The Blacker The Berry /
Completely Clueless
The American Justice system
was constructed around the idea of Black People being inferior beings,
considered nothing more than living property purposed for American profit. In
many ways, the idea of Black People being an inferior race of people whoes sole
function in America being living, breathing mechanisms purposed for the
proliferation of American profit, even though not explicitly stated as law any
longer, present actions and decisions of various American government entities
still support the notion as strongly inferred. The punishment for any Black
person or group of Black people asserting their humanity and claiming the rights
belonging to humans in America has historically been, and today remains, severe
abuse or even death at the hand of the country that proclaims, "Freedom and
Justice for All." The previous eight lines are not blindingly new to many eyes
or deafeningly original to many ears, and variations of those lines have become
cliché and even considered revolutionary rhetoric to some people and in some
circles when the opposite is incontestably true. The discussion about the
struggle against oppression and abuse is not cliché or revolutionary rhetoric
that is ultimately useless. The discussion about the struggle against oppression
and abuse is essential and extremely fundamental no matter how long or how many
times the same things are said because the discussion is how the knowledge of
oppression is passed down to future generations and the information about former
forms of abuse communicated. The conversation about the struggle against
oppression and abuse is also crucial in efforts of preventing the former forms
of oppression and abuse ever be enacted again. The discussion about oppression
and abuse should also serve as a wakeup call that more efforts, as well as
different efforts to end the abuse and oppression needs to
happen
Fifty year old former teen
actress and D-list celebrity Stacey Dash would be an example of the type person
that would call the eight lines in question cliché and revolutionary rhetoric
after having previously said,
“The
Holocaust happened only 70 years ago, yet the Jewish people stay united and have
persevered. They don’t complain or blame anyone or anything for their
circumstances. They work hard and integrate as they see fit, where they
see fit. They are a people of faith that I respect greatly. . . Blacks need to do the same. Blacks, stop
believing the false narrative that race is what stops you or kills you. Take
responsibility. Integrate. Stop complaining and blaming others for our
destiny. Slavery ended in 1865. One hundred and fifty years ago.
Respect that it is ours and
work hard to achieve your own AMERICAN DREAM.”
(Dash)
Because of, “Americans”
like Ms. Dash and their misguided misunderstanding of how race has and continues
to kill black people in America and worldwide what is considered revolutionary
rhetoric bears repeating. The discussion surrounding oppression and abuse bears
repeating as long as oppression and abuse continue to be inflected upon a single
person or group of people, rather they be Black or Jewish or anyone. Because of,
“Americans” like Ms. Dash, the discussion about why and how a person or group of
people became oppressed and abused, and how to stop and prevent said oppression
and abuse must continue to happen because the discussion will lead to informed
action and the reality of change can then be realized not theorized. The problem
with repetition is that people tend to become desensitized to whatever it is
that is repeated. African Americans have been fighting oppression and abuse in
America since most still considered themselves African
When W.E.B Dubois wrote,
“Bureau courts tended to
become centres simply for punishing whites, while the regular civil courts
tended to become solely institutions for perpetuating the slavery of blacks.
Almost every law and method of ingenuity could devised was employed by the
legislatures to reduce the Negroes to serfdom – to make them slaves of the
State.”
The same sentiments were
echoed by Michelle Alexander eighty-four years later, “Race has always
influenced the administration of justice in the United States. Since the day the
first prison opened, people of color have be disproportionately represented
behind bars” The repetition of these types sentiments should not cause our ears
to deafen, or our hearts to go numb. These statements should cause us African
Americans and people like Ms. Dash to question why the problems of abuse and
oppression still exist. These sentiments should cause any person including Ms.
Dash not to tune out or blame African Americans as the cause of the problem but
to harken inward and question why it is that a people that are supposedly not
oppressed and abused any longer are not only still claiming their abuse and
oppression but showing proof and evidence of abuse and oppression. Later
Michelle Alexander writes, “Few Americans today recognize mass incarceration for
what it is: a new cast system thinly veiled by the cloak of colorblindness.”
These lines, written almost a century apart, should not cause us Africans
displaced by oppression and abuse into America’s various unjust and duplicitous
systems and onto America’s stolen soil over centuries to tune out, like Ms.
Dash, but to question why we should seek new ways to say the same things about
the same problems when the problems have not changed or been fixed. The words
that Michelle Alexander writes should stir up emotions not of apathy and
indifference but fire and rage. These lines that some would considered
repetitious and cannon of revolutionary rhetoric, should cause us, a mighty race
of Africans, descendants of the survivors of history’s most horrific atrocity
and warriors against history’s most racist society and culture not to label
these blood bought words, “cliché.” These words should instead invigorate new
ways, or rekindle some old ways, of solving once and for all, the problem of our
people being oppressed and abused. When the focused goal then becomes fixing the
problems, the discourse about the problems can never be cliché because fixing
the problems requires an action that is not birthed from nor gives birth to and
attitude of stoic apathy.
