The Race for Ramekins

Have you read Ashley Owens' ramekins story? You really must! Go here, I'll wait til you're all caught up. No seriously, I'll wait.

Now that you're caught up, here are my quick takeaways:

1) Ms. Nice White Lady (NWL) was your typical "I'm not a racist" racist. 

She started off with slightly left of center comments about hair - always a bad place to start, but our hair seems to draw 'em in like honey does flies. Instead of recognizing an unwilling combatant in Ms. Owens, Ms NWL continued on along a path to perfidy.

Shortly thereafter, all the fake bonhomie fell away when Mistress NWL discovered that *gasp* Ms. Owens had something she wanted but could not have.

At this point in my reading, I realized that this story was not about ramekins. It never was. 

If there is one thing people of color have come to learn the long, cold, hard way, it's that what NWLs are apparently screaming about ain't ever what they're actually screaming about. We learned that about 400 years ago and we have not failed to teach it to our children ever since. 

Substitute the ramekins in Ms. Owens' story for land; homes; jobs and what you have is a story that any person of color can tell. Ramekins are just about every damb thing in the universe that a person of color might want and set their eye or hand upon first. 

For example, this story reminds me of a (former) NWL colleague who complained mightily that her son had been futzing around in the 11th grade, but wanted to go to college. A year later, when he finally got around to straightening himself out, he couldn't magically undo the crappy outcomes of his 11th grade year. This, naturally, had consequences for him when he was applying to schools and he didn't get into his first choice school. His first choice was the flagship campus of his state school, a place where competition is stiff on any given day. But here he was, trying to get in with some sketchy ish in his transcript. He didn't. Naturally. But what was his reaction? Was it annoyance at himself for having slacked off at the critical point in his academic career? Nope. Instead of taking personal responsibility, he claimed instead that he'd paid the "White boy tax". Some Black kid had taken his ramekins. Where's the manager?

His mother repeated this to me casually as if, "Ho hum, he's entitled to a space there because....White boy". I blinked several times and said not a mumbling word. 

2) There is a reality at play in this story of the ramekins that we would do well to heed

Under the Naturalization Act of 1790, a person could apply for citizenship as long as he was "a free white person, being of good character and living in the United States for two years." 

This is germane because in the 1790s there were free Negroes, persons entitled (more on this word anon) to the rights of citizenship but the first Congress excluded both women and people of color from those rights. Frankly, people of color haven't yet recovered from that slight. Since then, the details of our exclusion may have changed, but the consequences of it have not. We are still made to feel, as Ms. Owens was, that what is ours is only ours if someone allows us to have it, if someone more deserving, more entitled, refuses to part-take thereof. More importantly, the inference continues to be made that whatever has come into our possession has done so only via gift. You got reservation land? We gave you that! You got a job because Affirmative Action forced us to consider you? We gave you that too. Integration rather than segregation? Civil rights laws? An end to domestic terror? We gave you these things! The majority has given minority populations these things and anytime they want 'em back, like those damn ramekins, they will either take 'em out our shopping basket or tell the manager we took 'em out of theirs. "Where's the damn manager?!"

3) Ultimately, the fight is for or with entitlement

A few days ago, I went back and forth with someone on Twitter, trying to get her to understand that I did not deserve rights but was entitled to same. She had a lot of trouble understanding the difference between the two. I tried very hard to explain that in much the same way that she was entitled to (or in Constitution-speak 'endowed with') rights under the Constitution, I was and am too. She could not say the word. Could. Not. Would. Not. Did. Not. Not even after nearly a dozen tweets. The best she could manage without being shoved across the finish line was "should have", not even "you DO have" but "you SHOULD have".

The notion of a person of color, being entitled to something same as she seemed to be a bridge too far. 

There is embedded deep down here a fundamental rejection of equality, which in turn signals the belief in supremacy - White supremacy.  Not only do NWLs believe we cannot have anything unless they - as the owners and givers of all good things - allow it, we also should never have as much as they, and definitely not more.  It's not just that Ms. Owens had something this NWL wanted, but also that by having something she did not, the NWL's sense of cosmic order was disrupted...hence her hot run to the manager's office.  Owens could not have ramekins that she did not have.  “Manager fix this!”

