Black Lives Matter and My Dreamy Heaven

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth

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#BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter, Dreams, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, God, Heaven, Institutional Racism, Jordan Davis, Life and Death, Michael Brown, Nature, Photons, Police Brutality, Quantum Energy, Quantum Mechanics, Racism, Renisha McBride, Revelation, Sandra Bland, Self-Reflection, Structural Racism, Tamir Rice, The Universe, Trayvon Martin, Walter Scott, White Vigilantism

A shower of photons, December 31, 2015. (http://www.theallium.com).

It was a strange place, this place of peace and comfort. To realize that at the quantum level, we each were all bundles of energy, that our bodies were but vessels that carried our real selves in our earthly years. That heaven was much, much more. Pearly gates and a white-bearded God? Nonsense! Try singularities and endless connections between the past, present, and future, between multiple universes and realities! We existed everywhere and in every time. There was no pain and no need, because we were everything and everything was in us and with us.

A high-resolution picture of the Pillars of Creation, in the Eagle Nebula, 7,000-light-years from Earth, via the Hubble Telescope, circa 1995, retouched January 5, 2014. (Armbrust via Wikipedia via NASA). In public domain.

In this space and place, I met them. The ones that once left us behind. The entities who once lived in the earthly realm, whose bodies were decimated, whose minds had been wounded. It was here that I met Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Kindra Chapman, Samuel DuBose, Joyce Curnell, Ralkina Jones, Raynette Turner, Christian Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Jordan Davis, John Crawford, and Jonathan Ferrell.

There were so many more bundles of light and energy in my presence that I felt myself cry. Not real tears, because while I could see and hear everything, I didn’t have any eyes or ears. I wanted to hug them all, but didn’t have any arms. I wanted to embrace them, but didn’t have any lips.

But there was one thing I could do. I merged my little bundle of energy with theirs. It was a joining more real and miraculous than anything I ever felt when tethered to Earth. I felt so alive, so free, so one with the universe. It was as if my material life was a nightmare and a dream, and this heaven the one true real.

In an instant, every feeling and thought I had merged with the feelings and thoughts of hundreds, if not thousands of other lights. And in that instant, the one question I had they asked and answered before I knew what my question was.

Don’t feel for dead. We are alive and well, and will be always so. Feel for the living. For theirs is a world of struggle and suffering.

They do not know who they really are. They do not know that their bodies are but machines, and their lives are not real.

In that singular moment, I understood. How could anyone in the living years truly appreciate the privilege of a corporeal existence when that is but only one form of life? If we as humanity could not know ourselves, how could we protect ourselves from ourselves?

I did get a glimpse, just a brief one, of another answer.

“To make our lives matter, fight for a better world. It doesn’t matter if you lose, but it does matter if you give up.”

As soon as that thought materialized, I woke up, sad to find myself in my middle-aged body, reconnected to my one quadrillion cells and Earth’s gravity and pressure.

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A collage of Black and Brown people killed by police and White vigilantes, February 2015. (http://thefreethoughtproject.com/ via Gawker.com).

If I could, I’d want to meet all of the recent victims of police brutality and murder and White vigilantism and have a conversation. I would ask each of them only one question. Something like, “What did you want to get out of life?” or “What did you want your life to mean?” Because ultimately, that’s the most important question any of us can ask ourselves while we are alive in this physical world.

The structures that allow law enforcement agencies to assume those with Black and Brown bodies are criminals and undeserving of life pass those assumptions on to their individual police officers. The fourth estate does at least as good a job of passing these assumptions on to millions of ordinary civilians. The result is that thousands of us never got the chance to answer this most important question in our living years. If we cannot agree that this is a shame and a pitiful way to live, than we truly live in a nation in which Black and Brown lives (not to mention, people in poverty and others of different religions and ethnicities) don’t matter. For that — if for no other reason — is why we need Black Lives Matter, and we need Black Lives Matter to matter more, in the here-and-now linear world right now, in 2016.

The Art of Interviewing Killer Cops and Other Whites on the Prowl

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, culture, Eclectic, New York City, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Youth

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#BlackLivesMatter, Civil Rights, Daniel Pantaleo, Darren Wilson, Eric Garner, Grand Jury, Human Rights, Indictment, Interviewing, John Crawford, Jonathan Ferrell, Jordan Davis, Journalism, Media, Michael Brown, Murder, No Charges, NYPD, Police Brutality, Qualitative Research, Renisha McBride, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, White Vigilantism

Dumb-assed George Stephanopoulos of ABC News interviewing Michael Brown murderer, former Officer Darren Wilson, November 25, 2014. (http://abcnews.go.com).

