It was both appalling and heartbreaking when an 84-year-old white man shot a 16-year-old black kid, not once, but twice, claiming that he became fearful when the kid mistakenly rang his doorbell several nights ago. As a black mother, I’m the one who has reason to be fearful for my college-educated, professional, and law-abiding 38-year-old son who has a target on his back because of his skin color. My daughter summed up that fear when she confessed on social media that she felt relieved that her mixed-race son could easily pass for white. As a mother and grandmother, I am keenly aware that it is my generation and the children we raised who continue to fail our children and our country. We haven’t overcome our racism. Racism is bigotry armed with power. Bigotry is hatred toward members of a particular identity group. The difference is the power to affect the lives and livelihoods of the hated individuals or groups. Racism has that power. White supremacists have always used lawmaking and guns as the power that undergirds their bigotry.
I live with racism and the effects of racism every day. It is the generational trauma and the trauma of today that saddens, angers, and ultimately ignites my passion to fight. It is accurate to say that dealing with the racism in our society affects my decisions and my daily behavior. Sometimes I smile to ease the discomfort of insecure white people in power. I can easily sense their discomfort. Sometimes I’m overly nice to receive the service I deserve as a human being from white service providers such as medical staff, policemen, or restaurant servers. And sometimes, like last week, I simply give my regards to the white woman following me around the Hallmark store in the Thousand Oaks Mall and then leave without purchasing a damned thing. I’ll take my purchasing power elsewhere. Those of us who follow the rules to climb the social-economic ladder by obtaining an education, working hard, and obeying the laws, are treated in accordance with a false narrative that our black skin makes us lessor Americans, inferior employees, and criminals who can sing, dance, and play sports. To some we are either entertainment or a threat.
Like with any other people who share a skin color, there are a few criminals among us. And frankly, I wish they would stop doing stupid ass stuff! In truth, individuals of all skin colors do stupid ass stuff! The difference with us is that the media highlights loudly and on repeat the misdeeds of black people that undermines our worth. Feeding into the problem is a historical law enforcement system designed to over-police black people whether they reside in black, white or mixed neighborhoods. It’s a vicious cycle of attack that we refuse to acknowledge and therefore can’t seem to break out of. The American psyche is so polluted with the false notion that black people are inherently dangerous criminals that the justice system treats us more harshly from start to finish and the media reinforces the stereotype. It follows that police handcuff five-year-old black children, man-handle black women, and shoot unarmed black men. How can we be surprised then, when an 84-year-old consumer of Fox News shoots to kill a young black male for ringing his doorbell?
We happen to live in a white area. I’ve mentioned before how my brother complained of being stopped by police when he came to visit me. I’ve also mentioned the racial profiling my students of color endured at the University. But I think it’s important to illustrate how over policing works for black people on a personal level.
One morning I was on my way to work at 6am. I spotted a police car a block from my house and confidently drove past him, checking my speed as a reflex to ensure I wasn’t speeding. As a rule, I don’t make a habit of speeding, but police cars make me nervous, so I always double check. Next thing I knew, the police car was behind me with flashing lights, and I promptly pulled over. The officer came up to the car and addressed me by name (which was strange). He asked if I knew what the speed limit was. I quoted it to him (35 miles/hour) and he informed me that it had been changed the prior week. He then asked me for my license and registration. I was shocked and still recall my exact response: “You’re not giving me a ticket, are you? Shouldn’t this be a warning? After all, there is no speed limit sign anywhere in sight and it was just changed. And besides that, you can’t say I’m a danger to anyone since there is literally no one on the street besides you and me.” And that is how I got my first of two speeding tickets. The second was just as egregious.
The magnitude of the unfairness was highlighted when I told my white male boss what had happened, and he told me that he too had been stopped over the weekend for driving 85 miles/hour on his way to the golf course, but he only received a warning to slow down. This is what over-policing looks like. Black people are more often stopped, cited, prosecuted and then sentenced more harshly for the same crimes as whites. We all need to ask ourselves what would have happened if Kyle Rittenhouse (the white teenager with a gun) had walked down those same streets during a Black Lives Matter protest if he was black? I wager he would be dead instead of the protester he killed.
At times, I thought that we as black people desperately needed to hire a really good public relations firm to clean up our image. But then we had Oprah and the Obamas and a host of really great black role models in the spotlight, and I thought maybe things would change. However, their success and popularity only challenged white supremacy and fueled white insecurity. It allowed deeply racists white folks to say racism ended because the nation gave black folks an opportunity. They could say with a straight face that the problem with black people is that they are generally too lazy, too uneducated, too promiscuous, and too violent as a culture to progress and to be held in high regard. White people in power point to Oprah and the Obamas as exceptions to the rule and continue to discriminate, disparage, and disregard our dignity as human beings, pointing to black on black crime as an example of our normal state. There is a segment of white society that has never accepted the equality of black people as Americans deserving of equal opportunity and respect and they are willing to fight to keep white superiority and rule.
It’s become clear that the racism problem is again at the forefront. The vocal denial of the problem by lawmakers and the actual attempts to rollback diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts in schools, particularly in red states is an extension of white nationalism that didn’t end with the Civil War. I think it is up to us as progressive Americans to acknowledge the problems, share our stories, boldly teach the history, and make sure that banned books land squarely in the hands school children everywhere.