The NWL seeking Ms. Owens' ramekins has this problem. She feels that she is entitled to ramekins, land, jobs, education, access, opportunity, security, whatever, but we, not so much. It's that "I'm not a racist" racism. It's that Orwellian "some animals are more equal than others" racism. Yes, we're both entitled to shop in this store, but if you see something I want, then equality goes out the window and I'm one of Orwell's more equal animals. 

Don't ask me what it will take for us all to be equally entitled. I have no idea. After several tweets back and forth I barely got my NWL on Twitter to agree that I was entitled to rights under natural law and the Constitution. I do know that if you think these incursions into our space stop at ramekins, you are very much mistaken. In September 2016, the federal court ruled that mainstream approval of your rights has limits. It has been decided that you can be terminated for wearing locs if NWLs or NWGs don't like 'em in their office. Your hair you see, is not an immutable characteristic ergo, an employer is free to regulate it. 

Hair: the next round of ramekins. 

There really is nothing new under the sun. The battlegrounds may change, but the war itself remains ever the same. 

Follow me on Twitter @truthwriter65

What we do, who we are

What do the following five examples have in common? George Stinney (15), killed June 14, 1944;  Emmett Till (14), killed August 28, 1955; the Birmingham Church Bombing four, killed September 15. 1963; Tamir Rice (12), killed November 23, 2014; Tyre King (13), September 14, 2016? The obvious answer of course is that they were all children and they were all murdered by 'real Americans': adults men, and that there was little to no remorse shown by any of the criminals. At some point as a nation, we might want to ask ourselves why these children were killed and why we feel so little shame at their deaths.

It is hard to conceive of adults murdering children. It should be. It is not natural, and yet, through America's history, this very thing has occurred again and again. I recently read a brief description of the lynching of an eight-month pregnant victim. You would think that the victim's belly alone would have given folk pause but you would be wrong. Basic human decency simply didn't apply to people such as her. Whatever her 'crime', her baby had to pay the price as well. Bad luck for the kid I guess.  

The majority in this country has, for hundreds of years, been perfectly at peace with the murder and/or brutalization of innocents. That is not hyperbole, it is a simple statement of fact. People have died in this country as a result of suspicion; lies; whispers; arrogance; running, standing still; getting lost; seeking aid after an accident; reading a book; being. Any of these, could be an offense punishable by death. And that's as true today as it was during slavery. As a nation, we have stood by and shrugged our collective shoulders and said, "Meh" every time.

What is that? What is that? That is the American psyche built on the bones and graves of slaves and First People. We built that and if we ever want the bloodletting to end, we're going to have to demolish it, brick by brick. First of all though, we'll need to acknowledge it as truth. Yeah, good luck with that. 

For all the writing and preaching of people of color, I am very clear that this is not our problem to fix. We ain't build it, it ain't ours to disassemble. Oh it's certainly our house to inhabit but this edifice is not ours to repair or demolish. And therein lies the problem. 

When I burn my hand, I remove it from the source of heat and take immediate remedial action. When I cut my finger, I put down the knife, inspect the wound and take appropriate remedial action. When I burn your hand or cut your finger though, my responses are apt to be very different. I can either empathize or I shrug and walk away. In America we've become experts at shrugging and walking away, For 400 years we've been shrugging and walking away, denying aid and then blaming the dead for burning or bleeding to death. This is what we do. This is who we are. 

Here's the truth: there is something wrong with a whole lot of us and until we accept that, we're not going to be able to fix it. It's not that some of us don't care about others, it is that some of us can't. There is a huge empty space where our empathy should reside and that vacuum was first created all the way back in initial crucible of the Native genocide and hardened in the second crucible of the plantation. 

The reality is that we had to learn to feel nothing if we were to be comfortable with what our country has done to marginalized people for 500 years. We had to learn to accept the brutality that our government routinely meted and metes out to others in the 'best interests of America'.We had to learn that our interests trump everyone else's humanity and we have to continue to feel nothing in the face of a multitude of wrongs being done on our behalf every day. Flint? Rampant poverty - urban and rural? Repeated environmental catastrophes caused by oil companies? It's all okay with us as long as the trouble doesn't actually impact us directly. This is what we do. This is who we are. 

