Do You Know What Really Grinds My Gears: Episode 3

On this third and final episode of "What Really Grinds My Gears", I'd like to explore the recent event of Kanye West outspokenly supporting President Donald Trump. West started controversy by tweeting out messages of support for Trump, and was supported by Chance The Rapper, who tweeted "Not all black people have to be Democrats." (1) I see this turn of events as mostly just a publicity stunt by a mentally-questionable Kanye, who wants to garner more attention before his upcoming album release in June. My favorite response was from black comedian Trevor Noah, who remarked, "I don't even know what happened here. I guess Kanye West just realized he's too rich to not be Republican." (2)

Trump responded to West, of course, saying that "Kanye West has performed a great service to the Black Community." (3) In the words of President Trump, "wrong." The support of a prominent black popular culture figure for a political figure who has so blatantly proven to be racist (among other things), specifically towards LatinX and black people, is problematic in so many ways. The age-old adage states, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend and the enemy of my friend is my enemy". That logic, unfortunately, cannot explain Kanye - and if it does, that implies that, as Trump has repeatedly proven to be an enemy of the black community, West is as well. He and Chance The Rapper have publicly demonstrated that, to them, their own well-being and affluence are more important than the advancement of their own people. The advent of Republican legislation that directly benefits rich, black celebrities is the protection of their wealth, specifically through tax breaks for the wealthy and allowance of legal loopholes. However, the same policies tend to hurt low and middle class families and perpetrate economic disparities between black and white incomes. As a result, Kanye's support for Trump and the entire concept of rich, black conservatives like Chance The Rapper is very problematic. At any level, this seems to demonstrate a blatant betrayal of the majority black community in America - the very same demographic that has helped these artists achieve their fame and wealth by supporting their music and brand.


(1) http://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-43924422
(2) http://www.cc.com/video-clips/3zyzfn/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-kanye-west-reaffirms-his-love-for-donald-trump
(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/arts/music/kanye-west-trump-conservatives.html?smid=pl-share

King in College

Before Dr. King was “Dr. King,” he was a student at the renowned institution of Morehouse College. Morehouse, was/is a college institution, founded in 1867 by David A. Thomas. An historically African American College, Morehouse invited some of the most prominent figures in the Black movement. Of course, one of the most remembered (if not the most) of these students was Martin Luther King Jr.. King, a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School. At the age of 15, he enrolled into Morehouse College.

What is oftentimes forgotten about Dr. King, is his journey to leadership. His ideologies were not instilled in him at birth. It took influencing, aspiration by King, and strong will, to become such a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement. This aspect of King is fascinating to me, because people rarely question who inspired him. Other than the obvious teachings of Gandhi, who are the Black men, closely connected to King, that inspired him? Morehouse College harbors the answer. During his residence at Morehouse College, King was exposed to a variety of mentors, willing to work closely with him, towards his degree. Battling the question of how to create change among the Black community, the (then) president of Morehouse and Christian Minister, Benjamin Mays, was a significant and dedicated mentor to King.

King took advantage of his bond with Mays, and sought ideological instruction. Mays conversed frequently with King about the method of nonviolence, and King attended his sermons. Not only was Mays an academic advisor, but he was a mentor to King on the road to theology. King was dedicated to his Christian moral, and had he not been exposed to figures like Mays, his methods for freedom might have resulted differently.

This photo above is inspirational not only because King is present, but because he is among his Morehouse brothers. Some of these men would remain unknown for the rest of their lives. And this in a way humbles King. It places him as simply a young Black man, with goals to be successful. This photo depicts a King who had life ahead of him. It shows King before he was King.

