JESSE WILLIAMS’ BET SPEECH

“This award, this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country. The activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students, that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do.
 

All right? It’s kind of basic mathematics:, the more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize. Now this is also in particular for the black women, in particular, who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.

Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours.

Now — I’ve got more, y’all. Yesterday would’ve been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday, so I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better to live in 2012 than 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Darrien Hunt.

Now the thing is though, all of us in here getting money, that alone isn’t going to stop this. All right? Now dedicating our lives to get money just to give it right back for someone’s brand on our body, when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies.

There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done, there’s been no tax they haven’t levied against us, and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. “You’re free,” they keep telling us. But she would’ve been alive if she hadn’t acted so… “free.”

Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter. But, you know what though? The hereafter is a hustle. We want it now. And let’s get a couple of things straight, just a little side note: The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, all right, stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.

We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind, while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil, black gold. Ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is, though, the thing is that just because we’re magic, doesn’t mean we’re not real.”

Jesse Williams, receiving the BET Humanitarian Award, 2016

#WhitesAgainstTrump: Is Silence Consent?

 Answering and asking some questions.

 

I do not blame good, well-intentioned people who think of themselves as White for not wanting to be identified with, and/or responsible for those who take pride in the "supremacy" of those with white skin, like the KKK, Nazis, Donald Trump and those who support him.

However, if all Muslims are held responsible for terrorism in the name of Islam, all Mexicans are rapists and all Blacks are criminal suspects because some are, why shouldn't all Whites be considered xenophobic white supremacists? 

I know. It's uncomfortable. There's something really queasy about being assigned to a group based on something as superficial as your skin color.

 Wait a minute, doesn't that put Whites on the same level as Hispanics, Blacks and Muslims?

I'm sure that's okay with you. After all this is America and we are all equal, right? 

Besides, aren't we trying to get away from racial, religious and ethnic labeling?

Absolutely, we want to get away from that kind of labeling, but for now and for the past 238 years this is how we Americans have learned to identify and categorize people. 

To verify this, read the U.S. Constitution and its several amendments. In this document that lays out and defines who and what this country is/wants to be, Blacks are described as 3/5 of a person. The very last racial/ethnic group to be afforded the right to vote--AFTER white men with no property; AFTER black men, and AFTER women--were the Nations occupying this land before Europeans decided they should have it.

If you know your history, you know that labeling and categorizing people by religion and ethnicity/race is WHO WE ARE. A variety of groups--Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Jews--had periods of being outcasts before they were ushered into the privileges of being White. Some sped up their entry into whiteness by abandoning their heritage and Anglicizing their names. 

If all of us "obvious ethnics" are held to account for whatever someone does who looks/believes like us, don't you wonder why all Whites are not accountable for the continuing massacres by white American terrorists and the bile being spewed by Donald Trump? 

There are Whites who believe they should be accountable. Whites who don't want to be mistaken for white supremacists or assumed to agree with Trump. Their organizations Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the White Privilege Conference and the older American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) oppose racism and the injustices that come from labeling and blaming groups of people for the behavior of a few. Silence on this defining issue appears as consent.

Where do you stand?

THE BIG WHITE LIE*

This has never been a "white" country

All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.

Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me

 

I’ve been exposed to America’s racial paradigm for three-quarters of a century; what I write here is based on what I’ve lived and what I’ve learned from reading history in works other than official classroom texts. As the PBS documentary Race: The Power of an Illusion explains, “Race has no genetic basis.” Instead, it “is a powerful social idea that gives people different access to opportunities and resources.” However, scientific data means nothing in the presence of this powerful social imperative.

The murders of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown are high-profile examples of how racism permeates American society. These murders rekindle the fear that I, and most parents of black male children, live with daily. We know that at any moment some person (police officer, random gun-toter) could see your child’s black maleness as a threat that has to be eradicated. And numerous precedents have taught these would-be “guardians” they will not be punished for these murders. These cases remind us yet again that some things haven’t changed in the last 150 years. In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that blacks “have no rights which the white man is bound to respect . . . .”

