“The Psychological Warfare Being Waged Against Black Lives Matter”
“my old friend’s question says much to me about the quotidian ways that otherwise well-meaning white people misunderstand racial discourse in this country. Like many Americans, I watched horrified last week as news unfolded of Vester Lee Flanagan’s cold-blooded execution of a newscaster and a cameraman in Virginia. Then, just two short days later, the news that Shannon J. Miles, a Black man with a previously documented history of mental illness, had executed Deputy Goforth made my heart stop.
These killings of white people are tragic and inexcusable. That should be said without equivocation. But after I affirmed this same fact to my old friend, I asked him, “What would make you think I think otherwise?” …
Black communities are experiencing an epidemic of severe police brutality. Even when encounters with law enforcement don’t end in death, they are often shot through with disrespect from officers drunk with power. When we point this out, and when we point to case after case and story after story of inappropriate treatment, we are told that we are merely imagining it. Things aren’t that bad. The cops are the good guys. And see, they get killed, too!
That was the underlying sentiment of my old friend’s post on my page. “The cops get killed, too. And you and your friends and your anti-cop rhetoric are the cause of it.” Such accusations, whether stated or implied, are designed to put Black people on the defensive. We are then supposed to prove that we are both human and humane, non-violent, empathetic, and non-dangerous. We are supposed to prove to white people that we are good people, that we are not a threat, that we mean them no harm. Never mind the harm that many of them have caused us. More than all that, we are not “reverse racists.”
I’m subscribed to a few email newsletters that highlight great articles and essays, and the author one of (a white guy in San Francisco) recently described videos of violence against black people as a “meme”. I’m sort of overwhelmed by how casually callous that is. Like, that’s such a strong example of serious realities being missed by a white liberal who is surrounded by other white people (I am making an assumption here but I also grew up near SF; I know what’s up).
This is compounded by the way that some people are told that their subjective realities constitute facts that can be used to understand others’ lives. Meanwhile, some people are told that they cannot have knowledge of themselves or others unless that knowledge has been communicated to them by an authority. — “ white people’s feelings become facts in a system of white supremacy and these “facts” are used to guide social policy.”
A further illustrating example: I recently had a conversation similar to the one she recounts at the top of the essay when a friend asked me why BLM is opposed to Bernie Sander’s economic reforms. It was a question full of false assumptions, and I tried to nudge him into seeing his assumptions by asking where he had read about BLM’s opposition.
This friend is white, male, straight, American, a graduate of an Ivy-league school, and easily one of the smartest people I know. I don’t blame him as an individual for making those assumptions — I blame society for consistently reinforcing the inherent truth and superiority of the thoughts and feelings of people with that set of identities. I have almost all of his privileges and when I am resting in them, I see how the world treats me differently.
But, because I am black and female, I am constantly dismissed unless I am aligned to my privileges. Even by friends and family members who I know to love and respect me — And I shudder with embarrassment at memories of the many times I have squinted and then looked away dismissively when at someone who I love and respect has shared thoughts, feelings, or experiences on prejudices that I wasn’t seeing. Those are moments when it did not occur to me to ask myself if I was wrong, and those are moments when I lost an opportunity to learn and grow.