I think it would be interesting if I applied my qualitative research skills and did a sociohistorical study of the killer cops and White vigilantes who’ve gotten away or almost gotten away with murdering African Americans over the past few years. We know so much about Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Renisha McBride, Jordan Davis, Tamir Rice, John Crawford and Jonathan Ferrell, including their arrest records, their blood-alcohol levels, their drug use, even their family members’ criminal records, if any. The media always performs a pseudo-social science-y qualitative research study on Black and Latino victims and their families and friends, in search for the perfect victim, someone to justify the outrage and anguish over state-sanctioned, cold-blooded murder.

It’s time to flip the script. I’d conduct a group interview process, bringing in the cabal of murderers, alleged and convicted, for a two-hour-long sit down. I’d ask questions about their upbringing, about the influence of popular culture in their lives, about facing down dangerous criminals carrying cigarettes, Skittles and broken toy guns. Only, my overeducated Black ass wouldn’t make it to my first question. I’d get choke-held or shot the moment I’d reach in my book bag for my digital tape recorder, even if we were conducting the interview in a public place, like the Children’s Room at New York Public Library on West 41st and Fifth Avenue. So I’d have to find one of my privileged White colleagues to interview these men on my behalf.

———————————————–

Overseer Daniel Pantaleo, 2014. (http://nydailynews.com).

Narrator: Today we have George Zimmerman, Daniel Pantaleo, Darren Wilson, Theodore Wafer, Michael Dunn, Tim Loehmann, David Darkow, Sean Williams and Randall Kerrick here to talk about what it takes to be a White man fighting hard to protect the world from unarmed African Americans.

Pantaleo: Shut da [expletive] up, dumb ass! Where’d ya earn that PhD, Harlem?

Dunn: Yeah, that’s telling him! I respect the law, too. Even if it has me in chains.

Narrator: Okay, everyone. We’re taping here, so wait for me to ask my questions, please.

Loehmann: I’ll give you two seconds to ask your questions. After that, I’m not promising you anything.

Narrator: My first question is about your backgrounds. Can any of you tell me how your background impacted your decision to become either a police officer or vigilante?

Wafer: I’m deeply offended by the idea that you’re calling me a vigilante. I was defending myself. I live in a bad neighborhood. I mean, who bangs on my [expletive] door at three in the morning? You come to my door that late at night, I put you in a body bag!

Zimmerman: Dude, I couldn’t agree with you more. But I wouldn’t wait. I’d hunt these assholes down first!

(Laughter rises up from group)

Darkow: I’m feeling you there, dude!

Wilson: You asked about our background. I grew up as part of a hunting and fishing family. My old man took us out to take down elk and deer every year. It made me a good shot. I could shoot a doe in the head from fifty yards away.

(Group breaks out in laughter again)

Narrator: So, Mr. Wilson, are you saying that when you shot at Michael Brown, you saw him the same way you see a young female deer?

Wilson: Uh, absolutely not. As I said in my report, the perp was like Donkey Kong, like Hulk Hogan, angry, unresponsive and dangerous, more like a giant bear than a doe.

Pantaleo: Man, it’s all right to say it, because I’m thinking it, too. These [expletive] n—-s are dangerous — they all need to be put down!

Narrator: Why’s that, Mr. Pantaleo? Would you say–

Williams: Will you listen to this egghead? Questioning how we do our jobs. Like that guy in Godfather said, n—-s are animals! We have to control them, so that they only destroy themselves!

(Dunn and Wafer raise their hands to show their handcuffs)

Zimmerman (to Dunn and Wafer): Y’all were just stupid enough to get caught snorting and drinking after you defended yourselves!

(Group breaks out in laughter again)

Narrator: Mr. Pantaleo, what about your background?

Pantaleo: The best training I had for the NYPD was from Tarzan and Wild Kingdom. I learned my hand-to-hand fighting skills from them. Also, WWE prepared me good, too.

Narrator: So, when you put Eric Garner in a choke-hold—

Pantaleo: It was like taking down a bull or buffalo! My heart was pumping so hard, I could feel the blood flowing inside my head! That fool should had just fallen to the ground so I could cuff his Black ass!

Wilson: And that’s what these suspects don’t get. When they see us coming, don’t walk, don’t run, don’t grab for anything, don’t hold your hands up. Lay down like you’re dead, and we won’t have to put you down.

Narrator: Mr. Kerrick, you haven’t joined the conversation yet. Do you have anything to add?

Kerrick: Just that my case is still pending. I can’t talk about it much.

Narrator: You shot and killed Jonathan Ferrell, correct?

Kerrick: I can’t talk about that. I–

Zimmerman: Dude, you got a raw deal!

Pantaleo: You should work for the NYPD. Police never get indicted for going hunting here!

