Woke up to the news that the Baltimore Protests took a bad turn yesterday and that there was looting and violence and several people were arrested. The death of Freddie Gray in police custody has understandably invoked very heated responses and outrage but letting it get out of control does nothing to speed along the investigation, does nothing to speed up the process of obtaining indictments or getting to the exact details of what happened to him while in police custody.

DISTURBING THE PEACE

Ok this after days of peaceful protests and before the man is put in the ground. The family of course has called for calm – even though they are not personally responsible for those who wish to go out and engage in destructive behavior.  Most people no, Most human beings are at this point upset at the spate of interactions between law enforcement and African Americans that have been more often than not lately resulting in the death of the individual. In case you have been out of the country for the last few weeks, Walter Scott, Eric Harris, Natasha McKenna and let’s not omit the dismissing of charges in the Rekia Boyd Case either. All upsetting, all as of this moment unresolved. Frustration at a system that seems to be more broken than not abounds and you would be hard pressed to find anyone familiar with any of these cases who is not A. upset, B. demanding answers, C. afraid of interactions with law enforcement at this point.

ROWDY PROTESTS ARE NOT JUSTIFIED NOT EVEN IN BALTIMORE

All that being said, neither the level of anger and frustration nor the heinousness of the crime allow for individuals to go out into neighborhoods and engage in destructive behavior that threatens the lives and or livelihoods of the residents and any visitors to those neighborhoods. There is no pass given for people who are upset to go and destroy. That is not how things work and its not supposed to. Why should people’s safety be jeopardized by potential violent mobs of angry people? Which protests would be the ones where the police department admitted fault and sent off  their officers to go to jail?

Can anyone tell me which protest was it that caused new laws to be put on the books directly related to police protocols in handling suspects in custody? Did I miss the protest that caused a grand jury to be convened that brought charges against an officer accused of police brutality? Didn’t think so.

These neighborhoods where these protests are focusing are places where people live and go to work daily.  While there may be one or two members of law enforcement that might live in those neighborhoods,  most of the residents and visitors  have had nothing at all to do with the reasons for the protests in the first place. When they can’t get to work and possibly lose their jobs because the streets are tied up with protesters how is that helping?

There is no entitlement to destroy because one feels disenfranchised. The death of someone in the community while in custody of law enforcement SHOULD be investigated, and if charges are warranted – filed and a trial held to determine guilt. That is the system of government in this country. This is how incidents of criminal behavior are adjudicated in this country. Not evne saying that the system is perfect BUT THERE IS A SYSTEM.

LEARN TO WORK THE SYSTEM AND MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU

Many seem to be oblivious to the fact that there is a process to change and enact laws that has less to do with protesting and more to do with VOTING for the people who HIRE the police and who make the laws that the police have to go by. Casting a vote in a presidential election because you voting for a brother does NOTHING for your community per say as the president is the president of the entire country not YOUR neighborhood or YOUR ethnic group. Saying voting does not matter is exactly why billions of dollars are being spent to make sure entire ethnic groups are unable to cast votes cause it doesn’t really matter.

Meanwhile neighborhoods are damaged, businesses are placed in jeopardy and people unfairly caught in the middle that are just trying to live their lives have to wonder what’s to become of their neighborhood.

Someone with at least a modicum of common sense needs to talk PUBLICLY about conflict resolution, and about legislative process which no is not going to happen over night but can happen if the members of the communities in question are ENGAGED IN THAT PROCESS.   NO there is no easy solution – there usually isn’t one and there shouldn’t be because knee-jerk responses to societal issues never yield effective solutions. The destruction of a neighborhood or shutting it down – will do absolutely what to expedite the case of Freddy Gray – nothing. It shouldn’t be that angry mobs should dictate policy or mete out justice not in Baltimore-not anywhere. Mob rule leads to Anarchy and those calling for an end to the current system would do well to remember and perhaps reacquaint themselves with the word.

You Only Live Once….literally…

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I am fatigued.

