The Wayward Scholar

Recently, I visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. The Freedom Center is a museum that is dedicated to providing education and exhibits that focuses on the African Diaspora, American slavery, modern slavery and human trafficking.  The entire museum was incredible with exhibits and short programs that were thought provoking, educational and moving. The highlight of my visit was the featured exhibit named ‘Kin Killin Kin’ by James Pate.

The exhibit provided illustrations of violence amongst men of color in urban communities and the expedition of gun violence as a whole. The art discussed a story of black youth violence and the congruency with the violence committed by the Ku Klux Klan against black and brown people and communities. He argues that those homicides by the KKK in the past are not unlike the homicides plaguing inner urban and urban communities. That the work the KKK had once pursued relentlessly has been memorialized in black culture; black folks have taken it upon themselves to do the work of white supremacist organizations and is essentially black-on-black terrorism. I found that this powerful exhibit was somehow grounded in a reality and a truth that is so often makes it difficult to face ourselves within the black community, especially those who are in varying positions of privilege and perspective.

The issue I find is the ignited passion that we find from pro-black activisms and anti-racist activism is stronger when defending our community from outside forces but considerably relaxed when the forces are from within. There’s a resemblance of a person in a domestic violent relationship trying to defend their abuser as black persons try to defend intra-cultural violence. Though many of the reasons may be valid; they are not truly reasons but only excuses. I wonder if there is hesitation because of a fear that somehow admitting that there are frequent fatalities at the hands of black men and black women [motivated by all sorts of reasons whether crime related or not] is somehow a betrayal of the race as a collective. To request that any one of us owns responsibility and accountability for what occurs within the margins of our communities and neighborhoods is counterproductive.

We fight generalization for the sake of unity but often fail to hold ourselves and each other accountable at the same time. Mutual relationships are not conditioned this way and the approach is much more paternal and damaging in the long term than to accept that we are not a perfect race and to accept that we are only human. Our design of resistance with “Black Power, Black is Beautiful’ are essential sentiments to our survival but are also critical components to our undoing. We forge this façade that borderlines a revisionist visualization of what it means to be and always has meant to be Black. It strangely narrows and limits Blackness while attempting to expand the definitions, understandings and diversity of Black people. As Black people many of us may not carry these characteristics of being violent, aggressive, hyper-masculine, thuggish, criminal, loud or angry. But we also should have the right to carry them. We should be allowed to be Loud, Criminal, Aggressive, Uneducated…etc. and it shouldn’t diminish us as either a race nor as a people. We need to own who we are and LOVE who we are, no matter what character traits we may choose to embody. Let’s stop trying to live our lives and organize our identities around the white imagination of what is permissible as Blackness. Let’s stop with “I’m Black, But I’m Not” and embrace ” I’m Black and I Am.” Otherwise, we force the anger and aggravation inward and internalize the ideology that we must either choose to be more than human and surpass the every dark essence of humanity that reside in each of us or be less than human, inferior and sub-human.

It is not betraying to admit and to be angry about intra-cultural crime. To admit and embrace this fact is not weakness but is our strength and enables us to take back power for who we choose to be. It is not betrayal to admit that the lies that the right media, societal structures and social circles have told us are in fact lies. Their rhetoric and language has been designed to cripple and damage our movements and ability to organize. However, if we are to truly have pride within our community and culture we must be wary of the negatives. White supremacy white-washes history in order to hide from the genocides, destruction, colonization and imperialistic eras of their history, traditions and heritage. I would not recommend following this model of revisionism for the sake of history and for the sake of progress.

Admitting transgressions of our brothers and sisters does not somehow make us exempt from receiving justice. We are not disqualified from our civil and constitutional rights and neither does it absolve our government and nation from promising liberation. We did not break those homes, rape and burn our heritage through colonialism, disparagement, dis-enfranchisement and enslavement and violently segregate ourselves that constructed the communities that may show a pervasively violent culture of lost souls. A petty crime between two young black men hundreds of miles away from a fatal shooting between law enforcement and an unarmed teen does not make that officer innocent. Our crimes against each other (or anyone for that matter) does not account for us as a collective and does not relate to the crimes and threats positioned against our bodies. Arming ourselves to battle generalization, prejudice, stereotypes and racism and then disallow the narratives of reality to stage an equal position is backwards. It’s like a Black man admitting that he is a drug dealer; then responding “quiet, you’re not allowed to be a drug dealer because your black.” This is redundant and is racism within itself.

The point that I am trying to make is that our community is not perfect and to expect each other to be anything more or less than human is feeding into the lies they have told you. That we must always prove that we are worthy of equality and prove that we deserve access to our natural, inviolable human rights and have the ability to exercise our civil rights without persecution and that these truths prove to be self-evident. We have that right regardless if we embody ‘Black Excellence’ because if we are Black, we are Excellent. Black Lives do matter and should matter to black lives long before our bodies are destroyed by a racist in a badge or caged by a racist in a black gown or held hostage by the streets governed and owned by invisible, sometimes nameless [white] powers. We cannot expect to be held to standard of being less than human and we shouldn’t hold ourselves or others to a standard much higher either.

This is how James Pate describes the mission of the Ku Klux Klan being taken as work being done ourselves. Arguably there are historical remnants of the divisive nature between black and brown persons. Pate is arguing (as am I) that these remnants are forcibly carrying out tasks for our white masters. For instance, Django Unchained has a scene of ‘Mandingo Fighting’ in which the slaves brutally fight and destroy one another’s bodies for the entertainment of their white masters, only to be ultimately destroyed by those same masters anyway. Though fictional this articulation of black-on-black violence can be a representative allusion of the violence that Blacks were forced to endure and at times be complicit with.

