The murder of Renisha McBride by a Detroit area homeowner, one who is careless, and perhaps possessed by a deep sense of "negrophobia", has been ruled a homicide by the local Medical Examiner's Office.
Under the United States' "stand your ground laws"--what are really a license for (white) gun owners to shoot and kill innocent black people at will--the still anonymous man who shot Renisha McBride in the face with a shotgun for the crime of knocking on his door, and seeking help after her car was disabled, may very well be found "innocent" of a "crime".
Sickening.
I wrote an essay last week about how the murder of Renisha McBride is one more example of how black people in America do not have the luxury of being strangers seeking help because we are viewed as existential threats and poisons in the country's body politic. I am glad that voices much more prominent than mine are also chiming in on the Renisha McBride tragedy. One such person is MSNBC's Toure. He is also one of the panelists on The Cycle.
Toure quoted my piece here on We Are Respectable Negroes during his personal commentary segment last Friday. I appreciate the mention; I do wish that none of us had to do our best to speak truth to power (again) about how black Americans are treated as "strangers in a strange land", a group whose lives are imperiled by guns and street vigilantism operating under the cover of legal murder given protection by the euphemistically named "stand your ground laws".
Unfortunately, I know that there will be more occasions where innocent people like Renisha McBride will be killed by those "innocent" people who are just defending their "castles" against the "giant negroes", they who are inexorably threatening to "reasonable" people by virtue of the latter's being alive, breathing, and nearby, and whose soul purpose in life is to stalk and imperil good white folks.
8 comments:
The crazy part is that these incidents have caused my wife and I to plan ahead that if we ever break down, or survive an accident in a white neighborhood, that we should stay put rather than seek help. Especially if the emergency occurs in the late night/early morning hours.
Our close friends have two young white sons by birth and a young adopted black son. My brother has three adopted white/half-white Latina children and one adopted black daughter. Do you teach one child that you can't trust people in certain circumstances because they might shoot you and the others something different? How do you have that conversation and at what age? "My other children will have no barriers to all the advantages this country has to offer. You won't and here's why." It breaks my heart and it's been breaking the hearts of too many for too long.
Glad to see you getting a shout out.
Totally unrelated: I came across this GOP expose of a discrepancy in funding between Chicago public schools and suburban/downstate Illinois. I thought of you, because I'm pretty sure you are from Chicago.
http://www.senategop.state.il.us/Portals/0/Docs/Cost-Shift-FINAL.pdf
They ask the question: Who really gets a free lunch?
I think it's bad sociology...
Kind of you. Shout outs are nice. I will chase down that link.
Tough. Very. All kids need life skills. Some of them,need life survival skills more than others. I say you can't give kids too many of those understandings. Teach them all. Better to be over prepared than under prepared.
Have you got your Green Guide for Negro Motorists ready?
More Shameless Promo:
I've long suspected that political scientist like yourself have BEEN referenced on such programming under the guise of "people says/what people are saying."
You'll know or already know. When you eventually share a sound stage w/these political pundits & blow there theories/points out the water the audience will know what the deal is.
Smart people can play stupid it ain't the other way 'round.
Toure is cool folks. He actually acknowledges when possible where ideas come from. You are right though, there are serious people with serious credentials who get "cited" all the time...just not by name. At a certain point they get used to it.
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