Ron Heifeitz, the leadership guru, simplifies the gist of my fatigue when he illuminates what it means to have technical and adaptive challenges.  For example, if the heat in your office isn’t working, you approach simply as a technical challenge: you call someone and they fix it.  It becomes an adaptive challenge when you’re told that no one can fix the heat and you therefore find innovative ways to keep warm: wear layers, buy a space heater, install weather stripping around the door etc.  The fatigue comes when you call for an HVAC technician who tells you the heat is working and the thermometer in the office during winter is a chilly 55º with no warmth in sight because you’ve spent energy vacillating between an adaptive challenge and a technical challenge.

Black folk in this country exist in a perpetual state of this fatigue.  Many of us find ourselves always tired.  It is existentially draining.  This fatigue manifests itself in fits of anger and even rage.  It can carry itself out on a national stage like the riotous behaviour following the no-bill issue of Darren Wilson, or in the personal relationships (or lack thereof) of individuals with boots on the ground.  Sleepless nights, weight gain, weight loss, general mood disorder, hair loss, alcoholism, drug use can all be a direct cause of being perpetually angry, fatigued and enraged.  It’s a wholly unhealthy state of being.

I felt that the court of black public opinion summarily took the likes of Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to task when he took the public opportunity to pillory those who hung their social justice Super(wo)man capes on the hook of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” in the early days of protest following the death of Mike Brown.  Capehart’s column formed the triad of Common’s apologetic approach to racism that black folk should just be more loving, and the awful image of black elected and civic leaders standing around Levi Petit of the Oklahoma University fraternity of ill-gotten fame, and willingly accepting his apology.  Capehart’s article functioned as a liberal blackface for impassioned whites who either lived in a white bubble of liberalism that operates from defensiveness or self-exoneration or for the white conservative ilk who simply think the only racists in the world are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Ronald Kuykendall in a recent article aptly entitled “The Logic of Whiteness” says that the nature of whiteness is antidialogical.  He asserts that “antidialogue is a means of dominance which disposses the other of their testimony and their expressiveness.  It is an indispensable tool in the preservation of dominance and oppression, and consequently the preservation of whiteness.”  Capehart’s column performs whiteness by devaluing the testimony of protesters behind “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and measuring the standard of truth against a DOJ report.  The death of Walter Scott changes all of this.

For generations whenever a case of police brutality manifested itself, where the existence of racism and racial bias had an immediate and lethal component, black folk were gaslighted into believing that their perception wasn’t real, that in fact there was a boogeyman who was making us believe this.  Performed whiteness shuffled responsibility from themselves as a group and as individuals and it played out in complex forms of victim blaming and pathologizing anything from poverty to drug-use to welfare abuse.  Ever since the Moynihan report this tactic has been a staple in addressing the problem of racism.  However, approaching the conversation from this angle, as Kuykendall says, is antidialogical.  This boogeyman often, not always, had a white face that had a near perfect clearance rate as far as the police officer either not facing charges, or ultimately facing acquittal.  The death of Walter Scott, so far, is proof that this boogeyman exists and that the boogeyman is a murderer with a white face.

As the use of body cameras is still debated, and even in what many see as an open and shut case with the death of Eric Garner, it is clear and present that a video tape doesn’t mean anything.  Just ask Rodney King.  However, with an immediate charge of murder against Michael Slager, bypassing the grandstanding and prosecutorial brinksmanship surrounding Darren Wilson, for me, it vindicates the position of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”  With the Department of Justice (DOJ) finding no fault against Darren Wilson, yet finding reasons to lay into the Ferguson Police Department, for many, myself included, the two findings just didn’t line up.  How could the finding of a police department so corrupt with racial bias, ergo racism, somehow find Darren Wilson as the shining exemplar free and clear from the muck the rest of his comrades were now so deeply mired?  Capehart’s column was this finger-wagging tale toward the black community that took his plea almost to the edge stopping short of requiring those black protesters to apologize to white America.  The DOJ’s finding gave legitimate legal support to the cries of white Americans that the boogeyman of bad policemen really didn’t exist.   Capehart is entitled to his opinion, that’s his right, but I hope he and his supporters can see the ways in which that point of view rests on a power systems that favors those already in the position of power.  The power of facts and of what is perceived as a singular truth literally rests in the hands of the ones who have both a gun and who can legally put you to death.

