Folks wanna talk about Black on Black (BoB) crime so let's talk.
Jamal assaulted, robbed, killed, or did whatever to Darrell. Jamal gets arrested, and fair trial or not, he gets convicted. Connor does the same to Darrell. But, they need more facts after the video and multiple eye witnesses have come out. We have to tweet and retweet while simultaneously making nonstop calls and sending multiple emails to state officials. We have to organize peaceful protests. We have to bear the bullets, tear gas, batons, arrests, and job loss when shit turns south because white America needs that action to fuel their narrative. They finally make an arrest after deciding whether it's best to over or under charge Connor. The trial happens, and just as we suspected, Connor walks free or into a cell where he'll be released on parole after only serving a few years. All the while, Connor and his family are supported by multiple gofundmes....many of which are set up by unabashedly racist organizations. BoB crime is a white myth for three reasons: 1. Crime is intraracial. White flight, redlining, and other practices have made sure that the communities we live in will be homogeneous. It is the consensus of criminologists that the majority of crimes happen within a limited radius of a criminal's home. So when your neighbors are 90% Black and you're a criminal, your victim is more than likely gonna be Black. This applies to any race. If BoB crime is such a prevalent issue, why aren't there hundreds of episodes of Forensic Files, Cold Case Files, Criminal Minds, or any other cop/crime show featuring it? Last I checked, those shows are majority white on white crime. But we never hear that phrase, do we? 2. By equating intraracial crime to state sanctioned violence, the white myth proposes that the state can't be held liable for its crimes against us since we do the same to ourselves. It suggests that intraracial crime goes unpunished. But we know that to be untrue. When BoB crime happens, somebody's going to jail.....and often, it's the wrong person or the sentence does not fit the crime. In rare cases, like R. Kelly, the criminal is left to terrorize their community for years. While it still needs reform, "justice" is typically served. However when crime is state sanctioned or interracial with the criminal being white, no form of justice is typically found. 3. In the same vein as point 2, the white myth implies that Black folks aren’t concerned about intraracial crime. With rally cries like “free them til it’s backwards”, it’s understandable why some would assume that…...understandable to racists and those in the sunken place. Name one time you’ve seen a massive, organized protest for the neighborhood crack dealer or the woman hitting licks at the mall….I’ll wait. Now, name a time you’ve heard a Black cop or any Black person say they’re in their occupation because they want to change the system from the inside. Name a time you’ve seen Black community leaders start community centers, after school programs, recreational sports, and mentorship programs. Research shows that providing kids and young adults with safe, healthy, and fun activities and proper education decreases crime. Does this not suggest that we care about crime in our communities? If you have fallen prey to the white myth of BoB, you're a victim of one of the oldest modern day racist strategies: the southern strategy. The southern strategy was a plan enacted to increase white support of the Republican party. By choosing their language carefully, politicians could leave interpretations to the individual. "School segregation is for the safety of the public." Who/what is being protected is left open to interpretation. We know it was the educational and economic advantages of white people, but the language leaves racist whites and fence-sitters feeling good about their support. The racists avoid the mythological violence of "lesser" communities while moderates can maintain their devotion to order rather than justice. To paraphrase Dr. King, a statement can seem well-intentioned while its application is detrimental. Curtailing BoB crime seems like a great idea, but is not the application- crime bills, increased community policing and incarceration, mitigation of white involvement- detrimental? When you fall prey to the rhetoric of BoB crime, you absolve white people of their enactment of and complicity in state sanctioned violence and permit them to continue the damaging practice of regulating Black bodies. Black people will continue to be killed and incarcerated unjustly because you let somebody convince you that Chicago and the local news are proof of its existence despite crime rates in Chicago showing a declining trend since 1994 and knowing that local news networks target crimes committed by Black people. So, if you still believe in Black on Black crime, what are you doing about it? Are you advocating for education reform to increase funding and standards for poor, majority Black kids, or are you moving your kids to "better" neighborhoods to send them to the better public school? Are you organizing programs to teach Black children their history and self-worth, or are you teaching them to conform to whiteness? Do you know the history of Black gangs, or do you still think the Black Panther Party and KKK are one and the same? Are you vetting your judges, sheriffs, district attorney, and other local officials, or are you just voting for the person with a D behind their name? Do you work to decriminalize unjust laws, or do you accept the status quo? Do you actually care about Black lives, or is that simply the image you want to project while remaining amicable with your white friends? You stole us from our Mother
Broke our ties with your till Separated us from each other Brothers and sisters you killed June 19th, our Independence Day Thank God Almighty, we're free at last! 40 and a mule, our due pay 40 and a mule? Not so fast. MLK and a Million Men Fast forward just a lil, and we still in pens Mothers die in hospitals, while their newborns wail Fathers treated like lesser men, while they slave in your jails America let me ask you As you wave your flags You act like we're bulletproof How can I not be mad? So until Target only applies to a store Until you stop ignoring our sound Until the day we don't have to march no more Light that shit up, burn it to the ground I encourage any and all readers that are having any mental issues regarding the current events concerning Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, or George Floyd to please skip ahead to the paragraph that begins with the first sentence that is in bold and underlined.
