Making the Best of a Bad Situation

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: White folk are crazy, but they make being crazy look like a lot of fun.

Senseless

I'm trying to gather my thoughts. I just watched a murder.

But please don't think I'm in shock. I'm neither shaken up nor am I confused. And I'm much too numb to be horrified—that one might say the most.

The video was footage from the body camera of a University of Cincinnati police officer, Ray Tensing, as he shot an unarmed black civilian, Sam DuBose, in the head. At point blank range. You may have heard of the case. Then again you may not have; these things have a way of eluding some people's radars. Blissful ignorance will always have an appeal.

But, being black, I don’t have the luxury of ignorance. So instead, I’m trying to gather my thoughts.

I want to point to the blatancy of Tensing’s act. Here is a law enforcement officer plainly ignoring standard written procedure; procedure that’s taught and drilled into police officers around the country every day. Procedure that far too many police officers choose to forgo when the face they encounter is African American. But pointing out the obvious inevitably feels empty, especially when we’ve seen it all before.

Over the past 354 days since Michael Brown’s murder at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO we’ve seen what seems like 354 unarmed, presumably innocent black men and women die at the hands of police officers across the country. An endless, devastating crawl of hashtagged names have crossed social media timelines. Tamir Rice. Akai Gurley. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Trayvon Martin.

It’s not even the first time we’ve seen an act of brazen murder on video. The chokehold that suffocated Eric Garner and the gunshots to the back that felled Walter Scott were replayed on endless loops by news programs. Rice’s murder should have trumped all in the world of infotainment, as surveillance cameras focused directly on the scene captured a Cleveland police officer, without warning or cause, firing bullets into a 12-year-old boy who was playing in a park. What more can be said, what more naiveté can be clenched onto when the brutal murder of a child is videotaped, watched, replayed, digested, and forgotten by the mass populace?

I remember being horrified when Rice’s story broke, and the video was released. Eight months and one week later, I’m numb.

I have the strange, at times surreal perspective of being half white. The majority of people who surround me on a daily basis, both professionally and personally, are white. Most are open-minded, understanding, and sympathetic. Some are even outraged. But not all of them. And that’s when this entire dynamic gets awkward. Because that’s when I have to engage in, oversee, or willfully ignore the conversations. The latter doesn’t happen all that often, because I don’t have the luxury of ignorance.

I have one friend, a white male under 30, who met the Baltimore protests over Freddie Gray’s murder with an unyielding refrain of, “You have to respect the police.” No amount of reasoning would move him from this point.

No sensible black man, woman, or child doesn’t know and practice this. The irony is we often have no choice but to practice this. Fear of what would happen, if the mere impression of disrespect was even inferred, keeps us heel-toeing with sweat on our brows the second a police officer pulls us over. But it doesn’t work. Sam DuBose was anything but disrespectful. I dare you to even say he was confrontational. And yet he lost his life.

What’s more, for every case of a docile, respectful black citizen being killed by someone in a police uniform, there are five cases of belligerent, threatening white people unflinchingly attacking police officers and living to make bail.

The flaw in the “You have to respect the police” philosophy is that it’s predicated on a fairytale. It relies on the gullible belief that the police are always, and without exception, offering respect in return. But there are exceptions—thousands of them. And if you’re a person of color, you have to treat those exceptions as the rule.

I have respect for the police. But I also have rights as a human being. And while my friend can rely on his rights being recognized whether he is or isn’t being respectful, I cannot. Instead I have to deal with an armed individual who may very well let his or her thoroughly-uninformed expectations of who I am override the training that he or she has received, and the respect that he or she should instinctively maintain.

I’m not in shock. I’m afraid.

I’m afraid I’ll be Sam DuBose. Or Freddie Gray. Or one of the hundreds of other innocent black men and women murdered by police officers. I’m afraid one or more of my friends will die in a jail cell when all he or she did was change lanes without signaling. I’m even more afraid that a member of my family will suffer that fate. I’m afraid I’ll experience both the joy of having children, and the unimaginable sorrow of someday watching video of a police officer shooting them dead on a playground without provocation or thought. I’m afraid those who defend the police officers will never come to understand why I’m afraid. I’m afraid it’s never going to change.

I don’t have the luxury of not being afraid.

Negrotown

Key and Peele speak the struggle. Their wit is fearless, their wisdom is biting, and their execution is flawless.

Oppression

Transcription of Eric Garner's last words. pic.twitter.com/TDHVz01Xx3
— Mark Duplass (@MarkDuplass) December 4, 2014

No Justice, No Peace

I’m struggling to put together my thoughts. I’ve been processing this for days—really, for months. My conscience tells me there’s something I should be saying. My brain tells me there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said—that hasn’t already been ignored.