The standard of truth, unfortunately, is determined by who has the power.  “Never the twain shall meet” is a refrain often echoed by those who are torchbearers of the marginalized truth in the face of tyrannical power.  Part of the narrative surrounding the Bill Cosby rape allegations and why it has proven to be such a divisive issue is rooted in the fact that the standard of truth does not rest with the word of the women.  The knee-jerk reaction is that the word of the women can only be substantiated by some form of perceived truth.  The same is the case in many police brutality cases, or cases where the police officer actually kills the alleged perpetrator.  Unfortunately, it becomes a one-sided story because the other story is now locked behind the eternal and immutable veil of deadness.  Dead people tell no tales.

Power brokers dictate the narrative of truth over those whom they hold power.  But, these power brokers are a boogeyman of sorts.  It’s never just one person.  Take the Ferguson Police Department for instance.  While the police chief may have resigned, doing so doesn’t automatically mitigate the situation to being fair and just.  The boogeyman of whiteness is everyone and no one all at the same time, it can present itself as a technical problem–forcing a police chief to resign who oversaw a department rife with racism, but also an adaptive problem–addressing diversity hiring on the force, racial bias, police stops, arrest rates for blacks versus that of whites.  This boogeyman of whiteness is a non-specific but very real embodiment of fear.  The fear exists in the intangible systemic realm that a black man would not receive a fair trial in the criminal justice system to a black parent’s fear about their child’s classroom behavior being seen in a criminal light.  The acquittal of George Zimmerman and the failure to return a bill of indictment by a St. Louis grand jury all embody this fear and send a signal that the boogeyman is real.  Students in Meridian, Mississippi that were sent to the juvenile detention center over tardies, and failure to notify a teacher to go to the bathroom are all real-life incidents that tell everyone in black America that the boogeyman is real.

Those are current realities for many whose phenotype tells the world that they are black.  The statistics along the gender lines for the ways in which black women or black men, boys or girls suffer any given horror is a burden that no demographic singularity should have to face.  The reason why “the Man” always existed in American Negro folklore because it was always understood that not all white people, as individuals, are bad, but that the evilness of racism can permeate through any and everything all at once.  When black folk would get a so-called “good job” they were working for “the Man” was a existential gut check that freedom was relative and that they understood the ways in which they were a small, albeit real, part of the larger system that was not always kind to them.  While “the Man” exists beyond racial boundaries, within the Black experience, we’ve always been clear that the faceless boogeyman that terrorized our existence was always white, and always male.

The cruel paradox that the boogeyman presents is that is a tool that parents (power holders) use to get their children to behave a certain way.  This basic fear tactic that exists in many forms across global cultures presents the standard of behavior that blacks are expected to perform based on whiteness, to not live up to these standards will invoke the wrath of the boogeyman.  This dynamic produced the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 restricting the movement of runaway slaves and threatening the lives of free persons of color, the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.  The extralegal occurrence of lynching was the way in which the boogeyman was unleashed on people who failed to “act” a certain way and perform forwhiteness in a way that was acceptable.  In the 20th century, we saw this played out through restrictive housing covenants and for blacks to break those so-called rules could result in the boogeyman enacting property vandalism and other terrorist-like attempts to force the family out of the neighborhood.

The boogeyman exists for two reasons: fear and the unwavering fact that no one believes it exists.  There is a legitimate fear of police officers within the black community.  Many black men know the knot of dread that forms in their stomach when they see blue lights in their rearview mirror, or that ever so slightly leery look one may give a police officer passing by the street simply because you know that the power rests in their hands and they may decide to stop and frisk you simply because.  The boogeyman, however, is able to exist mostly because no one ever believe that it exists, much like a parent telling their child that the boogeyman isn’t real.  For the lives of black folks in this country, American life has been one continual horror story in which no one in power ever believes what we are saying.

