Tag Archives: racism

Ferguson + 365 Days: A Culture of Police Impunity

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On the anniversary of Mike Brown’s death, another abusive police crackdown played out.

Map: Ferguson, MO within St. Louis County. (© OpenStreetMap contributors)

Map: Ferguson, MO within St. Louis County. (© OpenStreetMap contributors)

Last year, on August 9th, the death of Mike Brown at the hands of a police officer pushed the chronic abuse of an entire community at the hands of police to the forefront of global news media and kicked off a national movement.

Ten days ago, on August 9th 2015, the first anniversary of his death, people began tweeting links to articles and feeds about violence breaking out in Ferguson. I naively thought that people were posting old articles, as a reminder of the trauma that Ferguson residents endured last year in the wake of Mike Brown’s death. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that the links being posted were brand new. It’s been a year to the day, yet St. Louis County Police Department still doesn’t seem to want to fix the problem.

Over the past year, Whiteness and its privileges have been under the microscope. More and more people of color, especially Black people, are able to document their interactions with Whiteness — from the smallest micro-aggressions to major instances of Police Brutality and abuse. Ferguson in the past week alone has shown examples almost all of these issues.

On the night of August 10th, a 19-year-old White girl decided she was going to show solidarity with St. Louis PD as the tension increased at the ongoing Ferguson anniversary protests. The girl is quoted saying that she was there to protect the police, because she would rather have something thrown at her, than to have something thrown at and possibly injure cops.

It seems strange that someone would feel that police with guns riot gear would need protection from peaceful protesters. Meanwhile, the same instinct isn’t felt for a 12 year old Black girl detained by St. Louis County PD in Ferguson during protests. When the news spread on Twitter of the girl’s arrest, the STL PD account was quick to respond that the girl had an ID that stated that she was 18 years old, despite the fact that there were eyewitness accounts of the girl stating that she was 12 when asking why exactly she was being detained. Apparently she posed the same threat that Dajerria Becton posed in McKinney, Texas: being young, Black, and female in front of the police.

Earlier that same day, prominent activists Netta Elzie and DeRay Mckesson were both arrested, along with many others, during a peaceful protest at the Ferguson courthouse. It wasn’t until the following day, upon release, that other detainees came forward on Twitter with stories of being abused by the police — who ignored their requests not only to know why they were being detained, but also requests for things such as rolling down the windows in hot police vans.

This level of neglect harkens back to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, or the death of Sandra Bland in Texas. In both of those instances, the police claimed that the victims hurt themselves, but the negligence shown toward the detainees makes one think that any pre-existing issue anyone might have had could only have become worse in police custody.

While Black protesters were detained abusively, an armed group of vigilantes called the Oath Keepers showed up at Tuesday night’s protests weren’t even approached initially by police and the legality of their presence had to be reviewed before the police ever asked them to leave. As usual, the threat of White violence (against Black protesters) was apparently less dangerous than the protesters’ unarmed presence.

Virtually all of this — incredibly — played out in front of global news media again, just like the first time around.

It’s been a year since the death of Mike Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer, and it seems as if the police there has not learned a single lesson. It is still treating unarmed Black citizens as a threat. Its attempts to “control” already peaceful situations only raise tensions higher. With the growing list of Black and Brown people being murdered by police, and with the entirety of the world watching, Ferguson is a reflection of the entire country’s inability to take any substantial move towards valuing and preserving our lives.

While the movement that expanded in the aftermath of Mike Brown’s death seems to have started very slightly changing the discussion in the country — by refusing to “let it go” — it is telling that the police in St. Louis County feel they can act with such impunity with the world watching.

That means they believe enough people in power or the general public don’t object to their behavior enough to correct it. Or that if they do object, the system will continue to protect them anyway. Sadly, that assumption is probably correct. And with Ferguson being the example of systemic racism on a smaller scale, imagine how that is playing out nationwide, off-camera.

Janelle Monáe: Magical Black Womanist Revolution Music

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Guest post by Maria Jackson. You can read her last guest essay here.

I have been a fan of Janelle Monáe since 2008’s Metropolis: The Chase Suite. Hearing her music was like hearing my inner most thoughts, desires, and interests manifest. Her electric, bouncing, soulful, sci-fi sound paired with strong, storytelling lyrics of a quest for freedom had me hooked. Everything Monáe has presented and produced has been created thoughtfully and with a clear-eyed purpose.

