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| Reblogged from Free Bird |
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Post-racial is the dirtiest word I know.
I cannot, in fact, think of a single word with the same factual inaccuracy and potential to do great harm.
When we were out visiting other eating clubs on Saturday night, something we rarely do, KS and I saw no less than three Black-female-White-male couples dancing and making out. This prompted KS to comment on our "post-racial" society. I wanted to slap him upside the head and remind him that the caramel color of our skin serves as a legacy to the history of such interactions in our family trees and communities more broadly, but that's too serious a conversation for the club, so I just rolled my eyes and reminded him that I'd fucked a White guy too, but that didn't mean I thought we as a society or me as a person were "over" race.
I didn't need a reminder as to why I don't think we're there yet (and have little faith, really, that we'll ever GET there), but the news gave me one anyway, in the form of Trayvon Martin.
Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old high school junior. Trey, as he was known by family and friends, was visiting his father and stepmother in a gated community in Orlando, Florida, two weeks ago. During halftime of the basketball game he'd been watching with his father, he decided to walk to the local convenience store to pick up some snacks. On his way back to his dad's house, he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year old White man serving as the Captain of the Neighborhood Watch in this gated community. Zimmerman found the sight of a young Black man walking alone through his neighborhood--never mind the fact that this young Black man was his neighbor's SON--so "suspicious" and threatening that he called 911 to report the activity and jumped into his SUV to follow Trey. The 911 dispatcher told Zimmerman to stand down and let the police handle the situation from there. Zimmerman had other ideas, though. He confronted Trey, who supposedly gave Zimmerman a bloody nose during their altercation, and fatally shot him in the chest using the black Kie Tek 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol he was carrying. The medical examiner found only Skittles, Arizona Iced Tea, and $22 in Trey's pockets, but Zimmerman is claiming self-defense, and the authorities seem to believe him, because more than two weeks have passed, and no. charges. have. been. filed. against. Zimmerman.
I'm going to say that again. This White civilian--a Neighborhood Watch captain--thought a young Black kid "looked suspicious" as he walked down the street, so he shot him dead in the middle of the street on a Sunday evening and is getting away with it.
[Excuse me while I control my tears and rage, as I'm at work right now.]
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
This is vigilante violence. This is MURDER and no one is doing anything. This is Jim Crow. This is sexualized racism and racialized sexism. The lack of response from the police and the mass media? That's institutionalization. This is literally not being safe in one's own body. This is oppression. This is hatred. This is why I do not fault my friend OO for telling me he needed a break from all the White people. Tell me race doesn't matter, or that people don't need to be afraid. I DARE you.
*drops mic, walks away*
[Meanwhile, on a smaller scale, Tumblr is threatening to take down Dumb Things White People Say for being "abusive" and "harassing," while the vast majority of the blogs spewing White supremacist bullshit that DTWPS posts screenshots of have been defended by the Tumblr administrators as free speech. And click here to see what some White person evidently thinks I'm learning in my African-American studies classes (I don't want this picture staring back at me for a week on my page). I'm done.]
When we were out visiting other eating clubs on Saturday night, something we rarely do, KS and I saw no less than three Black-female-White-male couples dancing and making out. This prompted KS to comment on our "post-racial" society. I wanted to slap him upside the head and remind him that the caramel color of our skin serves as a legacy to the history of such interactions in our family trees and communities more broadly, but that's too serious a conversation for the club, so I just rolled my eyes and reminded him that I'd fucked a White guy too, but that didn't mean I thought we as a society or me as a person were "over" race.
I didn't need a reminder as to why I don't think we're there yet (and have little faith, really, that we'll ever GET there), but the news gave me one anyway, in the form of Trayvon Martin.
Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old high school junior. Trey, as he was known by family and friends, was visiting his father and stepmother in a gated community in Orlando, Florida, two weeks ago. During halftime of the basketball game he'd been watching with his father, he decided to walk to the local convenience store to pick up some snacks. On his way back to his dad's house, he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year old White man serving as the Captain of the Neighborhood Watch in this gated community. Zimmerman found the sight of a young Black man walking alone through his neighborhood--never mind the fact that this young Black man was his neighbor's SON--so "suspicious" and threatening that he called 911 to report the activity and jumped into his SUV to follow Trey. The 911 dispatcher told Zimmerman to stand down and let the police handle the situation from there. Zimmerman had other ideas, though. He confronted Trey, who supposedly gave Zimmerman a bloody nose during their altercation, and fatally shot him in the chest using the black Kie Tek 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol he was carrying. The medical examiner found only Skittles, Arizona Iced Tea, and $22 in Trey's pockets, but Zimmerman is claiming self-defense, and the authorities seem to believe him, because more than two weeks have passed, and no. charges. have. been. filed. against. Zimmerman.
I'm going to say that again. This White civilian--a Neighborhood Watch captain--thought a young Black kid "looked suspicious" as he walked down the street, so he shot him dead in the middle of the street on a Sunday evening and is getting away with it.
[Excuse me while I control my tears and rage, as I'm at work right now.]
