Why reparations will never happen: the lie of "we'll do better next time"

Here's what I realized yesterday: it is the lie of "we"ll do better next time" that lies (no pun there) at the heart of the refusal to pay reparations or do reparative justice in America.

Let me explain.

When an inequity is laid bare, power brokers have two choices: address it and make the person who has been robbed whole, or not. When the latter choice is made, as it so often is, in an effort to blunt the edge of their moral laziness (torpitude?) power brokers may say that the organization/system recognizes its lapse, and promises to "Do better next time". But that's bullshit, straight no chaser bullshiggety. "The next time" the organization or system will shaft the oppressed in some new way, that is all.

Do not be fooled. The system of oppression does change, yes, but only minutely for the better. Mostly it changes for the slyer, the slicker, the more deceptive at oppression. The system tweaks its levers of oppression frequently, but never with a view to doing away with those levers entirely. Oh no! The goal is to lower the temperature on the boiling pot just enough that the frog forgets he is dying and remains in the water. There is no intention to turn off the heat. Nor is the intention that the frog should survive, far less thrive.

Promises of changed behavior in the future are nonsense. Do not believe them.

Here's the other thing: those promises are themselves a form of oppression. They, more than the original inequity, are how racial inequality is entrenched. By saying, "It's too late to fix this now, let's move on and do better next time", powerholders ensured that the people of Rosewood, FL and Seneca Village, NY for example never saw redress. Emmett Till's people; George Stinney's people; the hundreds of thousands who fled the south leaving everything behind, never saw redress.  None of us ever sees redress. Not one. Because we are not worthy of being made whole.

We are massacred and robbed and left to start over with zero paid to us for our injury. We are daily robbed of wages, promotions, recognition, ideas, genius, and we never see redress. Why? Because we are not worthy of being made whole.

Organizations commit (with fingers crossed behind backs) that "next time" they wil do better, but in truth that's probably not going to happen. We don't deserve it, so supremacy believes, ergo, it ain't happening. And that "next time" the organization will likely do a different harm, resist the truth of that harm, and finally, make no effort to address it claiming it'll do better the next "next time". And the bether next  next time never comes either. It's not supposed to. Consider the frog: it's still in hot water, its death is still scheduled if delayed.

African pepple, Native people, Hispanic people, are perpetually awaiting the "better next time" outcomes. This is why on a system-wide level, reparative work is never done and progress is not possible. Until the pain of the harm inflicted is felt by they who have inflicted it; until punishment is meted out, hear me well, there can be no learning, there can be no better next time. Pavlov and B. F. Skinner understood that changing behavior demanded a punishment/reward system to be effective. Consequences lead to change. America doesn't do consequences. And she doesn't do apologies either. (Ask Barack Obama).

There is no punishment in America and so there will never be any change. Changed behavior has to be rewarded for it to stick but America rewards oppression. Why the hell would we give it up?

Who's Woke?

There are non-POC who call themselves 'woke'. Can I just say I'm conflicted?

It's all well and good to be aware; it's all well and good to be actively seeking for social justice and equality, but 'woke'? I don't know. My experience is that it is sometimes those who most loudly and frequently claim 'wokedness' who are among the most oblivious to the subtle ways in which privilege and inevitable fragilismus impact their lives and others'. The problem is that wokedness is a journey not a destination but I'm starting to wonder how many woke White folk really comprehend this, and even if it is some end point that they can attain, that they ain't reached yet. Y'all need to keep walking.

There are degrees of wokedness it seems to me. Some of us are wide awake, some are just waking up, and some of us are still fast asleep, dribbling on the pillow, dreaming that we're awake and aware and acting out the dream on others' lived reality (and making a helluva mess let me just say). The reality is that in much the same way that "I am not a racist" or "I'm not a sexist" ain't yours to decide, neither is this. It is only in contact with the world and the likely victims of one's ~ism that one's level of awareness can be evaluated and that evaluation is external. One's "not ~ist" bona fides are determined in practice not in belief. It is who you are in the moment of contact that matters. Everything else is just gum-bumping.  