“The truth is that the
police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make
of the country’s criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed
by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from the policies. . .
are the product of democratic will. And so to challenge the police is to
challenge the American people who sent them.” (Coates)
These words written in 2015
should not shock anyone but they do
however seem morosely cliché when forty years earlier Assata Shakur wrote, “But
it was a lesson I never forgot. Anybody, no matter who they were, could come
right off the boat and get more right and respect than amerikan-born Blacks.”
These words seem morosely cliché when put into the context of the same time
period, when in Oakland California, ordinances in public neighborhoods stated,
“No persons of African, Japanese, Chinese, or of any Mongolian descent, shall be
allowed to purchase, own, or lease said property or any part thereof or to live
upon said property or any part thereof except in capacity of domestic servants
of the occupant thereof.” ("Cheney Photographer photo album photoprint 1916.")
This fact shows that when a person like fifty year old former teen actress and D
list celebrity Stacey Dash says, “. . . there shouldn’t be a Black History
Month. You know? We’re Americans. Period. That’s it” (Cummings) her words are
hallow, vapid, misinformed, and the actual cliché because many have been and
still are legally or, as a point of practice, excluded from being part of her
definition of, “American.” For all these reasons, for all these past and present
incidents, the conversation about the struggle against oppression and abuse is
crucial to efforts of preventing the former forms of oppression and abuse ever
being enacted again.
The question that must be
asked now is what mental conditioning has taken hold of some minds, like Ms.
Dash’s, for them to see words like the ones in question as something other than
the long agonizing scream of suffering, crying out against oppression. When
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “… its very clear that there’s a
difference between what we saw last week between the peaceful protests…and the
thugs, who only want to incite violence and destroy out city.” (Fang) She failed
to see, or refused to see, that the people she deemed, “thugs” were the sons and
daughters of the oppressed people that elected her into office, crying out of
rage and frustration at the fact that the police whom swore to protect them were
murdering them. Instead of these official government murders being held
accountable for their actions against what is supposed to be law for all,
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake blamed the people. Baltimore Mayor
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake blamed the people, some would say her people, for being
angered and outraged, reacting to the injustice done to them and not herself for
not creating a system that would have prevented the injustice from happening to
her people. Instead of viewing the reaction of the people, her people, to the
murder of Carlos, “Freddie” Gray Jr. and their frustration and calls for justice
as thuggery, earlier discussions about oppression and abuse could have served as
prevention, and maybe, Carlos, “Freddie” Gray Jr. might be alive
today.
The discussion about the
struggle against oppression and abuse in America has become cliché to some
people including many African Americans like fifty year old former teen actress
and D list celebrity Stacey Dash. The discussion is said to be no longer useful
in ending the oppression and abuse yet the reality is that the actual oppression
and abuse continues to happen. Instead of growing weary of the discussion, the
discussion should serve as a wakeup call that more efforts, and different
efforts to ending the abuse and oppression need to happen. The discussion also serves to inform the
misinformed like Ms. Dash, as well as future generations about former forms of
abuse and how to prevent them from ever happening again. Also, no matter how
many times the same thing is said, the repetition should not foster an attitude
of apathy like Ms. Dash’s but instead ignite a flame of unquestionably righteous
indignation.
©Christopher F. Brown
2016
Works Cited
Alexander, Michelle, and Cornel West. The New Jim
Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Revised edition ed.
New York: New, 2012. Print.
“Cheney Photographer photo album photoprint 1916.”
OMCA COLLECTIONS. Oakland Museum of California, n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.
.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. New
York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015. Print.
Cummings, Moriba. “Stacey Dash Doesn’t Want a Black
History Month or the BET Awards.” bet.com. http://www.bet.com, 20 Jan.
2016. Web. 10 May 2016.
.
Dash, Stacey. “Blacks Should Learn a Lesson from the
Jews’ Response to the Holocaust.” staceydash. Patheos, 16 Dec. 2015. Web.
10 May 2016.
.
Fang, Marina. “Baltimore Mayor Apologizes For Calling
Protesters ‘Thugs’.” Huffpost Politics. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc, 29
Apr. 2015. Web. 10 May 2016.
.
Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography.
Chicago: L. Hill, 1987. Print.
Washington, Booker T., W. E. B Du Bois, and James Weldon
Johnson. Three Negro Classics: Up from Slavery. New York: Avon, 1965.
Print.
