Month: July 2015

Life on the intersection.

Posted on by thewayoftheid

I don’t write much anymore. Not because I don’t want to write. Not because there isn’t enough time. But in this fast-paced world of hot takes, it has become increasingly difficult to keep up. I realize that I am not a hot take kinda girl. I am for the measured, contemplative essay, one that takes great care to craft. Some are able to pull that off daily, and God bless ’em. I can’t do it. My heart isn’t in it. I write when the spirit compels me, when something has moved me so deeply that I am wide awake at 1:30 in the morning banging, on my Macbook Pro in the quiet of my living room.

Today, it is Sandra Bland, the woman who allegedly committed suicide in a Texas jail cell earlier this week. And the Black Lives Matter protest at Netroots Saturday morning. And the criticism of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new release. And how, in one way or another, they all intersect.

Sandra Bland spent the latter part of brief life advocating for preservation of black lives. Her family remembers her as a brilliant, vivacious woman, a woman fighting to change the world, or her corner of it. She used social media to speak out against police violence. A Chicago Blackhawks fan, her final tweets are ones asking fellow fans to join her in prayer for the Charleston Nine. She is the second person in three years to allegedly commit suicide while in custody of the Waller County, Texas, authorities. She is the sixth black woman in 2015 to die during a police encounter. She is the 13th black woman (that we know of) to die since 2014. Sandra Bland’s case is one of the very few to see widespread media attention; usually when the victim is black and female the story is quietly filed away, until a news story needs a statistic, or a thinkpiece needs an tragic anecdote. Perhaps, because in Sandra Bland, we have the perfect victim. A respectable victim. An educated, socially conscious victim. She is not too young, or too old. She could easily be the girl from the old neighborhood, or the sister making plates at the family picnic, or the girl you politely smiled at as you crossed paths in the frozen food aisle at Mariano’s.

Sandra Bland means that the stories of black women felled at the hands of police can no longer be erased. No longer can we write off black female victims as troubled ne’er-do-wells condemned to their fates. No longer can we blame incomplete narratives on the lack of public interest. Her story is in our face, her final moment of life a viral video, her brief existence a Sunday morning show talking point. So when a Black Lives Matter activist disrupts a presidential candidate forum to declare “no more erasure,” you are compelled to pay attention. And it will make you uncomfortable. That’s the point. There is no room for politeness when your life is on the line. There is no hey, um, if you could um, just give me a minute… because we’ve tried that before and got nowhere. This is as urgent as a motherfucker.

News reports covering Saturday’s action have described it as “heckling,” the presidential candidates “shouted down.” or “interrupted and derailed” by BLM. Social media reaction was just as damning, with many white progressives wondering (aloud, of course) why black activists would disrupt politicians at a convention specifically created for…activists. Many black people who have attended Netroots will attest to having that “fly in the buttermilk” feeling. They will regale you with tales of bizarre microaggressions and polite liberal racism. They will speak of the organization’s lip service to diversity, and its struggles to be more inclusive. Which is why that BLM action was necessary, why the sight of a black woman standing between two white male presidential hopefuls, demanding to be seen, demanding accountability, was powerful. Sure, white progressives can try to dismiss this protest as an immature attention-grab, but when a white male presidential hopeful (one with a questionable track record on race relations) responds to Tia Oso’s question with “Black Lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter” the disconnect is clear. And when Tia Oso is met with scorn and derision from white progressives, the disconnect is clear. And when Bernie Sanders cancels a meeting with black activists, perhaps to signal disapproval, the disconnect is clear.

It is necessary, then, to continue to speak up about erasure, even if it means criticizing those we respect. Last week saw the release of Ta-Nehisi Coates new book, Between the World and Me; many met the new release with praise, including Toni Morrison, who compared The Atlantic writer to Baldwin. It is something when one of the world’s most revered writers compares your work to that of another literary giant. The accolades, of course, aren’t unwarranted. I’ve been a fan since his Village Voice days, and have had spirited debates with good friends on the merits of his work. Coates is a beautiful storyteller, an earnest intellectual who readily admits when he’s wrong, and takes great care to get it right. And when a friend did come with criticism, he took it. Instead of making it about himself, or his feelings, he simply responded “you’re right.”

And that’s really all we want. Acknowledgement. For our voices to be heard, our pain felt. To not be shouted down, or told to wait our turn. It is possible to bite your tongue so hard it bleeds, to hold in a scream for so long that the body and spirit and soul breaks down. A demand for accountability shouldn’t be met with paternalism and jeers. A moment of legitimate anger shouldn’t be dismissed as an ill-timed tantrum. We are here. Present. Visible. Loud. And we aren’t going anywhere.

