We Sick

A few weeks ago, in an interview with Amy Goodman, Curtis Muhammad said, “You know, people like me get accused of being a conspiracy theorist or something. But this is stuff people can see!” He was talking about Katrina, the government-sponsored attempt to exterminate the Black population of New Orleans, Louisiana.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – Curtis’ statement, Katrina, and the larger climate of Black genocide, not only in this country, but anywhere White supremacy has rooted itself, i.e., the entire world. Perhaps even more than these things, I’ve been thinking about Black complacency, the complete and utter self-distancing from, even denial of (!!!), such events. And by “self-distancing” I mean self-deluding.

What will it take for us to realize that this place ain’t for us? What will it take for us to comprehend that this place is killing us? A few years back, this brother told me he wished they’d bring lynching back so that Black people would wake up, so that we’d see that a middle class nigger is still a nigger. Many of us swore Katrina was our generation’s lynching. We were wrong.

And there’s been so much lately, too. The Jena 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY&mode=related&search=). The sister in West Virginia who was kidnapped and raped by 6 red-necks, including a mother and her daughter as well as a mother and her son, most of whom have some sort of criminal record. Despite using racial slurs while committing their atrocities, the 6 will not be charged with hate crimes.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/us/12captive.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin). Then the subtler, yet continual injustices: barred access to decent public education; rising incarceration rates of both Black men and women despite decreasing crime; the connection between (mis)education and incarceration, the criminalization of Black youth; lack of employment; gentrification, or the forced displacement of poor citizens; denial to health care; the list goes on…and on.

Some people take this is a reason to keep fighting, continuing the struggle for “justice and equality.” But I ask: how can an unjust system produce justice? Ameirca has never been just, nor does it have the potential to be. Just look at the roots of its political philosophy. Asking America to be just is like asking a pig to be clean. And beyond that, why do we strive to be equal to Americans, that is, white folks? Don’t we have any sense of history? To be equal would be to be equally murderous, torturous, dastardly. Is this what we want?

Using the standards of a society that hates you to dictate your aspirations and ideals, then constantly turning towards said hateful society for approval breeds self-hatred. When we hate ourselves, we allow things like Katrina or Jena or West Virginia to happen, then call them “isolated incidents,” or worse, say they have nothing to do with race. When we hate ourselves, we abdicate our dignity out of infantile self-interest. And when we hate ourselves, we never allow ourselves to admit, no matter how much writing there is on the walls, that our master doesn’t love us.

What’s the matter boss? We sick?

Indeed. We real sick.

Holler at me if you wanna get well.

-Amari