It has been dismaying, although not surprising, to see racism’s ugly head spinning wildly after Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. Having our first black president seems to have unhinged a sizable number of Americans, most visibly those in the Tea/Republican Party, but thankfully they are not the majority. These people are outraged at having a black man in the White House and, in addition to insulting the president in every possible way they can think of, they are passing and pushing for laws to take us back in time, to their “glory” days. Apparently they’re longing for the time when people who were not white and male couldn’t vote, let alone run for president. To achieve that end they are erecting new barriers to the right to vote, especially for black and brown folks. This is one step back to the days they long for when only propertied white males had voting rights. 

For these disturbed Americans, President Obama’s election has concretized the warning that Patrick Buchanan has been issuing for years, most specifically in his book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. “Third world” is his euphemism for people who are not white. That title, and the mythology of a white America that so many want to return to, represent the Big White Lie. 

THE ONLY INVASION

The only “invasion” of America has been by whites—people who looked like Buchanan. This has never been a white country. There were no whites (i.e., Europeans) here when the first immigrants showed up uninvited, but were welcomed. Then these immigrant Europeans utilized their more efficient weaponry to invade and occupy the land, systematically displacing or killing the indigenous people. They succeeded in taking control, but the original inhabitants they dubbed “Indians” survive and continue to have a presence, however marginalized, in their ancestral homeland.

Europeans had been engaged in the capture and sale of Africans for more than a century when they “discovered” the New World. So it was a no-brainer in 1619 to bring Africans across the Atlantic to do the back-breaking work of developing "their" new country and making the most of the land’s resources. Europeans held the reins of power, but the country was not “white” because the original inhabitants were still present, and the number of Africans was rapidly increasing, especially in the South, where much of the slave labor was concentrated. In what was to become the United States, immigrants from Europe gradually set aside their disdain for each other—muting regional prejudices and national differences—to become “white”and thereby establish a cohesive group superiority over the “nonwhites” in their midst. The population of “colored” people expanded exponentially as white males took advantage of their power to rape the “inferior” women. The offspring of these legitimate rapes further diminished the percentage of whites. 

In 1848 the Treaty of GuadalupeHidalgo placed a significant portion of Mexico (including what are now the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Colorado and Texas) and Mexicans within the United States, increasing the number of “colored” citizens in America yet again. 

The suffusion continued with the importation of Chinese laborers to build the Transcontinental Railroad completed in 1869. Then the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico (there are more Puerto Ricans in this country than in Puerto Rico) the Philippines, and Guam after defeating Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American War. 

American imperialism brought along other “nonwhite territories” like Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Alaska and Hawaii, the latter two admitted as the 49th and 50th states in 1959. The “nonwhite” people living in these territories are all Americans, although they are not allowed to vote in national elections, or the U.S. Congress. (Washington, DC occupies the same dubious distinction, except they can now vote for the POTUS.) U. S. military incursions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East have spurred refugees and immigrants from these non-European areas to settle here and more are coming. The term “nonwhite” is itself the perfect indicator of the assumed supremacy of whiteness. 

Now that the national stew is nicely spiced and these people of color are exercising power, a number of whites are hysterically digging in their heels in a desire to “take their country back.” Fear of becoming a “minority” in “their” country is what built the fence on the Mexican border, toughened immigration restrictions, and increased deportations. 

Their rage for more prisons had long been fueled by a desire to re-enslave blacks—African- and Hispanic-Americans make up approximately 25 percent of the nation’s population, yet they constitute more than half of those incarcerated in the country’s prisons. Now, however, the hungry and rapacious privatized prison industry is gobbling up poor whites as well. (In 1998 an Atlantic article stated, “The United States now imprisons more people than any other country in the world—perhaps half a million more than Communist China.” And the numbers have increased since that article was written.)

What these frightened folk don’t realize is that their hysteria is much too late. Dragging their heels will only create deep ruts. It’s inevitable, people of color will be the majority, and soon. Not because of any “invasion” as Buchanan and others want us to believe. Rather, this demographic shift is a result of long-standing official U.S. policies and imperialist practices that created a racial paradigm in the United States dating back to the first European immigrants. 

