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.

————————————————————

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.

City Place Mall: Why You Don’t Shop Where There’s A “Hood Policy”

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, eclectic music, High Rise Buildings, Pop Culture, race

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Tags

Breathing While Black, City Place Mall, Criminalization, Dehumanization, George Zimmerman, Hood Policy, Hoodies, Institutional Racism, Lisa Petrie, Malls, Petri Dish, Petrie Ross Ventures, Racial Stereotypes, Racism, Silver Spring Maryland, Trayvon Martin, White Fears, White Supremacy, Whiteness

City Place Mall, main entrance, Silver Spring, MD, June 10, 2012. (Farragutful via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC 3.0.

Last Thursday afternoon (February 27), a security guard at City Place Mall in Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland confronted me and my 10-year-old son about wearing a hood over our heads, having just come inside from below-freezing and windy weather. The security guard explained that the policy at City Place Mall is to forbid patrons from wearing hoods, hats, scarves, sunglasses and other clothing that would make us more difficult to identify. When I asked for a written indication of this policy, the security guard told us that the one sign for your 400,000-square-foot mall was downstairs in the lower lobby, which does patrons like me little good in informing us of their racism and stupidity.

Keep in mind, I’m a 44-year-old man with a 10-year-old kid, who’s only intent was to go to an indoor ATM machine to withdraw my money from my bank account so that we wouldn’t freeze. We weren’t shopping at Marshall’s or another store in the mall. What were we going to do, buy two packs of Skittles at the dump of a snack store at City Place instead of just one? Buy two bottles of Lipton Ice Tea (Arizona Ice Tea makes our teeth hurt)?

Me with hood get-up I wore last week with son in tow (numbers added), March 4, 2014. (Donald Earl Collins).

If this is how they treat all patrons, this policy would merely be a stupid one. I suspect, though, that they don’t stop women in veils or burqas, Sikhs with turbans or every person wearing sunglasses. No, Black and Brown male patrons — especially ones that look young and healthy — are their targets for such an idiotic policy.

I emailed Lisa Petrie about this incident and wanted clarifications about this policy. Petrie is a co-owner of Petrie Ross Ventures, LLC, the Annapolis-based group that manages (read owns here) City Place Mall. In addition, I asked her to answer the following questions:

1. Is this in fact the policy of City Place Mall, to force patrons to remove hoods and other clothing upon entering the mall?

2. If this is in fact your policy, then why isn’t it posted conspicuously at the entrances to the mall for all patrons to see and read?

3. Is this policy one that security guards are supposed to apply, and if so, are they doing so in an equitable manner?

Petrie didn’t answer any of my questions. Instead, she emailed me this response:

It is our policy in all of our properties to ask our patrons to remove their hats, hoods, etc. only as a safety precaution for all that visit our malls. I am unsure as to the procedures as I am not part of the operations team however I will ask that if you have any questions that you follow up with the property manager on site, Mr. Gary Brewer.

Bottom half of a Petri dish, the only thing I’ll buy from City Place Mall in the future, October 20, 2005. (Miaow Miaow via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC 2.0.

This is a ridiculous statement, unless by “safety precaution,” Petrie means that there are George Zimmermans in all their malls waiting to shoot anyone with a hood over their heads if their skin has a significant melanin content. I did, after Petrie sent me his contact information, send Brewer the same information about the incident, as well as my questions. Mr. Brewer has refused to respond.

If this is how City Place Mall and Petrie Ross expects to treat its patrons, though, I think that whatever plans you have for this mall should come with the disclaimer that not all patrons are welcome, especially Black and Brown males. You can name your dilapidated mall Ellsworth or even Crap. I already don’t shop there. I can always withdraw money from another ATM.

Over 3 Billion Blacks Killed

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

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

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Black Lives, Dehumanization, Gangsta Rap, George Zimmerman, Hunger Games, Independence Day, Individual Racism, Institutional Racism, Jordan Davis, Michael Dunn, Nikita (2010-13), Popular Culture, Racial Stereotypes, Racism, Sardonic, Terminator, The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Purge (2013), The War of The Worlds (2005), Trayvon Martin, Violence

McDonald’s signage, Austin, MN, May 20, 2006. (Jonathunder via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC and GFDL.