I have spent time of Morehouse’s campus in my lifetime, and I cannot help but be mildly star struck when I admire the monument of King outside of the campus chapel. I get goosebumps thinking about the pride that must prevail in the students on campus, knowing that a man who was truly one of a kind, once walked the same grounds. Morehouse College is a college built for molding Black men to be the best version of themselves that they can be. Educated, intellectual, problem solver, are each words that come to mind when thinking of a “Morehouse Man.” Each of these, King was.

http://www.morehouse.edu/kingcollection/images/picBox/king-3.jpg

Housing Segregation

     For my Intro to Urban Studies paper, we were tasked to pick a theme of Memphis and write a six to seven page paper on how this theme is carried out. I choose to write about segregation of housing. Memphis is a unique city in the sense that you can be in one area where it is very nice, and drive a half a mile where it is high poverty. What does this say about the city?
     I think in a lot of ways it shows how diverse the city is, but also how segregated the city can be. It just shows the different communities and neighborhoods that the city is willing to pour their time and resources into. A lot of times, the areas where the city is refusing to invest in is communities mostly of Minority population.
     There is a lot of different factors that affect individuals in their search for housing when moving into a new city. One of those factors is education. When looking for somewhere to live, families usually make sure that the school that they are zoned to is up to their standards. The problem with this is that usually schools within high poverty neighborhoods are not being poured into like schools of low poverty neighborhoods, so this shows the pipeline of high poverty equals low education. For this project, I interviewed Collierville High Schools Counselor. She was telling us about how she did not have the means to live in Collierville any longer, so she had to put her house up for sale. She said that within a day her house was sold because of the demand to live in a neighborhood or community that was zoned to a good school in Memphis.
     We also see that many people look at different crime rates when trying to find somewhere to live within the city. The unfortunate problem with this is that the high crime rate areas are the areas that little to no money is being poured into. It is hard to believe that 2 minutes up the road in a white community has little crime, but 2 minutes down the road in a black community there is prevalent crime.
     The question is whether anyone will every realize this trend and make moves to fix it, or will the trend continue to ruin residents lives?
     

National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Today, a new memorial is opening in Montgomery, Alabama. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is the first national memorial to the victims of lynching in the United States. The memorial was designed to face the Alabama state capital. The monument is made up of eight hundred steel blocks hanging from the ceiling, “bearing the names of 4,400 victims of one of the least-recognized racist atrocities in American history”.[1]

From 1882-1968 4,743 lynching’s occurred in the United States.[2]The blacks lynched accounted for 72.7% of the people lynched. While these numbers seem large, there are certainly a greater number we do not know about. Many of the white people that were lynched were done so because they were trying to help the black or being anti lynching. Most lynching’s happened in the south; 79%. 

            In May 1918, the lynching of Mary Turner was investigated by Walter White who was sent by the NAACP. It began when an abusive plantation owner, Hampton Smith, was shot and killed. A manhunt resulted in the killing of Mary’s husband. Mary then denied her husband involvement with Smith’s killing. This resulted in a mob of several hundred people to kidnap her. The mob brought her to “Folsom Bridge. They tied her ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, threw gasoline on her and set her on fire. Turner was still alive when a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife and her unborn child fell on the ground. The baby was stomped on and crushed. Mary’s body was riddled with hundreds of bullets.”[3]I have never read something more disturbing or heartbreaking in my life. 

            This new memorial is dedicated as a space to “talk about all of that anguish”. The artist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative also added 6 life-size sculptures of people in rusting shackles, including a mother with her baby. “It’s people in distress. And I do not think we’ve done a very good job at acknowledging the pain and agony, the suffering, the humiliation, the complete denial of humanity that slavery created for black people on this continent.” 

            The Memorial for Peace and Justice was created with hope of having a sober, meaningful site where people can gather and reflect on America’s history of racial inequality.[4]The artist EJI believed that by publicly confronting the truth about our history is the first step towards recovery. “a history of racial injustice must be acknowledged, and mass atrocities and abuse must be recognized and remembered before a society can recover from mass violence. Public commemoration plays a significant role in prompting community wide reconciliation.”[5]

---

[1]https://www.npr.org/2018/04/26/605736519/lynching-memorial-in-alabama-remembers-the-victims-of-unacknowledged-terror

[2]http://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/

[3]http://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/

[4]https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial

[5]https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial

Do You Know What Really Grinds My Gears: Episode 2

In the second installment of "What Really Grinds My Gears", I'd like to address the word "nigga". First things first, for clarification purposes, this is not about, as Childish Gambino put it, "nigger with the hard R" (1). That is an inherently racist and derogatory term used by white people during slavery (and unfortunately also since then) to address black people in a demeaning way. However, since then, the black community in America has dealt with the pain and defamation insinuated in that word by reinventing it as "nigga" - a colloquial, slang term that commonly means "dude" or "brotha" in an amiable sense. The transformation that the African-American community has formulated to create the new meaning for this term, going from a symbol of oppression and pain to one of brotherhood and colloquialism that is exclusive to the black community, is nothing short of admirable.

