FollowBlog followers:
Thank you for your readership and many brilliant comments. I will be taking a hiatus from this blog as I have been inspired and coaxed into writing a book about my heartfelt topic of “American Racism.”
I have come to realize that I was prepared early in my life for the task of writing about America’s racially abusive relationship with Black people. At the age of five I viewed the body of Emmitt Till with my grandmother holding my hand at the Collins Funeral Home in Chicago. At sixty-five I am writing about the murder of Trayvon Martin on a blog as I now hold onto the hand of my three month old great grandson that I fear for. There have been far too many other stories/tragedies of Black male assassinations in and between those sixty years of my life in America. So I continue to write.
The book will be called American Racism 101. You will be able to find it on Nook and Kindle by August 2012. Unfortunately, it will not be out-of-date by then.
This website will remain posted and you can refer to it for guidance and education. Please refer others to its articles. I am including a table of contents, by date and topic, for your easy access to the archives.
July (2011) RECOGNIZING RACISM
August THE REALITIES OF RACISM
September RACIAL PROFILING
October PHYSICAL RACISM
November BLACK RACISM
December INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
January (2012) RACIAL SUPERIORITY/SUPREMACY
February PSYCHOLOGICAL RACISM
March BLATANT RACISM
Darien Heard
DARING TO BE HEARD!
Just DUMB, STUPID, OBVIOUS inequity in the evaluation of what’s just/justice for a response to . . .
Blatant Racism is an act, a word, a decision, an interpretation of a situation that defies all common sense and can only be described, identified and comprehended as an act of “racism” and therefore not requiring the need for reality testing or basic common sense. It is so profoundly obvious and blatant that it often goes undetected as an offense. It is however, meant as an offense.
Jena 6
In Jena, Mississippi some Black high school students began sitting under a tree on the high school campus that had always been unofficially reserved only for white students. Perhaps they even did it as a protest. The white students considered the high school to be theirs alone as it had been so before the school was integrated. They were now, and for a very long time, decades, integrated into the same school, but many old social mores, customs, and racist attitudes still prevailed. Several white students chose to discipline/threaten/intimidate the Black students into moving from under “their” tree by hanging rope nooses from its branches. Rope nooses hanging from a tree is a well-recognized racialized death threat to any and all Black people in America as far too many of our family members were hung from such nooses from such trees. For their “childish” death threat prank and their “silly and immature” behavior the white students received a short suspension from school.
Later, from the same high school, four young male Black high school students beat up a white male student. They were arrested, tried and convicted of attempted murder requiring and receiving long prison sentences although the white male student who was briefly hospitalized for his injuries attended the high school sponsored dance the same evening of the attack. They were tried as mature and dangerous adults, to assure a long incarceration for their heinous crime. This incident was not considered a “childish” prank or just another fight between “silly and immature kids.” They were murderers although I suggest to you that if FOUR Black young men had “attempted murder” on ONE white young man, they could/would have succeeded, and he would not have been able to attend the school sponsored dance that same evening.
Equal Justice? Common Sense? Racist Circus Act?
These are things that make “POLITE” Black people go
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Just DUMB, STUPID, OBVIOUS inequity in the evaluation of what’s just/justice for a response to . . .
Blatant Racism is an act, a word, a decision, an interpretation of a situation that defies all common sense and can only be described, identified and comprehended as an act of “racism” and therefore not requiring the need for reality testing or basic common sense. It is so profoundly obvious and blatant that it often goes undetected as an offense. It is however, meant as an offense.
Trayvon Martin
What more needs to be said?
I live in fear for my young brothers who are considered PREY to frustrated, powerless, ignorant White Men.
Kill a dog, you get Federal Time, ask Michael Vick.
Kill a Black teenager, you walk away free, ask Trayvon Martin
BLACK AMERICA and civilized WHITE AMERICA stand up and
Stop this!
OR:
At least allow us, African American citizens, a South African Apartheid Solution to . . .
__________________________________________________________
African American
Pass Card
This card permits the (African American) bearer to walk down this street – – – – between the hours of 9:00 am and 6:00pm Monday thru Friday. An additional Pass Card is required for other hours and days.
Issued by:
The government of the United States of America.
2012
______________________________________________________
The African American Passport to occupy and travel the cities, streets, roads and byways of the United States of America,
UNHARMED.
(sarcastic/facetious remedy)
Sign the Petition for Trayvon’s justice, the arrest of George Zimmerman.
www.change.org
Just DUMB, STUPID, OBVIOUS inequity in the evaluation of what’s just/justice for a response to . . .