I'm a POC. I write about White 'supremacy'. To write I must read. I read mostly articles but sometimes books, as reference material. I've blazed my way thru more reference material in the last three years than even I care to contemplate because it adds to the writing and offers readers the data and reference material that supports my assertions. And I'm still not fully awake. So, if people like me, the actual test subjects in America's racial acceptance study lab, students of the history of bigotry aren't fully woke, how do ytppl get to claim the label? Answer: yuh don't so please stop. 

Knowing one or two (thousand even) things about your nation's history of bigotry and brutality, deciding you don't like it and want nothing further to do with it doesn't make you woke. It means that your eyes are open. Partially. Woke is what happens every waking hour thereafter. Woke is what happens when you loudly and consistently agitate, vote, agitate, teach, agitate, and model a different performance of American Whiteness every hour of every day. And then check yourself minutely in your interactions with others to see where you're falling back on ingrained habits of stereotyping and othering.

A few days ago, a friend on social media was in a back a forth with a WOC who was asserting that White people who coddle their Trump-supporting family are a serious problem. He did not agree and ended their connection raging that she didn't have the right to tell him how to love his misguided loved ones. 

Here's the thing: true wokedness cannot peacefully abide with those intent upon remaining sound asleep. Worse still, it is dangerous, life-impacting and all too often life-threatening to the very people whose cause you affirm to continue your affiliations with such people. That's just a statement of fact. If social justice is a necessary goal for this country, how do you consort with those who vote to delay or worse, deny it? Does this mean you may have to cut some people off? That's really up to you to decide, but you may have to excuse me if I stand afar off while you figure it out. 

I get it, they're your loved ones. They are people you've known and loved since you took your first breath or they took theirs. But while you're trying to love them into an understanding of history and bigotry, Jemel Roberson and Emantic Bradford were each killed by just one such; Jordan Edwards, Jordan Davis, Richard Collins III, Rekia Boyd and far too many others were killed by somebody's Trump-loving relative and far too few of them have faced, let alone been brought to justice, because of somebody else's Trump-loving relatives seated on juries. So forgive me, if I stand way over here while you figure this out.

All this makes me have to say that when it comes to White Wokeness.....it's not really a thing. There is working on it; there is really working on it; and there's "What's.woke?" Pick one, cuz 'woke' ain't your lane. 

No Ally Of Mine

Over the last several months generations the weaponization of ytness has become more and more common. One might say that it's become a fad. White women have taken to calling 911 for Black people for infractions ranging from waiting while Black to mowing while Black and bbq-ing while Black. And now, even as I was trying to organize my thoughts on this issue, we seem to have graduated from calling the popo, to murdering POC for merely existing as Black. Enter the case of Botham Shem Jean. While the 'why' of this weaponziation is fairly obvious, the 'what to do about it' is less so.

The why
The why, as I said, is fairly obvious. The monsters in the House of White (supremacy) have tacitly given permission to the masses to be as nasty as they wanna be. Ugliness of this kind needs to have permission to express itself especially after so many years of ‘political correctness’. Permission has been granted. 

All the talk for the last eight years, about "taking their country back" it has now conclusively been shown, was the preamble to this: being able to set in motion the death of any n*gger that got in the way of nice White people (NWPs); the right to call the police to do that work while NWPs watched; and the gleeful enjoyment (by NWPs) of the consequences of those calls. When caught out or exposed to public disapprobation, tearful non-apology apologies would be offered, but changed behavior? Not so much. Apologies are performative.

The truth is that what we have here is twenty-first century lynchings, or attempts at same. As I wrote in my piece on The En Word, civilians want the fun of lynching without the bloody hands or the stained consciences. They want consequence-free murder. Civilians want what the police currently have: the right to kill and go home to their families without challenge. This is the thing they’ve been wanting to bring back. Rosewood. Sunday afternoon lynching. Domestic terror.

Anyone calling the police for a 12 year old cutting the lawn, is seeking his death. Everyone knows what happened to Tamir Rice. He too was 12. Bullshit excuses for making these calls are just that: bullshit. You make the call, you are seeking the death of a POC. There is no wiggle room there. I'm done trying to find a way to explain this shite. Don't tell me you didn't know or that wasn't your intent. 

Inevitably, because this is where this has been headed all along, someone ended up dead and another hashtag memorial must suffice when real justice seems so far off. #BothamShemJean

What to do

The only solution is action. And the only action that matters is White people's action. Sorry to be the harbinger of those bad tidings but that is the reality.