Award-winning writer John Edgar Wideman described a racial paradigm as “a vision of humankind and society based on the premise that not all people are created equal and some are born with the right to exploit others.” And this is how it operates in this country that purports to be a democracy.

With the media’s constant barrage of statistics, African Americans are not allowed to forget that we are regarded as not measuring up to the white standard. That makes it easier for officials and others to see African Americans as disposable. For many years we were the defective ethnic group, but as their numbers increase, the alarmists are now focusing on Hispanic Americans. Since 2001, people from the Middle East, or those who look like they could be from that area, have been added to the list of suspects. 

Racism is integral to who Americans are, to what the U. S. has been since its inception and still is. Yet, only in recent months have some tentatively acknowledged its existence, while most are still in denial. What is never mentioned, or hardly even alluded to, is that despite their status as the standard to which everyone else is compared, some whites feel the full measure of their inadequacies until reminded that at least they are not black/Hispanic/foreign, at which time they can swell with pride. 

Many government officials, political leaders, media, pundits and others continue to invoke the Big White Lie because that lie helps them maintain control over those who have no power aside from what their skin color supposedly confers. 

*adapted from the essay of the same title in the collection, Not All Poor People Are Black and Other Things We Need to Think More About.

When Will It End?

Sometimes, I let down my guard and forget how deeply entrenched the distorted story of African Americans is in this country. As Chimamanda Adichie says in her TED talk, a single story about anything is dangerous.

And the election of our first black president hasn't altered that single story a bit for many Americans, even those who voted for President Obama. Twice. I got an unexpected reminder of that yesterday which disturbed me and my sleep last night.

A sweet, friendly, older white woman (I'll call her Ingrid), whom I run into periodically and we occasionally chat, stopped me yesterday. She had bought a copy of my essay collection, Not All Poor People, Are Black and read it! She wanted to talk about my book. Then this woman whom I don't know well, but do know that she's a fan of President Obama and is supportive of him and many of his policies, reminded me of that pervasive single story about blacks.

Ingrid is a pleasant, seemingly intelligent woman; I've never felt a whiff of condescension from her. She appears to be healthy and happy with her life. So when she wanted to talk about my book, I  anticipated an interesting discussion.

Ingrid wanted me to know how sad the book made her. This startled me a bit because I've received several comments about the book, but had never heard that one. However, the book includes a variety of essays and, of course, each person brings her/his own experiences to what they read.

Then she told me a bit about herself: she grew up without knowing or ever seeing a black person. She first laid eyes on one of us when she was 17. Ingrid further explained that she's lived in several cities in different parts of the country, and she named them for me. The ones I remember are Austin, TX; Madison, WI; Ann Arbor, MI and she now lives in Bloomington, IN. (I believe all the places she named were college towns.) And she said, indicating that suddenly things have gotten worse, not once in any of these places did she ever hear of any racial upheavals.

I sighed and responded, "Because you didn't hear of them doesn't mean they didn't happen." She nodded her head, but I doubt that she "heard" what I said. Ingrid also wanted to know why blacks are so angry and react "so violently" when something happens. (I thought I had spelled that out several times and in a variety of ways in my book.) The thought of trying to explain what was wrong with her question so thoroughly exhausted me that I simply reminded her that the violence usually begins with the police killing a black person. I also pointed out that after hundreds of years of being enslaved and oppressed, people reach a point of not being able to take any more without fighting back as best they can.

Then she asked, "But don't you think that the Africans who came here are better off...aren't you better off than you would be if you were still in Africa where things are so bad?"

Somehow, I remained calm. First I reminded her that we did not come here like her ancestors had. (I thought this was common knowledge, but decided not to let it go uncorrected.) I reminded her that we were captured and brought over in chains, except for those whose bones are now scattered at the bottom of the Atlantic. 

I also needed to refute her single story about Africa. I asked her, "Who knows what the continent of Africa would be like today if 60 million people and much of their natural resources had not been drained off to build and enrich Europe and America?"