We have been living the Stanford Prison experiment but there's no off switch, there's no way to quit the experiment early. 

Artwork by Patrick Campbell

In the Stanford experiment, students - acting as guards - humiliated and harassed other students playing the roles of 'prisoners'. "Often, the guards operated without explicit, moment-to-moment instructions. [sic] Occasionally, disputes between prisoner and guards got out of hand, violating an explicit injunction against physical force that both prisoners and guards had read prior to enrolling in the study. When the “superintendent” and “warden” overlooked these incidents, the message to the guards was clear: all is well; keep going as you are" (from this New Yorker article available here). This is America today.  This is what we do. This is who we are.

We've been doing Stanford all over America for several generations, and we're clearly intent on doing it for several more. We have been brutalizing segments of our population and then blaming them for their victimhood. What our behavior bespeaks is a complete lack of moral responsibility or social conscience. This is who we are. 

We continue to be content to kill children, men and women, young and old without benefit of trial or even arrest because there is something very wrong with a whole lot of us. and if you don't believe me, read some of Colin Kaepernick's twitter feed.

We're less outraged about deaths in custody and death while being taken into custody than we are about athletes taking a knee during the playing of the anthem. We're more concerned about folk respecting the flag than we are about respecting the people living under that flag. Why? Because something is very wrong with a whole lot of us and we need treatment. STAT. This is who we are. 

My Black privilege: another five point primer

There is such a thing as Black privilege. Oh maybe not so much in these United States, where on any given day I may or may not be denied my right to life, liberty &/or the pursuit of happiness, but in other parts of the world where people like me are not the minority? In other parts of the world where Blackness doesn't need to be magical? Oh yes, there is such a thing. Since I came to this country, though, I see y'all tryna take away the privileges of my Blackness. Lucky for me, I am too old to let go of my me easily. You will have to pry it from my cold dead hand.

I did a White privilege: five point primer recently, so the least I can do is five points on the privilege of les chocolats. Fair is fair. 

1. I bleed the blood of conquerors

It is easy to see enslavement as only negative. Certainly, there is tremendous brutality. In a recent exploration of my own family tree, I've discovered that on my father's side, back six generations or so, there is a White ancestor who fathered twenty-two children. As the first generation in the Caribbean, and as a plantation overseer (euphemistically referred to as a 'manager'), it is entirely probable that many of those sexual encounters were non-consensual. Still, the blood in my veins, the blood in our veins is the blood of survivors, conquerors. Whatever our various stories, every descendant of an enslaved person can make the same claim. Our genes are the ones that survived. This is not to denigrate those whose genes did not but it does acknowledge that our survival brought forth the African diaspora. We are it and everything the diaspora has given to the world has come through us. There would be no diaspora had we not survived. We. Are. It. 

Maybe our forebears should have tried to escape or to end their lives. That certainly was one way to go but mine did not; ours did not. I do not fault them for it. That they survived both the journey and the privations of plantation life; that they found ways to make love out of the unloveliness that was servitude? These truths I can only respect. That they, on through the generations, made my life possible? I am humbled. I am in awe. I am grateful and I acknowledge that I am indeed the seed of survivors. Because of them, I am. 

2. I hold the power of surprise

Unfortunately for many, the expectations of one such as me are low. Forgive me, but that's your problem not mine. OK so it really is my problem too, but only because of the continuing imbalance in the power dynamic.

I'll never forget that professor at my shi shi poo poo college in the North Eastern US, who after a class on TS Eliot one day, came over to me (one of maybe two people of color in the classroom), to tell me that she thought my contribution to the class was 'very insightful'. Oh, OK. I kinda thought that's what my mother was paying the earth, two arms and a leg for me to be but since my intelligence was a big ole surprise to her well, woo hoo!