On McKinney, Cosby, and Misogynoir.

Posted on by hoodfeminism

(De Ana J is writer and sometimes smartass from Southern California. She podcasts for Nerdgasm Noire, writes for Arsenal for Democracy and acts out on Twitter as @NaniCoolJ. You can also sometimes catch her on her blog www.nerdygirlswag.com.)

Weeks ago in McKinney, Texas the police were called about a disturbance at a neighborhood pool party. In one of the many viral videos, there’s an officer running around cursing at teenagers – mostly Teens of Color. In the video you distinctly hear them ask why they were being detained and why they were being told to leave a party to which they’d been invited. Notably, they were asking politely. A bikini-clad girl looking for one of her friends is told to leave with another group of girls; as they leave, the officer becomes upset and grabs the girl, slamming her to the ground multiple times, while her friends ask why she’s being arrested. When her friends attempt to help her, the officer pulls a gun on the group.

Aside from the obvious racism, it’s important to pay attention to the racialized misogyny  (misogynoir) that also takes place. Looking at the videos, it’s clear to see that the officer, David Eric Casebolt, was being excessive in his attack on the girl, Dajerria Becton. It’s scary to see a grown man be so violent towards any small, bikini-clad 14 year old girl  – the officer treats Miss Becton as if she were a much bigger, much stronger person. It’s even more alarming when you realize that Casebolt was specifically targeting teens of color.

If that girl hadn’t already learned before — if any of those teens hadn’t already learned before — they learned that day that being Black in public is considered a threat to the police. Even if you’re doing nothing wrong. Even if you’re only 14. Even if you obviously have no weapon. Even if you are polite.

If a group of teens can have the police called on them for being at a pool party they were invited to, the problem isn’t them — it’s the belief that simply because they are there they are causing trouble. This is especially true for Black girls, who have to live at the intersection of racism and sexism that denies them their girlhood. As is evident from the altercation that got police called to the neighborhood in the first place.

In a YouTube video, Tatyana Rhodes describes how two white women at the pool were cursing at the teens at the party before the police arrived. She states that, initially, a younger white girl objected to the slurs the two white women. They began to curse at her, and when Tatyana spoke out against the women’s language, they initiated a fight. In both this incident and the officer subsequently slamming Dajerria to the ground, we see White adults attacking Black teenagers, ignoring their right to personal safety.

The “pro-police” reaction to the event has been cliche. Those who believe Casebolt was justified in violently assaulting a teenage girl use the same excuses as those used for all unwarranted abuses towards Black people. They say that the children were the problem and if they’d only acted more respectfully towards the police and residents they wouldn’t have been in this situation. This point of view completely ignores how polite the teens were as they were being detained by police and the fact that it was White adults who initially antagonized them for just being Black in public.

We’ve been told non-violent protests in the form of marches and boycotts in the 1960s magically changed the minds of the majority of White people and then racism ended. Because of this fairytale, the US has failed to unpack actual issues of systemic racism and the lingering effects of racist stereotypes that have developed since slavery.

This failure combined with sexist attitudes is especially harmful for Black women and girls. Even as teenagers, any break in respectable behavior is treated as a threat and the responses to these perceived threats is almost immediately violence. We’re not afforded the luxury of girlhood. If Black girls were regarded by society the way it views White American girls, it would reveal this violence against us to be as horrible as it actually is, for all to see.

The fact that so many are making excuses for violence against this girl shows they do not view her as a girl the way they would a white 14-year-old in the same situation. It is also almost certainly no coincidence that the cop targeted her with this extreme force while leaving the White teenage girls at the party alone, and only handcuffing but not roughing up those siding with their Black friends against out-of-control adults.

Unfortunately, this lack of girlhood affects the way adult Black women are treated as well. Recently, after another public outing of Bill Cosby’s sexual assaults on women, Beverly Johnson opened up to Essence magazine about being assaulted by Bill Cosby. Her story matched the stories of the other women who were brave enough to tell them, yet Mrs. Johnson was called a liar (among other things) and her despite her own successful career, people were quick to dismiss her and defame her character. Many saying that Beverly was trying to take down a prominent Black figure and therefore hurting Black people as a whole, while ignoring how harm to Black women also hurts Black people.

This isn’t just a race issue, this isn’t just a feminist issue, this is both. Black girls should be allowed the same safety and protection as their White counterparts.