“Being black is having a good day and then seeing another black person was killed for no reason. Then you have to think about/talk about that all day. Or don’t and numb yourself. It’s a constant emotional war.” – Twitter user @quintabrunson Ahmaud Arbery (25): Lynched near Brunswick, GA while jogging. The Brunswick DA’s Office advised that no arrests be made. The killers were arrested on May 7th. Their cameraman was arrested on May 22nd. The murder took place on February 23rd. Breonna Taylor (26): An EMT, shot eight times in her Louisville, KY apartment by police serving a “no-knock warrant” meant to be served at a “trap-house” more than 10 miles away from the apartment. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was arrested and charged with first-degree assault and attempted murder of an officer for firing at the plain-clothes officers entering their home. At the time of this writing, none of the officers involved have been arrested. Kenneth Walker has since been released. The murder occurred March 13th. George Floyd (46): Arrested for allegedly using a potentially counterfeit bill. Killed by an officer kneeling on his neck for several minutes, despite repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” Floyd was pronounced dead at the hospital. At the time of this writing, only one of the four officers involved has been arrested. The murder took place on May 25th. Ever since Trayvon Martin’s murder, I’ve watched myself die again and again. With each new story I think, “That could’ve just as easily been me. How would I handle that situation? What could they have done to not become a hashtag? Is there anything I could do to avoid the same fate?” Sometimes there are clear answers. The same lines of advice our parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles have drilled into our minds. “Don’t move too quickly.” “Don’t speak to aggressively.” And of course, “Don’t give them a reason.” But now more than ever I wonder what constitutes a “reason”. Jogging is an outdoors activity that many a person takes part in. Especially with gyms being closed due to Covid-19, it’s one of the forms of cardio that can be done without equipment. Simply lace up your shoes of choice and start moving. However, this proved fatal for Ahmaud Arbery. Tell me why he was murdered. Protecting life, liberty, and property is one of the hallmarks of American “freedom”. To this end, it is the Constitutional right of each and every American to own a firearm to protect their home from intruders. Why then was Breonna Taylor killed when officers wrongly invaded her home and her boyfriend fired at the intruders? Tell me why Kenneth Walker was arrested for firing at these intruders. Tell me why the intruders weren’t arrested for killing an innocent woman in the sanctity of her own home when their target was over 10 miles away. Knowingly using counterfeit bills is against the law. When you break the law, you are arrested and await to be tried by a jury of your peers. If found guilty, you will face a punishment deemed to be equal to the severity of your crime. This, in theory, is the American legal system. Explain to me why George Floyd did not have his day in court. Explain why he callously had a knee placed on his neck while he protested he couldn’t breathe. Tell me why none of the nearby officers cared for his pleas for help. Tell me why three of the officers responsible for his death are still free. Since the murder of Trayvon Martin, I’ve watched myself be killed again and again. I’ve watched my mothers die. I’ve seen my fathers die. My brothers and sisters. Even my nieces and nephews. This past month, I’ve watched my family be killed three more times. And the only “reason” I can see, is that they were all black. Tell me how that’s a reason. For those that skipped ahead, begin here. This month I’ve read article after article about how officers haven’t been arrested, how arrests were delayed due to