Tag: racism

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Opinion The Last Word

United in Grief

© Atomazul | Dreamstime.com
Buffalo’s East Side has faced tragedy throughout its history.

Ten people’s lives were stolen May 14, 2022, in a shooting fueled by white supremacy and bigotry. The wounds will never heal, and as a Buffalo native, I want to tell the story of Buffalo’s East Side before May 14th because this massacre isn’t the only tragedy it has faced. This is the product of decades of neglect, policy failures, inaction by those in power, and institutionalized racism.

Buffalo has the oldest housing stock in the nation. Many people live in homes that desperately need repairs and are a century old. Buffalo is also the sixth most-segregated city in the U.S. Decades of national and local policies — from redlining to neoliberalization to gentrification — created the conditions of this massacre. In the ’60s, Robert Moses cut the East Side in half and destroyed Buffalo’s Olmstead designed park system by replacing Humboldt Parkway with the Kensington Expressway. The expressway was seen as necessary because, at the time, white flight was occurring. As Black people began to invest in rooting themselves in Buffalo, white people departed to the suburbs. The continuity of the East Side was permanently ruptured, and in favor of white commuters. The pollution still poisons generations of residents, but they got good news on May 6, 2022: Lawmakers announced over $1 billion in support of an infrastructure project to restore Humboldt Parkway.

In the ’80s, the War on Drugs and policies of broken windows meant that many homes on the East Side were razed under the false pretenses of being suspected drug dens. Some homes were even occupied at the time, and their foundations still sit exposed underneath a layer of weeds that symbolizes a failure to address a racist past. In recent years, development via displacement has become the norm in Buffalo. Gentrifying forces slowly creep into depressed neighborhoods and increase property taxes. Lifelong residents, many living on fixed incomes, are pushed out.

Residents I spoke with during my MA research in Broadway-Fillmore, an East Side neighborhood, told me the story of their fight for a supermarket. The investiture of a supermarket by the powers that be is a blessing for growth, and a sponsorship of a future. A supermarket shows a commitment to care for residents, as all people need affordable, healthy, and accessible food. The Tops on Jefferson Avenue services much of the East Side because it is one of the only commitments to food justice in the area. And still, for some residents, that Tops is a 15-minute drive, or 90-minute bus ride. No matter how people get there, the supermarket’s significance is priceless.

Much of the national media attention has been focused on the Black community in the East Side, and that community has been harmed in ways I will never understand. But I’ve spent enough time in the City of Good Neighbors to know that the community extends well beyond race, religion, sexuality, gender, creed, politics. I have felt the love of people who are welcoming of everyone, including a naïve and green wannabe activist like myself. Buffalo’s East Side boasts a burgeoning immigrant and refugee population. At Public School 31 in Broadway-Fillmore, students speak a combined 24 languages. PS 31 is more cosmopolitan than some schools in New York City!

BIPOC are an important part of Buffalo’s tax base and also the most underserved. These are people who have historically been the subjects of violence by hateful people, and May 14th is not the first instance of violence directed at minorities there. The city is $20 million in debt, and more than $11 million is the result of civil lawsuit settlements with the city and the Buffalo Police Department. The world saw what BPD would do to an elderly white man, Martin Gugino, on June 24, 2020. That violence is enacted on BIPOC in Buffalo every day, and it often goes unseen.

I am pained by the fact that, weeks after this horrific massacre, our country seems to have moved on. And since, there have been more such tragedies. We need to continue talking about the societal ills that produce the conditions in which such hateful acts can occur. The problems that plague Buffalo are not unique — they are the status quo across the U.S. The history of the East Side I’ve shared is a broken record, and it should sound familiar to people here in Memphis. I imagine many Black parents in America had to explain to their children what happened on May 14th in Buffalo because the reality is too real.

There are two reasons people have made their homes on the East Side: They care, and they hope for a better tomorrow. Citizens fought tooth and nail to get a supermarket, and the Tops on Jefferson Avenue became an oasis in a food desert. That place of respite, nourishment, and interaction has been permanently stained. I hope that stain can be overcome, but I also understand that the pain, and the fear induced, cannot be forgotten. We must make sure not to forget, too.