Blatant Racism is an act, a word, a decision, an interpretation of a situation that defies all common sense and can only be described, identified and comprehended as an act of “racism” and therefore not requiring the need for reality testing or basic common sense. It is so profoundly obvious and blatant that it often goes undetected as an offense. It is however, meant as an offense.
There are two articles that I wrote on this subject as these
kinds of injustices are typically everyday incidents encountered without fanfare by African Americans. These two are highlighted as they both received the national attention that all such incidents deserve to receive. Yet, I don’t believe either was recognized for the truly blatant disregard for the equality, justice or respect the victims were entitled to even with national attention.
I wrote about the incident of football great Michael Vick’s encounter with “the Law” and his resulting punishment. I compare it to the treatment of another “celebrity” committing “morally” essentially the same crime but without censure.
The second piece recounts the Jena 6 incident with my interpretation/perception/perspective of how profoundly unjust and unequal the crimes and sentences were for the perpetrators, white and black.
Michael Vick
Michael Vick was arrested, convicted and served time in prison for owning and operating a dog fighting business. The business was considered immoral and brutal to the dogs. PETA went crazy with accusations of animal cruelty. Michael Vick did not invent dog fighting and had grown up with and witnessed others involved in dog fighting. Dog fighting continues to this day without arrests, convictions and incarcerations. Was Michael Vick’s operation somehow more heinous than everyone else’? I don’t support dog fighting but I don’t condemn one arena over another.
Michael Vick has just returned to professional football where he had been a star quarterback. He was and is under severe attack for getting a second chance to pursue his career, using his god given talent. Serving your time, paying your debt to society, and being rehabilitated, an American principle, somehow does not apply to him. Michael Vick is a Black man.
The ex-governor and Vice Presidential candidate for the 2008 Republican Party, Sarah Palin, personally flies around Alaska shooting wolves from a plane with a high powered rifle. This gives the animal no fighting chance for survival as they have no natural instinct for competing against a plane and a high powered rifle. She is not ostracized much less arrested, convicted, nor does she serve time for the ultimate act of animal cruelty, death. This is LEGAL in Alaska, perhaps a sport. PETA says or does nothing about her activities. Is it because the principle of animal protection from cruelty is somehow different if it is legal? Perhaps then, it isn’t cruel? Will she continue to have a political career? Will she perhaps run for President in 2012? Sarah Palin is a white woman. Equal Justice? Common Sense? Racist Circus Act?
The month of March will be devoted to “Blatant Racism.”
Blatant is who and what Rush Limbaugh is every time he speaks
. . . in your face.
The following writing is a response I made to a ‘friend” questioning reparations.
American Colonization
The land was fertile with its fruits. There were strawberries and blackberries and cherries, apples, and bananas covering the landscape.
The land was buzzing with flies that enjoyed the fruit and multiplied gracefully never disturbing or destroying the land. They “flitted” from fruit to fruit as they both ate and pollinated them ensuring their survival.
There was peace, harmony and prosperity on the land.
THEN a swarm of ANTS, from somewhere off shore arrived and covered the land devouring its fruits and replacing the flies with their own progeny. They built permanent abodes that tore up the land and killed its fruits.
Unhappy with their limited rape of the land they imported grasshoppers that were quick and strong to build their abodes, nurture their children and harvest the fruit. The grasshoppers were made to do so for over 300 years.
Within these 300 years the grasshoppers tried to build their own communities and harvest their own fruit but the ANTS would not have the competition. They burned down their fields, and murdered and raped their children. They created laws to prevent the grasshopper from having any profit from their tireless labor. And they, with military style precision, enforced their laws.
So after over 300 years of taking care of the Ants without any compensation the grasshoppers sat down to reap the profits of the ANTS that they had provided them. It was their welfare, their reparations earned by generations of millions of grasshoppers, their ancestors, through their hard uncompensated labor.
As the fields of fruits grew the flies that had been pushed out and had retreated South began to return to the land that was theirs. They came in droves to enjoy once again the fruits that they had pollinated and made plenty. They enjoyed the land again that they and the grasshoppers had made fruitful.
The ANTS became angry. They did not want to share what they had stolen from the flies. They did not want to share what they had forced the grasshoppers to produce. They did not want to lose any of what they had stolen, hoarded, legislated and killed for.
They wanted their land, their control, their profits, and their laws back.