But wait - that's not all. First of all, "nigga" is considered a swear word in every modern white space, especially schools. This is understandable to a point, because non-black children (and adults) have to be taught that they cannot use it for historical reasons. Unfortunately, this does not stop them. Growing up going to schools in Boulder, where the population was 2.4% black (and shrinking), countless numbers of Latino/Latina and white kids would casually say "nigga" in conversation. I could never understand it - what part of "white people used it to degrade black slaves" is unclear? Earlier this year, there was a debate on social media when a black professional NFL player defended a white person using the term, and it became strikingly evident how the lack of education on cultural appropriation and racial history negatively affects black people just as much as it affects others.

Even slowly-growing cultural awareness about cultural appropriation in America has not seemed to dissuade non-black folks from using the n-word. At this point, I'm not sure how else to emphasize the blatant racism of the term outside of internal use in the black community.  In my opinion, there are no exceptions. "But I'm just singing the rap song" - you still can't say it. "I was just posting song lyrics on Instagram" - you still can't say it. "All my friends say it" - and if they're black, they can. "I grew up in the hood" - growing up in an impoverished living situation does not make you black, nor do all black people live in the hood. "My black friend said I can say it" - your black friend does not speak for his ancestors or the rest of the black community, and clearly does not have a very good grasp on the implications or history of the term. If you're white, you can't say nigga. If you're Asian, you can't say nigga. If you're LatinX, you can't say nigga. It's that simple - and what's more, if you do, you're insensitively perpetrating cultural appropriation (at best).

(1) https://genius.com/Childish-gambino-bonfire-lyrics

Problems of the Past...That are Still Here in the Present

One problem that King addressed several times throughout his life was the educational disparities in race. Throughout King’s life, black students did not have the same opportunities in education as whites, and they did not have access to as many resources as whites that are required for education as well. This problem sadly still exists today. There are many signs that reveal the racial disparities in our country’s educational system.

One sign of the racial educational disparities is that according to journalist Liz Sablich, white and Asian students “are more likely to be exposed to advanced classes” ^[1]. One reason this is so sad is because it shows how the educational system in this country is not offering equal opportunities to all students. How can black students expect to receive an equal education as their white peers if they are not given the same opportunities in school?

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in the 2014-15 school year, 88% of white students completed high school, while only 75% of black students received a high school degree. ^[2] Many causes could be attributed to these stats, but whatever the cause may be, the reality is that more white Americans are receiving more education than black Americans.  

Another sign that exposes the educational disparities in race is the stats on students which students have received out-of-school suspension. According to editor Lindsey Cook, 20% of black male students and almost 12% of black female students are suspended in a school year. Contrasting with that, only 6% of white male students and 2% of white female students receive suspension in a school year. ^[3] So not only are black students not receiving the same opportunities to advanced education as their white peers, they are receiving more punishment from the school systems. (I wrote in an earlier blog about how black adults are getting incarcerated at far higher rates than white adults. See the parallel?)

Any stat you want to look at will ultimately show that black students are not receiving equal educational opportunities in schools. A good education is the basis of everything in America. If a person does not receive a solid education as a child or teenager, the effects of that will last into his or her adulthood and possibly limit their children’s opportunities too. Education is essential in helping break the chains of poverty. To succeed in America, you need to be educated, and the educational systems in America have major reform work ahead in order to ensure equality for all.