"Sixty million? Really? I had no idea it was that many."

"Nobody knows the exact number, but the Slave Trade went on for about 500 years, and scholars have estimated that 12 million Africans were removed each year."

Ingrid would never wave a Confederate flag, or be less than polite to any person, no matter their color. She undoubtedly would adamantly deny that she's ever had a racist thought. Yet she thinks that I should be grateful my ancestors were captured and enslaved; otherwise I would still (horror of horrors) be in AFRICA!

I was restless as I tried to sleep last night because I realized how absolutely weary I am of trying to get American whites not to accept the story they are told repeatedly about Africa and African Americans. It feels like a Sisyphean punishment. Why would whites (and many blacks) believe me when throughout their lives everything they read, see on television and are taught keeps telling them the opposite of what I have to say? Besides, how could I possibly be "objective"? 

And yes, I recognize that not all whites subscribe to the single story, but more of them do than not. For examples, see David Brooks on Ta-Nehisi Coates' book, Between the World and Me. See an Iraq War veteran killed by jail guards in Texas. Also see people waving Confederate flags--a historic symbol of treason and a recent symbol of hatred for blacks--to greet the President of the United States.
 
I'm trying to cling to my optimism and keep my heart open, but when will it end? I am really tired of this.

A Call for White Responsibility from a White Man

Following is the most succinct and precise description of white privilege I've ever read, written by a dear friend, in fact our families are friends. It is must reading for all whites who don't understand all the attention and outrage over the murders of unarmed black men by the police.  Enjoy!

White Privilege Equals White Responsibility

by Jeremy Townsend

When I was 12, I was arrested for popping hood ornaments off of Mercedes and Cadillacs to hang on my fake gold chains. When I was 15, I was arrested for shoplifting a scrimshaw tobacco pipe from a shop at the mall. When I was 20, I was arrested for shoplifting a cordless phone from a department store. These are the times I got caught.

When I was 34, I applied for a job and stated with confidence that I’d never been convicted of any crime. I’m white, and even though I smoked weed, shoplifted, ran red-lights and littered, society saw more value in me than if I had been black. I’m not proud of it; I’m just lucky.

If I had been black, I would have never gotten a pre-trial diversion, a deferred adjudication or any type of leniency from the system. I would have had a record, and I would have had far less opportunity, and I would have never gotten that job that asked if I had been convicted of a crime, and my life would be wildly different today.

I’m white, and I’m terrified of cops. I know what it feels like to have my physical freedom arrested by a police officer. I know what it’s like to be bullied, harassed and put up against a wall by a cop, but I have no idea what it’s like to be black.

I get tense if I pass a cop on the sidewalk, I get flooded with adrenaline and anger when I get pulled over. I know they can do anything to me. In spite of whatever personal rights I might be guaranteed by law, I know they can exercise their authority on my freedom, they can and will intimidate me, and I will operate from a position of fear.

The difference is that while I fear and distrust cops, I live with the confidence that in the eyes of society, for no other reason than the color of my skin, my life is considered more valuable than if I were black.

Let’s imagine that cop is having a bad day, let’s imagine I don’t wanna be fucked with. The cop wants to put me in my place, and I don’t wanna be put in that place. Things escalate, and something happens to me like what has happened to Eric Garner or Mike Brown or Oscar Grant.

I’m white, and I know that in the unlikely event that I am a victim of police brutality, society in general and my “community” will demand that someone be held accountable, that changes be made and that it never happens again.

The painful and terrifying truth is that American society considers my white body and my white life as more valuable than if I were black.

There is a moment in the Eric Garner video when Officer Pantaleo starts to grab Eric Garner in a way that he would never feel entitled to grab me, and that is the moment that has to change in America. The moment the officer felt entitled to exercise force on Eric Garner’s body is unacceptable and pervasive throughout the Black American experience, and it has to change.