The malefactors here? White.

The power holders (the investigators of these crimes)? White.

The system that will determine whether those committing us to the ground are to be held accountable? Built by and for White people. 

And how do I know that justice will remain afar off? From the words and actions of so-called "allies", the people who might be best placed to move the needle (cuz let's face it, ain't nobody listening to Negrus). 

Yesterday, someone on social media shared this .....

“'They' kneel”? "We support 'them'”? My objections to this language couldn't be any stronger. 

First off, why aren't you kneeling? What exactly would need to happen to cause you to kneel? Next, why do you still think this problem is theirs and not ours?

The death of Botham Shem Jean (hashtag number 6,284) ought to drop us all to our knees, but it won't. Non-allies will find justisplanations galore; while so-called allies will separate themselves from the problem because it’s “their (Black folks')" problem and not "ours".

My former choir director used to say, “Until all have crossed, none have crossed and some we will have to carry.” Well right about now I'm saying "Until all are safe, none are safe. Too many are dead already." That’s where we are now. I think it’s where we’ll likely stay because allies ain't in it to win it. Apparently it's my problem not Becky's or Chad's.

Far too many people who claim to champion social justice manage not to see the issue of extra-judicial murder as a national crisis rather than a problem Black folk are having. Too many latte liberals frown and shake their heads, and then take another sip of their chai. Too many SJWs find ways to be OK with America's myriad sins because those sins don’t leave their people bloody, dead or dying. You'll forgive me (or not, cuz I no longer care either way) if I'm not just going to excuse America's "oopsies" and keep drinking my tea.

When a Black man cannot be safe in his own home; when the police can execute a warrant on the decedent's home but not on the killer's; when the killer doesn't spend even as much time in a cell (for causing death) as Sandra Bland did for insisting on her right to be and you still won’t kneel and you're still claiming that the problem is 'theirs" not "this nation's", you are no ally of mine. You are worse than the White moderate of MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail.  

I am not Beto O'Rourke. I will not seek a nice way to disagree with you here. That is not my job. I will not challenge your patriotism but I will challenge your humanity, your decency and your Christianity and definitely I will challenge you on any suggestion that your country is great. Because when the choices are "lynching is bad" and "lynching, what lynching?" there is only one side that is humane, decent, Christian or signifying a great country and I know which one it is. Do you? 

May Botham Jean Rest In Peace and Rise in Power and may his death be the last of these abominations.

The problem with the 'great strides' argument (in 700 words or less)

A couple of weeks ago, a social justice page I follow on Facebook shared an article about institutional racism and its effects. A commenter wrote the following, "I don’t know, but I don’t think it is institutional racism. That would require a culture-wide conspiracy. People aren’t smart or creative enough for that. Besides, what would be the point? Businesses, the military, the government, and society all benefit from wealthy people of all races. Whatever the cause, I don’t believe it is intentional."

I replied, "By your own admission, you don't know what is the cause but you're confident that it ISN'T institutional racism. Then what might it be? Black people's laziness? Their intellectual insufficiencies? Their innate criminality? There aren't a lot of choices here. Either there are structural and social forces restricting social progress or there aren't.  It's X or Y."

He remained unconvinced. He wrote back demanding to know whether I thought that the great laws of the Civil Rights era were being routinely broken, beginning his response thusly, "I agree that many people in America are racist. People of all races, religions, and cultures fear people who are different than themselves. Fortunately, our society has made great strides in the last 100 years to, at least, put into place laws that prevent discrimination based on religion, race, gender, etc. Do you believe those laws are being violated? In what way and by whom?"

Here's the real problem here: despite the presentation of empirical evidence, he could not be convinced. So I have to ask the question: if data doesn't convince and the lived experience of my and others' lives doesn't convince, what will? Answer = nothing.

The challenge that the great strides argument presents is that it relies heavily on an innate goodness of people principle which America's history has proved repeatedly is entirely unfounded. Great strides thinking suggests that the enactment of laws fixed everything. A couple of Civil Rights Acts are rolled out and voilà it's all good? Um, no.

There is no person who knows America's true and complete history with minority groups who could possibly agree that Americans' innate goodness has made all things right. That's not how we roll. How do I know? Um, maybe this?

Georgia Schools Superintendent Geye Hamby, making free with the word n*gger. 