It is a powerful (if sometimes frustrating and annoying as hell) thing, to have the element of surprise on your side. It is a powerful thing to stand around looking all Blackity Black Black and then drop knowledge and a couple of multi-syllabic words on folk. Oh don't get me wrong, it's got its downside. To re-purpose Twain, rumors of my inferiority have been greatly exaggerated but they are out there. I carry the knowledge of others' expectations with me wherever I go. I also carry with me the near constant fear that my frustration of your presumptions could cause me significant harm. There is nothing I can do with or about that but to enjoy others' sometimes obvious discomfort at my insights. I've become a great reader of pinched smiles and tightly gritted teeth. And an enjoyer of same. :-) 

3. I am the hope and the dream of the slave
I have been taught by the best. My truth is in every fiber of my being. It's in the history I know and the history I don't. Even what I don't know lifts me up, because in all of it my people have triumphed over unimaginable odds.

Kerry Washington reads Sojourner Truth's speech, Ain't I a Woman.

At the end of the day, whether I am to be one of the lucky ones allowed - and yes, I mean to say allowed -  to succeed is another burden with which I will struggle valiantly my whole life. No, I'm not a victim but I only control a part of this equation. I can and do, bring my all to the fight every day, but the nature of this society is that the deck is stacked and I have no control over the deckstackers. I will, as my forebears did, give it all I've got and the chips will fall where they may.

4. I will, from time to time, eat a canary
Every now and again, I will conquer apparently unconquerable odds and I will look like the cat that ate the canary. My success will have been created through hard work and generations of predecessors who got nothing the easy way. There is no easy button for me. I accept that.

My maternal great-grandfather was born in 1871, born free. His was the first free born generation. And yet, he became not only educated but an educator. One generation. I know this is the luck of the draw. I could have been born to someone who three generations after slavery's end still had no high school graduates in the family. I was not. This is my privilege. I own it and I make the best of it. So when I have my successes, be they small or large, that just ate the canary look will be for him, for my great-grandmother and for all the generations before who took whatever abuse they did so that I could have whatever small advantages and successes I have yesterday, today or tomorrow.

5. And finally, I will write and speak my truth
I come from a line of educators, thinkers and writers. My mother, my father, my maternal grandmother & father (both published authors) and my great-grandfather are/were all thoughtful, erudite individuals. My grandmother didn't attend high school, neither did my great-grandparents, and yet there are three Ph.Ds in my family and a good many degrees, first and second. (There's also a goodish amount of student loan debt, so don't think those degrees don't come with some lasting burdens.) From these roots, I have grown.

Little acorns yield great oaks, or so I'm told. I'm no great oak, but I am the sapling that my forebears planted. I will bloom and grow where I have been planted.

This is my privilege and it is real. 

The sweet comfort of four words: I Have A Dream

This is an open letter to the goodly gentleman (GG) who invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's name and his famed 'Dream' as GG sought to police Black voices raised in protest. This is also an open letter to those who joyfully claim the benefits of Dr. King's work but have never comprehended its true nature nor participated in the work involved in securing its benefits.

Dear Sir, 

You seem to be contending that every protester must be above reproach for the protest movement to be valid. This is an excellent way to invalidate the core premise of a movement without ever considering what it is that pushed people to action in the first place. It's also a little disingenuous don't you think? Is it your contention that the movement is without basis in fact? The 1,000+ persons shot dead by police in 2015 alone, without benefit of warrant, arrest, charge, trial or verdict might give the lie to any such notion.

You mentioned the story of Mike Brown as you denigrated the Black Lives Matter movement. Whether Mike Brown had his hands up is not really material is it? The point is that (1) Brown was shot dead in the street, without benefit of arrest, warrant, charge, trial or verdict; and (2) that's not how the law is supposed to work! What about Tamir Rice, shot dead a mere two seconds after the police rolled up to him? What about John Crawford III, shot dead while carrying an air rifle in the store where it was being sold, in an open carry state? When will it be the right time to demand different behavior from our police forces across the land? 

