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.