Do you remember those McDonald’s signs back in the ’70 and ’80s, before the corporation went global (from 6,000 to 30,000 franchises since ’92), where they said, “Over 100 Million Served” hamburgers or “10 Billion Served?” If the signage is there at all these days, it usually says “Billions and Billions Served.” That’s about as cheap as Black life is in the US as well, though maybe a bit more expensive in Western countries in general (they do use the Euro, after all!).

I’ve been thinking about the low value of Black lives for years, even in the middle of grad school at Pitt. But I must admit, it’s been on my mind more and more since George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin nearly two years ago. Now, with the hung jury over the murder of Jordan Davis, with so many who find it easy to render Black and Brown lives cheaper than dog meat in the middle of the Roman Coliseum 2,000 years ago, it seems that there’s no such thing as a dead stereotype.

Jordan Davis’ Facebook picture, February 17, 2014. (via Huffington Post).

It’s so infused in popular culture, as life and art intertwine in a macabre dance on Black and Brown bodies. Blacks especially (and for the most part, Latinos) don’t feel pain the same way as Whites. We lack the emotional and psychological control of Whites. We’re irrational and prone to criminal behavior. We’re lazy and don’t mind living in abject poverty. We love illegal drugs, but love malt liquor and hard alcohol even more. We’ll eat anything deep-fried, and don’t mind dying before middle age just so that we can save the Social Security dollars for elderly White folk.

With that as the backdrop, it’s no wonder much of the movies, music, TV and Internet depictions of us ultimately ends in our gratuitous, ubiquitous and anonymous deaths. Yes, even in 2014! I’ve recently binge-watched the now defunct CW series Nikita (2010-14) with Maggie Q as the lead. I counted at least thirty Black actors on the series over its seventy-four episodes. Only two survived the series, and one (character played by Lyndie Greenwood) wasn’t even in the last two episodes because the actress was doing double-duty on FOX’s Sleepy Hollow!

But if anyone were to take some of the largest grossing films and franchises of all time, it would become obvious how cheap folks in the US and elsewhere think Black and Brown lives really are. Between Independence Day (1996) and The Terminator series of films (1984-2009) alone, you would have to assume that almost all of the forty million Blacks living in the US died in these fictional realities, not to mention the 1.2 billion folks of at least partial African descent living in other Western nations, Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil and the rest of Latin America. That this has occurred more than once in these films alone puts us at 2.48 billion Blacks killed.

Then, between lesser known/lesser quality films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Deep Impact (1998), The War of the Worlds (2005) and Hunger Games (2012-present), it would seem that in every global calamity, most Blacks draw the short straw. These movies (and, prior to these movies, books) put us easily over three billion Blacks and Browns killed. And that’s without accounting for standard action films, cops-and-criminals shows, and other cinematographic renderings of the Black and Brown as disposable human beings. Unless you’re Don Cheadle, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman (sometimes) or Halle Berry, if you’re Black or Brown, your job in popular culture is to die a violent death.

Of course, those upset with my sardonic take will say, “Well what about gansta rap? What about Ice-T, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and so many other rappers who present Black lives as cheaper than bottled water?” Three things: 1. you really need to update yourself on today’s rap, between Lil Jon, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne, before commenting; 2. the “gansta rappers” of the ’90s were mostly rapping about a lived experience, not some fantasy life; and 3. they figured out that they could and can make money off of Black deaths in lyrical rhymes, just like folks in the movie, TV and real worlds.

Venison meat for braising, February 19, 2014. (http://www.simplyscratch.com).

This will make the likes of George Zimmerman, Michael Dunn, and substantial numbers in the NYPD and LAPD happy. Actually, what would really make them happy would be a version of the movie The Purge (2013). But instead of crime and murder being legal for one day a year, they would have to get a “coon hunting” license to kill themselves a Black or Brown person one day a year. That way, they could keep our numbers low, just like hunters do with deer every fall.