How might this language inform his policy-making?

That we can agree that many are racist but at the same time challenge the findings of a data-driven study is telling. It tells me that you’re clinging to the innate goodness line of thinking because you’re unwilling to face the reality of two pervasive evils - supremacy and racism.

Basically, this guy’s view is that people are racist but those people leave their prejudices at home when they go to work. Those people may be school superintendents who use The En Word, but that has no impact on school policy. Those people may be bankers but they don't create banking policies that harm Black borrowers. Those people may be teachers, but they don't over-punish Black students in their classrooms.

Racism works as a successful drag on Black and Brown life because people like this commenter, even when provided with ample evidence, demand that people like me do the emotional and intellectual hard labor to prove that there's a there there. 

Has there been great progress? Sure, but there's also ample evidence that the path to equality is fraught with stumbling blocks.

So to answer his questions.....

Do I believe laws are being violated? Yes, I do.

In what way? In every way possible.

By whom? By every damn body who can get away with it.

#RacismAintOver

#InstitutionalRacismIsAThing

#InstitutionalRacismRisesAndFallsOnIndividualRacism

#AskMeHowIKnow

Making m point in 700 words or less. Today: 616 words.

Shallow understanding & lukewarm acceptance (or why Becky keeps calling the popo)

Over the last several months the weaponziation of ytness has become more and more common. White women have taken to calling 911 for Black people for infractions ranging from waiting while Black to mowing and bbq-ing while Black. The 'why' of this is fairly obvious, the 'what to do about it' less so.

The why, as I said, is pretty obvious: the monsters in the House of White supremacy have tacitly and explicitly given permission to the masses to be as nasty as they wanna be. All the talk for the last eight years, about taking their country back was the preamble to this: being able to set in motion the death of any n*gger that gets in their way; the right to call the police to do that work while they watch; and the gleeful enjoyment of the outcome of the call. (The similarities here to lynching cannot be missed.) When caught out or exposed to public disapprobation, tearful non-apology apologies are deployed as a tool to manage public perception and economic impact of having been exposed. Apologies are wholly performative; changed behavior is not part of the calculation. That's not on the schedule. (see above video. Starbucks manager insists she was right to call cops.)

Having been given permission to behave in this way, yt folk (all too often women (sisters of the 53%?)) are out here acting like Carolyn Donham Bryant, telling lies and taking lives. What we have here is twenty-first century lynchings, or some pretty good attempts at same. 

As I wrote in my piece on the en word (here), there are clearly folk out here who want "to be on the front lines [of a lynching] to see the burning flesh but [who] want plausible deniability when it comes to the actual [act]." They want to experience the thrill of brutality without the responsibility or accountability. The fact that more Black people haven't ended up dead as a result of these police calls is entirely accidental. I for one am under no illusions about what (Pep)permit Patty and BBQ Becky were up to. Neither have they I imagine. The whole Black Lives Matter movement is too public, too present and its cause too clear to anyone with a pair of working ears, for anyone to continue to pretend they don't know what the worst possible outcome of these interactions between unsuspecting Black folk and the police might be.

Anyone calling the police for a 12 year old cutting the lawn, is - at worst - seeking his death, at best seeking his traumatization at the hands of the police. There are no other options. We know what happened to Tamir Rice and to John Crawford III, so don't tell me you didn't know that violence was possible or that that wasn't your intent. What else could you have intended when you called the police for an eight year old girl selling water without a permit, when your ass has been selling marijuana without a f*cking permit? What was your intent? And to claim that you didn't know the girl was Black? Witch what? If you gon lie to cover your hindbits at least have the decency to lie with some panache.

Perhaps the things we most need to acknowledge here are that (i) the 53% has access to 911 and they're willing to weaponize their privilege; (ii) it ain't only the 53% that's weaponizing their White wimmin in distress cred;  which leads me to (iii) anti-Blackness is a real thing and it sometimes causes death.

It would be dangerous to pretend that the only women making these calls are the members of the 53%. I think it's pretty clear that that ain't the totality of it. (Pep)permit Patty sells MJ. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's pretty unlikely that she's a conservative and yet, there she was, calling the popo on an 8 year old trying to make a buck selling cold water to folks going to a game. BBQ Becky likewise is a California environmental scientist. Conservative? Methinks not.  No indeed. These gals have something else entirely going on. 

