Why Protesting Matters

5 Dec
Protesting in Los Angeles

Protesting in Los Angeles

Protesting: Because We Can No Longer Remain Silent.

I protested at two demonstrations this week—both regarding the non-indictments of murders of Black men—however I quickly realized that these protests were about so much more:

  • Mass incarceration
  • Hindering our right to vote
  • Militarization of the police
  • Un-livable wages at Wal-mart and countless other billion-dollar companies
  • Racism on the internet
  • The lack of coverage for women of color who are raped, abused, and murdered by police

I’d rather not go on. Though you know I could.

Yet, with all of this injustice going on, I am inspired by the millions of people across the nation and around the world who are protesting. I am inspired by #ShutItDown, #HandsUpWalkOut, #HandsupDontShoot #BlackLivesMatter, and countless others. When I see the photos of demonstrators shutting down the Bart, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wal-mart, and other places, I want to jump out of my seat and join them. So I did. And we will continue—despite the difficulties.

Demonstrations aren’t always easy. People marching the streets are been arrested, threatened, and made examples of by the police. We’ve seen the hostile situation in Ferguson, where police interrupted legal protests with tear gas. We’ve seen around 300 people arrested in Los Angeles in just 2 days. And we’ve seen protesters in DC hit purposely by an angry driver, while police turn their heads and let the driver speed off. Protesting can put your life at risk.

But it is worth it.

Our predecessors marched despite being spit on, attached by police dogs, plowed down with powerful water hoses, bombed, and more. But they marched on. Their cause was worth it, and their fight has been passed down to us.

Every day since the Darren Wilson was let off without so much as a slap on the wrist, we have been protesting. And so far, I’ve seen demonstrations scheduled from now up until January.

We can’t let this movement die. This is on us.

Memorial at USC

Memorial at USC

If this racist system has been in place for more than 100 years, it will take more than a few days of protesting to tear it down. And when it stops trending on social media, we must continue.

So Ignite your inner Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcom X, Angela Davis or whoever your hero might be. Contrary to what I used to believe after watching Chris Paul turn his jersey inside out and play for Donald Sterling, Black people are not cowards—though our celebrities might be. Why are they so silent these days? Where’s a Kanye rant when you need one?

I bet if Beyoncé and Jay-Z called for everyone to boycott Wal-mart until the workers receive reasonable wages, lots of folks would take their buying power elsewhere.

We can’t be silent like our careless famous folks of color. We can’t turn our jerseys inside out and go on with our lives. Business as usual means more police murders walk free while injustice continues.

We’re better than that.

As Desmond Tutu once said:

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

P.S. I’ve been asking every protestor and supporter this question: Where do we go from here? Lots of folks are saying we need a monetary boycott. Maybe we need to reclaim the sentiments of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That was successful because buses were forced to integrate. They couldn’t afford to lose black dollars. So maybe we should be a little more strategic about our buying power.

Tell me…Where do we go from here?

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Dear White People: The Only Time it’s Ever Okay to Wear Blackface

20 Oct

blackface4Dear White People, Blackface and Cosplay

Dear White People came out in theaters over the weekend and was so full of truth. The movie hit close to home for many black students on a predominately white college campus, displaying race relations with humor. It’s a satirical film with a breath of fresh air amongst the Tyler Perry films and all those movies where Kevin Hart plays the same character again and again. Though Dear White People had its flaws, it’s definitely a must-see.

The climax of the movie takes place at a race-themed party, where white students are invited to “unleash their inner negro,” and dress in blackface, afros, and obnoxiously large chains—like they’d just walked out of the “All Gold Everything” video (thanks, Trinidad James).

Sadly, these parties aren’t uncommon on college campuses, and ignorant white people party in the most insulting outfits they can find. Somehow, the conversation always comes back to blackface.

We haven’t even made it to Halloween yet and people are already donning blackface. Recently, cosplay enthusiast Kira Markeljc received loads of backlash for darkening her skin to cosplay Michonne from The Walking Dead.

blakface2

So people began to question whether cosplay is an acceptable time to darken your skin for a black character.

Cosplayers often paint their skin to become characters like the Hulk or Mystique. However, painting your face blue or green is not the same as painting it in someone else’s race.