The parent-child dynamic is important to understand in this case.  In the folklore about the boogeyman, it is completely dependent on the child insisting and searching fervently for proof to show their parent that the boogeyman is real and parents either simply not believing their children or parents willfully ignoring the signs.  There’s also the power play that is extremely crucial to understanding why this boogeyman is the transmogrified personification of evil–white people have the power (some may say privilege) to ignore the signs.  While no, white people aren’t some parental force over the child-like black people of this country, they do occupy the positions of power to enforce rules and mete out their truths.  For them, their truth does not include the existence of the boogeyman.

The truth of white America is overwhelmingly interpreted through that lens of self-exoneration and defensiveness that allows individual whites to say “I’m part of the problem, but I’m also not part of the problem.”  It also allows whites to peer through rose-colored glasses and often dismiss black claims of racist sentiments and institutional racism as being hypersensitive.  Because for them, the boogeyman simply does not exist, so why entertain any discussion in which that is real.  To admit that complexities of racism permeate not just institutions but daily life, even police departments, would almost naturally connect the need for reparations.  For many whites, that is seen as a slippery slope no one wants to explore.

To admit something exists in the intangible is something that most people don’t do well–except when it comes to faith and spirituality.  That is to say, white Americans have not been required to do much work when it comes to deconstructing their framework of reality; they have not been required to adopt multiple consciousnesses for the sake of weaving in and out of the intricacies and levels of societies that exist here in America.  Black folk have been required to have that “double consciousness” because our actual lives depended on it.  That vacillation has been trying to thread the needle between appealing to white sensibilities and trying to preserve our own life.  The results have not always ended well.  To risk upsetting white sensibilities, or white fragilities, can in fact be perilous in and of itself.  Walking down the street dressed with baggy jeans and hands in your pocket seems to be enough to be stopped by cops, or enough to warrant neighbors to call the police, or even for a rabid citizen to follow a young unarmed teenager, shoot and kill him and be acquitted.

As the family of Walter Scott prepared for a funeral, the story of Eric Harris emerged in the last week, yet another name to the seemingly endless list of unarmed black men killed by over-zealous white cops, evidence emerged that the boogeyman exists.  As the law enforcement officer shot Harris in the back, and Harris mustered the words that he couldn’t catch his breath, the ancient devilment of a racist past rose up in Robert Bates as he said “Fuck your breath” displaying the cold-blooded, heartless and evil sentiments the comprise the boogeyman.

[Originally posted at The Uppity Negro Network]

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It is a long held belief that a person who is defined as good is one who has a “good” job, has a family (is married), goes to church regularly, and gives back to his community via actual work or donations to charity.

To dial down deeper, a person who is a “professional” ie a lawyer, doctor, CEO, or anything on that level is considered by society at large and more relevant our justice system to be above reproach. This plays out in our courts every day. A person accused of a crime who falls into one of those categories is not treated the same way as a person who is unemployed, on public assistance, or even works at what society deems a menial job. Bail may be denied, probation may be withheld simply because an individual is not deemed a “productive member of society” via a construct that on its face does not take into consideration whether it is a viable definition for everyone to ascribe to or be measured by. In worse case scenarios, entire municipalities may feel justified in generating revenue by aggressively targeting their own residents by targeting them by law enforcement with punitive and discriminatory application of existing laws that result in fines that can never be fully paid off and or jail time that in and of itself impairs the ability of the individual to ascend into that “productive member of society” status.The belief that somehow a person who has not followed a certain approved “path” in their life makes them somehow worth less than others who have managed to travel a different path for whatever reason is stock in trade and allows for the branding of an underclass of people much to the detriment of society as a whole. Introducing racism into this construct exacerbates the situation and brings us to the murder of Walter Scott and others like him. The stop and frisk, and racial profiling that is endemic in many municipalities in this country speak to the worst case scenario where an entire RACE of people are viewed as “less than” because of a long held social construct that by its very nature is not applicable across the board and does not allow for equal application of the law.

The belief that somehow a person who has not followed a certain approved “path” in their life makes them somehow worth less than others who have managed to travel a different path for whatever reason is stock in trade and allows for the branding of an underclass of people much to the detriment of society as a whole. Introducing racism into this construct exacerbates the situation and brings us to the murder of Walter Scott and others like him. The stop and frisk, and racial profiling that is endemic in many municipalities in this country speak to the worst case scenario where an entire RACE of people are viewed as “less than” because of a long held social construct that by its very nature is not applicable across the board and does not allow for equal application of the law.

