Tag Archives: Brittney Cooper

Illegible[1] Black Death: Denied Media, Mourning, and Mobilization – The Feminist Wire | The Feminist Wire

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Please go to Feminist Wire to read entire piece (this is the conclusion of piece)

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For these groups, race and racism is peripheral at best, but more likely a superfluous issue. For these groups, Black innocence and therefore Black Death remains out-of-focus, if not unworthy of attention. To all too many, Black innocence is illegible and therefore Black Death and humanity are invisible and impossible, thwarting media coverage, national mourning, and widespread mobilization.

The denied innocence/criminalization of Black bodies is commonplace and helps us understand the silence from gun rights activists groups. “African-Americans are not allowed such protections by the White Gaze. They are viewed as guilty until proven innocent, a criminal Other who is a priori categorized as ‘suspicious’ and ‘dangerous,’ writes Chauncey Vega. “While formal racism and Jim and Jane Crow were shattered and defeated by the Black Freedom Struggle, this ugly cloud continues to hover over the United States, some 400 years after the first Black slaves were brought to the country.” The hundreds dead in Chicago and the killing of Trayvon Martin lead to stories that seemingly turn victims into criminals; even those not criminalized are imagined as complicit and culpable for their own death. Whether citing past arrests, suspensions, drug use, clothing choices, or attitude, whether arguing that they should have known better than to go to strangers’ houses late at night or they should guard against prejudiced whites, the presumption of Black guilt shapes national conversations about gun violence. This group cannot be saved or helped. Such narratives are commonplace within the media, from the Right, from 2nd Amendment “birthers,” from defense legal teams, and countless others. Yet, the failure of liberals and gun-right advocates to spotlight these instances, to focus on race

As Eric Mann notes, “[d]eep in the white American psyche” rests the controlling belief and script that sees “the impossibility of Black innocence” (Mann 2013). This has been all too clear in the last 6 months (and beyond). From the “exoneration” of George Zimmerman and the criminalization of Trayvon Martin to the 20-year sentence of Marissa Alexander, Black innocence is both imagined and realized as a contradiction in terms. From the efforts to blame (and ignore) gun violence on single-mothers, welfare, and criminality in Chicago to the erasure of Black Death in Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans, Black innocence remains an unfulfilled promise in a post-civil rights, post-racial America. From Jonathan Ferrell to Renisha McBride, from Alex Saunders to Jonylah Watkins, lost lives are seen as not worthy of media, mourning, and mobilization from those purportedly concerned with gun violence. As noted by Ruthie Gilmore, “Racism is the state-sanctioned or extralegal production & exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death.” The failure of gun-control groups to address racism, its consequences in Black Death, further contributes to “vulnerability to premature death.”

Post-script

The racism deniers are out in full force. So let me say this, it’s America, race matters. It matters given stereotypes of who is dangerous; it matters because studies have shown that the mere sight of black face elicits fear among whites (measurable in brain); it matters because Dearbon Heights is 84% white and has historically been a Sundown Town; it matters because she, like Trayvon, was drug tested following her death (which cannot be read outside the larger context of anti-Black racism. In one study, when asked to imagine a drug user, 95% of whites picture a black person). It matters because as noted by dream hampton, we are witnessing yet again the “‘criminalizing Black Corpses’.” Race matters given days it took for an arrest and the nonexistent media coverage; it matters given the inequality in the legal application of the stand your ground law, it matters because of history of racism as it relates to guns; it matters because of history, from Emmett till to Trayvon, from #every28 hours to Johnathan Ferrell; it matters because of fear and terror; and it matters because white America can deny race matters over and over again even when faced with rightful anger, justifiable protest, and tears of pain, loss, and fear.

To read the entire piece go here: Illegible[1] Black Death: Denied Media, Mourning, and Mobilization – The Feminist Wire | The Feminist Wire.

Aint a dang thing changed: From the Till Generation to the Trayvon Generation

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Rage . . . anger . . . sadness;

Angry at the prosecution & police; the jurors and the Zimmerman supporters; angry at CNN (the defense) and so much more;

Angry at a system that at its core has no concern for black life;

Furious that we are not shocked – the depths of white supremacy run deep;

Full of rage at the silence from white America; at the unwillingness to account for racism, white supremacy and white privilege

Sick and tired of excuses, denials, distractions, and dismissals;

Outraged by the celebration – Fox News, the right wing, and the Zimmerman GANG;

Outraged by their smiles and laughs, their arrogance and entitlement;

Outraged by their lack of concern for Trayvon Martin, his friends and family, and the many people who are hurting, who are outraged, who are angry;

Enraged that those who care for life, who fight for justice, are filled with so much pain;

Sad, enraged, and devastated that almost 60 years later, from Till to Trayvon, aint much changed;

These memories of Till’s murder and the sham of a trial are a haunting reminder that aint a dang thing changed:

I was a senior at Los Angeles High School in California. It had a profound affect on me because I understood that it could have happened to any of us. It shook my confidence. It was as though terrorists had struck — but it was terrorists from our own country. It made me want to do everything I could to make sure this event would not happen ever again – Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr.

