“Our hope is we can put this unfortunate case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ behind us and continue to represent the community that we serve.”
– Statement by Lansing Police Department (08.13.23) following a police officer unholstering his weapon, detaining, and handcuffing 12-year-old black boy who the police misidentified as an adult suspected of car thefts. The 12-year-old boy was in the process of taking out the trash to the dumpster when accosted by the police.
My Dear Readers,
Recently, I received a strong rebuke from a mental health colleague, suggesting I was being naïve in comparing Jim Crow of the 1940’s to the present days of 2023. The colleague John Genovese psychotherapist wrote:
“America has a bitter history of oppressing persons of African, First Nations, Hispanic, Asian, and Southern European heritage. We are also a nation that continues to evolve, sometimes in [the] wrong directions and many times on the right path. That we have legal protections of speech and free assembly [and] a Constitution that is adaptable and expandable are examples of this right path. It is the means by which slavery was abolished and formerly disenfranchised citizens were eventually granted voting, employment, and housing rights. While it is naïve to believe that all vestiges of racism and economic oppression have been eliminated, it is equally naïve to think that we are the same Jim Crow society of the 1940’s. No, America is not a disgrace. It is, as [with] all human endeavors, imperfect. It is a work in progress. And what we need right now is unity, not division.”
Several months ago, while traveling in Eastern Europe, I wrote a series of blogs in which I examined James Baldwin’s worldly acclaimed book, The Fire Next Time, 1963. In his book, Baldwin focused on the life experiences for Negroes in 1963, contrasting their lives with the Colored population during the Jim Crow era of the 1940’s.
In my six-segment blog, “The Perilous Journey”, I sought to understand and compare the differences in the treatment of the Coloreds of the 1940’s, the Negros of the 1960’s, and the African Americans of today and realized that Jim Crow was alive and doing very well in 2023.
In my most recent blog posting In Our Corner: Growing Up Black and Male, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, which focused on the racial profiling and misidentification of a 12-year-old black boy. He was in the process of taking out the trash and was accosted by the police with drawn firearms, handcuffed, and detained, traumatizing the child in the process.
I spoke of The Illusion of Whiteness & The Realness of Blackness and the understanding that both groups reside on the same planet, are citizens in the same country, and yet reside in two separate consciousness.
Illusion of Whiteness
There is an illusion of whiteness in America. An illusion is something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality. There is an illusion that black people enjoyed the same rights of free speech and the right of assembly. There is the false and misleading impression of disenfranchised citizens eventually being granted voting, employment, and housing rights, there is the illusion that “America is in progress”.
Realness of Blackness
There is a realness of blackness in America. Realness is described as the fact or quality of being real, reality, truth. There is the realness that black people in America are responding to 403 years of racism, discrimination, and oppression. There is a realness that black people understand. That white people live in fear of black people, particularly black males, that results in profiling and targeting of these individuals. This reality of black people results in psychological distress, hyperawareness, and tension as the community becomes strained and overwhelmed while they seek to protect their children, in particular, males.
There is the realness of blackness when white fear causes the restriction of blacks from access to voting, employment, and housing. There is the realness of blackness that white America abolished one form of slavery only to create another in the form of incarceration. Particularly of black males. This act has similar psychological impacts on children and families as seen in slavery times when parents were forcibly separated from their children. Finally, in returning to the “understanding that both groups reside on the same planet, are citizens in the same country and yet reside in two separate consciousnesses”,there is a polarizing difference in how both communities view the police. The illusion of whiteness is the desire to view the police as “protectors” acting in the supportive role of community policing. This directly opposes the experience of the realness of blackness. The history of policing began as slave patrols. These slave patrols utilized racial profiling and misidentification against black males. These similar tactics and actions today by the police serve to create psychological distress reinforcing the inability to protect oneself or one’s children.
Concluding Words
“While it is naïve to believe that all vestiges of racism and economic oppression have been eliminated, it is equally naïve to think that we are the same Jim Crow society of the 1940.’s.”
– John Genovese, LPC Psychotherapist.
This quote affirms the illusions of whiteness in America which is in direct opposition of the realness and the experiences of Blackness in America. This quote is disturbing as it is being made by a mental health professional specializing in PTSD treatment. It provides worthy concern that black people seeking mental health treatment interview prospective therapists questioning not only their experiences working with members of the African American community but also their belief systems and the foundations of their personally held views.
There is a realness in the blackness of America of balancing the illusions held by others and holding one’s breath, awaiting the next shocking media development or announcement psychologically impacting and traumatizing a hyperaware and hypersensitive community. Yes, as indicated in the statement by John Genovese the psychotherapist, there are “legal protections of speech and free assembly, a Constitution that is adaptable and expandable”. However, the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of “protection from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government” means very little, when a Black parent lives in fear of sending one’s male child out to do a simple household task; the fear that the child will be misidentified and killed by the police.
The First Amendment’s guarantee of the “right of the people peacefully to assemble” means very little when a Black parent lives with the fear that their child will be racially profiled by the police. Such awareness must be communicated to the child to keep them safe if they are detained by the police.
Lastly, the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances” means very little, following repeated attempts by the black community through its leaders and parents to the government to address the concerns of racial profiling and misidentification of black males. With the resulting grievances and responses being silence or apologies such as the recent incident where the 12-year-old was handcuffed and detained while taking out the trash, police chief stated,
“As the chief of police, I want to apologize that this incident has such an effect on this young man and his family.”
– Police Chief Soebee, Lansing Police Department
Noted in the apology is the repeated misidentification of the 12-year-old boy as a “young man”. Clearly as this misidentification is coming from the leadership of the policing authority, the same message of misidentification is being communicated and reinforced to those working under his leadership. The resulting view of realness in blackness, our children, particularly our males remain at risk from those who seek to “enforce the law” under the cover of “community policing.”
The realness of blackness as to the perception of helplessness in protecting our children particularly males extends in other domains as well. Recently, a black adolescent in Jefferson Parrish School District, LA was psychologically traumatized while attending a classroom viewing when a virtual screening of a brown stick figure hanging from a noose with a racial slur (ni**er) with his name attached. (08.12.23)
The response from the Jefferson School District? An apology.
In closing, I want to respond to my colleague’s illusions of whiteness in his closing quote, Mr. Genovese stated:
“No, America is not a disgrace. It is, as all human endeavors, imperfect. It is a work in progress. And what we need right now is unity, not division.”
I recently saw the following quote in a LinkedIn posting:
“I want them to have everything that I have. I want God to bless them as much as he blesses me, but Pastor, I just can’t be in the same room with them. It just bothers me.”
– Uncredited
The truthfulness and honesty of this statement affirms the illusion to pretend that America is not a disgrace. In the realness of black people, America has been a “work in progress” for 403 years. What we have is division and as long as whiteness resides in a state of illusion, such illusion will prevent unity and continue to result in division.
In recalling the words of James Baldwin:
“The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand, and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years that black men are inferior to white men.’
– James Baldwin Author, The Fire Next Time (1963)
Until the next time…
Remaining … In Our Corner.
Loving Me More 