Whites Dehumanize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Into A Trope To Silence Black People
MLK is regularly evoked by Whites in a dehumanizing fashion in order to police Black vernacular (subversion/reclamation), police Black people’s response to continued State violence and anti-Blackness, and to control Black culture and life via the myth that the politics of respectability can “earn” us humanity; humanity denied us as the very foundation and current reality of this country, in fact.
It is triggering, erasure, abusive, ahistorical and violent to remind Black people practically on the hour of the coordinated State violence (abuse, arrests, physical violence, FBI intimidation, surveillance/COINTELPRO, psychological warfare and eventually assassination) on MLK and other Black activists/ordinary Black citizens, and then suggest that us behaving like a White-washed version of MLK (one erasing his work and humanly flaws and replacing it with appeasing Whiteness and empty deification) now will “protect” us from the same State violence that Black people have always faced. (MLK’s “non-violent” actions were still classified as “extremist.”) Whites, who benefit from racism,think it is acceptable to tell Black people to “behave”like MLK, when he was murdered for the same reasons that we have to fight today.
Darren Wilson has half a million dollars via donations from racists, had paid leave, a new wife, is viewed as a White hero and was not indicted (such a decision is apparently statistically rare); will not even face a trial for murdering Michael Brown, despite dehumanizing and killing him. (Not suggesting that his theoretical singular indictment or trial would be “justice” in this anti-Black country; the system itself is violence on us.) He called Michael’s expression of pain after being shot looking like a “demon” and his own strength like that of a child versus Michael as “Hulk Hogan” despite being close to the same size as Michael and had a gun while Michael did not. He claimed that he thought Michael’s punch could “kill” him though his hospital photographs are bruise-less. Clearly he is illogical because of anti-Blackness; the entire testimony is negligence, willful distortion and a racist farce. Whites benefit from violence on Black bodies yet have the audacity and cruelty to suggest how Black people should feel and respond to that violence, in which Whites use other Black people like MLK as dehumanized vessels to funnel those suggestions through.
It is basically White people so utterly willfully ahistorical and intellectually dishonest that they engage in cognitive dissonance with why MLK had to exist as he did in the first place and why we fight now. They use his body as a vessel for their own racism, since their own bodies and lies are never enough. Always the use and consumption of a Black body. Even celebration of the lack of indictment isn’t enough for them; so many of them are trolling Black people online right now because even the State’s affirmation of our dehumanization cannot satiate their appetite for harming Black people. They always want us to accept their version of reality, at the price of our humanity.
This shit also applies to non-Black people of color, and Black people who have internalized antiblackness and use that to harm other Black folks.
Kam Brock says she is definitely not crazy, but eight days in the Harlem Hospital psych ward being treated for delusions and bipolar disorder make it look otherwise.
According to the New York Daily News, the whole ordeal started when Brock’s car was seized by the NYPD, who suspected she was high on weed and confiscated her car even though they found no marijuana. When Brock returned to claim her car, she was understandably upset, but not upset enough to justify what happened next.
“Next thing you know, the police held onto me, the doctor stuck me with a needle, and I was knocked out,” Brock said told the Daily News. “I woke up to them taking off my underwear and then went out again. I woke up the next day in a hospital robe.”
In an attempt to explain her situation to the hospital workers, Brock tried a character reference that epically backfired. “I told (the doctor) Obama follows me on Twitter to show her the type of person I am. I’m a good person, a positive person. Obama follows positive people!” she said.
But apparently, the hospital didn’t believe her. Nor did they believe that she worked at a bank. As hospital records show, her treatment was intended to get her to face the “reality” that she was unemployed and that Obama was not following her.
After eight days of group therapy and sedatives, as well as doses of lorazepam and lithium, she was released without explanation.
Then, on top of everything else, Brock received a bill for $13,637.10 from the hospital.
Since then, she has filed suit for unspecified damages. As she continues her crusade for justice, she has one wish: “Follow me on Twitter! Like Obama does!”
What really kills me about this is a few things False drug charges Took someone’s property Respectability politics fell through Wasted this woman’s time Racist belief that black people can’t be wealthy/powerful/connected landed this woman in a hospital She is deemed bipolar and delusional She is deemed BIPOLAR AND DELUSIONAL SHE IS DEEMED BIPOLAR AND DELUSIONAL IN THE EYES OF WHITE SUPREMACY BECAUSE SHE KNOWS THAT SHE IS A BANKER AND WEALTHY
She has her clothes removed without her consent, which I’m sure violates a couple medical standards
She is then charged extreme amounts of money for services she got AGAINST her will You can basically outright say that the cops were working in tandem with the hospital, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had it out for her by the virtue of her money. There’s so many levels to this fuckery it makes my head spin, the fact that people STILL don’t think institutional racism is a thing kills me. This is such a far gone example of it, yet it’s still so close to reality that no one is surprised. From the ground up this system will game the fuck out of you and I hope it burns to ashes someday.