Everyone on Buffalo’s East Side not only lost a loved one on May 14th — they lost a piece of themselves. Those lost were people guiding the future to something greater, and have been working for decades to better the lives of their neighbors. I am left asking myself: How much of ourselves can we lose before we’re damaged beyond repair? Will expressing our hurt ever close wounds, or are we doomed to continually reopen the trauma when the next racist massacre occurs? If we keep shelving necessary and uncomfortable conversations and continue to fail to give those most marginalized in our country a better future, we will only add to an always unfolding tragedy.  

Joshua Swiatek moved to Memphis in 2019 and graduated with his MA in anthropology from University of Memphis. He enjoys reading, writing, and reminding people that time is a construct. 

Categories
Music Music Blog

Blues Foundation Rescinds Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s BMA Nomination

Kenny Wayne Shepherd (courtesy Prospect PR)

With the rise of white supremacist movements worldwide, the Confederate flag can no longer pass as the nod-and-wink signifier of Southern pride that it once was. That’s what guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd has discovered, as his love of that iconic image, plastered on his guitars and his car, has caused him to lose his 2021 Blues Music Awards (BMA) nomination for Best Blues/Rock Artist.

The Blues Foundation, which hosts and organizes the BMAs, first posted a Statement Against Racism last Monday, which states that the organization “unequivocally condemns all forms and expressions of racism, including all symbols associated with white supremacy and the degradation of people of color. We will hold ourselves as well as all blues musicians, fans, organizations, and members of the music industry accountable for racist actions and encourage concrete commitments to acknowledge and redress the resulting pain.”

Three days later, the organization announced that Shepherd’s nomination had been rescinded, noting in a statement that “The decision to rescind the nomination was based upon continuing revelations of representations of the Confederate flag on Shepherd’s ‘General Lee’ car, guitars and elsewhere.  The Blues Foundation has also asked Ken Shepherd, father of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, to step down as a member of its Board of Directors.  The Blues Foundation states that it is resolute in its commitment to purposefully address racism and contribute to a more equitable blues community.”

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Shepherd had issued an apology, noting that “The foundation says Shepherd has used the Confederate flag on his ‘General Lee’ replica car from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ and on his guitars. Shepherd says in a statement he put the car in permanent storage years ago, and had painted over the Confederate flag some time ago. He does not mention the guitars. Shepherd says he has always opposed racism and oppression.”

As reported by Variety, “The moves followed statements from prominent figures in the blues community who indicated they planned to dissociate themselves from the organization because of the kudos this year for Shepherd, a previous Blues Awards winner. Muddy Waters’ daughter, Mercy Morganfield, had said she was resigning from the board because of the support for Shepherd.”

Morganfield had made a Facebook post about the matter titled “The Way My Daddy Looks At a White Man Winning a Blues Foundation Music Award While Waving A F****g Confederate Flag.” Her post has since been deleted.

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News News Blog

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland made a surprise visit, speaking out against racism and police treatment of blacks Wednesday at the start of the eighth night of protest here.

In the I Am A Man Plaza near Clayborn Temple, a site pivotal during the 1968 sanitation workers strike, Strickland said he is “committed” to fixing the racist tendencies within the Memphis Police Department (MPD).

“As we jump start reconciliation and solutions to our problems, I think it’s important that first, we define that problem,” Strickland said. “Racism has been built into our system from the very get-go of this country. And although I think we’re the greatest country in the world, we were based on racism. It is literally in our United States Constitution. For 400 years, we’ve sinned. Now we need to fix it.”

Strickland was surrounded by local African-American clergy and community leaders, who the mayor said have started a conversation with him, to “open my eyes and teach.” Strickland said he did “a lot of listening today.”