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr. writes, "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

What we have here with these wimminz is shallow understanding & lukewarm acceptance. Even women like Permit Patty who will tell you at the very first possible opportunity that they voted for Obama twice and that they love Michelle and the girls, are merely lukewarmly accepting of our equality and their understanding of oppression (and who the oppressors are) is thimble shallow. 

Of course these women accept Barack and Michelle! Truth be told, it's real easy to accept them. They're 'clean'. They talk nice. They went to the 'best' schools. Barack and Michelle are what they'd love all Black people to be.........or not. If we were all like that, they'd find other reasons to reject us. That's just a matter of fact because at root the problem is anti-Blackness. 

The Obamas are acceptable to Becky because they don't live in her neighborhood. They're not competing with Candi for a mortgage or a job. The Obama girls aren't coming to Chad and Tiffany's schools and Mary Ellen won't have to serve on the neighborhood watch or PTA with them. Nah, the problem isn't Barack and Michelle's Blackness, they can handle that....kinda, it's Shauntelle and Tyrone's; it's mine and Tamir's. (This is not to say that there aren't people in Barack and Michelle's swanky neighborhood who are unhappy that they're there, but that's a whole other essay.)

What Dr. King referred to as shallow understanding and lukewarm acceptance are in fact something else entirely. They are neither understanding nor acceptance, they are the pretense of those things. 

Our most recent 9-1-1 callers, Permit Patty and BBQ Becky, are probably card-carrying liberals. They probably also pride themselves on being social justice allies. These are likely wise women, aware of and fluent in the nuanced language of the social justice movement. And yet, they call the popo at the drop of a hat for Black people for being Black in public. Why? Because understanding and acceptance are largely still academic/intellectual pursuits. Many people, particularly I must say, MLK's white moderates, have understood social justice intellectually but have not even come close to an emotional understanding of same. They have made few, if any, steps towards identifying where or when they might be the individual in whom change still needs to occur. 

For these moderates, the racist is the other guy; the one with the 88 tattoo, never the NWL (nice White lady) who demands someone else's ramekins; or the NWL who jumps into a discussion refusing first to read the thread before coming to the  aid of a White male who is getting his behind handed to him.  For them, the racist is always the Briana Brochu character but never the character who called the police on John Crawford III for holding an air rifle in a store that sold air rifles.

For moderates, the understanding of what it is to be racist is pretty clear cut: it's using the en word. Sometimes, it's waving a confederate flag, though only sometimes cuz yunno, heritage not hate and all. 

If there's one thing I know for sure it's this: many a so-called progressive is going to call the cops on Black men, women and children in the months and perhaps years ahead. And no, our whistling Vivaldi isn't going to stop non-Baracks and non-Michelles from having run ins with the police. There is no proving our humanity before the police arrive, guns drawn. It's better that we not to waste any time being surprised by that. We should simply remind our White moderate allies instead that the true test of their I'm-not-a-racist bona fides comes when they are confronted by strangers. How they treat the POC they already know tells us nothing. It is how they treat the ones they don't. that tells us everything. They need to start paying attention to the latter and stop patting themselves on the back about the former. 

Permit Patty, BBQ Becky, and Pool Patrol Paula clearly have a good deal of work to do. Other moderates might want to check themselves as well. 

Dear Kevin, Here's what Starbucks needs to think about (and then do)

I started this year writing letters to various people. Here's my letter to the CEO of Starbucks Kevin Johnson who took the helm 3 April 2017.

Dear Kevin,

Let me begin by commending your organization for taking assertive action with regard to the Philadelphia incident. I feel compelled to start there since I’m about to tell you why it isn’t enough.

I commend your organization and your Chairman in particular, for standing up so quickly in the face of the events in Philadelphia and for setting aside an afternoon to address a lifetime's worth of learned behavior, but I ask myself “Is it enough?” and frankly, I worry that you haven't asked the same question. 

Do you realize that it’s five centuries’ worth of learning that you’re trying to dislodge? (And yes, the history matters.) Do you appreciate all the mis-education that must be undone? (Again, yes, the history matters.) Have you determined what your  long term (ongoing) learning plan is? And what all are you willing to do as an organization, to disincentivize behaviors that have been actively incentivized for nearly 20 generations? 