When the other officer is pressing Eric Garner’s face into the sidewalk, when the EMTs don’t try to help, when it takes 36 hours to get an official statement from Darren Wilson, when there are no batteries in the camera to document the crime scene, when no one is held responsible, when there is nothing that could be done, when all we have are condolences, when they are all just sad, unfortunate, tragic and isolated events, when politicians, civic leaders, police commissioners, and average white American citizens don’t demand that someone be held accountable, the truth that black lives don’t matter in America is proven and perpetuated.

Maybe we can’t get an indictment, but these incidents expose a far greater systemic racism that we have to address, and white people must demand that it be addressed.

White people in power who are responsible for these cops and these policies and these tragic accidents must GO TO JAIL. They must be reprimanded, they must be shamed, they must be fired, they must be exposed as the most immediate place where we can do better.

The systemic fear of large unarmed black men, the poor decisions, the ongoing use of excessive force must be deemed completely reprehensible, unacceptable, and we as grossly over-privileged white people must give notice to the police forces and public officials of America that we will not stand for it anymore.

Call your local police chiefs, your local district attorney, your local politicians, and let them know that you are giving them notice, that if they allow another tragic accident like what has been happening to unarmed black men across America, you will be in the street, knocking on their door and demanding their resignations.

"If black folks weren't breathing, we wouldn't have to kill them."

That's the message I got today from former NY Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as he participated on Katie Couric's Yahoo News show. I was watching the show for the first time ever because my son W. Kamau Bell was part of a panel along with Dion Rabouin, a writer for The Root and Kelly discussing the non-indictments of police officers who kill unarmed black males. Except Kelly's recurring theme, as has been the case for all apologists for these travesties, is that these police murders are our own fault, meaning blacks, of course. He was quite satisfied "explaining" these police murders by perpetuating the myth that there are "more crimes in the black community." That's why the police have to do a lot of stopping and frisking in black neighborhoods which sometimes leads to the need to kill somebody. Oh well....

For those of you who may not understand, please know that crime does not occur when the police aren't looking. However, when the police are around ALL THE TIME, they see every little thing, like Michael Brown's jay-walking, for example. Or, they make a thing out of something like Eric Garner standing quietly on the sidewalk. I live in a town and a neighborhood that is predominately white. I have lived on this street for twelve years and seen a police car here TWO TIMES in 12 years. They were called in because of domestic situations. The police do not patrol. I suppose this means no crimes are committed in this vicinity. I've seen evidence of someone trying to jimmy coins from the laundromat, heard of bicycles and other property being stolen, but the police didn't see it, so no crime was committed.

When these same things happen in predominately black neighborhoods, the police are there--ALWAYS patrolling, watching, picking up and locking up young black boys who look suspicious. And they all look suspicious with their hoodies, sagging pants and dark skins. Sometimes, when these boys don't go quietly because they are not doing anything wrong, they have to be killed. After all they should know better than to talk back to the police! Or, sometimes they are not even given the opportunity to talk back because they are killed on sight, like Tamir Rice. He was killed instantly by a police officer who had previously been ruled "unfit for duty."

The police and other law enforcement officials also did not "see" the crimes committed by banks and other financial institutions that led to the calamitous economic crisis of 2007-08 and ruined the lives of tens of thousands of people. And since law enforcement didn't see them doing it, that means no crimes were committed. 


It is this glaring and hypocritical disparity in the FOCUS of the police and the PERSPECTIVE of other authorities that many people refer to as "white privilege." We are under surveillance. Whites are not. And even when whites commit crimes in the presence of police, the response is often, "Aw shucks."

I believe there are people in many police departments who actually want to protect and serve. However, I also believe that because of the above-the-law culture cultivated in police departments and upheld by justice systems around the country, that ALL police of every color and inclination are infected by that culture. Some officers may refuse to actually participate in killing and brutalizing citizens, but they stand by and quietly back up those who do.

The police are hired and trained by those in power to do their dirty work--maintain order, break up labor strikes, intimidate and brutalize protestors, maintain the oppression of the poor so they don't forget their place and organize for a higher minimum wage. In black neighborhoods they are indeed, as the Black Panthers described them in the Sixties, an Occupying Army. An army that now has military uniforms, equipment and weapons.