“I don’t have all the answers and frankly, as a white man, I don’t know that I have all the questions,” the mayor said. “I was an adult and had friends my age before I even knew that black parents had to teach their children, or have the ‘police talk’ because if a black person, particularly a young black male, is pulled over by police, there is a much greater likelihood that something tragic happens than if somebody like me is pulled over. That’s wrong. It’s built into our system. It’s in our hearts. It’s in our subconscious. And we have to fix that. And I want you to know, as mayor, I am absolutely committed to that problem of how the police deal with black people.”

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Strickland said he will hold a series of discussions with community leaders over the next few weeks that he hopes will lead into “concrete actions. It’s not just a philosophical discussion. We will have concrete actions to make it better.”

The number one goal, Strickland said, is to fix the problem that “our police department and every police department across the country has and that’s how they treat black people differently than white people.”

“George Floyd was not the start of this problem, but I want to make him a start of the solution,” Strickland said, met with applause from those standing behind him. “We all saw the video and were horrified by it. But I guess I want to talk to the white people in Memphis like me. Quite frankly, it didn’t resonate with us quite like black people because while we saw horrific action against a human being. They saw someone that could have been their brother, or their son, or uncle.

“Because they’ve seen these stories, facts. They’ve lived it. Their family members have lived it and we need to be able to open our ears and listen to the facts. We can see with our eyes and our hearts, and actually the data that black people are treated differently than whites. And it has tragic consequences sometimes. I want to commit to you that we are going to do everything we can to fix that problem.”

Strickland said the plan is to generate action-oriented goals and have specific steps to implement.

One group said it has been left out of the discussion with the mayor, after sending him a letter on Tuesday asking for a meeting. The Memphis Interfaith Coalition of Action and Hope (MICAH) sent a letter asking Strickland to meet with the group within 48 to 72 hours to listen to the “concerns, needs, and demands for change.”

Wednesday Stacy Spencer, MICAH president said Strickland declined a meeting with the organization “by saying he was already meeting with ‘other activists and clergy.’”

Spencer said it is “troublesome that he is only working together with those who his administration has hand-selected.”

“Mayor Strickland represents all of Memphis, not just the ‘necessary,’ and he represents them all of the time, not just when the occasion arises,” Spencer said. “MICAH has asked for a meeting. Clergy of all faiths and backgrounds gathered together, stood in solidarity and asked for a meeting with their mayor. Do not allow the mayor to dismiss MICAH, its 63 partner organizations and the thousands of people they represent.”

Others responded with both support and disdain for the mayor’s statement, noting he is leaving some groups out.

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News News Blog

County Mayor Speaks Out Against Racial Injustice

County Mayor Lee Harris

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris spoke out against racism and advocated for criminal justice reform during a county COVID-19 task force update Tuesday.

Harris said the murder of George Floyd “tears back the veil of racial injustice, an issue that seems to worsen by the day.”

“African Americans have been too often racially profiled, pulled over, surveilled, and put in handcuffs,” Harris said. “I understand the pain and frustration of these experiences because I have had all of these experiences. All of us feel the echoes of 1968. However, history has shown that we can do unimaginable things in this community and in this country. We can face down COVID-19, we can restore our economy, and we can turn the page on racial injustice.”

Harris said racial injustice has to be addressed with a unified effort. Everyone has a role, the mayor said, noting that his administration will continue to push an “aggressive criminal justice agenda.”

“People of color, particularly African-American men, are too often caught up in a criminal justice system that tags them for life,” he said “The system devastates the ability of too many African-American men to ever fully enjoy the benefits of living in the greatest country on Earth.”

Harris said his administration has worked with the district attorney, judges, court clerks, and the sheriff to implement bail reform, which has “made a difference in hundreds and hundreds of lives of non-violent offenders who would otherwise spend months in detention.”

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Pre-COVID-19, Harris said the Shelby County detention numbers were the “lowest the county has seen in years,” passing an “ambitious goal” for bail reform set by Just City.

“We will do even more to change this system,” Harris said, noting that he will go before the Shelby County Commission this week to advocate for “Ban the Box,” which will help those with criminal history get jobs.

