Posted on 11/26/2014 2:24:04 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Peaceful protests have been happening for over 100 days. But white folks only really pay attention if they fear they have something to lose. Smoke flares in their nostrils, because then they are confronted with the possibility of charred, burning, white flesh. No more water. The fire next time.
If I have to begin by convincing you that Black Lives Matter, we have all already lost, haven’t we? So let’s not begin there. Let’s begin at the end. At the end there is only Michael Brown Jr.’s dead body, no justice, and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
For his parents, there is only grief.
They are undone. We are undone. I am undone. This is what American democracy coming apart at the seams looks like. Our frayed, tattered edges are showing. The emperors are the only ones who can’t see it. Where can we begin so that we don’t end up here?
Is anyone else tired of wandering in this wilderness? Surely this land of broken promises isn’t what Dr. King had in mind for us. Hopefully, from the fiery furnace of Ferguson, the floating embers will spark and spread and blaze us a new trail – up out of this madness.
Did you expect me to call for peace? Did you expect me to condemn looting and property damage? Did you expect me to preach at the people about being constructive rather than destructive?
Peaceful protests have been happening for over 100 days. But white folks only really pay attention if they fear they have something to lose. Smoke flares in their nostrils, because then they are confronted with the possibility of charred, burning, white flesh. No more water. The fire next time.
I woke up in black skin this morning. Frustrated, because for the first time in a long time, I felt the weight, the scourge of this skin. Had visions of being able to unzip myself, climb out of myself, and lay aside this weight, but the woman who climbed out was darker still. Since black is beautiful, we are never supposed to admit that we are sometimes tempted to believe what white supremacy tells us to believe about ourselves. But you caught me in a moment of weakness.
Utterly undone. Put out trying to pull it together. Still trying to put together – piece together —all these pieces. Of “evidence.”
Many things are evident this morning.
Our black president says that first and foremost, we must “respect the rule of law.” I watch, as he says this, a split screen of unruly protesters smashing the windows of a police cruiser. It is evident what they think about “the system.”
It, too, is evident what the system thinks about us.
(Do you feel the struggle in these words? The utter inadequacy of them? The struggle to contain and train my rage on the proper (white) people, and not all of them? The challenge of trying to narrate black rage, and black pain, and black fear, and black freedom dreams deferred – again—in hopes that white folks would really understand? The resentment at my failure? The rage at my having to do so in the first place?)
Tupac famously asked “if there was a heaven for a gangsta.” I find myself hoping there’s a hell for white supremacists. But too many of them believe in Jesus. So fire and brimstone in Ferguson and beyond will have to suffice.
The attorneys for Michael Brown’s family appear on the news, admonishing us to be “dignified and disciplined.” I laugh, tears threatening the back of my eyes. I want to ask them if they really believe what they are saying.
There is no dignity in lying dead on scorching, hot pavement for four hours. That is evident. There are no disciplined acts of resistance that will restore dignity to Michael Brown’s life. Only justice can do that. Justice affirms that his life was worth protecting, that Darren Wilson, the person who took it, should be punished.
There will be no justice for Michael Brown, so there will be no surrogate acts of “dignity” from protesters.
Neither should we any longer submit to the disciplinary impulses of the “rule of law.” The rule of law wants to beat into us, through “discipline,” the belief that we –black people — would be animals but for its chastening rod of correction. The law stepped to a podium yesterday, under cover of night, to tell us that it reserves the right to slaughter black men with impunity, that it seeks to coerce through threat of force, our permission to do so.
To ask us to be “dignified and disciplined,” to ask us to “respect the rule of law” in the face of such a mockery of justice is to ask us to affirm the path to our own destruction.
Surely America knows black folks better than that.
Humans can only be sucker punched for so long. Humans can only have the life choked out of us for so long. Humans can only be kicked in the stomach while your foot is on our neck for so long. Humans can only be bullied for so long. One day we stagger to our feet, and you see reflected back to you the results of your own unresolved monstrousness.
I asked for a different beginning, hoping we wouldn’t end up here. But here we are — at the end again. Here we are – black people – yet again faced with the magnitude of our need and the inadequacy of our resources – trying to make ends meet. Trying to begin again.
I wonder if Ms Cooper has anything productive going on in her life?
She is extremely racist.
These whackos are going to get us all killed.
Why does she so desperately want white people’s attention on her pity party? What are white people supposed to do about black welfare poverty, black violence and murder, black thug culture, black racism/scapegoating...? These are the evil things at the root of her misery and how are white people going to fix all that for “undone” Blacks like her?
She admitted that she’s in this drama of hate and rage for attention. Her racism is so complete she’s at the lynching phase of hate because she thinks fear in white people will give her attention. Well, her wish has come true. Gangs of black thugs are beating innocent white people and still she feels white people won’t pay attention to her. She’s so pitiful.
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2014-chicago-murders/timeline?mon=11
The TRUTH is not hidden.
Some people” can’t handle the truth”!
The Lame stream media and politicians deny even the existence of facts.
My schtruggle.
They stopped protesting early on...what they are doing now is rioting....there’s a vast difference between the two. They spent months planning this....and why no matter what they call it they were preparing to riot ...and will again.
You’re right; African blacks are shocked by their attitude towards opportunity in general and work in particular.
Welfare reform capped the “cash-for-kids” program (and the birthrate fell quickly); abortion (subsidized by the government) is keeping the rest from spreading. In my area their neighborhoods/numbers are shrinking.
I have some friends from Nigeria, and they cannot stand American blacks.
Exactly what I meant by hiding the truth.
“To ask us to be “dignified and disciplined,” to ask us to “respect the rule of law” in the face of such a mockery of justice is to ask us to affirm the path to our own destruction.”
Mockery of justice, yeah we hear that a lot from left liberals, especially black ones.
Well, Professor Cooper, HOW EXACTLY was the grand jury process so flawed that it constituted a “mockery of justice?” Except, of course, for the fact that you didn’t like the outcome of the process?
Come on, be specific. Surely, a professor such as yourself can actually articulate the individual deficiencies in the process that cumulatively made it a “mockery of justice.”
Or would requiring that simply be “racist?”
Go ahead, take your time. We’ll be here, won’t we?
Gee, in all her black racist rage she never mentions the black on black murders even once.
In this case, indoctrination instead of education.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, . . . is an American public research university and the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey.
This racist bitch is being paid by the poor suffering New Jersey taxpayers!
How do people like this manage to get and stay on the public payroll while regurgitating such vile, racist comments?
“But white folks only really pay attention if they fear they have something to lose.”
It’s a damn shame black folks only pay attention to the large number of deaths within the black community when one of their own is killed by a cop. Where is the rioting and the demand for justice when one black person kills another?
As understanding and tolerant as I can muster, I dread 2 pm today when my super liberal sister in law and her militant black husband arrive for T-day. TV football will be punctuated by references to Ferguson as it was last year by references to the white offense of the hour then, and as it has been interrupted every year since time began it seems. But, I’ll hold my tongue, not read Rush’s T-Day story aloud as I would like to do, not engage on thug Brown or his racist family and friends.
Thanks for letting me vent.
You will not be alone.
Most everyone that I know has one or more family members like the ones you’ve described. Confronting them only pleases them - they want to disrupt.
Smile, knowing that there will be many in the same boat as you are today, and that we all are well aware that those who so freely spout their ignorant liberal talking points, are morons.
As they sit and stuff their faces with the bounty of this great land, your silence will showcase their idiocy and give it top billing.
You can keep changing the subject to happy family things - often that will telegraph your opinion of their opinions to the gathering and the others will quickly take up your topic in relief and solidarity.
There's no payday in that.
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