nepotism, how despite video evidence more investigation is needed. This month I’ve read comment thread after comment thread justifying each of these cases. This month, I’m tired. Family, this can get exhausting, especially with the current pandemic and some of your usual outlets potentially being shut off. I forced myself to watch Ahmaud’s video out of some sense that “I need to watch it because I need to know how they operate.” Let me tell you, that was the worst decision I could have made regarding that video. I was not prepared, and it took a toll on my mental. I lost the will to do a lot of the things I loved to do. For days I just replayed the video in my head, stuck in shock by what I had witnessed. Do not, I repeat do not, force yourself to watch a video of someone being beaten, assaulted, or murdered if you aren’t mentally prepared. I’ve seen many a post claiming that we need to watch to understand. Family, I’m here to tell you that we already understand. We know how they operate. We’ve known ever since we stepped foot off those boats. Do not subject yourself to that kind of stress. It is ok to take a break. It is ok to say, “I’m going to sit this one out. I’m not in the mental space to deal with this right now.” I’ve seen comparisons being made to this being like fighting a war. If that’s the case then you NEED to take a break. Soldiers get to visit family during war. They get to take a break. It isn’t constant fighting family, don’t force yourself to keep going. You’ll just burn yourself out. I know this isn’t a deep dive into how to deal with the stress and depression that these instances can cause and that’s because I’m not a therapist. If you have been having serious, shoot even minor, issues with the past events I encourage you to seek out professional help. We as a community seem to have this idea that therapy is a sign of weakness. It’s not. Plain and simple. It’s not. Do what you have to do family. Leave social media for a while. Read a book. Pick that instrument back up. Seek out a therapist or a friend that’s willing to listen. Just do whatever it is you have to do to take care of you. Love y’all and stay safe, Lloyd
On May 25 2020, Memorial Day, a black man named Christian Cooper was walking through New York's Central Park birding. Birding, for the uninitiated, is the, shorter, pithier term for bird-watching, an outdoor past-time enjoyed by many all over the world. Christian might have heard the song of a Chestnut-Sided Warbler, or spotted the brilliant blue plumage of an Indigo Bunting, or watched as a Red-Tailed Hawk soared on thermals over head. Particularly in times like these, he may find a particular sense of peace in his time spent outside, communing with nature, I know that I have. At some point in his walk, he encountered a women and her dog walking in the park, also presumably to enjoy the nature and fresh air. The woman's name was Amy Cooper, a white woman and self professed liberal, and her dog was off-leash, a violation of park policy. A dog allowed off leash can easily disturb and stress out the local birds, potentially harming the wildlife and quite materially spoiling Christian's birding. He therefore asks her to abide by park regulations and leash her dog. When she refused, their argument escalated and Christian began to record the interaction. Amy can be seen in the subsequent recording threatening to call the police, emphasizing Christian's status as an African-American man. As she dials 911, her voice rises in pitch and volume, performing the kind of hysteria that throughout history white women have weaponized against black people. Luckily, in our modern day and age, we have the power of the internet, and once Christian posted the video online, it went viral, and as we've seen before in recent times, millions of strangers on the internet rallied to his defense and vociferously called for there to be immediate consequences for Amy's vile, racist threats.