Racism Doesn’t Care What Year It Is

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, eclectic music, Movies, music, Politics, Pop Culture, Youth

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"And The Beat Goes On" (1979), "I Have A Dream" speech, "We Shall Overcome", Bigotry, Civil Rights Act, Individual Racism, Institutional Racism, Internet, James Byrd, Jonathan Ferrell, Laws, Marissa Alexander, MOVE, Oppression, Philadelphia PD, Racism, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Social Justice, Social Media, Sophia Stewart, Structural Racism, Technology, Television, The Matrix (1999), The Whispers, Trayvon Martin, Voting Rights Act, Wachowski Siblings, Yusef Hawkins

Joel Ward in celebration with Washington Capitals teammates after scoring game/series winning goal in Round 1 of Stanley Cup Playoffs against Boston Bruins (all while fans chanted racial slurs), April 26, 2012. (http://www.flightunit.com/).

One of the many throwaway sentences I’ve heard and read for almost all of my life has increasingly driven me more nuts over the years. In response to a racist statement or incident, an interviewee on the air or someone writing a column will say, “It’s 1984!” or “This is 2006!,” with “and we’re still putting up with this?” or “and we’re still dealing with” racism or bigotry to finish the thought. It’s the one phrase you can expect anyone White, Black, Latino, Asian and/or American Indian to use when interviewed or with access to a public platform. As if the year in which racial injustice and bigotry manifests itself actually matters!

Seriously, did people think that marches, speeches and laws alone would end up killing the complex and morphing structure of American racism that’s existed for more than three centuries? Did we really think that singing “We Shall Overcome” and quoting Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech would allow individual Whiteness and hatred to melt away? Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 somehow supposed to end all race-based discrimination, even when fully enforced (of course, the federal government has never fully enforced these laws)?

Picture of Michael Griffith, killed by car after group of Whites in Howard Beach, Queens attempted to beat him and his friends with baseball bats on December 20, 1986. (Denis Hamill; http://nydailynews.com).

Yes, we live in an ultra-modern age, where my generation and my son’s generation know more about the world, the universe and life than my mother and grandfather’s generations. But having more knowledge often means that we as humans tend to be more destructive toward each other before becoming wise enough to end that specific pattern of destruction. Or, as has often been the case in human history, until a new group comes along and topples one structure of oppression before implementing a new and sometimes kinder and gentler one.

To think about it another way, just because we’re technologically advanced and more scientifically driven doesn’t mean that humans in general — and Americans specifically — will act rationally and change their behaviors. Especially if it involves giving up an advantage — real or perceived — in the process.

Even though we invented the atomic bomb in 1945, it didn’t stop us from using it against the Japanese or racist White rednecks from beating to death Black veterans of World War II. Though we had television sets in nearly every American home in the 1960s, it didn’t stop Bull Conner from unleashing dogs and turning fire hoses on Black kids in Birmingham, Alabama, Medgar Evers from getting shot in Mississippi or Selma, Alabama marchers from getting beat up. And though we were poised to land on the Moon in July ’69, it didn’t mean that James Earl Ray wouldn’t take a moment to blow away Dr. King fifteen months earlier.

The first oracle from The Matrix (1999, 2003), played by the late Gloria Foster, February 9, 2014. (http://matrix.wikia.com).

In my own lifetime, there’s been more of this lag between knowledge, self-interest and racism. From Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst in ’89 to James Byrd being beaten, chained and dragged behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas in ’98. From the Philly PD’s bombing of MOVE and the community around it in ’85 to Hurricane Katrina in ’05. Not to mention individual incidents and distinctions, like Trayvon Martin, Marissa Alexander and Jonathan Ferrell. As the ’70s hit by The Whispers goes, “And The Beat Goes On.” We have the Internet, social media, the ability to mobilize outrage and righteous indignation into demonstrations for human rights and social justice. But the human capacity to build oppressive institutions remains, as well as our capacity to hate.

But, to quote The Oracle from The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), not to mention Buddha, “Everything that has a beginning has an End,” right? Of course, that quote might well have been inspired by a story written by Sophia Stewart in ’81, whom the Wachowski siblings apparently plagiarized in making their multi-billion dollar films. Again, why does the year racism manifests itself matter?