You also invoked the memory and work of Dr. King. Sigh. May I point out that the work of the Civil Rights era was to demand rights to which POC were entitled as citizens, but which were being casually withheld from them by the White, many of them professing Christian, majority? And yet you raise your Dr. King flag as if he were a point of pride for you. Don't tell anyone I said so, but he isn’t! He was, and remains, the proof of your endless shame. And every time people of color have to fight for something that should be theirs under natural law, the shame is refreshed. 

The Civil Rights movement, and the King whom we all revere, was not about gaining new rights for people of color, but rather about forcing the White majority to honor the natural rights of America's Black citizens. The Civil Rights movement forced the majority - of which you and your forebears are a part - to give people of color access to equal education; access to fair housing; access to labor unions' protections; access to the vote; freedom from domestic terror (aka Sunday after church lynching); access to the right to a fair trial; access to a jury of their peers - to include people of color (an idea only recently (May 2016) upheld by the SCOTUS). All of these rights were natural to the White majority but had to be fought for by people of color. King should not be a source of pride for White America but a source of everlasting humiliation and a challenge to do better next time. That a man had to spend his life fighting for the rights into which he was born? That such a man would be shot dead fighting for those rights? What exactly is it that you celebrate?  

White America gleefully waves its "Dr. King preached peaceful protest" flag, never mind it was toxic White supremacy that assassinated him. White America uses that flag to police today's protesters' behavior and demand their silence, but never seems to realize that Dr. King exposes rather than covers their perfidy. How do you not see the shame? King got nothing by asking for it nicely. Remember the shutting down of the Edmund Pettus Bridge? Remember the Montgomery Bus Boycott? Remember the sit-ins at lunch counters? Remember the billy clubs and the police dogs? You talk about Rev. King with great pride as if you sent him; as if it were not people like you against whom he was preaching and protesting.  You talk about his protests as if all he had to do was show up and all was right with the world. You talk about him as though people just like you did not meet him with demands for silence, just as you are demanding ours now.  King spent the last years of his life fighting tooth and nail with White supremacy and its commitment to deny him and his kin. He spent the last years of his life trying to embarrass politicians into living up to their much vaunted Bill of Rights. Rather than recognize how he chastened people just like you for their greater interest in peace than in justice, you talk about his 'I Have A Dream' speech and wallow in the sweet comfort of those four words. And even there, you get it wrong.

What was King's dream? Was it that his children would see all men as equals, or that yours would? Was it his dream that his children would learn to judge others by the content of their character or was it that yours would? As with the entirety of the Civil Rights era, this ain't about us, it's about you and once again, you have entirely missed the point. 

As Stokely Carmichael said, and as I quoted at length in White Privilege: a 5 point primer, “I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people" (emphasis mine). Likewise, the 'I Have A Dream' speech was written and delivered for White America not Black. We know ourselves to be equal. Do the police? The banks? The realtors? Yelp? Do you?

White America really ought to be ashamed to say MLK's name because in the face of the twenty-first century's new fight for Civil Rights - the right not to be executed on the street because the police are afraid of your skin - you are doing exactly as the majority did in the sixties: standing in your shoes and wondering; policing our tone and behavior as we demand the right to live. All the while, you're doing precisely nothing to help secure our lives. That being the case, your platitudinous invocations of Dr. King's legacy have no currency here, so just stop. 

I am about five minutes from saying y'all can't invoke Dr. King's name no mo' cuz you just don't get it.

You know what? Forget the five minutes. Consider the ban in full effect until White America is ready, willing and able to act in concert with people of color, and ensure the preservation of their lives and rights.

Remedial Math

In a FB discussion earlier this week, a commenter complained that BLM was just a bunch of thugs and the violence that sometimes is to be seen at their protests just makes the movement seem antisocial.

In response to her claims, I offered this: 

"Mary* (not her real name of course), somehow, your response is entirely unsurprising.

Just as an FYI though, I feel compelled to remind you that the subset (those who use the cover of legitimate protest to violently express their, some might say 'righteous', anger) is not the whole.  But of course, in American sociology, anthropology and politics for a long time, when it has come to people of color, the subset and the whole have long been identical. Y'all really need some remedial Math. A subset is not the whole." 