I argue that the depth of which we reveal complacency has been rendered invisible just as racism and racist structures are rendered invisible to whites through color-blind racism. Michelle Alexander in the ‘New Jim Crow’ determines that the racism that we are accustomed to hearing about, experienced or understand has transformed and continues transforming. The culture of whiteness has not given up on the enslavement and control of black and brown bodies but rather have become more efficient with its execution.  Isn’t it quite possible that we are forced into being complicit with our own enslavement and elimination without being fully aware?

They may provide us guns, weapons and ammunition but we are alone responsible for pulling the trigger. We are aware and conscious that illegal drugs ‘mysteriously’ find a way into black and brown hands but it is those same hands that poison black minds and bodies anyway for profit and for personal economical achievement. We are forced together in singular communities, ghettos and reservations and rather unite we divide ourselves into factions and gangs to tear each other apart. They built an institution of sexism and patriarchy but we abuse our women, objectify and mark them, traffick them, neglect or abandon them. Many of us, including Black artists, musicians, celebrities and athletes gain economical capital and rather invest back into their communities; shame each other for having less and divest.

James Pate in his exhibit poignantly references that our culture of neglect and violence did not always exist in such a prominent manner and how/when did this shift occur? In a world of psychological and physical warfare it can be difficult to love one another as fiercely as we should. The depths at which white supremacy exists makes me feel that this is no coincidence and that we internalize our hatred of blackness towards ourselves and then subsequently learn to hate one another. We continually forget who our common enemy is and align against one another either to protect each other and ourselves from the vulnerable truth or by destroying each other in an act of empowerment or even out of love.

Speaking to the ‘Kin Killin Kin’ exhibit by James Pate, the concept is we are not only doing the work of the Ku Klux Klan by destroying each other’s bodies, minds and opportunities. But we have even adopted the same language and use of the rhetoric with stratifying one another. We have adopted a culture of calling each other niggers constantly, even those most would agree that it is not the same. The common rebuttal that I hear is that there’s an ‘A’ at the end, rather than an ‘ER’. It is Nigga, not Nigger and there is a sense of empowerment and reclaiming the meaning for ourselves as terms of endearment. But if we are going to keep it 100 we need to recognize that the rhetoric we use is no different. If it were truly a different word, then we wouldn’t be so angry when a white person used it. I mean, it is a different word right? An ‘A’ not an ‘ER.’ I worry that we have focused the history and narrowed it as if it were one sided and lacks any complexity; another example of our revisionism. The evolution of the term does include attempts (arguably successful) at finding empowerment but it also demonstrates our oppression.

Another example would be how we use the term against one another. It is common practice to distinguish blackness between sets of common-sense blacks as compared to those niggas. Between black men the narratives often revolve around intelligence or masculinity (i.e house nigga, sissy ass bitch, pussy-whipped) and for women we could argue historical narratives of the Lady and Matriarch versus the Mammy’s, Welfare mothers or Jezebels. Those niggas are the other side of the family, the bits of blackness that no one wants to share characteristics with or allow admittance to the collective or ‘proper’ blacks with common sense, manners, education and likeability. Anything else is cause for embarassment and shame. This divisive paradigm can be linked back to the argument of celebrating some character traits and behaviors for black people over others and organizing what exactly constitutes as Black Excellence.  Who do we want to show up to the party to impress the white folks? Everyone, except those niggas right?

There were moments in time where not every person with pale or light-pinkish shade of skin were considered white. In fact, the Italians, Jewish, Irish…etc. were greatly persecuted and oppressed for much of early American history when these groups were immigrating to the country. The process of becoming established as white was determined by the extreme distal relationship and comparisons that these groups managed to make from Blacks. Whiteness was considered normative and the closer one aligned themselves with whiteness was stringent upon the distancing from blackness.

The point that I am making with the usage and adoption of nigger/nigga is that this is exactly the same. It’s the historical dissonance of being less and less of a Negro and establishing one-self as acceptably white or positioning yourself as sophisticated, civilized and alignment as close to whiteness as one can possibly obtain. To adopt the mannerisms, behaviors or accessories that were deemed normative and acceptable not by Blacks but by whites. This also very much appears in the creation of a faction of elitism in activism: with consciousness or being ‘woke’, classism, gender, sexuality or how one manages to modulate through consumerism and appropriation. If we segregate our own people and reject Black people because they are “more/too Black” and then coin those individuals as those niggas or adversely reject groups for ‘not being black enough’. What does that really say to our progress?

But I understand the power struggle that exists. White supremacy and intra-cultural violence are inexplicably linked. The violence that ensures is relevant for the need to survive, to be in control and to have ownership and finding justice in the ability to own your body and life. It grants power and authority to decide on your own terms when, where and how to destroy it. But I propose this:

If it is beyond one’s power, beyond one’s control or choice to be in this particular position to make such a decision then are black and brown person’s truly doing this for themselves? The sense and perception of control and the sense of taking back power means little compared to the reality. Regardless of who you are and where black women or black men may be positioned in modern American society; the target is still on our backs and the systems are still set up to neutralize black success and progress throughout our lives by any means necessary in attempts to divide, conquer or destroy. Asking for accountability and necessary acknowledgement is not being a tool for the ‘white man’ but rather the failure to do so is.

Intra-cultural violence is reactionary and is rarely proactive and does not advance our mission towards greater equality, equity, social, political or economical gains as an individuals or as a collective. The powers of white supremacy will always seek to destroy us.

We should never make it easy for them.