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Speaking in Black and White [1]

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Date: 2023-02-10  

Why not an abolitionists?

With all the talk of Critical Race Theory, wokeness, cancel culture, and Black Lives Matter, black and white Americans are speaking a different language. Regarding CRT, blacks— and white Americans—willing to recognize its origins, understand its value. It is a graduate degree law course—founded by professor Derrick Bell to explain the embedding into law legal imbalances perpetrated on people of color. Jim Crow, redlining and drug laws which differentiated between powdered and crack cocaine sentencing, for example. Unfortunately, many black Americans have been pulled into arguments over a purposeful misrepresentation started by Chris Ruffo.

Ruffo glommed onto an opportunity to raise his profile with a make-believe culture war issue, saying CRT was an “existential threat” to the United States. “What I’m concerned about, and what millions of parents are really concerned about, is things that are happening in hundreds of public schools in Illinois and Chicago, where they’re teaching children as young as kindergarten that whiteness is the devil and attempts to lure people into it with the promise of stolen land and stolen riches,” said Ruffo. Even if one agrees with what Ruffo describes as going on in Illinois kindergarten classes, that is not CRT. Not only are black and white Americans arguing over something in Mr. Ruffo’s fevered dreams, but the argument is over the wrong concept, something that professor Bell never imagined or meant it to be.

As a black American, I cringe when I hear the Bill Maher(s), Sean Hannity(s), and a bevy of conservative politicians misuse the word ‘woke.’ Woke was simply an acknowledgment between black folks and a warning always to be aware the forces of racism are out here. In my life experiences, letting one’s guard down could kill you. Again conservative white America has bastardized the phrase to mean anything that seems like progress, books, Disney, LGBTQ rights, immigration, atheism, same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and even M&M(s).

Admittedly most of the things I am writing about are distractions. Equating those issues for black Americans is about as authentic as collagen injections and a Brazilian butt lift. After George Zimmerman killed unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin in 2012, we were again reminded of the cheapness of black life. The egregious re-adaptation of a cry for the lives of young black men by the founders of Black Lives Matter was answered with All Lives Matter, not only insulting but also cruel. Black Lives Matter is another example of the country speaking two languages. While one population openly grieved and called for America to at least see black life as valuable, white America often answers with victim blaming.

Black people die yearly in this country over traffic stops, defending their homes, and being just plain scared. Had Tyre Nichols not run…. Had Breonna Taylor not been in her own home…. Had Atatiana Jefferson not been up so late playing video games with her nephew…. All the above names were either at home or trying to get home. I was told one’s home is one’s safety castle. Sometimes the last resort of a dying man is a cry to one’s momma; even there, salvation from a severe beating or death is fleeting.

Continue to Vote for Change

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/10/2151736/--Speaking-in-Black-and-White

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