From the article: "While I cannot speak for my community I am certain that I am not alone in the sense that what many of us were hoping for with this case was a degree of vindication, a recognition by the courts of a Western nation that the racism we face is a real, day-to-day reality. I want racism to end but almost as much I want to stop being told by whites that it has. I want every white person I ever complain to about the years of piling slights, the extra hours at airport security, the half-seen glances from across the bus from eyes that fearfully refuse to meet mine, to respond with compassion and credulity and not to even think about explaining them away or ‘informing’ me that racism died with Rosa Park or MLK or whatever and they would know. I want white people to stop questioning my experience of racism, to stop defending every offender as ‘just doing his job’ or ‘just doing whatever.’ I want the excuses and the explanations to stop. I know where they come from. I know you feel accussed. I know you feel that you are not racist (after all, you have that black friend and your maternal grandmother is Chinese). I know you think I’m being too sensitive or too quick to judge (after all, he didn’t call me a nigger and you didn’t notice any racism and you would know). I know that you feel like affirmative action gives me a leg up because you work just as hard and where’s your quota? I know it’s easier to pretend that racism is a thing of the past because you can get by just fine doing that so why can’t I? But here’s the thing: it’s not about you. You are not the one who is slurred, you’re not the one who is refused service, and you’re certainly not the one who is shot in the street. It’s about us. I want you to acknowlegde that fact. To recognise that I experience racism... Karen Grigsby Bates observed today that this case has confirmed for blacks and members of many other communities of colour, that we still need to wear protective clothing. We must still, in her words, appear church-ready whenever we walk out the door. I have long described to white friends the process of dressing (or otherwise self-presenting) to ‘white’ myself. The way I dress in an academic setting, the way I speak and write, the extra-curricular activities I put on my resume as a teenager, all carefully considered to avoid any shred of ‘blackness.’ Why? Because blacks with the gall to be black, to act and speak as you have deemed ‘black,’ are rarely deemed worthy of your respect. In this world you have created for me my blackness is a handicap I must not acknowledge, a loadstone around my neck that I dare not draw attention to because then I will be the ‘activist;’ the ‘angry black guy’ who doesn’t know that MLK fixed the system, reshuffled the deck so now that everyone gets the same hand but who still needs to be Snoop Dog; or worse yet I will simply be criminal and suspect, a potential gangbanger who might be carrying so we better stop him just in case. So I must perform if I am to get ahead or even to get by. And perform I will, because I want nice clothes and good jobs and to walk down the street unhindered by the authorities. I will do so to please you and you will think it right... Race was at the core of this case and race it why it became a symbol of such great weight and meaning. To us Trayvon Martin was not just murdered, he was martyred. In death he bore witness to the racism and oppression that blacks and other people of colour experience every day. Why was Trayvon Martin threatening to George Zimmerman? For the same reason that I am threatening to the mothers who claw their children back when I smile and wave back to them on the bus, the men who watch me like hawks when I pet their dogs on the street, and the staff who follow me in their stores. Everywhere I go I am a threat, an outsider, an other. I am a threat because you see me, or at least some of me, yet somehow you do not see this. In Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s trial the world, for a moment, saw. For a few short seconds all eyes turned upon a racially motivated crime, upon a black boy killed for blackness itself. But now the world has turned away because the court has comfortably ruled that blackness really is threatening and you really are justified in keeping watch for it in your communities and resisting it with deadly force. We were wrong, it seems. You will not see."
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 17:03:22 +0000
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