This kind of dirty work attracts certain types of people; bitter angry folks with grievances. Attracts those who feel stronger and more secure with a gun on their hip and a baton swinging from their belt. Those who join the force to protect and serve, if they are truly self-possessed, will resist the prevailing culture, but then they usually stand by in quiet support of those who don't resist.

Kelly kept telling us what black people need to do to stop crime in their communities. (I guess whites are really good at stopping crime in their communities so that's why the police aren't needed there.) Kelly believes the only responsibility of police is to hire more "diverse" officers. (He's learned that the only color that matters within that culture is blue.) We all know that's not the solution, and Rabouin, the writer from The Root said so explicitly, citing the Atlanta police force. Bell said, "This is not something to be resolved between the black community and the police. This affects the entire country."

He is absolutely correct. The police are the most lethal and brutal of America's expression of systemic racism, but the racism can be found anywhere as evidenced in this situation by Kelly's refusal to listen to what a couple of black men were saying directly to him. 

Members of our highest body of elected officials, the U.S. Congress, openly flaunt their racism (and sexism) and their lead is followed by media pundits and many others spewing explicit racist venom. Murdering blacks (and the indigenous "Indians" and Hispanics, especially in the part of this country that used to be Mexico) with impunity is an integral and intimate part of American history. It has always been thus. Blacks were deliberately criminalized in the "north" as they always had been in the south, to facilitate reconciliation between the two sides after the Civil War.

The lack of consequences for the murderers of black men is nothing new. What is new, and I am grateful for this, is that the outrage is no longer confined to immediate family members and to black people. A significant number of people all over the country and of all colors are saying: "ENOUGH!"

For more of my opinions on America's racial issues and other topics, see my new collection of essays, Not All Poor People Are Black and other things we need to think more about. Copies are available here and on Amazon.

Admitting My Own Racism

Today, when I walked into the locker room at the Y after my exercise, I entered a tense scene. A Y staffer had just admonished a woman for spanking her daughter. The staffer said another woman in the locker room had been upset by the spanking and reported her to the staff. The little girl (who looked to be about five years old) was sniffling. Her mother was outraged that someone had reported her for disciplining her child and she loudly demanded of the woman who reported her.

"Are you telling me how I should discipline my child when she's misbehaving and talking back?"

The other woman quietly responded, "Perhaps you should not do it in a public place. There are other children here and they were upset by it."

"I have to punish her when she does something, not wait two hours and say, 'Now I'm going to punish you for what you did earlier.'"

The conversation went on in this vein for a couple of minutes. I did not get involved, although my heart was engaged. Why? Because the mother defending her actions was definitely not white; she wasn't African-American, but her skin was as brown as mine. The woman who reported her was white. I wanted to tell the brown woman that she did not have to explain herself to that nosy white woman who was undoubtedly acting out of her perceived white privilege and authority. Would she have reported a white woman for spanking her child, I asked myself indignantly.

After I gathered my things and left. I thought about my reaction.

My first thought was that I don't believe in disciplining children in front of others. I did spank my child when he was very young, largely because that's how I was reared, except that we got whippings with belts and switches. However, I never did it in front of anyone. I was interested in teaching him, not humiliating him.

Because I changed my mind about corporeal punishment a long time ago, my second thought was,  "I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I had seen the mother hitting her child." By the time my son was a tall, sturdy six-year-old, it occurred to me that in order for my spankings to have any meaning, any force, I'd have to hit him really hard with something other than my hand. Once in a rage, I hit him with my umbrella. He looked so hurt by my anger that I was flooded with shame. It occurred to me that using physical force on a child is an attempt to break the child's spirit. That was not my intent. I wanted my son to reach his full potential, so I never hit him again. Instead, I figured out what meant the most to him and deprived him of that when I felt discipline was necessary. Fortunately, I was blessed with an extraordinary child who rarely required restraints, even as a teenager.