When her response indicated that she hadn't heard me clearly, I responded again with: "You've missed the point I was making, Or maybe not. So let me ask you, they (BLM) are thugs, but the system they challenge isn't thuggish? The system that - fairly routinely now - uses violence against their bodies isn't thuggish? A system that rarely holds itself accountable for the violence it unleashes isn't thuggish? But a violent response when utilized by some (again, subset not whole) protesters - makes the whole movement thuggish?"

"What," I wondered aloud, "might you have said about riots in the sixties? What might you have said of violent response to oppression in 1776? Or is some violence in response to systemic injustice somehow more appropriate than other? I await your response with bated breath." 

Well she did respond and with more of the same but two things became immediately clear to me: first was the apparent ease with which she and others dismiss the movement because every single participant therein isn't above reproach. Second, the commitment to this thinking is complete and it's not cognitive dissonance, it's cognitive dishonesty.

For many people, it is nearly impossible to see one bad Black actor as just a single bad actor. No, every swallow portends a coming spring. Every bad actor portends a raging flood of others. In their minds, the part doesn't just foreshadow the whole, the part IS the whole. And yet, these same over-generalizing folks do not have the same response to one bad White actor. Dylan Roof is not (nor would he ever be seen as) the totality of White maleness between 15 and 25; Charles Manson would never be considered the quintessence of 30-something White maleness; Harris & Klebold (of Columbine infamy) were not and will never ever be taken as emblematic of White male teenage psychopathy but a minority of Black protesters throwing stones, looting or burning renders the entirety of the protest movement unworthy of consideration. This thinking is an extremely convenient way to de-legitimize our every issue. 

When asked whether she felt the same level of disdain for all sports fans because some sports fans turn destructive after their teams emerge victorious or teams face unexpected challenges, all I could hear was crickets. Unsurprising really. 

2015 Ohio State University wins NCAA Championship
Source: Paul Vernon/AP

Which led me to my second epiphany: that the commitment to the wrongheadedness is real; that in certain minds 2x + 3x =/= 5x, certainly not when it comes to the interpretations we have of public misconduct of the two groups. 

I received no response to my invoking images of celebratory White thuggery. I was left to conclude that either the referenced behavior was (i) not all that bad (just boys having fun) or it was (ii) not as bad as the violence in which people of color might engage in standing up for equal treatment under the law (ie. 2x + 3x  =/= 5x). 

She is  not alone in her feelings. Others have espoused a similar view. I wonder though, would they feel the same subset = whole way about say, every imperialist nation, cuz yunno, they stole other folks' land, murdered their people and generally made a nuisance of themselves the world over; about all anti-abortion crusaders, cuz yunno, Robert Dear committed murder on account of the strength of his beliefs; every Trump supporter being a thug because these guys brutalized a Boston man and this guy brutalized a protester. Do these cases also support the subset = whole hypothesis? My guess is, no. Over-generalization is not appropriate in these instances. The why of that is self-evident. 

Clearly, it is only when people of color stand up for themselves that the taint or bad behavior spreads system wide, invalidating, toxifying the entire system. Only when two dozen (out of many dozens), two thousand (out of many thousands), two million (out of many millions) do something stupid, the taint rests on all of us?

This is not cognitive dissonance, it's worse, it's cognitive dishonesty. It's bad math. It is a choice to hold two-diametrically-opposed-standards-in-the-head willful ignorance. Why willful? Because the minute you challenge this line of thinking, these folk take their marbles and go home, clutching their prejudicial beliefs tighter than a baby clutches her favorite stuffed piggy.

These types are no more interested in the truth than they are interested in honest discussion. Neither is the goal. The actual goal is to air their petty grievances wrapped in moralistic blatherings about 'security' and 'decency'. This particular commenter deleted the entire thread and went home to sulk. Carry on my friend. Carry on! But while she and others carry on with their cognitive dishonesty, the rest of us are going to look at the data and draw mathematically sound, cognitively honest conclusions to wit, that by her very reasoning, people of color are probably not wrong to view all police as dangerous and violent thugs (since subset = whole and all).

What is good for your goose is equally as good for our gander. Quack, quack, quack!