On the Insignificance of Saggy Pants & Respectability

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by decollins1969 in Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, eclectic music, Movies, music, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Youth

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Birmingham Church Bombing, Black Elite, Boyz n the Hood (1991), Economic Inequality, Florida A&M University, Hip-Hop Culture, Institutional Racism, John L. Lewis, Jonathan Ferrell, March on Washington, NWA, Police Brutality, Racism, Respectability, Saggy Pants, Thug Life, TLC, Trayvon Martin, Tupac, Violence, White Supremacists

“When They Took Us Seriously/Why They Don’t Now” poster, September 20, 2013. (Tim Brinkley/Google +).

In the past month of March on Washington and “I Have A Dream” speech commemorations and Birmingham church bombing dedications, a series of images lamenting rap culture and “thug life” have made their way around the Internet. The one that has stuck with me the most has been the image of the Selma March in 1965 juxtaposed with seemingly random photos of young Black males with saggy pants. The caption reads, “When they took us seriously/Why they don’t now.” Really? White supremacists took respectable Negroes seriously in the ’60s because they marched and wore suits, but don’t take Black males seriously now because of the saggy pants phenomenon? The truth is, they did and didn’t take us seriously then and now, and it has almost nothing to do with pulling our pants up above our boxers.

I have to say, though, that I hate saggy pants. It makes the people wearing them look somewhere between goofballs and idiots. It’s never mattered to me whether White guys or Black guys or college guys or hip-hop divas have worn saggy pants. I didn’t like it when it became a style in the early ’90s, thanks in large measure to NWA and Tupac, TLC and Snoop Dog and a host of other hip-hop/rap artists. I certainly don’t like it now, and would never buy a pair for my ten-year-old son to wear that way. The saggy pants style has been a sad twist on hand-me-downs and poverty as marketable clothes for the hip-hop cool.

But the saggy pants style has never translated for me as embracing a “thug life” or some devolution of Black culture or American society. It wasn’t life imitating art, ala Boyz n the Hood (1991), Menace II Society (1993) or Clockers (1997). Nor have I ever seen it as something that meant that Whites or the new Black elite could say, “See. These Black folk don’t deserve respect, or health care, or a quality education, or good-paying jobs.” Over the past two decades, I’ve seen it as a style — a bad style, to be sure — but a style that some Blacks (and Whites, Latinos and Asians) have embraced.

Any young Black person who’s striving for higher education, or careers, or their own stereotypical success story in life, will tell you that they don’t wear saggy pants for every time or season. Even those who don’t know learn very quickly that saggy pants aren’t welcome in allegedly more respectable settings. If anything, the prevalence of saggy pants in 2013 has as much to do with the reality that opportunities for education, employment and prosperity remain so out of reach that it really doesn’t matter to many what they wear and where they wear it. There’s no need to code switch if everyone in your world knows the same exact code of cool.

Jonathan Ferrell, Florida A&M football picture, September 20, 2013. (AP/Florida A&M University).

Recent events have made it pretty obvious that it really doesn’t matter what Black males wear. We remain targets for deeply ingrained stereotypes, institutional racism, and pre-emptive White violence. Whether it was Trayvon Martin wearing a hoodie in the rain, or John Lewis wearing a suit in Selma forty-eight years ago, it hasn’t mattered to Whites in fear of the Black boogie man. Florida A&M University graduate and former football player Jonathan Ferrell learned this deadly lesson in North Carolina just a week ago. It doesn’t matter what we wear, at least as far as many Whites and some Black elites are concerned.

Blacks all look the same to them, and looked the same to them in the ’60s. Suits, hoodies or baggy pants, we’re criminals and imbeciles from birth, thugs for life, and a drain on families and American society. This doesn’t mean that any one of us shouldn’t take responsibility for how we act, speak and look in public. I dare say, though, that structural economic issues like unemployment in deeply impoverished Black communities (or crank-infested White ones) won’t be solved with young folk pulling their pants up. We need to stop focusing on the insignificant, because saggy pants and respectability are the trees in this morphing forest of racism and economic inequality.

Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Fantasy,” My Reality

18 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, earth, wind & fire, Eclectic, eclectic music, Mount Vernon New York, music, New York City, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Youth

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"Fantasy" (1978), Anger, Anger Management, Bigotry, Fear, Forgiveness, George Zimmerman, Lyrics, Police Brutality, Racism, Reality, Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman Trial

n Cover of Earth, Wind & Fire's single "Fantasy" (1978), February 29, 2008. (Columbia Records). Qualifies as fair use due to low resolution and subject matter of this blog post.

Cover of Earth, Wind & Fire’s single “Fantasy” (1978), February 29, 2008. (Columbia Records). Qualifies as fair use due to low resolution and subject matter of this blog post.

Below are two excerpts from Boy @ The Window about how I viewed Mount Vernon, New York and my world between the ages of ten and twelve:

“My only links to the great metropolis to the south were WNBC-TV (Channel 4), Warner Wolf – with his famous “Let’s go to the video tape!” line – doing sports on WCBS-TV (Channel 2), and WABC-AM 77 and WBLS-FM 107.5 on the radio. I found the AM station more fun to listen to, but I also liked listening to the sign-off song WBLS played at the end of the evening, Moody’s Mood for Love, with that, ‘There I go, There I go, The-ere I go…’ start. Music had been an important part of my imagination in ’79, with acts like Earth, Wind & Fire, Christopher Cross, Billy Joel and The Commodores. Not to mention Frank Sinatra, Queen, Donna Summer and Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall album. The music also made me feel like I was as much a part of New York as I was a part of Mount Vernon. It left me thinking of the ozone and burnt rubber smell that I noticed as soon as I would walk down into the Subway system in Manhattan…

“Besides the occasional reminder of life outside of my world, of Mount Vernon, I was the center of my own universe. Mount Vernon was but a stage on which my life played out, a place I hoped would stay this way forever. I was an eleven-year-old who thought that my world was the world. I lived my life like Philip Bailey and Maurice White would’ve wanted me to. I came to see ‘victory in a life called fantasy’ as my own life, living as if my imagination and dreams could be made into reality. All I had to do was wish it so.”

(And yes, I know the actual lyrics are about a land called fantasy, but that’s not how I sang it back then).

There have been so many moments since then where my Earth, Wind & Fire visions have collided with the reality that life for me and people who look like me has hardly been a fantasy. I had to get over my idiot ex-stepfather’s abuse in order to even listen to Earth, Wind & Fire again, because he was a fan as well, and I didn’t want us to both like the same music. But even more than that has been the reality that there are people, places and things who’ve (and that have) come through my life and stood in between me and all the things I wanted out of life. Individuals like Joe Trotter or Ken, policies like racial profiling and redlining, institutions like Columbia University or the former Academy for Educational Development.

The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo (1889), by Marie Spartali Stillman, March 7, 2006. (Charivari via Wikipedia). In public domain.

While some of these instances have been disappointing in the sense of betrayal that I felt, the disillusionment that came with these incidents of discrimination and harassment pushed me ever closer to the person and writer I wanted to be. I don’t know what to make of how I’ve been feeling about the Zimmerman trial and verdict, the response of so-called White liberals and more obviously racist and gleeful White teabaggers over the past five days. I’ve felt badly for Trayvon Martin’s family, Rachel Jeantel and for so many others who’ve been figuratively beaten down by media coverage and stereotypes over the past months.

But I didn’t think I was angry. Not until I went for a run this morning. It’s was a comparatively pedestrian 3.1-mile run after I’d done a five-miler a day and a half before. Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Fantasy” started playing on my iPod as I was running uphill. All it made me think about was all the challenges that I and so many others have had to face because of individual bigotry and fear and institutional racism and indifference. I know that many things in life aren’t fair. What I realized at that moment, though, was that there really are folks in this world who wish evil and unfairness on people like me. That’s their fantasy!

That made me angry again, but not for too long. For I also knew that I had the power to ask for forgiveness, as well as the power to forgive others. It’s a power that no one can take away from me, that enables me to be honest about where I am, and clear-headed about where I want to go. That power, among others, does truly help bring my “mind to everlasting liberty.” Even in the face of the evil, indifference and ignorance that I see every day.