(Group breaks out in laughter again)

————————————————–

Bryan Cranston as Walter White, Breaking Bad, Season 4, 2013, “I am the danger!” (not the only White as danger, either). (http://www.giphy.com).

On second thought, maybe we don’t need to apply social science thinking to these White men (in thought, if not entirely in genetics). We have a century’s worth of studies of White supremacy and systemic racism already, showing that vile men grow out of a vile system.

“Animals” and “Respectability”

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth

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Animals, Authentic Blackness, Authenticity, Eric Garner, Gospel of Prosperity, Institutional Racism, Jamal Harrison Bryant, Masculinity, Michael Brown, Murder, Officer Darren Wilson, Oppression, Police Brutality, Politics of Respectability, Racial Stereotypes, Racism, Respectability, Rev. Al Sharpton, Stereotypes, T.D. Jakes, Thugs, White Privilege, White Violence, Whiteness

Rev. Al Sharpton waiting to speak at Michael Brown funeral, Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, St. Louis, MO, August 25, 2014. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post Dispatch, Robert Cohen, via http://www.wkbn.com).

With America’s history of racial oppression, it should come as no surprise that the range of reactions to events like the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown (among many others, male and female, Black and Latino) have been on the side of racial stereotypes and assumptions. On the one hand, police officers, ordinary Whites and some ultraconservative Blacks have used the terms “animals” and “thugs” interchangeably because Garner and Brown were big Black guys, the stereotypical boogeymen, lurking and ready to rape, maim and kill scared-shitless White folk.

On the other hand, the traditional civil rights establishment and its cadre of ministers have equated the lessons of Brown and the Ferguson protests with the need to stop “looting and pillaging” and to stop wearing baggy pants. That’s the fallback position for attempting to explain why the message of police brutality and militarization against communities of color because of racism and classism isn’t getting through to Whites who have mostly been silent on these incidents.

As I’ve written in the past year or two, both of these perspectives suggest that Blacks and Latinos must somehow make ourselves worthy of humanity. That way, even the most racist of Whites could see that we’re not animals or thugs, but human beings worthy of the same human rights and civil liberties that they enjoy. This didn’t work even during the height of the Civil Rights Movement some five decades ago. Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., John L. Lewis, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, and the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Wearing suits and ties, marching with White allies, having the backing of the President of the United States. None of that swayed most Whites, as evidenced by changes in American politics since 1968.

Screen shot of CNN newscast coverage of support for Officer Darren Wilson at rally, Ferguson, MO, August 23, 2014. (http://rawstory.com).

The fact is, those Whites and sycophant Blacks who call African Americans and other people of color “animals” and “thugs” know we’re just as human as they are, if not more so. It’s their way of asserting that they’re better than us, precisely because they believe they can get away with seeing, calling and treating Blacks and other people of color as such. Especially since so many of these “animals” and “thugs” advocates have missed the full material benefits of American capitalism. And with America’s long history of allowing Whites to get away with lynchings, murders, rapes, race riots and other forms of violent oppression, why shouldn’t Whites think they’re in the right when they give money to Officer Darren Wilson for “doing his job” in murdering Michael Brown? As I’ve said before, the year doesn’t matter, the clothes don’t matter, our demeanor in public or how perfect our walk doesn’t matter to many — if not most — Whites. That may be our problem as people of color, but it’s definitely their problem as well.

Rev. Al Sharpton, sexual predator Jamal Bryant, megachurch-Gospel-of-Prosperity pastor T.D. Jakes and so many other men who spoke at Michael Brown’s funeral Monday put themselves on the other side of the “animals” and “thugs” coin with their agenda-loaded bloviations. Sharpton especially should know better, given his history of talking out of both sides of his mouth about the limits of the politics of respectability (Tawana Brawley comes to mind). Yes, being able to orchestrate nonviolent protests with proper victims in a way in which the mainstream media cannot dehumanize or engage in stereotypes was how the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum in the first place. But this methodology had its limits then, as it led to some victories that looked more like symbols than actual victories (even Dr. King said as much in his final three years). It definitely has its limitations now.

Foot on my neck and head, symbolic of oppression in terms of view of Black and Brown as “animals,” April 18, 2011. (Donald Earl Collins).

We have a leadership that has grown corpulent and ossified in its stomach, pockets and spirit when it comes to oppression and how to respond. Their thinking in so many ways isn’t much different than the Whites who post pictures of President Barack Obama eating a banana with his face pasted onto the head and body of a great ape. That’s the full shame of watching a funeral that was more about individual agendas than it was about Michael Brown or his family and friends, or his life and death, or mobilizing a larger effort.