THEY WANTED THEIR COUNTRY BACK!
This month we have been examining psychological racism as it has been directed at the self-concept and worth of Black people in America and the resulting internalization of its effects. Last week I explored and today I will be further exploring the effects of psychological racism, its internalization and resulting low self-esteem on the perpetrator, white America.
I rarely listen to or hear what Rush Limbaugh has to say but today I did.
A friend shared with me his radio announced plea to the Republican Party to accept Mitt Romney as their candidate and to eagerly support him. I later heard a recap of his plea. Limbaugh did not offer praises of the proposed candidate but rather an acknowledged resignation to the potentiality that Romney would become their, the Republican Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America. He further acknowledged that their, Republican, attacks on him were only weakening his candidacy against his run for President against President Obama in November. He begged Republicans to stop the attacks. He did so not because he considered them false accusations and expressions of the candidate but rather because he was their only and the only (implied, white) candidate the country would be able to vote for in November and the resumption/return of the Presidency and its power to “white” America (ns) was paramount damn be the quality, appropriateness or potential effectiveness of the candidate.
Romney may not be who is best but . . .
VOTE FOR ROMNEY,
He is white.
Black Americans, I suggest, are not the only Americans to have been psychologically damaged by racism.
It just gets SADDER!
This month’s topic of psychological racism has explored examples of how the “dissed” disrespected have adjusted/accepted/responded to racism by internalizing false images and opinions, projected by the racist society onto them and too often REQUIRING THEM TO limit/control their lives within these false images. There are two questions that come immediately to my mind regarding psychological racism and they are why and how it is done.
Why this psychological attack of racism is done by the racist society is easily understood not solely with the answers of hate and/or sense of racial superiority. The need for a display of hate and the perception of racial superiority are also psychological manipulations of the racist society onto their own. They become the easy and obvious “motivations” of the masses for the more insidious motivation of some for Control.
The real answer to why is Control
of both societies.
How this is done is through the incessant propaganda of the racist’s society directed to their controlled base to incite hate and a sense of racial superiority “By Any Means Necessary.” Currently we are witnessing a revival of psychological racism directed this time not at a whole population, but rather at a single individual, of interest.
Is Obama American,
Is Obama Christian,
Is Obama . . . ?
The incessant and continuous attacks on our African American President are personal. They are an example of how psychological racism works. The American racist society attacks him with questions of his legality, credibility, and moral and ethical ability to be President of the United States of America. These personal attacks are aimed at the base of racists that need a banner, a rallying call, a transparently veiled chant to discredit that Black man who has the audacity to be their
Commander in Chief,
Occupy, with his Black family The WHITE HOUSE
and WORSE
BE IN CONTROL.
The “acceptance” and compliance by the “dissed,” disrespected, (usually Black) of being disrespected. Psychological brainwashing through both internal/external and overt/covert means to CONTROL the perceptions of the “dissed” in order to CONTROL the response of the “dissed.”
THE MORAL CORRUPTION OF AMERICA
OR
WHITE SURVIVAL?
I remember all too well the 1960’s and the voter registration drives that worked for equal representation and the equality of Black people in America. I remember that in several counties in the South there were poll taxes and “reading tests” imposed on Black people trying to register and vote as a means to disqualify them. It was the (ir) way to prevent Blacks, often outnumbering whites in Southern counties, from voting and having influence over the laws of their communities. (We are seeing these measures, in some form, being proposed again by the Republican Party.) The Voters Right Act passed and Blacks for the first time voted freely everywhere, in numbers.
Then came the 1970’s and our numbers became smaller where they had previously flourished. Blacks had eagerly embraced (psychologically brainwashed) the socially responsible banner of birth control and legal abortions. We were taught/led to believe that fewer children meant a better life for our families. We too could and would be middle-class. Our voting influence became less by the 1990’s and Blacks were no longer the threat we had been when we produced large families as potential voters.
Now it is 2012 and the fastest growing ethnic population in American is Latino. Their vote is courted and influential. They have not/did not embrace birth control and legal abortions. They are generally of the Catholic faith.
The white population, on the other hand, too, like the Black population, is/has been decreasing in America having also embraced birth control and legal abortions. They are therefore losing the control of the voting booth with the influx of the new immigration. The Republican Party’s attempt to regain and control their “majority” influence proposes to reverse fifty years of social history and laws by making abortions illegal, under any circumstance, and prevent health care providers from paying for any form of birth control. The Republican Party also wants to change and enforce the immigration laws including deportation, on our “Southern border.” They need numbers. They are losing them from abortions, birth control and the delay of white women in marrying and having children, often doing so only after establishing successful careers. So they need numbers.