Janelle-MonáeMonáe has been hyper aware of her image and how others perceive her ever since she came onto the scene over seven years ago. Preferring to be covered up than baring skin or being “revealing” was choice dictated not only by style, but also by conscious and personal comfort. Her iconic look, bouncy pompadoured coif with a black and white tuxedo (although her wardrobe has expanded and her hair has been down recently) is a uniform in tribute not only to her parents, but also to working class people:

“When I started my musical career I was a maid, I used to clean houses and the girls I used to clean houses with used to always beg me to sing while we cleaned. I lived in a boarding house with five other girls and I would sell my $5 CD out of my room. My mother was a proud janitor, my step-father who raised me worked at the post office, and my father was a trash man. They all wore a uniform and that’s why I wear my uniform to honor them. I have work to do. I have people to uplift. I have people to inspire. And today I wear my uniform proudly.”

 
Beginning with narrative Cindi Mayweather vs. The Wolfmasters, much of Monáe’s musical catalogue tells the story of a future society where androids are sold at auction for the pleasure of their buyers. Specifically androids are the “others” whose independence and freedom are feared by the very same who have created and own them.

In Cindi’s musical sojourn to be free, Monáe references negro spirituals and melds them with the origins of modern sci-fi, citing the influences of Philip K. Dick and the 1927 silent film, Metropolis. Fusing retro fashions of suspenders and the pompadour, while blending sci-fi vision with the frustration and joy entangled in the current realities of living as marginalized person in the U.S., Monáe’s artistry has always been about the very revolutionary act of bringing the outsiders to the forefront of their own stories about love, freedom, humanity, and self-acceptance.

These womanist themes of living at the intersections have continued through each album reaching a commercial and pop culture peek in her 2013 release of Q.U.E.E.N featuring Erykah Badu. Q.U.E.E.N, which stands for Queer, Untouchables, Emigrants, Excommunicated, Negroid, tackles themes of respectability politics, morality, black femininity, white supremacy, inequality and poverty. So, when she and the other Wondaland artists spoke up about police brutality during their performance on the TODAY Show (and were cut off), no one should have been surprised.

Earlier that day the Wondaland artists released Hell You Talmbout (a rework or sequel to the Electric Lady bonus track of the same name) a percussive protest jam made for marching where the names of men, women, boys, and girls killed by police brutality are shouted. Monáe described the meaning behind the song her Instagram:

“This song is a vessel. It carries the unbearable anguish of millions. We recorded it to channel the pain, fear, and trauma caused by the ongoing slaughter of our brothers and sisters. We recorded it to challenge the indifference, disregard, and negligence of all who remain quiet about this issue. Silence is our enemy. Sound is our weapon. They say a question lives forever until it gets the answer it deserves… Won’t you say their names?”

 
The only way you could be unaware of Monáe’s views on Black life in America is to be wholly ignorant of her body of work.

Guest essayist Maria Jackson is a thirty-something, 4th generation Georgia Peach who writes for Shakefire.com and can be heard trading opinions and laughter on the Nerdgasm Noire podcast, with Arsenal For Democracy columnist De Ana and others. Co-owner and full time fatshionista for luvfattax.com.

AFD Micron #9

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We like to think of historical people as trapped in the morals of their times, but history is filled with well-researched, articulate debates on the moral harms of slavery or Indian genocide—in societies that decided in favor of them anyway. The fact that we talk a lot about racism or sexism today can’t be taken as evidence that we’re effectively dealing with them.

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One year later

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In case you missed it last year, you can still stream or download my August 17th radio interview of eyewitness accounts in Ferguson MO from longtime area residents.

We talked about: Longstanding tensions with police in Ferguson and the wider St. Louis County, the geography of the Ferguson protests and manifestations of outrage, militarization of American police forces, respectability politics (why dressing and speaking a certain way won’t save Black Americans), personal stories of being harassed by police in the St. Louis area (including Ferguson), raising children under / growing up with an abusive police force, & organizing for future change (from social media to events on the ground).

This is one of several interviews and panel shows I did on Ferguson, but it’s the earliest one.

No, You Cannot Have an Afro

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A few months ago, the #TwitpicYourCheveuxCrepus hashtag went viral in both France and the US. It was a reaction to the French magazine Public saying Solange Knowles’ hair resembled armpit hair. Those tweeting in response instead decided to showcase the many different and beautiful styles Black hair has to offer.

Last week, on the opposite end of the spectrum from hatred of afros, Allure magazine decided to publish a tutorial on how to get the “afro” look with straight hair under the title “You (Yes, You) Can Have an Afro, Even If You Have Straight Hair” complete with a picture of a smiling White woman with her hair in tight afro-like curls.

I’m going to just go ahead and refute this right now and tell you that no, you most certainly cannot have an afro if you have straight hair.

Many will try and argue that an afro is just a hairstyle, and therefore should be something that anyone can wear. Those people are wrong. They fail to understand that afros in all of their various curl patterns are literally the natural way that hair physically grows on the heads of African-descended people.