I've been thinking about diversity (not even diversity and inclusion, just the diversity part) for several weeks. As an educated, Black, woman, immigrant from one of those nations so colorfully described by the president not too many months ago, it occurred to me recently that there can be no diversity at the top of an organization without equal access to resources at the bottom of our education system; and neither of those things is possible without a wholesale debunking of the myriad ugly myths and stereotypes about Blackness, myths and stereotypes that limit our access to opportunity. Anti-Blackness is a thing that must be dealt with boldly and squarely. Is Starbucks ready to take on that monster?

I’m not asking you to invest in pre-K  education – though if I worked at Starbucks I most assuredly would be – but I am saying that the only thing that can unwind generations’ worth of ugliness, and ugliness that is now bound up entirely in national our DNA, is an effort that attacks both cause and effect of racism.

What happened in Philadelphia a week or so ago was effect. And certainly, we can apply a bandaid to the wound but we must understand why the wound was inflicted in the first instance. What is the cause? The cause is stereotypical belief systems. The cause is a presumption of malicious intent, tied to those stereotypical beliefs. The cause is anti-Blackness. We have to name it before we can tame it. 

Does the program  the ADL is going to deliver attack those causal roots? Any gardener will tell you that just lopping the heads off weeds is a short term solution. Is the ADL coming with a weedwacker to trim stops or a trowel to dig up roots?

Starbucks is very proud of its efforts to source “fair trade” coffee. Perhaps it’s past time to extend “fairness” to more than just coffee beans? And to talk about that openly? Yes, there's an obvious financial consequence to doing this right, but I’m not going to try to sell you on that. We've too long made these kinds of moves only because they can be justified by some bottom line impact. We've long since monetized the business of  diversity & inclusion and yet many companies are still far short of their *targets* and resentment and resistance among the ranks remain high, as last summer's Googler meltdown proved. 

Finally, let me say this: if Starbucks is serious about moving the needle on racial bias then your organization, using the power of its market position and access, should demand an equal measure of commitment to D & I of your partners as you are prepared to make. There are different types of sustainability. There's sustainability for coffee producers, and there's sustainability for coffee drinkers. A one day training is fine and all, but the only way to kill the dragon that is unconscious bias is to attack it from multiple sides simultaneously. It must be left bleeding, mortally wounded by the time you’re done. Nothing else will do. Trifling with folks' racial biases leaves Black people at even greater risk (the backlash against forward movement in social justice in this country is well-documented). Bear in mind that it was after emancipation that lynching exploded. It was after Civil Rights that mass incarceration exploded. It's been since Obama that neo-Nazism has become more public.

The truth is that the ubiquity of anti-Blackness is such that radical acts of inclusion are the only way to deal at with this problem. Is Starbucks up to the task?

If you need a name, I'll give you one: Mary Canty Merrill, PhD. She knows exactly how to do what needs to be done.

Here's to your success, 
Elle

Qn: What do the 2018 Oscars and the PA Starbucks incident have in common?

Answer: they prove that there is no space where Blackness is safe; no circumstance where misunderstanding cannot result in injury, incarceration or death.

I've written a time or two (hundred) about bias. I've not used that word much or maybe at all, but at the heart of my writing that's what I'm talking about: the myriad ways in which bias against Blackness, Native-ness, Hispanic-ness, and foreign-ness have played out in America past and present. 

For those slow to get the memo, there are easily ten thousand insidious ways in which Blackness routinely serves as a hindrance to success, a shortener of life, and frustrater of liberty. The episodes I share below, and many, many others, are proof of that. 

This right here is how  un-problematic, completely ordinary I'm-just-minding-my-business-but-somehow-I'm-still-the-problem Blackness can turn potentially life-threatening.

Example 1

In today's episode of Black in America, we feature the Oscars. On Monday 5 March 2018, the day after the 2018 Oscars, we discovered that various members of the Academy had simply refused to see the movie Get Out. Just cuz. Well actually no, not just cuz. They had good reasons, all of them based in bias, not that they think their ignoring the film is about anything so crass as bias.

On that Monday. after Jordan Peele - Get Out's creator - had succeeded in nabbing an Oscar for his screenplay, but had failed to clinch the Best Picture statue, we had an opportunity to see one more time how bias impacts Black Lives even as we're out here minding our own business and trying to live lives of excellence.