There’s a vicious double standard. If you’re an untrained civilian, and you’re approached menacingly by an armed police officer, and you fear for your safety, you’re supposed to remain completely under control, not do anything to make the officer nervous, and not overreact. Especially if said civilian is a black teenager, whose history of treatment by police officers is NOT GOOD, to say the least.
But if you’re a trained, armed police officer, and you fear for your safety, you have license to overreact and shoot anything that moves.
How is it that we expect higher standards of untrained civilians than we do of trained, armed police officers?
But they keep telling us it’s all in our heads. We are making it up. (Source)
Two Media Matters for America studies of crime coverage in 2014uncovered a disturbing pattern—every major network affiliate station in New York is consistently over-representingBlack people as perpetrators of crime. They are unfairly and disproportionately focusing their crime reporting
on Black suspects, and inaccurately exaggerating the proportion of Black people involved in crime—on average,
exaggerating by 24 percentage points.
Looming Australian government cut backs mean hundreds of Aboriginal communities will be cut off from services or forced to close down, creating concern and anger among indigenous and
non-indigenous people alike.
Meanwhile, the country’s senate has
called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to apologize for
describing Aboriginal Australians who live in remote communities as
having made a “lifestyle choice.”
Federal funding for water,
electricity, sewage, and other services in indigenous communities across
Western Australia will end on July 1, 2015.
It’s already started. At one of the rallies on Thursday against the closures several people said how their families water had already been turned off.
Let’s not forget that Kanye West, while being the piece of work that he is now, has always had some serious anti-Native American sentiments. He’s continually profited off of Native American genocide for his aesthetic. Starting with these shirts that came around the same time of the confederate flag merch,
to having North’s birthday be “Kidchella” themed,
to a blatant rip off an NDN tribal songs in “Black Skinhead” with no attribution.
I’m getting so tired of anti-Indigenous sentiments being allowed to fly beneath the radar because our lives are belittled to aesthetic choices. I just can’t get over the irony.
Specifically: Naming Idris Elba for every damn role in Western television and cinema.
The new James Bond? Have you considered Idris Elba? The next Doctor? I dunno, but I reckon it should be Idris Elba. A King Arthur film? Hey, what about casting Idris Elba? A Mary Seacole biopic? Guys, I know it’s left field, but have we thought about Idris Elba for the lead role?
I was reminded of this fancasting tic in the wake of Jon Stewart’s announcement that he was quitting The Daily Show after almost two decades. The nominations for his replacement came thick and fast, and alongside the usual suspects came the name of Jessica Williams, already a correspondent on the show, and a fan favourite.
Turns out Jessica Williams didn’t want the job, flattering though she found the vote of confidence from fans. She tweeted as much.
But that didn’t stop one writer (who has since apologised) from diagnosing Williams with a case of Impostor Syndrome, the cure for which would likely come wrapped in a pep talk from the likes of Luvvie Ajayi and Ta-Nehisi Coates, among others. William – and others – did not appreciate it. And I get it.
What was a well-meant “I choose you, member of a historically overlooked and discriminated against group, to be a figurehead of change” became something a little less sweet-tasting. It happened with Issa Rae when the clamour about SNL’s black woman black hole became an issue a couple years back. It happened with #Donald4Spiderman.
It’s happened with pre- and post-Oscar Lupita Nyong’o. It’s been happening with Idris Elba for years, even when he has articulated how “black James Bond” is really not up his street.
What is betrayed in these types of fancasting is a lack of imagination. An ignorance of anyone but whoever happens to be “so hot right now”. It’s understandable: We are wired to think of the highest profile; the person who features in the “Previously, on The X Show” reel at the front of our minds. And these are not necessarily bad things: It shows you’re maybe thinking about the underrepresentation of people of colour in the culture, and recognise that it needs to be addressed. And these actors are talented, charming, and capable performers. But it also suggests a shallowness of knowledge – the same actor(s), suggested for every role(s), over and over, regardless of suitability (on the grounds of age/physical appearance/comedy or drama chops/whatever, ad nauseam. It gets to be irritating.
It might not be the type of racism that kills, or shouts abuse in the streets, or discriminates against your name at the top of a CV or a rental application, but it shares the same seed. This is a more benign strain of the disease, relegated to a lower status because it involves pop culture, and its intentions are so fine. It’s subtle, but it’s subtly damaging. It’s also really goddamn lazy.
There are more black male actors than Idris Elba in this country; some younger, some older, some just as good, some better. They are worth considering for the real roles, as well as in fancasting exercises.
Bim Adewunmi, “The Benign Racism of Good People.” (via lyrafay)
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