“Too often African-American men with criminal histories have been held back and kept from getting jobs,” Harris said.

The mayor added that he is prepared to meet with any activists or protesters to take a step toward “real action that will drive real change.”

“In Shelby County, we’ve had hundreds of protesters demand to be heard and who have lifted up important concerns,” Harris said. “I hear you. In fact, leaders across the state hear you.”

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The See-Saw of Race and Power

CREDIT: CNN Video

On July 30th, images of a bright pink seesaw installed at the U.S.-Mexico border flooded my social media and news feeds. On the Mexico side of the wall, children lined up for a turn on the seesaw. On the U.S. side, a handful of people, mostly adults, got on the seats at the other end.

Though temporarily installed (for about half an hour), the seesaw will exist forever in digital memory through the photos and videos that documented it. Messages of love and unity accompanied them, and people celebrated the seesaw for allowing U.S. and Mexican kids to play together. As the co-architect Ronald Rael described, the “Teetertotter Wall” was meant to foster “joy, excitement, and togetherness.” But when I first came across these photos and videos, I didn’t see what most people saw or wanted to see.

Despite many reports suggesting kids on both sides playing together, coverage of the seesaw on the U.S. side showed mostly grown adults. Images that were widely circulated of actual children on the seesaw were of children on the southern side of the border. On the surface, images of smiling and laughing brown kids evoke positive messages. If that’s the level where we choose to stop, then we can agree that some of the goals that Rael and his partner, architect Virginia San Fratello, set out for this art installation — to bring joy and show that people on both sides can build positive relationships — have been accomplished.

CNN Video

Coverage of them should be, too.

But art is not that simple. Border narratives are not simple. The border, the wall, and the realities of immigration, colonialism, and militarization bound to it are multilayered.

When Rael and San Fratello said, “The wall became a literal fulcrum of U.S.-Mexico relations” and that the Teetertotter Wall reflects “how the actions on one side of the border have direct consequences on the other,” they presented a limited way to understand immigration. While it may not have been their intent, the consequence of this framing is that we neglect to consider the significant number of Central American asylum seekers who present themselves at the U.S. southern border. It also doesn’t recognize the role of the U.S. and Mexico in the oppression of Central Americans, especially black and indigenous Central Americans.

All that is lost in the coverage of the bright pink seesaws.

In their statement “Borderwall as (Settler Colonial) Architecture, or Why We Prefer Bulldozers to Seesaws” Dubravka Sekulić, Elise Misao Hunchuck, and Léopold Lambert write, “The immediate public acceptance and celebration of this project flattened it into a palatable image of hope, concealing if not erasing real and pressing concerns.” They emphasize that “this is less about the installation itself than its publicization” because the coverage of the seesaw suggests that this art intervention can make the wall a part of a playful landscape. In that brief but well-documented and later publicized moment, all we see is the smiling and laughing faces of brown children. It doesn’t challenge us. And because we are not challenged to think of the border and what it represents and supports in a different way, we consume images of brown smiles and then those images, like anything “viral,” enter and leave our social media feeds.

This leads to another point that unsettled me. These images of children that are meant to make you feel — something. Images of children, especially black and brown children, are often used for this purpose. Smiling faces to make you feel one way, faces full of tears to feel another. A recent example is the series of raids that happened in Mississippi where images of grieving families and children were spread across the internet.

The 2018 worksite ICE raid in Bean Station, Tennessee, that took 97 people was about 440 miles away from Memphis, and while there have been raids in Memphis before, this one had been the largest in a decade at the time.

For perspective, Canton, Mississippi, one of the six cities that experienced worksite raids, is less than half the distance from Memphis that Bean Station is. Around 680 people were taken from worksites last week. For some cities, it was the first day of school for children. Their faces of grief and trauma were shared and retweeted over and over. Some may say that this was done to raise awareness, but a recurring problem is that images of black and brown people experiencing violence at the hand of the state are not made for awareness; they are exploited for white consumption. The images of the smiling brown kids on the pink seesaw similarly serve to aid a comfort that obscures a call to challenge and act. Journalists and photographers need to think about their role in documenting these events. Are you amplifying the voices and stories of people with dignity and respect?