I’ve been impassioned by the measures of the minority acting on behalf of a minority, those protesting peacefully-but-forcefully in Ferguson, MO and the glittering metropolises like New York City, Los Angeles, and London. I’ve been horrified, in turn, by their counterparts, a much more minor minority, that has attempted to lay siege to the former’s legitimacy by burning buildings and looting livelihoods that never truly stood in their way.

I’ve been intrigued by the intelligent study of the few, men and women of education and understanding who’ve lent their thoughtful analysis to the evidence put forward. And I’ve been haunted by the words of fewer still: my fellow members of this odd first-and-a-half-person-perspective citizenship. Like them, my flesh didn’t absorb the bullets and my neck didn’t get squeezed free of air, but my soul has nevertheless felt the weight of hopelessness and sorrow.

I can only speak on behalf of those with whom I share this bond, this feeling of disenfranchisement. And for us, the emotion of it all is an important factor. It’s what’s missing for those who coldly deny our right to anger, our right to express outrage. For them, the topic has nothing to do with emotion. It’s a police officer using his standard-issue weapon or training to bring down an aggressive suspect. For these people, the situation is cause and effect. It’s black and white.

It’s black and white for us, too.

As a black member of American society, you feel eyes on you with every moment that you live in public domain. I’ve often wondered what it must be like to be a white face in an American crowd, moving unnoticed amongst a sea of similarity. To walk one city block without feeling like the people walking past, the people driving by, and the people looking out of their windows are looking directly and most specifically at you. I’ve had white friends spend a couple of hours in a nightclub or a part of town that is predominantly black, and express to me how out of place they felt. How they felt like everyone was staring at them. And they’ve told me this without a slightest twinge of irony, and with no insinuation that maybe it felt so weird for them because our roles had reversed. Not once did they manage to observe the greater truth: That this minor inconvenience, this brief moment of uncomfortableness that might have accounted for 0.05% of their day, was the feeling that I had throughout the other 99.95% of it.

For white Americans, a police uniform is a symbol of safety, honor, and protection. When trapped in an uncomfortable situation, whether race-related or not, a white person—I assume—would gravitate toward that uniform, no matter the skin color of the person wearing it. To a white American, a cop’s uniform is a knight’s armor striding towards them.

For black Americans, a police uniform is a symbol of absolutism, oppression, and tyranny. When at peace in a comfortable situation, whether in a black neighborhood or a white one, a black person—there’s no assumption here—will feel a cold chill at sight of that uniform, no matter the skin color of the person wearing it. To a black American, a cop’s uniform is a menacing storm cloud advancing upon us.

So often, in the past several weeks, I’ve seen white men and women argue that this trepidation, this fear of the police is entirely our own fault. Why surely, if you’re not doing anything wrong, if you’re not acting like a “thug,” if you’re not committing a crime, then you have nothing to be afraid of. Until you understand that this line of thinking has no bearing when you’re black in America, you will never understand our fear.

Obeying the law does not guarantee your safety when you’re black in America. Until you’ve been pulled out of car and searched, while your friends—who are all white—sit in that same car, unmolested; until you’ve been stopped on a sidewalk and questioned, for no other reason than you were there; until you’ve been handcuffed and sat on the curb in front of the house you earned with years of blood, sweat and tears because you “look suspicious,” you will never understand our fear.

Tamir Rice was playing with a toy. Eric Garner was standing outside a store (and, though he was allegedly selling loosies, that deed is a misdemeanor that rarely attracts the attention of one patrolman, let alone six). Akai Gurley was walking down a stairwell with his girlfriend. These are not thuggish, menacing acts. Absent of race, these behaviors would barely register a raised eyebrow. Yet each has resulted in a loss of life. These are not hardened criminals taking their lives into their own hands. These are people going about their own business, just as white Americans do every day, without fear of losing everything that the Rice, Garner, Gurley, and Brown families, and countless others like them, have lost.

In these days, these hours, these nights, these lifetimes, we’ve found ourselves tied to the victims’ families by an unfathomable blood bond, one that goes deeper than last names and family trees. We feel one with them and their pain, if only because we know that they understand.

Justified Outrage

As usual, Jon Stewart just gets it. Faux News is a disgrace to this country.

The Daily Show
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The Chain Remains

I'm not even going to speak on this. It's not that I don't want to—believe me. I just don't trust myself to speak from a position of clarity. Thankfully, Jinx from Complex does better than I probably could ever have in discussing the shooting of a man in St. Louis this week, only so many miles away from the site of Michael Brown's murder.

Challenging Thought

So much love goes to Orlando Jones for this video.