The belief that a person who has made mistakes or bad choices in their lives at some point in time – allows for them to be treated as anything other than a human being is what drives the actions of people like Michael Slager. Feeling justified in actions that result all too often with the death of an individual because they were “no good” to begin with.  This drives the need to dredge up the background of a victim to somehow “justify” actions that would never even be condoned in any other situation. There is a long held belief and perception that good people don’t make mistakes that their lives are a reflection of that. The things that they are able to acquire, a home, new car, material things somehow make them BETTER, whereas those who have not been able to obtain outward signs of achievement, who have not risen to the level of a professional, who may be unemployed, or even who may have at one time in their lives been in carcerated, are automatically less than human, less deserving of compassion or understanding. In the case of Walter Scott and too many to name lately, were not deserving of living another day. These beliefs and the individuals that are allowed to act on them with impunity and the support of society at large will, if left unchecked be the undoing of this country and its so-called freedoms;

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator, certain unalienable rights, That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness –

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the GOVERNED, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,

It is the right of the People to Alter or Abolish it and to institute New Government.”

The Charters of Freedom – The Declaration of Independence

Watch, and learn……

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In a neighborhood in North Charleston, Officer Michael Slager shot five out of eight rounds into Walter Scott, a black male who was running away at the time. He got shot in the back five times. He was apparently unarmed when he died at the scene.

Slager, like almost all cops in similar incidents, said that he feared for this life. If there’s one thing most cops, especially white cops fear and hate the most is a black man, including those of the unarmed variety. Slager said that Scott tried to reach for his stun gun during a scuffle at a traffic stop. But a video has surfaced showing the murder from start to finish questioning the police report.

The New York Times reports:

“The shooting unfolded after Officer Slager stopped the driver of a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight, according to police reports. Mr. Scott ran away, and Officer Slager chased him into a grassy lot that abuts a muffler shop. He fired his Taser, an electronic stun gun, but it did not stop Mr. Scott, according to police reports.

Moments after the struggle, Officer Slager reported on his radio: “Shots fired and the subject is down. He took my Taser,” according to police reports.

But the video, which was taken by a bystander and provided to The New York Times by the Scott family’s lawyer, presents a different account. The video begins in the vacant lot, apparently moments after Officer Slager fired his Taser. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from Mr. Scott’s body as the two men tussle and Mr. Scott turns to run.”

Slager has been fired and charged for the murder of Scott.

Some say that the video is what led to the firing and charging of Michael Slager. They say that if the video didn’t exist, Slager would’ve gotten off lightly with probably a suspension or some other light sentence. Given the history of white cops killing black men and have gotten nothing more than a tap on the wrist, I’d say that this case will likely go in favor of Slager. It’s sad to assume it will happen, but remember where we live. We stay in America where the killing of a black person means nothing to society and even less to cops who hate and fear black folks.

Recently, I’ve been getting a heavy influx of people, some claiming to be black, that deny that racism is a significant problem in this nation. I can only guess that they would likely blame Walter Scott for his own death. If he had been more of a “respectable” man, he would’ve been alive today.

The main argument I seem to get are that black people are “too wild”. We seem to be entrenched in this killer criminality plague that is responsible for half the murders in this nation, or so the argument goes. Yet, no one has been able to come up with an explanation as to why that’s so, but one logical cause they won’t accept is white supremacy.

Some people can’t or won’t fathom that this is still a racist society. They don’t seem to comprehend that racism has taken on the form of a complex monster that is still out for colored blood. Why are so many black people getting killed by cops? Is it because black people are out of control and deserve what they get? Or is it due to the police’s psychological fear and disdain for black life that can not be explain in a few words?

As we witness, Walter Scott, another black man dying at the hands of a white cop, as we watch the gruesome video, some people will not accept this as probable proof that racism exists. They will boil this down to an isolated incident, even though it’s part of a long chain of “isolated incidents”, each strikingly so similar. When people continue to deny racism of this caliber, you can best believe that the slaughter of black folks by white cops will continue.

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