Bringing awareness does not require photographing children without their or their parents’ and caretakers’ consent. What these children and communities need is resources and support, now more than ever.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian exploring race and ethnicity in the changing U.S. South.

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News News Blog

Group Urges Resignation of ‘Foreign Mud’ Judge

CREDIT: Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action

Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action

MICAH calls for the resignation of Judge James Lammey.

Another group is calling for the resignation of Judge James Lammey after The Commercial Appeal reported last week that he’d posted racist links on his Facebook page and the group says it’ll take their case to the Shelby County Commission.

Lammey posted a link from a Holocaust denier that called Muslim immigrants “foreign mud” and said that Jews “should get the fuck over the Holocaust.” After the story published, Latino Memphis and commissioner Tami Sawyer called for Lammey to resign, according to the CA.

The Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action (MICAH) also called this week for Lammey’s resignation. A chief concern for the group, which advocates for immigration equity (among other things), is that Lammey “requires defendants he suspects to be undocumented to contact immigration authorities as a condition of probation.”

Here’s a statement from MICAH:

“In a county that pledges not to collaborate with (U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement), will we stand by judges who turn our courtrooms into ICE offices?

“In a city struggling to heal the wounds of racism, will we consent to be represented by judges who propagate insidious stereotypes?
[pullquote-1]”In a city striving to respect the rights of all, will we affirm judges who — in violation of their oath of office — treat people differently based on how they look, or the ethnic origin of their names?”

The group will take their concerns to the county commission next week. While no discussion of Lammey is formally on the agenda for the commission’s Law Enforcement, Fire, Corrections, and Courts committee, MICAH urged its members to speak about the situation at the meeting.

“Although the commission cannot act to censor or recall Judge Lammey, we are free to speak (if we sign up via comment cards) and get our opinion on the record,” reads the Facebook post.

The group’s concerns may fall on attentive ears. Sawyer chairs the committee.

“Tragically, we have permitted these injustices; it must end now,” reads a statement from there group. “MICAH calls on our leaders to stand against prejudice and for equal protection under the law. We demand the swift resignation — or, if need be removal — of Judge Lammey, for the sake of the people’s faith in an unbiased, un-bigoted, and un-compromised system of justice.”

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Put the Phone Down, Ladies!

CREDIT: Ronnie Wu | Dreamstime.com

I’ve never been a victim of racism. I recognize it. I speak out against it when I witness it. But I don’t know how it feels. There’s no Virtual Reality Blackness Simulator, no curriculum of deep conversations and Ta-Nehisi Coates articles and Kendrick Lamar records that can duplicate the African-American experience. I can listen and empathize, but I don’t really know what it’s like to be Latino or Native American or Asian, either.

I can, however, speak to my own experiences as a 30-something white woman, which qualifies me to ask my fellow white ladies: Did no one tell y’all not to play on the phone? Because you’re tying up the line and wasting everyone’s time. Please leave your homes, make some new friends, and find another hobby besides busy-bodying. And for everybody’s sake, stop calling the police every time you see a person who doesn’t look like you out living life. Innocent people are getting hurt.

Just in the past few weeks, police have responded to complaints of black people waiting in Philly and golfing elsewhere in Pennsylvania, checking out of an Airbnb in L.A., shopping at Nordstrom Rack in Missouri, and grilling out at a park in Oakland. Two Native American teens were hassled on a college tour. These incidents are just the ones we’ve heard about. No laws were broken. No, it’s not new, but the list of asinine reasons non-white people have to justify themselves to the police in 2018 keeps reaching new levels of shamefulness.