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
Show me one person who says this was not a modern-day lynching and I'll show you a goddamned liar. A community watchman has no. fucking. authority. to. murder. a. teenage. boy. But the police aren't filing charges against this man--who directly defied their orders and KILLED A MINOR. Show me one person who says race doesn't matter anymore, and I'll show you someone who is deaf, dumb, and blind. Trey was a KID. He was walking down the street with Skittles and iced tea. And just being in that neighborhood--where his father LIVES--was an offense worthy of taking his life. My father used to live in a gated community in Fort Lauderdale. If I were a boy--because, don't forget, racism and sexism can never be fully separated, and Black men supposedly present more of a "threat" to White society with their very existence than do Black women--could I have been Trey Martin? The story Trayvon Martin's mother is telling now is the same story told by Emmett Till's mother, by the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and husbands and wives of the nearly 3,500 Black Americans who were lynched in the US between 1882 and 1968, and by the families of contemporary LGBT persons who have been killed by mob violence for their existence as non-heterosexual beings.Lynch (v.): The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence.
This is vigilante violence. This is MURDER and no one is doing anything. This is Jim Crow. This is sexualized racism and racialized sexism. The lack of response from the police and the mass media? That's institutionalization. This is literally not being safe in one's own body. This is oppression. This is hatred. This is why I do not fault my friend OO for telling me he needed a break from all the White people. Tell me race doesn't matter, or that people don't need to be afraid. I DARE you.
*drops mic, walks away*
[Meanwhile, on a smaller scale, Tumblr is threatening to take down Dumb Things White People Say for being "abusive" and "harassing," while the vast majority of the blogs spewing White supremacist bullshit that DTWPS posts screenshots of have been defended by the Tumblr administrators as free speech. And click here to see what some White person evidently thinks I'm learning in my African-American studies classes (I don't want this picture staring back at me for a week on my page). I'm done.]
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
YOU TELL THEM, SIR.
"Have some respect for an old West Indian Negro and stop accusing me of being a rioter."
Monday, August 8, 2011
My head is in my hands right now.
I'll be straightforward with you all; I don't usually watch the news. I've tried to get better about reading about what's going on in the world via the blogs I follow, though, and that is what has led me to hear this story so quickly. I knew I didn't want to click the link to watch the video. I knew even more strongly, however, that I needed to see this. That it wouldn't be real if I didn't watch it.
I'm sitting in front of this brand new shiny Mac in one of the many computer clusters in the student center at Princeton University typing this, taking pauses to lift my fingers from the keyboard to wipe the tears from my face. This is supposed to be the kind of stuff I hear my elders talk about, the kind of stuff I see in movies about the past and read about in scholarly works and shake my head at and say, "Look how far we've come." This is not supposed to have happened a month and a half ago. When did America get so sick again? Maybe we never got better. Maybe stories like this never stopped happening and we just stopped hearing about them.
Say the word "post-racial", I dare you. Lookme this man's family in the eye and say it doesn't matter.
My friend JJ and I were talking the other day about how she wants to live in Australia, and the first thing I asked her was, "Don't they not like Black people there?" Her response was, "Maya, they don't like Black people here." I gave her one of my ain't-that-the-truth chuckles. Last night, I was telling K how [sometimes it feels weird that] "the only flag I can rep is the US flag." This is my country? This is my home? The land of the free? Home of the brave? Where we hold the idea that all men are created equal to be self-evident? Where LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS are GUARANTEED?
Because that seems a little at odds with the America I see. I see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and the middle class disappearing altogether. I see the spoils going only to the spoiled. I see people who have never had to work a day in their lives demeaning, devaluing, and dehumanizing people who have never known a day of rest. I see police brutality running rampant. I see just as much segregation as my great-grandmother saw. I do not see justice. I do not see equality. I do not see anyone in any sort of power giving a damn about the people being systematically victimized. I don't see our rights being protected, even those deemed basic and inalienable hundreds of years ago.
I don't see how to get up out of this seat and continue to live my life like nothing's wrong.
I'm sitting in front of this brand new shiny Mac in one of the many computer clusters in the student center at Princeton University typing this, taking pauses to lift my fingers from the keyboard to wipe the tears from my face. This is supposed to be the kind of stuff I hear my elders talk about, the kind of stuff I see in movies about the past and read about in scholarly works and shake my head at and say, "Look how far we've come." This is not supposed to have happened a month and a half ago. When did America get so sick again? Maybe we never got better. Maybe stories like this never stopped happening and we just stopped hearing about them.
Say the word "post-racial", I dare you. Look
My friend JJ and I were talking the other day about how she wants to live in Australia, and the first thing I asked her was, "Don't they not like Black people there?" Her response was, "Maya, they don't like Black people here." I gave her one of my ain't-that-the-truth chuckles. Last night, I was telling K how [sometimes it feels weird that] "the only flag I can rep is the US flag." This is my country? This is my home? The land of the free? Home of the brave? Where we hold the idea that all men are created equal to be self-evident? Where LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS are GUARANTEED?
Because that seems a little at odds with the America I see. I see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and the middle class disappearing altogether. I see the spoils going only to the spoiled. I see people who have never had to work a day in their lives demeaning, devaluing, and dehumanizing people who have never known a day of rest. I see police brutality running rampant. I see just as much segregation as my great-grandmother saw. I do not see justice. I do not see equality. I do not see anyone in any sort of power giving a damn about the people being systematically victimized. I don't see our rights being protected, even those deemed basic and inalienable hundreds of years ago.
I don't see how to get up out of this seat and continue to live my life like nothing's wrong.
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