So I recently sent a friend of mine this email after he asked me what I thought about this article:
http://jezebel.com/i-dont-know-what-...ium=socialflow
As I tend to do, I wrote more than what he thought I would, I'm sure. I figured since I took so much damn time to write it out, I might as well post it here for reactions as well.
Seems to me like the author had two goals. The first being that she wanted white people to read this and she knew how to title it to achieve that goal. The second is to get white people thinking about what it actually means to volunteer anger or sadness in support of others. Are they doing it for a pat on the back? Should there be more behind any such expression than just what is on the surface of that emotion?
My wife and I were talking about this today while we were watching the 30 for 30 on the U (the first one). They described the backdrop of the story—Miami in the 70s and 80s which suffered from racial riots sparked over the beatings and killings of black people by police who were either not indicted or acquitted. Watching the clips of black people crying over injustice it struck us that they are exactly the same as what we’ve been watching recently. Exactly. The same sadness, the same rage, the same injustice. It just repeats itself. Again and again and again.
I think the Salon piece should be taken for what it actually is—an expression of pain and frustration over the fear of police brutality and the injustice that inevitably follows. The problem with most white people is that they will take the article as some sort of criticism. And they’ll internalize it. “She doesn’t think I do enough by saying it’s an injustice. What else can I do?” But that’s not really the point. The point is to really get white people to think about their position relative to black people in this country. It’s not enough to recognize that you carry privilege based on your skin color. It’s not enough to acknowledge injustice. Is it? People will be angry about it on facebook and move on before the end of the year. “What’s next?” Black people will continue to suffer at the hands of police and police will continue to get away with it.
The problem is, for things to change, white people have to give something up. No one wants to. Everyone recognizes that. I sure as hell understand it. But if you built this country on the backs of slaves, then set them free, then passed some laws for civil rights, then instituted (and subsequently destroyed) remedial programs like affirmative action to repair past injustice while isolating blacks in ghettos so you don’t have to see them, while glorifying gangster stereotypes by having white-controlled record labels push a certain type of rap consumed by whites in the suburbs who can’t get enough, feeding off of that fear in movie depictions and local news bullshit, and exaggerating and flat-out lying about crack (and crack babies), while ignoring the effects meth has had on white communities, and crafting drug laws using that fear you’ve created to win political points with the voters you’ve scared while taking cash for the commoditization of incarceration of black men, you need to understand that the position you enjoy relative to the black people (even though you have had no personal participation in the deprivation of rights and opportunity) cannot be viewed in a vacuum. That’s what white people do (even good ones). White people have to give that view up.
They tend to think that it’s not fair when they get lumped in with bad white people. But here is the legacy of all the shit I just mentioned:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...hip-study.html Fucking 75% of white people in this country don’t even have one fucking black friend. 75%! This country has been systematically set up that way. White people simply do not know who black people are. Their knowledge of black people comes from Law & Order or 50 Cent. Their knowledge of cops comes from cops helping them whenever they need it. Their knowledge of why cops treat black people the way they do is a combination of all of that. Hell, cops treatment of black people comes from the same place.
So, in short, my thoughts on the article are: She seems annoyed by white people who want to be praised for being an outspoken ally without ever having to give anything up and the emotion that generates in the author. No one is going to say speaking out against injustice is bad or that the fact that there have been so many white participants demanding justice for black men killed for no reason isn’t a positive change from where we used to be. But with this article, as with all the others that have come out recently, it’s about more.
TM