Ronnie Wu | Dreamstime.com

Some people need their telephone privileges revoked, starting with the Yale student who called the cops on a black grad student who dozed off in a common area in her own dorm. The alleged criminal catnapper was awakened by officers who had been told she appeared “out of place” in the building. I don’t know how they do things in the Ivy League, but I was a pro napper in college — in my car, in the UC, in the newspaper office, in the library and probably some other buildings that have been torn down. Either someone “smart” enough to get into Yale couldn’t deduce that a sleeping woman surrounded by books and papers is catching a few quick Zs between paragraphs, or …

Things must be going pretty well in Philadelphia if police have the time and manpower to enforce Starbucks’ loitering policy. That policy doesn’t prevent patrons from buying the smallest cup of drip and availing themselves of free wifi all day long, but two black guys grabbing a table before ordering is a reason to get law enforcement involved within minutes? I stopped at the location at Poplar and White Station for an afternoon latté not long ago and saw a woman camped out at a table, eating a meal she’d obviously brought from home. I’m not talking about a purse granola bar, either. She busted out the Tupperware and aluminum foil, right in the middle of the coffee shop. I would have called CrimeStoppers if I’d known it was that serious.

Then again, I’m no angel — I’ve used the Starbucks restroom without buying anything in multiple cities. Once, I sat down and charged my phone for about 10 minutes while I pretended to wait for somebody. Does that mean I’m a fugitive? No, it means a billion-dollar corporation missed out on about $20. They’ll live.

Of course there’s always an excuse. Airbnb lady called because the people checking out didn’t smile or wave at her. Rude, maybe? But not illegal! College tour lady called because the teens showed up late and didn’t answer her questions — in other words, acted like teens. It takes a special kind of entitlement to call the police because a total stranger doesn’t think they owe you their time.

Profiling isn’t only dangerous, it’s a waste of law enforcement resources and taxpayers’ money. If I called the police whenever I felt annoyed or uncomfortable, every 6’3″ guy who has stood in front of me at a rock show, every driver who doesn’t stop at crosswalks, and every person who checks out with more than 15 items in the express lane at Superlo would be doing hard time. But I don’t do that — because I’m not a monster, and the police aren’t a concierge service.

Segregating public spaces is not the police’s job. Helping white people get over their racial grievances? Also not the police’s job, but maybe they should try. Start by saying, “Hey, thanks for calling, but have you considered that this is a you problem, not a them problem? Anyway, call back if you see a crime. That’s more in our wheelhouse.”

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian. Follow @jensized on Twitter.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Dodging Bullets

CREDIT: goir | Dreamstime.com

goir | Dreamstime.com

I’m ready for this summer to end. It’s got nothing to do with the heat or school or the lack of interesting sports on TV. I’m just exhausted. I’m angry. I’m sick of reading, hearing, seeing news of people getting shot.

At the time I started writing this, if the United States put up a sign that says “__ Days without a Mass Shooting,” the number would be zero. Hopefully it will have increased by the time anyone reads this, but I’m not holding my breath. (Finally, something more depressing than that sign on Union that tells us how long it’s been since somebody died in a fire.)

First it was the white supremacist kid, with guns he wasn’t supposed to be able to purchase. So we took down all the Confederate flags. Look everyone: progress! It only took 150 years!  

Then it was a guy named Mohammad, who was either a depressed suicidal alcoholic or a freedom-hatin’ Moozlim, depending on whom you ask.

Then a 57-year-old man shot up a movie theater in Louisiana, and he is being described as a “drifter.” I can’t wait to see the anti-drifting legislation no doubt being drafted this very moment.

What happens next week? What explanation? Which victims will we mark on our quickly filling Gun Violence Bingo cards? How many more people have to get shot before someone acknowledges that thoughts and prayers aren’t going to make this problem go away? When is it going to happen here?

The N.R.A. has our redneck uncles convinced that the president is gunna take away our guns!!!!!!! — yet here we are — and it turns out, more guns does not equal more safety. Thanks, Obama.  

But this isn’t on the president. He’s just as frustrated as I am. Truth is, our redneck uncles aren’t the only ones the N.R.A.’s gotten to. Millions upon millions of dollars are being spent to influence gun policy, and it is working. But even that’s only one facet of the problem.