My next thought was that if I had seen the mother spanking her child and been disturbed by it, I would not have interfered unless I thought the child's limbs or life were in danger. Why? Because the relationship between a parent and child is unique (even siblings have distinct relationships with each parent) and it is built from birth forward, not on one incident. I wouldn't think of telling someone else how to discipline their child even if I knew all the details of their relationship, which of course, you never do.

Finally, I did not witness the actual spanking, so I have no idea of the severity of it, or how long it went on. I walked in just in time to receive a lesson about my knee-jerk racist thoughts. My initial reaction was based solely on the skin color of the participants. Thankfully, I am conscious enough to check myself when I have racist thoughts, and more important, not to act on them.

Real Tragedy Never Ends...Part 2

In Sanford, Florida, a seventeen-year-old black boy, Trayvon Martin, was visiting his dad when he decided to walk to a convenience store. He was sauntering down the street when the captain of the local neighborhood watch, a man named George Zimmerman, decided that Trayvon looked "suspicious." (No one has ever said what was suspicious about Trayvon, so I am assuming it was his African ancestry.)

Zimmerman called police to report the suspicious character soiling his neighborhood. The police instructed him to do nothing and wait until they could come and investigate. Apparently, Trayvon look so dangerous, Zimmerman couldn't wait for the police. In his car he followed the boy, confronted him, then killed him with the 9 mm concealed gun he had a permit to carry. When the police arrived, Zimmerman said he shot Trayvon in "self-defense."

Trayvon was not armed and probably didn't even understand that the color of his skin could get him killed. Zimmerman, who is white, was not arrested.

As soon as I heard this story, I knew immediately that the young man was black and the killer was white. How did I know this? Because it happens regularly somewhere in America and the white killer usually gets away with it.

These kinds of stories remind me of two things I find despicable: America's love affair with guns and America's refusal to acknowledge and confront racism. I am sick of both of these issues. How many people will have to die before the racist monster is satiated?

I am working hard to keep an open, loving heart, but stories like this infuriate me so that I know I have more work to do.

Real Tragedy Never Ends...

In his novel, No Longer at Ease, Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer said, "Real tragedy never ends; it goes on hopelessly forever. Achebe was referring to a situation in Nigeria, but he could as easily been talking about racism in the U.S.

In a Black History Month special, I spoke to the Bartholomew County Library in Columbus, Indiana. My talk was promoted as "From The Help's Point of View." (For my thoughts on The Help, see another blog entry.) I am writing here about a discussion on race, that perennially taboo subject, in a "mixed" group--meaning blacks and whites in the same room. I am actually weary of talking about The Help, but the book/movie has obviously hit a nerve in America; two nerves, actually, one black, one white. Despite enormous progress, the U.S. is still a racially divided nation. It's just that the division is now no longer socially acceptable or legally viable.

Most blacks know that the vast majority of whites never want to talk about racism, so like them, I have often tiptoed around racial issues or broached them in a way designed not to offend delicate white sensibilities. In the words of one audience member, "We have swept racism under the rug for so long that the carpet has become too lumpy to walk on."

I decided to do a little cleaning under the rug; to invite a candid discussion. The audience was small enough (about fifty people) and mixed enough (about ten blacks, one self-identified gay man, a Hispanic family and the remainder white) so that we could have a discussion and easily see who was speaking.

I began by declaring that we are all the same, but perceive things differently because of the circumstances of our births and our particular experiences. I then asked how many people there had worked as domestic help--about four hands went up, one of them white. I asked how many had employed domestic help—about twenty hands went up, two of them black.

I shared with the audience that most blacks saw The Help, both novel and movie as a sanitized version of what actually happened in Mississippi in the 1960s. At the time, blacks were being killed and mercilessly beaten for trying to register to vote, among other things. I also pointed out that despite the title, the book was Skeeter’s story, not the story of the help. Skeeter is the one who triumphs in the end. We don’t know what happens to the black women she leaves behind, yet the tremendous popularity of this book is an indication that most readers find this storyline quite satisfying. Several members of last night’s audience agreed that it was an inspiring book because Skeeter had helped the black women fight back.