Think about it????
Who has test tube babies?
Who has surrogate mothers?
Who has artificial insemination?
Who has difficulty having children?
Generally, not Blacks or Latinos.
Generally, it is whites who need these methods to reproduce.
They also need the possibility of adoption of white babies when necessary and
if possible.
So maybe this argument we are hearing from the Republican Party about “The Right to Life” damning abortions and their objection to the Health Care legislation covering the cost of birth control methods isn’t as much about a moral/religious issue/ belief as much as . . .
it is one of (political) and yes, genetic survival.
My Thoughts
The “acceptance” and compliance by the “dissed,” disrespected, (usually Black) of being disrespected. Psychological brainwashing through both internal/external and overt/covert means to CONTROL the perceptions of the “dissed” in order to CONTROL the response of the “dissed.”
Mr. / Massa JIM CROW”
During this month of February as we celebrate Black History month I am remembering some of mine, with reflection.
Family Trip Across Country
(excerpt from my memoir)
In 1955 we were Colored and when we reached Salt Lake City, Utah we tried to register for a room at a Best Western Motel. We were told that Colored weren’t allowed to stay there so we were sent to a small motel outside of town that would take us. I remember Daddy looking very sad and holding his tongue. Daddy knew how to cuss/curse real good but this time but this time he didn’t.
We were just fine at the other motel but Daddy got very quiet and didn’t eat dinner. Mommy and I felt more than a little scared to see him like that. We were glad to leave Utah.
The best part of the long hot drive was when we arrived in Las Vegas. Once again we couldn’t stay in any of the grand hotels there but we were looking forward to staying at one of our own, The Moulin Rouge, where we had reservations. The Moulin Rouge was owned by Colored celebrities and it was absolutely the grandest place I had ever seen in my life. It was as beautiful as any hotel on the Strip plus all the Colored entertainers stayed there when they performed in Vegas. I think Joe Louis and Sammy Davis Jr. were part owners. While we were there swimming in the pool that had real live pink Flamingoes walking around it, Sammy Davis Jr. came out by the pool. My Father was ecstatic as Sammy was his favorite entertainer. That alone seemed to make the whole trip perfect for my father.
Reflect on your own Black History as we celebrate this month and REMEMBER that the cry from the Tea Party “We want our country back” is their country of the 1950’s.
The “acceptance” and compliance by the “dissed,” disrespected, (usually Black) of being disrespected. Psychological brainwashing through both internal/external and overt/covert means to CONTROL the perceptions of the “dissed” in order to CONTROL the response of the “dissed.”
“Mr. / Massa JIM CROW”
Psychological racism is a method of control as compelling and complete as physical racism. It perhaps is even more so because once the “dissed” has accepted being the “dissed” and acts accordingly in compliance with their “perceptions” only occasional reminders are necessary to control with little cost or effort for the perpetrator.
Jim Crow’ ism
(Excerpt from my memoir)
Frankfurt, Kentucky
I also remember going into the big town of Frankfort, maybe ten miles away in the opposite direction towards Louisville, to go shopping with Mommy. That was considered “Big.” It really was an adventure for us. There were so many, many people there, “white” people. It was, 1940’s in the South, and Mommy bought clothes from a department store where she wasn’t allowed to try them on.
I would wonder why all the other women shopping were trying on clothes in little rooms and we just bought ours and left the store.
Sometimes they didn’t fit quite right when she was finally able to put them on at home. Mommy would have to sew and alter them to fit her because the department store wouldn’t take returns from the Coloreds. She’d just pull out her old sewing machine that she still has, and cut and alter as she needed to, never complaining. In Frankfurt I was told to drink from a special water fountain that had a sign on it that read for “Colored Only.” I couldn’t read so I didn’t know.
“Cheryl, baby, no that’s the wrong fountain, come on over here. This is ours and let me lift you up,” as Mommy bent to pick me up and take me to the other water fountain.
When Mommy, Daddy and I would go to the movies we would go up the stairs to sit in the balcony with our friends, our people. Going to Frankfurt was special to me. I didn’t really understand what it all meant then. It was just what we did, what we had to do. Daddy, Mommy and I were different people somehow when we went there to Frankfurt, somehow different, somehow made to feel less.