Friday, December 12, 2014

Racism Alone? – Reflections on the Current National Divide

When I heard the decision not to indict the killers of Eric Garner, my outraged response was, “here we go again!”  If the Michael Brown case lacked moral clarity, the senseless tragedy of the Eric Garner case was much more clear.  No matter what the circumstances were, here were two more African American men added to the list of senseless killings, arousing strong reactions nationally and internationally.

Some claim that these killings demonstrate the existence of racist structures that permeate our society.  Others claim that these killings resulted from criminal behavior or “a lack of personal responsibility.”  While both positions point to contributing factors, they both continue to ignore the elephant in the room, namely culture – a factor that dwarfs the previous two. 

We have made astounding progress against racism thanks to the Civil Rights and Black Consciousness movements.  Yet in the ’hood, conditions have not improved accordingly.  Today, there is a growing culture of dysfunctionality eating away not just at the ‘hood, but at our larger society.  It is often government funded through well meaning but mismanaged subsistence programs.  It is having devastating effects across cultures, yet is felt most profoundly in the ’hood.  It is a culture derived from the old “redneck” South – a culture nurtured by structures of oppression and one that wears down initiative and personal responsibility – whose value system elevates and encourages anti-achieverism, fatherlessness, dependency, helplessness, hopelessness, self-sabotaging/self-destructive behavior, fratricide, etc., and in extreme cases, nihilism. 

Monday, September 1, 2014

Ferguson — “We Don’t All Look Alike”

Photo Credit: Megan Sims @The_Blackness48
Howard University Student Body via USAToday
A quiet rage has been inside me since the shooting of Michael Brown on August 15 — a rage I kept under control as I tried to be objective, and resist being manipulated by the strident and predictable rhetoric surrounding this senseless killing.  However, as I watched Michael’s funeral, that rage burned hot.  It brought to mind the senseless and tragic deaths of other young Black men: Eric Garner, age 43 on July 17, 2014 in Staten Island, NY; Trayvon Martin, age17 on February 26, 2012 in Sanford, FL.  I couldn’t help recalling the horrifying murder of Emmett Louis Till, age 14 on August 28, 1955 in the Mississippi Delta.  His body was fished out of the Tallahatchie River after being beaten and shot in the head.  The image of his mutilated and bloated body is still seared in my memory.

Before you write me off for strident and predictable rhetoric of my own, you must know that these killings are not the only ones that have me incensed.  I am likewise enraged by the murders of thousands of young African American men in places like Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, where the killers happened to be Black.  I have lost personal friends in “drive-by” shootings, simply because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.