So is racism. Untreated mental illness is a problem, too. Radicalization is a problem, as is sexism, and so on. Drifters might be a problem, I guess? But none of these things are THE problem. Guns are.

Guns are the bloody thread tying this miserable summer together. Weekly mass shootings should be unacceptable in a developed and civilized society, and it is the duty of those elected to represent us to do something about it. Or at the very least, act like they care.

Want to “put an end to these senseless tragedies”? Acknowledge the problem, and do something to make it stop. Say it by name. Say it with me: Guns. Are. The Problem.

Stop making excuses. Stop saying “This is not the time to talk politics.” If not now, when? If Columbine wasn’t the time, Aurora wasn’t the time, Newtown wasn’t the time, and neither were Charleston and Chattanooga — can someone please give me a call when this time arrives?

Stop saying “guns don’t kill people, people do.” Would you say “Hammers don’t put nails in walls, people do?” A gun’s explicit purpose is to kill or wound. That’s it. It doesn’t cut vegetables or open mail or hit baseballs. It has one job. It is a problem, then, that the United States comprises four percent of the world’s population but owns 42 percent of the world’s civilian guns.

It’s a problem that clerical errors and loopholes in the background check process cost lives and have ruined countless others. It’s a problem that a felon can take his grandma to a gun store to buy him a gun “for being a good boy” (which he then used to kill his 8-year-old son and then himself).

It is a problem that, in some places, it’s more difficult to purchase Sudafed or spray paint than it is a firearm.

It is a problem that these acts of violence are making people afraid, and their response is to buy guns. That’s like sitting out in the sun to get rid of a sunburn.

It is a problem that people interpret the Second Amendment to mean they can and should walk around Target with assault rifles.

How can anybody say with a straight face that is what the “Founding Fathers” intended? I think there’s a pretty good chance James Madison, if asked, would say “My bad, you guys, we totally left out a word. Why on earth do you need all these killing machines? This isn’t what we intended at all. The future sucks.”

It does indeed. And the worst part is, nobody’s doing anything to fix it.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and digital marketing strategist.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

White is the New Black

Yo, white people. We need to talk. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of Pinot Grigio or sweet tea or whatever. We’ve got a problem and it’s going to take a while to get to the bottom of it. I’m talking about racism in this country.

Not your personal racism, of course. Or mine. We’re cool. And not just in that hackneyed, “I have black friends” way. Though, of course, we do. And we’ve taught our kids not to hate, not to discriminate on the basis of race. They all have black friends, too. More than we do, actually. They’re cool. Good, open-minded kids. We’re not racists. It’s not really our problem.

Yes, it is.

It’s not enough to declare ourselves and our families non-racism zones. We need to look at what’s going on outside our cocoons and take some responsibility for it. Too many black kids are still being born in situations where they have little to no chance of “pulling themselves up” by their bootstraps. They don’t even have boots. Their schools are substandard. Their food is junk. They’re trapped in a cycle of poverty and neglect and violence. It’s not because they’re lazy; it’s because they know nothing else.

Yeah, I know, you hear it said all the time: Blacks need to take responsibility for single-parent homes, “black-on-black” crime, poor schools, gangs. That’s self-defeating, divisive, and gets us no closer to solving the problem. The power to fix that situation lies with all middle- and upper-income folks, black, white, and brown — those who have escaped the ghetto and those who never had to worry about it. We need to work together to address the effects of institutional racism that still linger in the United States, and in the South, particularly.

And if we are going to insist black people take responsibility for “black problems,” we white people need to step up and take of our “white problems.” Problems like Dylann Storm Roof and the thousands of kids like him, and the thousands more adults who shape kids like Dylann. They’re out there — ignorant and angry, raised on a steady diet of racism and hatred, waving the Confederate battle flag like a cudgel, listening to wing-nut radio, devouring Nazi/racist web propaganda. We white people need to call that shit out. Now.