A note from Jones:

This is a very serious disease* so I gladly accept the “bucket challenge”

*My heart goes out to all those who struggle with ALS but I am, of course, talking about the disease of apathy. If (and hopefully when) Michael Brown’s killer is brought to justice and convicted of 1st degree murder, it still won’t prevent this from happening again. We cannot accept this as the status quo. We MUST continue the fight at the ballot box, in the media and by working to create systemic change. I’m not naive to the dirty politics (redistricting, voter ID requirements, etc) that will try to prevent us from our goal. But I refuse to give up hope. My “bullet bucket challenge” is not about pointing fingers and it’s not about being angry. Every shell casing in that bucket represents the life of someone who fought and died in the goal for civil rights and human dignity. As a member of law enforcement (yes I really am a reserve sheriff) I will not stand idly by while others violate civil and human rights under the cover of authority and I will insist that other good cops rise to the same standard as well. As a black man I will demand more from myself and my community. I will not allow outsiders to co-opt our struggle in order to commit violence in our name. I’m channeling my outrage into action so I no longer feel powerless. It’s not about black or white. It’s not about rich or poor. It’s about us vs. them. There are more of us — from all races, genders and identities — then there will ever be of them. And we will be victorious.
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality"

Join me.

Real Talk: John Oliver

They say that the best way to objectively look at a situation is to step back and view it from the outside. Perhaps that's why John Oliver, a native of the UK, is able to so keenly identify and address the problems surrounding what's going on in Ferguson, MO—and the United States in general—right now. If the people in Missouri's government and Ferguson's police department took the time to do the same, the tragedy of Michael Brown's murder may never have happened.

Deep Breath

It's 2014, and we still haven't solved the problem of the Blu Klux Klan.

From YouTube:

In the YouTube video 100 people wearing black T-shirts harmonized in a solemn hum while poet Daniel J. Watts recited a fiery poem entitled I Can’t Breathe — a reference to Garner’s fateful encounter with police.

On July 17th, Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island man was confronted by police for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. The police tried to handcuff Garner but when he refused they placed him in a chokehold. The incident was captured by an onlooker’s cell phone camera. The father of six can be heard telling police repeatedly that he could not breathe. However, the police officers ignored his plea. Garner died on the scene.

You Have the Right to Remain Funky

...Okay, some cops are cool.

From Daily Picks and Flicks:

New Orleans police officers were filmed dancing to ‘Wobble Baby‘ by V.I.C. during Sunday’s Mardi Gras parade through Mid-City. The elderly officer with awesome dance moves is Winston Harbin Jr.

My girl FGT with the assist.

It's the Weekend

Time to drive your point home...

Blooper Troopers

You know there's nothing I like better than cops looking stupid. And Gordon Graham of Utah just wrote an opus on it.

From Autoblog:

In an episode that wouldn't have been out of place on Reno 911!, a man that was on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both, was picked up by police for stealing a pickup truck, and managed to wriggle out of his handcuffs and steal the police cruiser he was being held inside. The entire fiasco, which took place last month near Salt Lake City, can be seen on the cruiser's in-car cameras.

The suspect, Gordon Graham, took advantage of the officers' inattentiveness while they were searching his truck, contorting about so his hands were in front of him, and then wiggling out of the cuffs. He then dove head-first through a flap that was opened for him after complaining about the heat, got in the driver's seat, and made a break for freedom.

Somewhere out there is a person who will take this video, speed it up, and set it to the Benny Hill theme music. And I will love that person, unconditionally.

Real Talk: Kevin Hart

If you've tried to distract yourself from the Boston-terrorism story with meaningless celeb news over the last 48, then you've probably been reading about either Aubrey Plaza or Kevin Hart. While I wait with bated breath to see if my baby Aubrey gives a firsthand account of her tale, here's your man Kev Hart giving the raw and uncut on his DUI arrest, courtesy of TMZ.

Monday Kickstart: Sign Language

I've been a UCLA fan for most of my life. That being said, I have to give it up to the University of Spoiled Children on this one.

From the Huffington Post:

Los Angeles residents driving near the University of Southern California Thursday may have been a bit confused by an electronic traffic sign they passed.

...It's doubtful that the LAPD appreciated the prank, but some USC students certainly did. They took to Twitter and Instagram to laugh with -- and even offer a drink to -- the hacker behind the message.

It gives me hope to see a member of the USC community do something as noble as fucking over the LAPD. It gives me inspiration, joy...of course, nowhere near the level of hope, inspiration, and joy that Misa Campo gives me:

Let's go.

Monday Kickstart: All Green (and Orange) Everything

These videos are from 2012, but I feel they accurately portray this past weekend for just about everyone.




Hopefully most (or at least some) of your hangover has receded by now. If you need any help finding motivation today, though, I offer the assistance of Miss Christina Milian:

...I feel like the crush I had on her in 2001 has been completely renewed. Call me mami. Let's. Get. It.

Respect My Gangsta: Kim Hyun-Chul

He's being called "South Korea's Jon McClain". Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.

Frisky Business

Fantastic work by Kamau Bell on this piece.


[Sidenote: That woman he interviewed was a straight up freak. And, sadly, it looks like her daughter (?) will be headed down the same path, eventually.]

It's the Weekend

Time to fight the power...

It's the Weekend

Time for life to imitate art...