Blackface is rooted in our nation’s racist past. It was used to mock black people in minstrel shows. A blackface character made fun of slaves and free blacks of the 19th century. These minstrel shows cemented and proliferated racist images of black people around the world. And much of those ideas about black people from those minstrel shows still exist today.

blackface1

So yes, hundreds of years later, blackface is still insulting.

I’m sure the cosplayer didn’t mean to insult anyone—but she did. Her intentions mean very little and her ignorance doesn’t make her innocent—especially considering she was not at all sorry after people called her out on it. She could have easily played Michonne without the paint, and not resurrected the ghosts of America’s racist past (and present).

So for the record, no—it is never okay to wear blackface. Not for Halloween. Not for cosplay. Not for anything.

Oh and dear white people, you can also stop dressing up as Native Americans, Latinos, and any other race or ethnicity for Halloween; it’s just as racist.

 

P.S.: Go see Dear White People. Let me know what you think of the movie.

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Columbus Day and the Erasure of Black History

13 Oct

Came Befoe Columbus

We all know Columbus didn’t discover America.

Yet, 522 years later, famous white people still get credit for the accomplishments of folks of color. Just ask the LA Times and Marie Claire who invented cornrows, Forbes who runs hip hop, and Vogue who made big booties fashionable. Women who look like Iggy Azeila, Kendall Jenner, and Miley Cyrus get most of the credit.

The trend of discovering something new that’s not new has been in style since 1492. So we cannot forget to tip our hats to Christopher Columbus, the man who started the “discovering” trend himself.

Meanwhile, the African explorers depicted in the Olmec heads are turning over in their ancient Mexican graves thinking, “Been there, done that…Where’s our holiday?”

Contrary to popular belief, Africans from Ancient Nubia and the Mali Empire came to the Americas more than 2,000 years before Columbus, and no, they were not slaves (you gotta make that clear for some folks). They were explorers and drifters who happened upon foreign lands and eventually became a part of the culture, influencing the art, language, and government of native civilizations.

Few know that the step pyramids at La Venta in Tabasco, Mexico, parallel those from Ancient Nubia and Egypt because of Nubian contact with ancient Mexicans, that the Olmec heads at La Venta resemble African men in facial structure and hair texture, or that Negroid skeletons dating back to 1250 AD were found in the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to historian Ivan Van Sertima, author of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (1976) and several other linguists, archeologists, botanists, and art historians researching in their respective fields, African pioneers crossed the Atlantic sometime between 800-680 BC.

Though many of us have never hear this information (f*ck what you heard!), this is not news. Nearly 100 years ago, historian Leo Wiener published a booked entitled Africa and the Discovery of Americas, which was immediately met with racially–charged criticism and disbelief. Critics could not fathom Africans doing anything noteworthy, and denied the evidence of Africans in the Americas. Or, when they did accept the evidence, they assumed that those Africans were not explorers, but slaves brought over by Europeans.

Because of their “racial reflexes”, as Sertima calls them, scholars in academia were blinded by their racist views and failed to accept historical, linguistic, cultural, and biological facts that pointed to a glaring truth of African presence in the Americas.

Sadly, academia has not been purged of this racism—and we spoon feed it to our children. You won’t find much mention of African explorers in your school history books. Our education system is dangerously Eurocentric. Our history curriculums reinforce the same colonial ideas about race that the nay-sayers of academia make: black people are slaves, not explorers. In failing to discuss the ties between African and ancient American history in elementary through college classrooms, we silence truth and give Columbus, Vespucci, and other European explorers credit they shouldn’t fully possess. Leaving this history out of textbooks gives glory to white men and denies the explorations and successes of people of color.

I’m not saying Africans discovered America. That would be especially ignorant considering there were already great civilizations flourishing before their arrival, and I wouldn’t want to repeat that trend of not giving credit where credit is due. I’m also not saying that Africans were the only ones to arrive. The book also mentions contact with Asians, Polynesians, and other groups. Sertima sums it up perfectly at the end of his book: “all great civilizations are heavily indebted to one another… [and] no race has a monopoly on inventive genius.”

In honor of all the explorers of color, I highly suggest you pick up a copy of They Came Before Columbus or any other book that tells an alternative narrative of black pioneers. If the schools aren’t teaching it, we have to teach ourselves. #KnowYourHistory

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