The emergence of stories of Academy voters pointedly refusing to consider the movie because it dealt with the topic of racism should not have come as a surprise to anyone. If the underlying theme of the movie was that there really is no space in which Black people's safety is not under direct threat, then we needed to look no further than the comments by an (anonymous of course) academy voter, to see that borne out in fact. 

The story of one white female voter claiming that the movie had played the race card and was therefore not worthy of consideration was peak White fragility dressed up as taking the moral highground. In the Philly incident (below), a White store manager deciding that two Black men should be asked to leave was similarly peak bullshiggety. In both cases, if asked, the women would fight tooth and nail against any suggestion that their behavior was in any way ~ist (which would be funny if it weren't for the fact that this is how Black life unfolds daily). Our ability to give offense by simply showing up is legendary, and the long term impact of that offense cannot be overstated. Always and everywhere there is someone lying in wait to find fault with our efforts or our presence. Sometimes the reaction is just an insult but sometimes, the reaction is deadly violence. 

But the reality of America is that it's not just our jobs and our financial success that are at will, our lives are too. There is no misunderstanding too mundane to be life- or freedom-threatening. Any foolish misunderstanding can end in death. And that ain't hyperbole used for dramatic effect. That is pure truth. Ask Stephon Clark or Tamir Rice. Ask Jordan Davis or Jordan Edwards. There is no exchange or interaction with strangers that, for Black folk, that isn't potentially fatal. Ask Richard Collins III. To be left economically adrift is sometimes a good outcome, maybe even the best one can hope for. At least you're still alive right? That's a win. 

A similar case - about the unexpected levying of a Black tax - can now be made in regard to the Philly Starbucks incident. That's our second example.

Example 2

Synopsis: Two Black men, out here minding their own Black business (literally, they were waiting to have a business meeting) are frustrated in that endeavor by some woman who simply didn't like the look of them. It took her two minutes to decide that they were up to no good I guess. Becky Barista calls the popo - FIVE minutes after they arrive -  because they aren't ordering anything. They are arrested and removed, handcuffed, from the premises. They are released early the following morning. No charges are filed. 

Question: How is this any different from what Carolyn Donham Bryant did that resulted in Emmett Till's brutal murder? Have White folk not yet learned that calling the police for Black people for the crime of being Black in White spaces is tantamount to calling a hit man? Or do we still not get that?

A witness to the Philadelphia Starbucks arrest said a manager did not ask the two men to leave before calling police. Her full account: https://t.co/850qMqLlA1 pic.twitter.com/q9gUYIzw13

— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) April 14, 2018

Example 3

Michigan teen, lost and seeking directions to his high school knocks on door and is greeted with gunfire. Prejudices leapt into action. Boy knocks. "Must be a murderer/rapist/marauding horde of Blackness because marauding bands of negroes knock before they maraud," Henrietta Homeowner thinks and calls Gun-toting George. George gits his gun, points, shoots, stands his ground. Thankfully, the child survives the encounter physically unhurt. His psyche tho? Changed forever. 'Murica 2018.

Example 4

Here's a new one: Local Fox anchors criticized this Black teen for working TOO hard pic.twitter.com/sIwyciCC9j

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 9, 2018

Teen wants to go to college. Teen works hard and applies to many schools. Teen gets accepted to all the schools to which he has applied. TV anchors refer to him as obnoxious and charge him with having taken opportunities away from other deserving students. A survivable encounter certainly but when these anchors suggest that his actions have denied others access? Yeah, that's the kind of ish that gets negroes kilt. 

He may be unhurt physically but his psyche? One more nick, gratuitously taken because he has the temerity to be Black, brilliant, and broke and need all the scholarship money his brilliance can get him. So he applies to many schools seeking the best return on his investment in his intellect he can get. What do these anchors see? An obnoxious kid, causing heartache to other 'deserving' students. So many code words, so little time or tolerance. Surely if a student deserved a scholarship, they'd have won it? Surely if a student deserved a place, this boy who's clearly up near the front of the line, wouldn't have impacted their chances? But no! The negro is taking what's theirs by divine right. 

Uh huh. I say again, this is the kind of talk that gets negroes kilt. 