Getting rid of Confederate flags is a symbolic start, but more is needed. When we hear — or hear of — someone saying or writing such vile things, we need to pull off their hoods (real or cyber) and push them into the light. If your kids’ private school or your country club is not diverse, well, maybe it’s time to speak up and push for a change. If your kids don’t have interactions with other races, don’t be shocked when they’re caught on a cellphone video singing racist frat songs.

In a radio interview this week, President Obama said, “It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up, and that attitudes have changed. … What is also true is the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives … casts a long shadow and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it.”

No, we’re not, as events in Charleston last week made clear.

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Committed to Lies

People in search of comfort may turn to scripture after last week’s massacre of nine black churchgoers by a lone white gunman in Charleston, South Carolina. I am drawn to John 8:32, in which Jesus tells his disciples: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Emancipation by veracity is a beautiful, if elusive, concept. It puts freedom within anyone’s reach. But this nation is committed to lies, never more so than when it comes to racism.

Confessed killer Dylann Roof explained his racist motivations in an online manifesto. In it, he calls black people violent and inferior. He says the authors of slave narratives spoke highly of the institution. He writes that integration sent white people running to the suburbs in search of whiter schools and fewer minorities.

If racism is a continuum, Roof is at the far right end. America’s systems and institutions — all of them — are not as far to the left as we tell ourselves. Typing that — being honest — fills me with anxiety. To state unflinchingly, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did, that America is racist is to open yourself up to attack.

The (direct or indirect) beneficiaries of racist systems have a powerful incentive to be dishonest. So they lie and insist that racism doesn’t exist. How do they lie? Let’s count just a few of the ways.

They lie when they refuse to unflinchingly describe what happened.

This was not an attack on Christianity. It was a calculated terrorist attack on black parishioners at Emanuel A.M.E. Church by a white racist young man. Do not blather about mental illness or speculate that the killer was on drugs. Do not paint him as an outlier. Do not disconnect this racism and this violence from the less graphic but still racist violence of segregated neighborhoods, hyper-policed communities, needless voting restrictions, and attacks on public-sector jobs.

But instead of candor, we get obfuscation, as offered by South Carolina’s Governor Nikki Haley during a press conference last week. “We’ve got some grieving too. And we’ve got some pain we have to go through,” she said, through tears.

Conveniently, the Republican did not elaborate. Is it the pain of grief? Or is it African Americans’ collective pain of political disenfranchisement, economic exclusion, and mass incarceration, all of which are rooted in racism?

They lie when they ignore the echoes.

According to a survivor, Roof said: “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.”

Said Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul in April, when announcing his campaign: “We have come to take our country back.”

Slightly milder iterations of Roof’s racism are as close as the worst of conservative talk radio, where fears of a colored menace — or perhaps a rebellion like that planned in 1822 by Emanuel A.M.E. founder and former slave Denmark Vesey — loom large.

Similar rhetoric pours from the mouths of right-wing politicians. And it is parroted by too many conservative voters, many who would insist they are not racist because they don’t use the n-word and have a black friend.

Roof wrote in his manifesto: “The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens.” The Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group, is a sponsor of “Political Cesspool,” which airs on Memphis radio.

We lie when we say never again.

I am unmoved by interracial unity marches and vigils and the unsatisfying, fleeting displays of kumbaya that follow such tragedies. Arguments over removing the Confederate flag from its place of honor miss the point. The symbols hurt, but the spirit that upholds those symbols kills. And because there is no appetite for exorcism, the demon of racism remains.

The lies dishonor the dead.

They are Susie Jackson, 87; Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; Rev. DePayne Doctor, 49; Ethel Lance, 70; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; and state Senator Clementa Pinckney, 41, a pastor of Mother Emanuel. But we will not remember their names, just as we do not remember the names of the four black girls bombed to death in 1963 in a Birmingham church by white racists.

I feel like I can have hope or honesty, but not both. The truth is that this massacre could lead America to atone for racism. In the truth lies liberation that could unshackle African Americans from the nation’s bottom rungs. But we can’t handle the truth.

We prefer to lie.