Angela Davis (left) and another woman with afros in 1969 at UCLA. (Photo Credit: George Louis via Wikimedia)

Angela Davis (left) and another woman, both with large afros, in 1969 at UCLA. (Photo Credit: George Louis via Wikimedia)

And for well over two hundred years, it has often been considered taboo for Black people to show their hair in its natural state in public.

In Louisiana, in the late 1700s, tignon laws were established that required Black women to cover their hair. The idea of Black and mixed race women of African Ancestry having pride in their natural appearance was such a threat to Louisiana society because it gave the appearance that Black people could be of a higher stature than was permitted for them at the time. It was also believed that the hairstyles were luring White men into interracial relationships, and could potentially strengthen Black influence in New Orleans. The tignon laws were put in place to stop that influence and to essentially keep Black people relegated to a lower class.

That may seem extreme or an archaic example, but even today natural Black hair is considered inappropriate for everyday situations. In 2013, Tiana Parker was sent home from her school in Oklahoma because her dreadlocks were not considered a “presentable hairstyle.” The school even went so far as to say that dreadlocks, afros and braids were considered “faddish hairstyles” and therefore not allowed. Again in 2013, a school in Ohio tried to ban afro-puffs and twisted braids, which for Black girls is as standard a hairstyle as pigtails are for people with naturally straight hair.

In a recent article in The Atlantic, the idea of a “makeup tax” was explored. The author talks about how women in general spend a lot of money and time on makeup and beauty products in order to be considered presentable to a male-dominated workplace. If the makeup tax is this much of a financial commitment for White women, imagine then what it must be like for Black women having to spend money not just on makeup but altering their hair in order for it to be considered neat and clean by White standards. Clearly Black women’s money has a significant effect on the haircare industry, since the natural hair push has caused many companies to create products for Black hair and even buy up businesses like Shea Moisture to cover that part of the market.

You cannot erase this context to make an Afro “just a hairstyle” (full story➚). The fact that our hair is considered either “unpresentable” or a fad clearly shows the disconnect that many people have with Black hair. It is especially insulting that with the amount of work and money that Black women have had to sacrifice over the years in order for our hair to be considered “presentable,” White women especially have recently been latching onto our hairstyles and are called innovative for doing so.

Our hair is not a fad, it is the natural way our hair grows on our heads, and we have the right to say no when people try to appropriate it.

AFD Micron #5

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Systemic racism doesn’t mean white men in suits having secret meetings to decide how racism happens. The murder of Sam DuBose was clearly unpremeditated and spontaneous. It’s also clearly related to the overwhelming dehumanization of black people throughout American history, the normalization of immediately using violence to deal with them, police forces that are willing to cover for each other, and so on; snap decisions made with the weight of enough racist psychology behind them don’t demand conspiracy theories.

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We Care

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Last week, two articles came out on this site about Black women. One of them was about Nicki Minaj and the way media tried to force a “beef” between her and Taylor Swift. The other was a reflection on the death of Sandra Bland. On the latest Arsenal for Democracy radio show, Maria (the writer of the Sandra Bland article) and I tried to articulate how these two things are connected in terms of the lives of Black women. (You can listen to a clip here before reading the rest below.)

Still, I feel the need to make this important point: Black people are allowed to care about both.

There is a quiet suffering that is expected especially from Black women the moment tragedy hits our communities. With every case of a Black man’s death at the hands of police or racist vigilantes, after the gruesome videos of death that are becoming more and more common since last year, there has then been a video of a grieving mother, sister, wife, or daughter who — when asked over and over again about the death of their family member — is expected to give calm and even-voiced answers. If ever they stray away from that restrained grief, if ever they show anger towards the person who murdered their family, their emotions are considered too aggressive. When Eric Garner’s widow refused to accept the condolences of the man who killed her husband, it was a shock for some to see her react so negatively at a press conference.

The same attitude is used against Black people as a whole. This week, after the death of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe, outraged protesters gathered at the office of the dentist who killed him. On the internet, Black people began to compare the outrage over Cecil’s death with the lack of outrage shown over the deaths of so many Black people at the hands of police over the past year. It wasn’t long before people began to accuse Black people online of not caring about Cecil’s death and accusing us of being myopic in our fight for justice.

While I cannot and will never claim to speak for all Black people, I can say this for sure: we are capable of caring about two things at once. Despite stereotypes about our ignorance, Black people have long been able to deal with the oppression of systemic racism and also other issues as the same time.

It is not our responsibility to forgive those that are killing us. Nor is it our “place” to ignore when our lives aren’t treated with the same dignity as the lives of anything else, including wildlife. Not only that but we also have a right to take a break from dealing with systemic oppressions day in and day out. We are people, just like you, and because of that we’re not only capable of focusing on multiple issues, we’re also capable of taking a break from that when the weight of the world is too much for us.

We can care — and talk — about several things at once. Stop telling us which ones to focus on.