There are a lot of layers to this incident, whether it be the swiftness and totality of the online response, the culpability of white-liberals in upholding racist power structures, or the public desire for "perfect" victims who conform to white-supremacist ideals of success, value, and innocence. Many other wonderful writers and thinkers have explored these dimensions at length. As a biologist and avid outdoor enthusiast, this incident has resonated deeply with me, and has got me thinking about how race influences how we conceptualize and experience nature. As black folks, we have had to navigate a deluge of cultural messaging about who the outdoors are really for, and for a long time, the world of outdoor recreation has been displayed as a very white world. Whether it be hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, rock-climbing, cycling, kayaking, or birding in Christian's case, the outdoors are a place for the privileged and the white, so goes the cultural orthodoxy. Growing up in South Georgia, I gravitated towards nature and outdoor activities. I chased frogs, lizards and snakes in my backyard as a child, I volunteered for years at my town's local zoo, I even joined the Boy Scouts for the sole reason of having access to more outdoor opportunities. But in all of these contexts, I was either the only black person or one of a very small minority. This is especially concerning, in that in my town, black folks were by no means a minority. During that time, I often felt the need to perform, to constantly prove my right to be there by knowing more than anyone else around me. Don't get me wrong, I devoured every animal fact or tidbit of ecological trivia with gusto, but as often as I found genuine fulfillment in my learning, I'd fall back on this knowledge as a defense mechanism, to prove to myself and to others that I deserved to be in these spaces. Even as an older man and a practicing scientist conducting ecological field work in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, I find myself on the defensive, ready to rattle off my credentials in case someone thinks I don't belong. With the Central Park incident, I can't help but see an ugly manifestation of these racial dynamics, white folks insisting that black folks don't belong in outdoor spaces. Amy Cooper, a white woman, had the idea that Christian Cooper, a black man, was trespassing in nature, that he had no right to tell her how to inhabit that space. She may claim she isn't racist, she may genuinely regret her actions, but when it came down to it, she sought to use her power and privilege to assert her authority to utilize public space in the way SHE saw fit, Christian's rights to utilize that same space in peace be damned. She did this by threatening a black man's freedom and his life. In the Central Park incident, we can see echoes of the fraught history of public spaces in this country. For a long time, I idolized John Muir, the famed California naturalist and conservationist who was instrumental in the formation of our National Park System, and I still greatly appreciate his contributions to the conservationist movement in the US. However, one can't reckon with Muir's legacy without recognizing how his push for the formation of Yosemite National Park came at great cost to local Miwuk and Paiute tribes that have lived in Yosemite Valley for generations (which they called Ahwahnee Valley). Indigenous tribes were forced out of their ancestral homes to make way for the park, often quite violently. As for Muir, he may be well known for his stirring and poetic descriptions of the "pristine" wilderness of the Western United States, but his words for the indigenous inhabitants were less rosy, calling them "most ugly, and some altogether hideous". While Muir's attitude to native people softened over time, and he grew to deeply respect their culture, his actions caused irreparable harm. The pristine image of nature championed by Muir was quite deliberately used to erase indigenous peoples and their claims on the lands they inhabited, instead touting an apocryphal untouched wilderness that was for the enjoyment of white settlers. This mentality is still pervasive in our country, and is a big part of why outdoor recreation has remained so white for so long. This may seem far removed from the incident in Central Park, but we can see how American outdoor culture contains echoes of our imperialist, expansionist, frontier mentality, which in turn echoes into modern ideas of race in the outdoors. Making outdoor spaces safe and welcoming for black folks cannot happen until we reckon with these difficult truths. In a world beset by climate change, habitat destruction, and deadly zoonotic pandemics, now more than ever we need to strengthen our awareness of and connection to the natural world. It's no surprise that these crises are poised to hit our most marginalized communities hardest. Ask any environmental scientist, ecologist, marine biologist etc. why they do what they do, and most of them will relay a deep and abiding love and reverence of the natural world. Making sure that everyone, particularly our most most marginalized are welcome in outdoor spaces is of vital importance. I want to see more people who look like me involved in the kind of work that has brought me so much joy over the years, and that will get us through the next natural crisis. More importantly, I want black folks to be able to watch birds and feel safe while doing it, to simply exist and feel safe doing so. Things are moving positively, there are tons of amazing black educators, scientists, and content creators out there working hard to change preconceptions of who can enjoy the outdoors. Folks like Earyn McGee, Corina Newsome, and Jason Ward are sharing their love of nature, while also sharing their whole selves in the process. Jason's excellent YouTube show, Birds of North America, even features an appearance from Christian Cooper. Please give it a watch, and follow all the dope naturalists I mentioned on Twitter @Afro_Herper, @hood_naturalist, @JasonWardNY. I'll leave you with a quote from Christian, which I think really captures that sense of wonder and joy one can derive from nature, a joy that everyone should be able to experience, not just the privileged. "There are seven things that make birding absolutely spectacular... The seventh one is probably the best one, what I call the unicorn effect. You hear about birds, you see them in a book, and you're like 'Oh wow that's an amazing bird, I'd love to see that someday!', and then one day you're walking through the woods or walking through a swamp or whatever, and suddenly flap-flap-flap..." Stay healthy and stay safe y'all, get outside, and maybe watch some birds while you're at it. You might just find yourself a knew obsession. Kwasi |
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