The Valuation of Black Lives Depends on Whites’ Acceptance: Who Wants to be Black Anyway?
Based on the topic, without reflection, a Black reader would ask: Which Coon-Tom is this “NEEGRO” author? This paper is my 120th article on LinkedIn, and perhaps the answer to my authorship pedigree could be found there. I write now to be different from most and to have readers thinking—even saying, “What the Fuk?” Notwithstanding, the present political race-based uprising and upheaval prompted this article.
The protesters' major demand is that Black Lives Matters because the police, the most visible form of our government, also paid by Black people, kill Blacks with impunity. Whose lives, then, do the police value? A misguided White youth, who publicly executed two individuals and walked away with his gun in the police's presence, offers a clue. In contrast, a handcuffed Blackman was publicly lynched, to a global audience, by a smug-looking White police officer using his knee. We had a fleeing Blackman killed by a White police officer because he fell asleep in a fast-food drive-through. A White police shot another Black man seven times in the back as he fled, not having committed a crime. In times past, the slave catchers, who genesis the current police force, had perverted fun by having their dogs rip apart captured Blacks. They even chose to discourage escape by lining roadways with hundreds of bodies of murdered Blacks. Ahh, that strange fruit. With all that, who wants to be Black when White police even shoot Black police and Black police are silent on the abuse and murder of their Black sons, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers?
The Dominicans do not. African Americans who instituted the brown paper bag test do not. The Jamaicans and other Blacks who advertise “All White” parties do not. Surely Whites do not. If no individuals want to be Black, would they not see Black lives as worthless/not mattering? But some value their Black lives and wish others to do so. Their “Black Lives Matter” mantra has generated the counter-narratives: Blue Lives Matter; All Lives Matter.
The society authorized paramilitary-killers wear blue. Are there individuals with the power of life and death, sanctioned by society, going after blue attired public servants daily? Are there blue attired individuals hunting White people in a depraved manner, making their lives inconsequential or their murders necessary collateral damage? Why now the revelation that all lives matter when there was minimal concern about Black lives' value?
Race in America is a complex issue. It is “a global social fact, a sociocultural category that structures social hierarchies of power and prestige, determines access to resources, and organizes individual and collective identities and action” (Itzigsohn, Giorguli, & Vazquez, 2005, p. 50). The buzz word now dropping is White privilege. Itzigsohn et al. (2005) alluded to a significant point in that if Black lives are to matter, it will be done so only through the blessing/permission of Whites. The fact that more Whites than Blacks are on the global streets protesting warrants my claim and speaks to the Black Lives Matter uprising's eventual success.
"What crap?" would be the response of some readers. As I wrote in some of my recent works, appeals to Whites' conscience prompted some of Blacks' significant societal gains. For example, when Whites saw Dr. King and Black marchers' beatings, it helped with the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. When they saw John Lewis and other marchers' beatings at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the 1965 Freedom March, it helped pass the 1965 Voting Right Acts. When they saw the treatment of Blacks after Hurricane Katrina, it helped elected the first Black president. Now they see the police brutality, and they (as President Trump stated) do not like how it looks. Thanks to television broadcast earlier; thanks to cellphones and such devices now.
A part of my argument here is the Black Lives Matter will succeed despite the Blacks who hate being Black. The Blackest Dominicans, for one, will speak Spanish to prove s/he is not Black. I recall my encounter with a dark and beautiful young woman. When I complimented her Black beauty, she revealed she was not Black; she was Guyanese.
Itzigsohn et al. (2005) wrote,
When we ask about the Dominicans’ beliefs concerning how the
American mainstream perceives them racially, the modal answer is
black, indicating the pervasiveness of the black/white dichotomy in
American culture. In Latin America’s ‘mestizaje’ there is a preference
for whiteness but in the construction of the national subject there is a
holding of racial mixture as the ideal norm. This is not the case in the
United States in which whiteness still marks both preferences and
norms…. In particular, it is important to research how different forms
of racial self-identification are related to different patterns of relationships
and associations with other ethnoracial groups and different forms of
collective organization and collective action. (p. 75)
As alluded to earlier, many Blacks have a self-loathing. An explanation can be found in Green, Gordon, and Matsunaga (2020) who revealed, “Darker skin color is associated with fewer years of education, lower household income, greater exposure to racist events, and poorer mental health” (p. 15). For that reason, one can understand the accompanying graphic that speaks of Blacks preferring or promoting all White events. It is not that they are advancing changing of one’s skin color. It is merely promoting that only white garments be worn. Then again, as shown in the graphic, some Blacks engage in the dangerous skin bleaching to escape their blackness. There is a significant psychological implication therein and the disunity that prevents collective economic and strength in numbers empowerment activities that could easily defeat police brutality.
In any event, we proud Blacks thank the many Blacks who love their blackness enough to take to the streets at the peril of pain, arrest, abuse, and even death, to demand ending police brutality. We also thank the White moms and the many White youth and adults who have shielded us from the full onslaught of angry BAD police who fear eliminating their privilege to be judge, jury, and executioner of innocent Blacks will curtail their blood lust or available blood supply. The question is: If police such as those in NYC have the power to cower the mayor, when did the government of the people take flight for government by the police?
Perhaps, the most powerful leader in NYC has a love for Blacks, being his wife and children are Black. Such infuriating thing suppresses NYC Bad police’s urge to cavalierly utter “Negro lover” towards their employer. Such a descriptor of good Whites caused them harm or even death by bad Whites. Still, it appears NYC police union supported President Trump’s belief that good policing is about shooting the declared bad people first and asking questions later. Some of us would agree when we conjure the mayhem of the Black and Brown hordes of rapists, gang bangers, drug dealers, and welfare dependent the President described. What then of the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial before a juror of peers? Perhaps we cannot decry those Blacks who would make a different choice of color if they had the opportunity to choose. Yes, at least one Whites politician (Charles Sumner, January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) who was so ashamed of his own White people’s mistreatment of Blacks, he choose to be buried with Blacks. At such times, even cemeteries were segregated.
A positive outcome: All these occurrences may be the necessary powerful booster-rocket events needed to launch the election of the first female vice-president. Interestingly, she will be Black and, hence, more Blacks may begin to love themselves. If my prognostication raises eyebrows, remember the fact that when good Whites are made aware of injustice, they act to correct it. Are there more bad Whites in America than good ones?