I was watching the news last night "locally", which is something I try very hard not to do because if I did I would be just as detached from reality as the people reporting it. Most of the time and I'm willing to bet that 95 % of news stories are built upon hearsay, which by law would be deemed inadmissible in court. Well let me say in certain courts it depends on the way the question is asked, and if the person who provided the statement is available for cross-examination. However that was not the basis of my discussion, while I was watching the news all of a sudden an African American male's picture was flashed across the screen. Mind you no charges had been filed against the man at the time his picture was literally plastered across what possibly could be the entire state, but that wasn't what bothered me the most either. The issue that I had with the whole report is that they stated the man had a history of violence, this history that was listed could have all been isolated situations we weren't there. However now this information is out in public so whatever circumstances this particular incident may have occurred under, when brought into custody this guy already has the deck stacked against him. I don't think that's fair, and I don't think it's fair to paint someone as violent based on encounters you didn't witness let alone assume this is that person's everyday life.
People in general have a breaking point although we are humans, we are still animals by definition which means we all have the innate sense of fight of flight.
Now some humans cannot defend themselves when pushed to their breaking point, so they choose flight as soon as it's available to them. However if I don't choose to flight since I have the right to protect myself, does that make me violent, and even if I had several of these situations where I was provoked and the latter played victim, does that make me violent? I have a problem with the ways terms are used and especially the way black males are still being depicted in the media, when you have trigger happy cops running around like it's hunting season, aren't they violent as well? Now I'm not particularly "stanning" for the man on the news but as black men we are an endangered species, and in modern society as well as in history even the most accomplished of black men all have had a breaking point. That may not have been the case with the guy on the news, but that made feel like as black men we are not supposed to express ourselves in a way that maybe intimidating to others. So it literally is a way to emasculate you as a man, especially a black one at least here in the north from my encounters anyway.
You could say I was raised but in the north equally as the south, which means standard to my upbringing I was taught at a young age that if someone did something to me to tell someone of authority, and if that didn't work to let me my mother handle it. Which essentially took away my voice and my power, and I said that to say this you can't handle yourself in the north the same way you would in the south, even more so if you are a man dealing with other people of color. I feel like I was tortured in school as a child because I had this fear of getting in trouble, I didn't know how to defend myself and the other kids knew it. They knew after the first time they tested me that I wasn't going to defend myself, ok the person of "authority" might do something the first time but when this becomes a habitual occurrence it tends to get overlooked. This then sets a precedent even to all students, that this is the one we can pick on and nothing is going to happen. So you carry this thought process all the way to adulthood and you become a walking target, now as an adult you can't go run and tell when somebody does something to you that you don't like, society says you are supposed to call the police, I'm black thats usually not an option. The only thing you can do is stand up for yourself, but wait now you are violent, now you are angry, and now you are perceived as hostile because you had the guts to not be emasculated as an adult black male. What do you do? the media has this perception, we are under-represented on the correct side of the media, and you have to live life. What I hope I'm accurately conveying is that it's hard being a black man in America, and now we have to tip toe around society in order to not appear hostile, angry, and violent. When are we supposed to be able to express ourselves passionately about what we feel, or what we maybe going through without it being a problem?
What the black man in America is a misunderstood often exploited resource, that contains diversity, culture, knowledge, integrity, strength, beauty, and courage because he now knows if he never did before that when he walks out of his door he may not make it back. If he has children and his skin is dark he faces the challenge of not wanting his children to experience racism, so he reproduces with a woman outside of his race in hopes that their fate will be different. He then is called a uncle-tom and various other things because he was just thinking of his family before himself, the black man in America can't get any chill until he dies. We don't all want to fight, we just want the right to be celebrated while we live, and not after with sad songs and hyms!
Location:America
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