Deep Breath. This is a long one, and Im slightly embarrassed how scary it is to post this. Its not scary to tell the truth. Oh ok, thats bullshit. Its terrifying to tell the truth about most anything with any real emotional heft. I hear white friends saying that these riots are a horror, and that we cant react in outrage at the decision not to pursue a trial against Officer Wilson because we dont know what happened. I hear white friends saying that what police go through every day in this country is horrific, and that they should not be treated like criminals when every day they go out of their way to help people who are scared and suffering. I want to point out that the black people I listen to in media, read and am friends with who asked for peaceful protests- no violence- do not say the above statements. I want to point a finger back at myself, and let you know that years ago, I thought of myself as fairly well educated on racism in this country. I also thought that people, black and white, exaggerated the extent and effect of racism in our country, for different reasons, or that they found racism where there was none ( such a vilifying a white person for saying they when speaking about a group of black people ) and therefore that meant that this was another indication that it really wasnt that bad, and that many black people- like people of all color- were just tired of the struggle of life and wanted to blame someone. I am very ashamed that I had these thoughts and feelings. I only present them to you from the deepest place of humility I can find in myself, a place that would like to see some of my smart, good hearted white friends who think they have it down, who think that they have such a logical, if they would only… opinion on how these things should be handled, admit that maybe, they are missing something. I missed it. And only when years ago did I take the advice of one black woman who I became friends with, who just asked me to listen more, to listen to the stories of black people, and to read more, to educate myself on the history- not just the two checked those off of slavery and civil rights, but the longer, more daily story of black Americans- and to educate myself on the stats for black people now, did I begin to understand the enormous gap I had missed. If you are missing this gap of knowledge, I am in no way trying to presume I could ever hope to fill it on a FB post. But I will do what I always do, as a writer, and write. What I missed was that the same shitty things happen to black people in America that happen to white people, but that they happen more, more intensely, more pervasively and with less assistance in every possible there is to get assistance. Does this make my white childs pain less relevant if they are shot? No. But like ANY issue, the severity and endurance and frequency absolutely affect the impact. The mother I met in a college class who broke down crying telling me that her sons had been called n-word walking home from school here in Poway alerted me to the ignorance I was living in. I thought deeply after that about what it would do to a child to realize at a young and vulnerable age that many people in their own country thought they were worthless pieces of shit because of the color of their skin, or that they might need to be afraid of the police, the men and women who are supposed to protect them. Statistics show they DO need to be afraid. The information is readily abundant about how black people are treated by the police in comparison to white people doing the exact same things. Walking down the street, driving on the freeway, committing a misdemeanor or crime. So the police are not monsters. The police are monsters. Neither statement is true. What is true is that many individual policemen are amazing, caring people who help others, and many other police men are racist, anger filled ( we know the stats for domestic abuse with police officers are high, for example ) people who have a gun and fists and a sense of protection from the law. I buy coffee for our local policemen when I get the chance, and thank them for their service. I know many police are good people. I know they have one of the hardest jobs there is to have. That doesnt and especially should not make them impervious to being called on their own shit- the police are not held accountable by outside groups for their actions. As a Slate piece said the police can kill for almost any reason without any fear of criminal charges. That is a growing issue for all color of Americans, but amplified for black people, especially young black males. We know that if you are black man, STATISTICS prove that you have more chance of being attended to by police in every way possible- pulled over, searched, arrested, and that black men go to jail more and for longer than for the exact same crimes as their white brothers. Story after story has shown us the systemic racism which plagues our country law enforcement and legal system. I hear so many white people saying this is because black people DO more crime. This is a terrible, destructive ignorance that is at the heart of so much soft racism. In New York City, the stories coming out from police men who are going on the record now state a clear directive from the powers that be that came down to focus on black men, especially young black men, for stopping to frisk and search. If you see time and time again a black and white boy cross the street and the black boy is stopped 90% of the time, that is racism. That is NOT those black boys committing any more crime than the white boys who walked across the street with their pants pulled low and earbuds in, all the same. This is one of hundreds of stories about racism inside the American legal system I have read in the last five years that I have really been paying attention. It is very upsetting to read such intense opinions from white people about black people and crime when it is obvious they have done no research. The factor that my white friends miss when giving their calm, rational opinions on how black people should handle the incarceration and murder of other black people at the hands of the police, is that from everything I read and hear, to grow up as a black person, and most especially a man, in America means you grow up in fear. I have two sons, both of which Im sure did some shitty, semi- illegal things in their teenage years, because most kids do, such as drinking underage at someones house. But I never once worried they would get shot by a police officer. I have thought often and read often about what it is like to be black and to grow up randomly being verbally and perhaps physically assaulted and taunted for the color of your skin, to be treated noticeably different by white people in positions of power, to be harassed by the police, to hear the offhand remarks and racist jokes of others in public and private, and then, the final insult, to be told by a white person that your experience is made up, that its not really that bad, is it? To discount the emotional experience of a black person growing up in America constantly on alert and in a quiet or inflamed state of fear from the very institutions that are there to protect them is to deny their own experience as they tell it to us, and there is nothing more injurious to a relationship than telling someone that YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THEY DO WHAT THEY FEEL OR WHAT THEY GO THROUGH. In Ferguson, I disagree with my white friends who think we cant or shouldnt speak up because we werent there. The people who were there did speak up. The woman below speaks up. Listen to what she says. If we refrained from speaking up on any issue that we werent directly involved with, nothing would ever change. We have to speak up. We have to talk about this.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 07:29:20 +0000
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