It’s already terrible that we already have a nation of millions trying to hold people of color back, if only in their own minds (to quasi-quote Public Enemy). We can no longer afford to have an aging leadership whom, even when well-meaning, is unable or unwilling to move beyond symbols and pontification to an effort that promotes new tactics and strategies and younger leadership. It’s beyond time for younger generations to take the reins, and not in a respectable way, either.

Aside

Caught Between Rage and a Working Faith

21 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, culture, Eclectic, New York City, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Work, Youth

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Activism, Anger, Anger Management, Black Reconstruction (1935), Civil Rights, Eric Garner, Faith, Federal Government, Ferguson Missouri, Ferguson PD, God, Institutional Racism, James 2:26, Michael Brown, Murder, NYPD, Officer Darren Wilson, Police, Police Brutality, Prayer, Rage, Science, Social Justice, Structural Racism, Sunil Dutta, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wages of Whiteness, Works

“Officer Go Fuck Yourself” aiming rifle at protestors and journalists, Ferguson, MO, August 19, 2014. (http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/).

We can add Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Kindra Chapman, Samuel DuBose, Joyce Curnell, Ralkina Jones, Raynette Turner and Christian Taylor to the list I started the post below with nearly a year ago. You could add Zachary Hammond to it as well, as structural White supremacy kills Whites dead, too (police state). There’s The Guardian‘s “The Counted” webpages on deaths at the hands of law enforcement. There’s also the Killed By Police website and via Facebook, and Fatal Encounters, among others, that track these death back much further (since The Guardian only began their webpages in June 2015).

The post I wrote last year was about what we could do, what I could or can do in light of living in a racist police state, otherwise known as living with the Gestapo. It’s still an open question, especially with reporters shoving microphones in the faces of the aggrieved asking them to forgive police officers who murder five seconds after learning the news. We’re supposed to be nonviolent, to forgive and turn the other cheek. Long before Malcolm X said during a radio interview in Boston in 1964, “In fact, it’s a crime for any Negro leader to teach our people not to do something to protect ourselves in the face of the violence that is inflicted upon us by the white people here in America,” this has been an issue. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells (before she became Wells-Barnett) Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Nannie Burroughs, Marcus Garvey, among many others, raised this issue of what to do about state-sanctioned racism-based violence and murder years ago. We still don’t have any good answers, but we do have options. (A revolution, though, may well be necessary…)

+===================================================+

After the events of the past month — between Eric Garner and the NYPD, Michael Brown and the Ferguson, Missouri PD — I find myself of two minds. My primal mind says, “Fuck the fucking police!” Resist with rocks, with bricks, with bombs and grenades. Go buy a composite bow with composite arrows. Go buy a rifle with a scope, and take out as many of these motherfuckers as I can. Maybe they’ll think twice about putting someone like me in a choke-hold or shooting us with our hands up if they knew we could organize ourselves into vigilante groups, well armed and well adept at escape and stealth, ready to put the likes of Sunil Dutta out of their racist-ass misery!

– What we should be able to do to any corrupt cop or vigilante killing unarmed people of color…

Eric Garner in midst of dying from choke-hold via NYPD’s finest, Daniel Pantaleo and (not pictured) and Justin Damico, Staten Island, NY, July 17, 2014. (http://www.thegrio.com).

The mind I live in and with every day, though, puts the kibosh on such evil yet well deserved plans of action. Because in light of so much police harassment, brutality and state-sanctioned murders, to say that this shouldn’t be a response belies everything all of us know about human nature. Yet my mind says, “No. This isn’t the way to fight. You’re a writer. You’re a teacher. You’re a believer. Use your tools!” So I pray, I always pray, for people to seek and find the light, to forgive and be forgiven, for peace.

But as the New Testament in James says, “Faith without works is dead” (look that one up, evangelical Christians committed to White privilege!). None of us can hope to change our own lives — much less something as intractable as structural and institutional racism — on prayer and faith in God, the federal government and/or science alone. We have to do, too. In my case, writing and teaching is what I do. Posting to my blog about the palpable rage that I know exists within me and many others who have faced brutality because of racism, misogyny, poverty, homophobia, Whiteness and fear. Teaching about “the physical and psychological wages of Whiteness” (thanks, W.E.B. Du Bois via Black Reconstruction [1935]). Being part of the social media crowd demanding humanity and justice for Michael Brown. This is who I am and what I do.

Me the Evil Blogger at home, Silver Spring, MD, August 1, 2010. (Donald Earl Collins).

Is it enough to assuage my rage, my guilt for not being able to do more? Yes, most of the time. But I have to remind the perfectionist that remains within me, I can’t do much, but I can do something. And, that this isn’t about me, even with as much as I’ve experienced in racial profiling and abuse of power, at home and with police. It’s about all of us. So, if I do buy a composite bow with arrows, I will train to use it well. Just not on other humans, no matter how reprehensible.