Sincere, very open to conversation for understanding, questions to white people. Tuesday night, Alton Sterling was killed at the hands of police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The details of the story are still unfolding as to why they even approached him, what was their reasoning reacting in such manner, and so on. Because of that, I will not write a summary of what I have read thus far. As the hashtag, #AltonSterling, began to unfurl through social media so did the rage of White America. Which led me to, “Why?”
What goes through your mind the moment you hear of injustice towards persons of color, specifically black persons?
I ask this because I truly want to know. It’s not from a place of judgment, anger, concern, but merely out of curiosity. I want to know how you feel about me. As a black woman raised in the south, [as surprising as it may seem] I’ve never really experienced or was aware of this “modern day” racism that’s festering, until I left home. There is one clear moment in 2nd grade where racial epithets were exchanged because someone didn’t want me sitting on the rug, but I can’t think of other times. But with everything happening, I want to know.
I want to know your feelings when you read these headlines. I want to know why there is a need to justify why it happened, but when a white person goes through it you want swift fair justice for “a loving father of four”. Why is it that crickets chirp when a woman is pulled over and arrested for her “attitude” and winds up dead in her cell, but when a football player hosts dog fights or a dentist kills a lion it’s “off with their heads!” Yes, both are tragic and inhumane acts of violence, but why is there no outrage for us humans?
What is going through your mind when those breaking news alerts scroll through ending in #BlackLivesMatter?
What is your reaction when one directly or indirectly discourses with you about the injustice?
Again, I merely want to know. Do you feel like your being attacked forced to confront something you’ve willfully chosen to ignore? Do you feel that there are more dire issues in society that need to be dealt with, and this issue will “sort itself out”? Do you feel that it’s just us pulling the race card again, rather than taking blame for our actions leading up to said point?
For me, it’s important to have a group of friends that feel comfortable in themselves and their beliefs to speak up when things just don’t sit well. It may be in agreement or disagreement of my beliefs, but they are vocal. This is not to say every white person needs to stand up for the systematically oppressed, but why say something when a young white girl is killed from a ricocheted bullet, but turn away when a young black girl loses her life in the way assuming it’s gang related? I feel for both lives lost and want action, but why do you choose one over the other?
Why do you take the outcry for justice as solely directed against you?
When the Black Lives Matter movement began, I read it as, “Our lives matter, too. Why can’t America acknowledge that?” Not once did it negate the lives of others, it merely brought to light the case we are still subject to intentional acts of abuse and oppression by the hands of those who claim “We are ALL equal.”
Why is that when a black man is honored with an award and speaks his truth, there’s an uprising to discredit him and a petition to takeaway his livelihood? I mean, it was HIS moment. HIS award. And HIS honest and compelling words on BLACK Entertainment Television [it’s BET for those who were unaware of the acronym’s significance]. But he is seen as racist for simply stating facts proven through statistics and history, as you play the inconvenienced impassioned victim of hate against the human race.
The Change.org original excerpt read: “Jesse Williams spewed a racist2, hate speech against law enforcement and white people at the BET awards. If this was a white person making the same speech about an African American, they would have been fired and globally chastised, as they should be, but there has been no consequences to Williams’ actions.2 There’s been no companies making a stand against his racist remarks and no swift action condemning his negative attitude. Why was Burke’s character3 fired from Grey’s Anatomy after his inappropriate homophobic slur, but nothing for Jesse Williams?4 Why the one-way street? Why the support for a hater? Why the hypocrisy? #AllLivesMatter All humans bleed the same color. #EqualConsequences4RacistBehavior”
- Look up the definition of racism and insert your societal standing. Come back to me if you are still lost.
- There isn’t enough paper in America to write down every white person who has spewed hate towards black people and have never even been called out for it.
- Burke is played by actor Isiah Washington. “Burke’s character” didn’t make a homophobic comments, it was Isiah Washington.
- Great question. Why was Washington fired when Michael Richards went on an obscene slur filled rant, but his apology was enough for the people? Riddle me that, person who created this CHANGE.ORG petition.
Patricia Arquette used her win to voice her feelings during the 2015 Oscars, she was praised with a bounty of “You go, girl!” yet Nancy Lee Grahn (and a slew of bitter Bettys) immediately condemned Viola Davis’s Emmy speech.
[For reference Viola said, “In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line. But I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.” That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. And let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”]
Nancy takes to twitter in an upset:
Why aren’t our accomplishments, our outcries, and our tears as celebrated, or as deafening, or as important as yours? Why aren’t our moments, OUR moments?
Why aren’t our feelings as valid in comparison to yours?
Why is everything that happens because of the way we dress, where we live, because we had a gun [let’s look up the stats of gun toters in the white community], our familial misfortune, poor education, basically our lack of innate privilege? Why can’t it just be that the structures of absolute power weren’t built for us?
Will you teach your adopted black babies that if they live in a certain light they will never be subject to the brutalities of society? Will they believe they are superior to their black brothers and sisters because their adoptive parents carry the complexion for protection? Will they look down on their ancestors with hate that carries over to self-denial and internalized disdain for their own historical beauty and strength? How will you soothe them when they realize your whiteness couldn’t protect them from their blackness?
Why is Beyoncé the ideal black woman when she is a quiet sex symbol, only to open her mouth for musical chords to exit, but when she creates an album to celebrate black women, it’s racist? When she and her dancers dressed in Black Panther themed attire for the Super Bowl, she was saying, “Fuck the police,” inciting riot mentality, and again is racist? When her video for Formation was released showing a young black boy dancing in front of lineup of officers, guns ready to shoot before his moves sway them to stand done, it’s a covert message that she is against police officers, inciting race wars, and funny enough, again, is racist? Why is our place of joy continuously dismantled when not favorable to your ideals or out of your comprehension? Why is our joy used as way to deflect your hate?
Why are we subject to being “all the same” when we’ve never been in any situations close to the culprit, and our only parallels are our melanin pigmentation, but when you are lumped together as purveyors of unjust acts towards us, you shout to the closest black ear, “I’m different!” “I have black friends!” “My last partner was black!” “I hung with the black group in high school!” as some sort of connecting variable to inequality and a justifier to diminish our rage? Why?
On the search for answers to seemingly unanswerable questions,
xTillie