I discovered that many whites felt that by reading and enjoying The Help, they now better understand blacks and have taken a step toward improved race relations. They did not want to hear that this “lovely, moving story” is barely credible. In their keen disappointment that I did not see it the same way, they accused me of making “too much” of a work of fiction; after all, one woman said, “It’s not a documentary.” My response was that millions of book sales and a popular movie had made much of The Help. I am merely trying to understand why this not-particularly-profound work of fiction has struck such a chord. The discussion went on from there even including the “N” words—nigger and Negro.

I don't expect that any hearts or minds were changed, but we talked openly about racial misconceptions and the world did not explode. A bit of dust was cleared from under the carpet, but it's still plenty lumpy.

Here are some of the memorable exchanges.

A woman expressed her disappointment in my talk because she had come expecting to hear an "uplifting" story about how I went from being a maid to a successful writer.

Another woman thought I was exceptionally brave to speak the truth about racism to a largely white audience, although she lamented she could tell it didn't do any good.

When I was asked what Indiana was like while I was growing up in the forties and fifties, I responded, "It was as racist and segregated as anyplace below the Mason-Dixon line, except that there were no signs that said White and Colored." A woman on the front row who appeared younger than I am, felt privileged to interrupt me by shouting, "That's not true!" I asked if she was disputing the accuracy of my experience. She said I was misrepresenting Indiana. In order to disprove what I'd said, she told us a story. When she was a child her parents took the family to a Howard Johnsons somewhere in Indiana. There was a sign on the door that said No Negroes Allowed. When her parents saw the sign, they put the family back in the car and drove away. This should have been an ironically funny story, except that she was using it to "prove" that not all whites were racists because her parents weren't. Such are the distorted lenses through which race is viewed in America.

Another exchange occurred when someone admonished me for talking about racism when things are so much better now. Then another member of the audience shared his experience of a month ago. He is a corporate exec who was calling on a client in Martinsville, Indiana when the building in which they were meeting was surrounded by Klan members in full regalia.

The fact that he lived to tell the tale is an indication that things are indeed better now.

My last word on "Precious"

I saw the movie Precious in Chicago before it went into wide release and expressed my opinion of it at the time. However, since then more people have seen the movie and several have found it touching and inspiring. The movie wasn't as awful as I expected, but then my expectations were low. As I've read other comments about the movie, I realize that my response is informed by my 72 years of battling racism in the United States and having seen soooooo much that informs my perception of Precious. I've seen the film industry manipulate the general public about the life of African Americans in so many insidious ways that I could write a book about it, but Donald Bogle already has.

I didn't need to see a movie to remind me that some people live horrifying lives because I've seen similar lives up close and personal. At first I thought perhaps the movie might inspire those who are struggling in hopeless situations, but at the end of the movie, Precious is single, homeless, unemployed, HIV positive, and has two children, one of whom is disabled. I'm not sure what young woman would be inspired by that. To give Precious her due, she has learned to read. Unfortunately, I know too many folks who read quite well yet who continue to struggle mightily in this winner take all society that we live in.

The "Oscar buzz" about Precious reminds me of the fact that of the 300 or more Academy Awards passed out over the years, 11 black people have been winners. Initially the winning roles were a maid, a handy man, a slave, a dishonest psychic, and a waitress. Recently the field has been widened to include those other acceptable roles for blacks: musicians--Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and athletics--Cuba Gooding, Morgan Freeman. Louis Gossett and Forrest Whittaker are the exceptions that prove the rule, winning awards as military men.

Did I leave anybody out? Oh, yeah, Denzel Washington, one of the finest actors ever, who literally channeled his characters in the roles of two powerful and noble black men--Malcolm X and Ruben "Hurricane" Carter. The Academy Awards didn't find those to be winning performances, however, but then Denzel played a crooked cop. "This is more like it!" Hollywood apparently thought. And he won best actor for that. In my heart, Hollywood has a long, long, loooong way to go to make up for that travesty. And Precious is NOT the first step on that road.