe you are.

They find out that Mike/Trayvon/Tamir's stepdaddy's first cousin twice removed didn't file taxes in 2004, therefore they were dangerous monsters from a long line of criminals. There's no real correlation to the matter at hand, but that isn't important, because victims cannot be
victims
unless they were angels on earth. And when the media can't find anything vaguely negative to pin on them, they will find something on the people around them to drag their names through the mud.

Black people actually have to PROVE their humanity, instead of having it accepted as a given. Even in death, they won't let your soul rest without smearing it with dirt. But you cannot be a more “perfect” victim than to be a person in church on a weekday studying the Bible. The Charleston Nine were as saintly as we're ever likely to see. What did we do to deserve to be killed, Black people? Did we not say “please” and “thank you” enough times? Did we mouth off to a cop who then shot us in the back as we walked away?
Mike Brown
. Did we defend ourselves as we were being attacked by a random vigilante?
Trayvon Martin
. Shit, were we sleeping peacefully as police opened fire in our house looking for someone else?
Aiyana Stanley Jones
.

Then you want to add insult to injury by telling us to be calm in the face of this violence and degradation. Black trauma is never given space to heal because we have to make sure the white people who hurt us don't feel too bad about it. Even as victims, we're told to care about the feelings of those who harm us.

Racism is not always white hoods and burning crosses. It is on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill.

It's in public policies and financial systems that keep us from getting ahead. You shoot the gun at the start of the race of life, but some of us can't even take our first step because we're chained to a pole. Then you ask why we haven't caught up to the person in front of us. Racism is when government policies defund public schools, or make accessing healthcare harder for women who are poor, or disenfranchise people who've served time in jail.

Even if today every law was reevaluated fairly, so Black people had the same rights as white folks and the barriers to access in healthcare, education, politics, and business were removed, we still would not have full equality. It's like removing you from the chains that cuffed you to that pole at the beginning of the race and telling you to catch up with everyone who's been running for, say, a few centuries already. We're not all Usain Bolt, you know. We need equity, which means taking that lack of a head start into account. Can you just give us a pair of rocket shoes so we can catch up? Thanks.

Racism is the lasting psychological, financial, and cultural legacy of centuries of slavery and segregation brought on Black people, and the lack of atonement of white people in power, and the ginormous nerve of them telling us to get over it. Maybe we'd get over it if slavery wasn't simply replaced by Jim Crow laws. Maybe we'd get over it if those laws weren't only technically removed from the books and still very much hiding in paternalistic “liberalism” and sneaky police forces. Maybe we'd get over it if Black people stop being told that things aren't that bad.
That
is how you add insult to injury. It's like when you're riding in a car with your annoying little sibling and they pinch you. You say “OUCH! Cut it out.” So then they put their finger one inch from your face and say, “I'm not touching you.” They might as well be, knowing damb well they're invading your personal space. Then, when you snitch on them to your parents, they say, “But I'm not touching her.” YES, YOU ARE, AMERICA. YOU ARE TOUCHING ME. You might not be hanging us from trees, leaving our bodies swinging like strange fruit (hat tip to Billie Holiday), but you're killing us as we're walking down the street or sleeping in our homes or praying in church. YOU ARE TOUCHING ME, YOU OBNOXIOUS TWERP!

When Black people bring up slavery and we are told to “get over it,” I want to kick every trash can in a ten-mile radius. How can we get over something that still hangs over our heads? No, we can't “get over slavery.” Are Jewish people over the Holocaust? They have a right to never be, and that took fewer lives than the enslavement of Black people in America. We certainly have the right to still be mad about how much damage slavery and its continued legacy has done. You broke up families. You branded us like cattle. You killed us when we dared to want freedom. You considered us worth three-fifths of a person. You didn't want us to know how to read because you realized it'd arm us with knowledge. I just got mad about slavery all over again, and you better not say a thing to me about it. It is my right. Shoot, I specialize in holding grudges.

And then some folks have the nerve to tell us to “go back to Africa.” Shut the hell up. Your ancestors brought my skinfolk over here and got us to build you some dopeness, and now you want us to go back? There's no refunds or takebacks here. Your receipt has expired and you can't even get store credit. You can't walk into Starbucks, buy a cup of coffee, drink it all, and then say you want your money back. This is as much our house as it is yours, and like Effie White, I'm not going. You don't have to love us, but you at least have to tolerate us and treat us like human beings. Otherwise, when we raise hell, don't act like you don't know why. Throwing rocks and then hiding your hands
—
that's some bullshit.

Those white stars are cracked and the stripes bleed. Until America is ready to turn the mirror on itself and address the giant, pink, racist elephant in the room, we cannot fix any of this.

I'm judging you
, 'Murica.

 

8. The Privilege Principle

There comes a time in every upwardly mobile Black person's life when they encounter someone who tells them how “well-spoken” and “articulate” they are. It is usually a white person who is earnest and honest in their admiration of your verbal abilities, and in that moment, you swing between being appreciative and being totally offended. It's a backhanded compliment at best, but mostly it's a put-down, because no matter how much you've studied, how nice your clothes are, or how impressive your body of work is, people will still expect little from you (because: minority). It's microaggressions and instances of casual racism like this that pepper our daily lives, leaving a terrible taste in our collective mouths, and it usually comes from white folks who consider themselves to be liberal, learned, and progressive. Sometimes, I wonder which is better: a blatant bigot or an oblivious racist? At least there are no guessing games or riddles to solve with the former.

If you want to correct their “articulate” comments, you will often be met with, “Oh, I didn't mean it like that!” Ma'am. Sir. How did you mean it? Have you ever given a white colleague a pat on the back for knowing how to speak in complete sentences? No? Okay. Sometimes, the person will go on the defensive. This might be where they bring up that one Black friend they have, using them as proof that “I'm not racist.” I assure you that the possibility of you socializing with Black people does nothing to take the sting away. It's the first cousin of the statement “Not to be racist, but…” If you ever find yourself uttering those words, go find some duct tape and put it over your mouth until the urge to complete the sentence passes. What you were about to say is not okay, so you might as well swallow it. In fact, you just won at Prejudice Bingo. You hit all the squares in the time it took to formulate that thought. Congratulate yourself by having a seat for a little while.