The concrete/physical “acting out” of fear toward the “dissed” (disrespected) that results in physical harm/death and/or the threat and fear of physical harm/death for the “dissed”(disrespected.)

 

Emmitt Till (excerpt from my memoir)

            When I was very young my grandmother took me on a long bus ride from her house in the Woodlawn area of Chicago to stand in the cold in a long line with many, many, many other people that I did not know. I always stayed with my grandmother on the weekends and she would always find something fun for us to do so I was looking forward today to this adventure. I hadn’t been to the aquarium yet so maybe that’s where we were headed. She never said. I guess it was supposed to be a surprise. She held tightly to my hand as we moved slowly forward. I remember going into a building that had a strong pungent smell of flowers, walking into a room filled with all the people who had been in line in front of us, and walking around a wooden box. I think it was brown. I was too short to see too much, mostly just people’s coats in front of me. We said nothing and after we had circled the box we left the building, got on another bus and went back to my grandmother’s house that seemed so far away from all of this. When we got back home she told me the story of Emmitt Till, a thirteen year old Colored boy from Chicago, who had gone to visit relatives for the summer down South, “a horrible place,” she called it. He was killed and his body thrown into the river for allegedly whistling at a white girl. I had been, with so many other Black people, to Collins Funeral Home on Cottage Grove in Chicago to view the thirteen year old beaten and bloated body of Emmitt Till, as my grandmother described to me, and as she said,” to learn” I remember that experience and that lesson to this day although I could not have been more than five years old. I don’t remember all the other things we did for fun together quite so clearly now as I do that day that I still remember all too well. I learned what the South, had to teach. I learned what hate did/does.

I was taught and reminded of what racist hate is early in life as an African American child. I am a witness to it still.

Solutions?  How do we counteract hate?  Please comment!

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