Four stupid, simple and supposedly innocuous situations. None of them turned out quite as expected because Black folk insist on being Black in public and frankly, the majority just can't abide the normalization of negritude. 

Folk recoil in horror when accused of racism but look up, re-read those four stories and tell me what the hell else it could be. What else could this be (example 5)? 

And so while I commend Starbucks for taking an afternoon to address five centuries' worth of learned behavior, I ask myself is it enough? How could it possibly be? What's the long term action plan? And how do you disincentivize a behavior that has been actively incentivized for five centuries? 

I've been thinking about diversity (not even diversity and inclusion, just the diversity part) for several weeks and here's one of my big takeaways: if Starbucks is serious about moving the needle on racial bias then Starbucks, using the power of its market position and access, must demand of all of its partners an equal commitment to diversity and equal treatment and consideration of all their employees as well. The only way to kill this dragon is to attack it from all sides simultaneously. Is that going to happen? I'm gonna take a guess and say no. Playing patty cake and peekaboo with racial bias leaves Black people dead and Starbucks feeling they've done their job and can go back to business as usual. But the truth is that the ubiquity of anti-Blackness is such that radical acts of inclusion are the only way to deal at this point. Is Starbucks up to the task? Doubtful. So they'll do their one time let's all sing Kumbaya thing  and call it a success I suppose. Shrugs. 

Conversational red herrings (six): I don't have a racist bone in my body

I thought I had completed this series and then someone assured me that he was entirely without prejudice or ~ism. He insisted that he had not a racist bone blah blah blah. Naturally, I was compelled to put a few thoughts together. 

When you claim that there's not a racist bone in your body I don't believe you. For a couple of reasons. First, as my brosin (brother/cousin) says that ain't where racism lies, but carry on. Second, if you were born and raised on this planet where anti-Blackness, anti-Brownness is a thing, and you have zero prejudice you must be Jesus. For a statement like "I don't have a racist bone in my body" or better yet, this

to be true, here's what else would also need to be true 100% of the time: 

I have never clutched my bag in an elevator full of Black men;

I have never argued that #BlackLivesMatter means anything other than Black Lives Matter too;

I have never responded to the above with #AllLivesMatter;

I have never used the phrase "Black on Black crime" in a discussion about police violence against people of color;

I have never argued against reparations. I understand the broad theft of land, liberty, and life that has been heaped  (and continues to be heaped) upon people of African heritage and would fight for their right to be made whole;

I believe that the South African government has the right of it. Boers, who first stole the land, must now relinquish the land they stole;

I have never wondered why there's a Black History month or when we'll be getting a White History month;

I acknowledge that there is nothing valorous about the confederacy and I repudiate all attempts to valorize treason;

I routinely push back against racist tropes in the media and in conversations both personal and professional;

I have no trouble expending energy and social capital teaching people the back stories to today's realities, from poverty rates to literacy rates, healthcare outcomes, the wealth gap, and everything in between.

So to you who claim no racist bones, I ask you, are you there? Can you say these things and more? Can you reflexively argue in support of POC? If not, spare me with the "I don't have a racist bone" foolishness. The reality is that if you were born and raised in the toxic soup of anti-Blackness in which we are ALL born and raised, the likelihood that you are sans ~ism is slim to zero. And slim's been dead a while. 

Here's the truth: you can believe all these things most of the time and still harbor racist feelings and beliefs. The simple and inevitable consequence of being raised in an anti-Black society is that you will hold at least some of the ugly views of the world around you. To deny that truth is to lie to yourself and to be a stumbling block in the advance of truth and a shared, more equal, future. And if you only manage to believe these things of Black people you already know and like? Yeah, you got a long way to go. Call me when you can believe these things about the most wretched Black person, a violent criminal locked up for life for unspeakable crimes. Because even they are covered under this list. Even that person deserves due consideration.........and yes, reparations. 

Lying to yourself is fine I suppose, but please don't expect me to believe the lies with which you comfort yourself, or to applaud your wonderful non-racist bona fides. That ain't happenin' cuz you ain't got none.

If you tell me that you're working hard on reducing your prejudice and not acting out in racist ways, that I can believe. But the there of having arrived at a place of being non-racist, non-prejudiced? There's no there there. That place exists as much as this guy does. 

Carry on.