My memories are exact — and parallel those of many others my age — I felt vulnerable for the first time in my life — Till was a year younger — and recall believing that this could easily happen to me — for no reason at all. I lived in Pennsylvania at the time – Julian Bond

Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered… I stood on the corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and his mouth twisted and broken. His mother had done a bold thing. She refused to let him be buried until hundreds of thousands marched past his open casket in Chicago and looked down at his mutilated body. [I] felt a deep kinship to him when I learned he was born the same year and day I was. My father talked about it at night and dramatized the crime. I couldn’t get Emmett out of my mind… – Muhammed Ali

I was fifteen years old when I began to hate people. I hated the white men who murdered Emmett Till and I hated all the other whites who were responsible for the countless murders… But I also hated Negroes. I hated them for not standing up and doing something about the murders – Ann Moody

Almost 60 years later, this is America

When Zimmerman was acquitted today, it wasn’t because he’s a so-called white Hispanic. He’s not. It’s because he abides by the logic of white supremacy, and was supported by a defense team—and a swath of society—that supports the lingering idea that some black men must occasionally be killed with impunity in order to keep society-at-large safe – Aura Borgado

You see, tonight Trayvon Martin’s unremorseful killer was acquitted. Tonight, I fell silent with a dear friend when we heard the news.  Our eyes closed.  Our heads fell into our hands. There were no words. Tonight, I heard my mother’s voice crack and tremble under the weight of her grief as she expressed her shock and sadness at seeing an unapologetic black-child-stalker-and-killer walk free. And tonight I realized, more than ever, that as much as I love your potential, as much as I love the good that I know is in your heart, as much as I appreciate and see the beauty of your highest calling, the truth is that I feel like this relationship — our relationship — is becoming abusive and toxic on a level that nearly boggles the mind – Crystal Fleming

Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict will be contested for years to come. But he passed judgement on Trayvon that night summarily. Fucking punks,” Zimmerman told the police dispatcher that night. “These assholes. They always get away.” So true it’s painful. And so predictable it hurts – Gary Younge

I wish I had answers to soothe my worries, optimism to soothe my rage. I do know a change had better come. Because as James Baldwin said in the epigraph to one of my favorite collections of his essays, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water. The fire next time – Brittney Cooper

Perhaps history does not repeat itself exactly, but it is certainly prone to extended paraphrases. Long before the jury announced its decision, many people had seen what the outcome would be, had known that it would be a strange echo of the words Zimmerman uttered that rainy night in central Florida: they always get away – Jelani Cobb

NewBlackMan (in Exile): The Politics of Sex, The Principle of Pleasure

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The Politics of Sex, The Principle of Pleasure

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

In a society that routinely demonizes women, particularly women of color, because of sexuality, that rationalizes sexual violence through tropes and narratives of hyper sexuality, that sanctions and ignores sexual harassment, and that polices the clothing, the bodies, and sexualities of women, any discussion of sexuality is immensely political. In a country defined by a history of sexual violence, one where white masters routinely raped African American women and justified their violence with references to black female sexuality, the politics of pleasure are never simply a frivolous exercise.

We live in a society where men and women get messages about whose pleasure matters, who has ownership over another’s body, where women, particularly women of color, are reduced to some of one’s parts; the questions around sexuality and pleasure are immensely political.

How else do we explain the pornographic standard of male orgasms? How else do we explain popular culture emphasis on male-gaze, one that places women as objects to be consumed along a pathway to pleasure? How else do we explain what Heidi R. Lewis’ highlights in her brilliant article (“Li’l Wayne and the New Politics of Cunnilingus in Hip Hop”), where she documents the relationship between hip-hop and cunnilingus (which led to countless conversations). How else might we explain the narratives about giving a woman oral pleasures (“cranial maneuvers”) as “gross,” “dirty” “nasty” and otherwise “unnormal”?

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan (in Exile): The Politics of Sex, The Principle of Pleasure.