Power and Limits

I recently encountered a good piece in the New York Review of Books about Ferguson and the political moment it has come to symbolize.

He [Reverend Osagyefo Sekou] rejected what he called the Beltway strategy of appeasing forces on the right of center in favor of what he sees as the political possibility that has come from the street. He, like the young he counsels, feels that the system hasn’t worked and now needs to be born again.

Herein lies the problem:  "the street" has limits.  The crucial question is twofold.  First, what are those limits?  Second, how tolerant will those outside "the street" be of the attempt to recast or re-form "the system"?  Given the fact that "the street" seems, by virtue of its minority and dispossessed status, rather limited in the power it possesses, the second question is likely the more critical one.  When will a substantial portion of those who wield the majority of the power feel shame or embarrassment or injustice to a sufficient degree that they will hear and give credence the complaints of "the street"?

The injustice and oppression that black persons face is unconscionable.  That much should be clear to any thinking person.  If it is not, then that person is willfully ignorant, figuratively blind, or overtly racist.  What matters is how any thinking person will react.  What is to be done about the obviously unconscionable?  Perhaps one may be sympathetic, though sympathy alone is ineffectual.  Perhaps one may be outraged, though outrage alone is ineffectual.  Perhaps one will be rueful, which, it seems to me, is the worst possible response.  The only thing that matters is doing something.  Action alone will help raise volume of the the complaints of "the street" and begin to give the complaints credence, to legitimize them in the eyes and ears and hearts of the dominant.

But what, exactly, is to be done?  Unfortunately, social justice and moral behavior are practical matters and hence have no clear path or prescribed course.  Instead, what should be done is something that is active and, to whatever extent humanly possible, not patronizing.  Perhaps marching meets this criteria.  Perhaps testifying at a police and fire commission meeting would fulfill the criteria.  I am inclined to think that smaller things matter too.  Simply not being afraid or acquiescing to play the typical role in the sociocultural drama of the races would meet the criteria.  Acts of decency, normalcy, and fellowship go a long way toward leveling the differences between persons.  It seems to me that there is no reason that such acts would not also go a long way toward leveling the differences between persons of different races.

America has always felt the necessity of keeping its black male population under control. Behind every failure to make the police accountable in such killings is an almost gloating confidence that the majority of white Americans support the idea that the police are the thin blue line between them and social chaos.

And this, I suppose is what it all comes down to:  how many "white Americans" or those who might be deemed white by proxy or aspiration will stop supporting the idea that blackness is dangerous, that blackness is chaos, that blackness needs to be controlled, policed, monitored...  I think this is the obligation of "white Americans," to demonstrate through concrete action that blackness is human in the same way that whiteness is human; that blackness is nothing but a fabricated and false idea, a dangerous and deadly idea, a wholly unnecessary idea.  And conversely that whiteness is a fabricated and false idea, a dangerous and deadly idea, a wholly unnecessary idea.

I [the author] had to ask myself, When did I become afraid of black youth? How had I, a black man, internalized white fear?

 The magnitude of this tragedy is astonishing.  The only way out is to externalize normalcy and fearlessness until internal fear dissolves and finally disappears.  The only way out is to act as if everyone and every circumstance is normal.  Send kids to integrated schools.  Talk to people at bus stops.  Ride the bus.  Engage in small talk.  Ask teenagers where they want to go to college, what they want to be when they are finished with school.  All of this matters.  It assumes that teenagers can and will go to college and that they have aspirations that matter and that interest you.  It assumes that you care about what others think, even about such trivial things as the weather.  If you speak, it assumes that you are not afraid.  It assumes that all children are valuable and capable.  It assumes that all children belong together.

Do something, even if it is small.  Doing something matters.