[1] Sablich, Liz. “7 Findings That Illustrate Racial Disparities in Education.” Brookings, Brookings, 26 July 2017, www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/06/06/7-findings-that-illustrate-racial-disparities-in-education/.

[2] “Public High School Graduation Rates.” The Condition of Education - Elementary and Secondary Education - Student Effort, Persistence and Progress - Public High School Graduation Rates - Indicator April (2017), Apr. 2017, nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp.

[3] Cook, Lindsey. “U.S. Education: Still Separate and Unequal.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 28 Jan. 2015, www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/28/us-education-still-separate-and-unequal.

The silence of women

God made woman from the rib of man. Women have forever been instrumental to the lives of man. Somewhere along the way, man’s interpretation of women’s roles in various leadership situations became wrong and has affected life ever since. In biblical days, women have played the backseat in the lives of important prophets. Their voices were silent and controlled by their husband. They were treated as objects and men only used them to have children. The sexual this misuse of women and the mental abuse of women in the bible is unbearable.  When the bible began to spread, and more people turned to Christianity as their guiding instructions, they saw this and used it to rationalize their treatment of women. This came over to America and based on free religion practices it began to spread. Christianity was seen as the dominant religion and even people who didn’t believe in it started to practice this tactic because it was seen everyday in their environment. Men rationalized it through slavery by adding that masculinity was a big part of showing a dominant leader to the slaves and the only way the slaves would obey. Masculinity became a big reason why leadership positions and government jobs were held by men and not women. Women didn’t have the same rights as a man because they were seen as this house wife. This woman who is supposed to stay home take care of the kids and make sure the house is in order. But in fact, women have shown countless times over and over again that they can be or were smarter and wiser than their man counterparts. Fast-forwarding to the civil rights movement, we can see some of the background of why the women weren’t in leadership positions. The leaders on organizations wanted a man because the white people that were in opposition of them wouldn’t respect their demands if they felt that a woman that they thought should be in a kitchen cooking or seen as property running the campaign. That’s why in the movement you rarely see women but in fact they were the brains behind the beginning of the movement. It was them who started advocating for change and taking actions towards that. Why don’t we trust women to be in leadership positions like president or CEO of a major corporation? Are we scared of that women would surpass us in exceeding expectations?

silently 'loving your neighbor' isn't enough

I was part of the issue. I did not want to acknowledge it, but I was. I was taught as a child that if I was kind to everyone and didn’t discriminate other people based on the color of their skin I was doing great. This class brought to my attention systematic racism that takes place in America. I became enraged over the injustices that people of color face EVERYDAY. A lot of my anger stemmed from the fact that I had not learned about mass incarceration, racial profiling, and the disproportionate amount of Blacks living in poverty before. It was this semester that I learned that being kind to my neighbor was not enough. As a white liberal, I thought that bringing up the issue was enough, it simply isn’t. A lot of white people do not know where they stand in the fight of racial injustices, so they sit on the sidelines. Whites also have a hard time acknowledging their privilege. There is a fear of overstepping or falling into the white savor category that they chose to do nothing. This becomes the “silent white majority” they are not explicitly racist but since they chose to do nothing they become implicitly racists. Most of the time these are the people that say they are not racist because they have that token black friend. I cannot express enough that is not an argument that can be taken seriously nor is it valid. That is not going to be achieved by sitting in a classroom coloring a picture of his face. I am white. Both of my parents went to college. I am very privileged. Sadly, America is designed in a way for me to succeed. Becoming completely aware of this during the span of this semester broke my heart. I did not deserve this privilege. I now know that my job moving forward is to educate other whites of their privilege and to address racist remarks no matter how small. We love to throw around King's 'Dream' but what did King dream of? He dreamt of non-violent direct action, economic justice, equal education, decreasing poverty in America, and the end to housing discrimination. We consider most of these issues solved, but they are far from being accomplished. As we honor his legacy it is important to remember the progress he made while also recognizing that we still have a long way to go. Martin Luther King Jr. may have died 50 years ago but his DREAM has yet to be fulfilled.

Do You Know What Really Grinds My Gears: Episode 1

In today's first episode of "What Really Grinds My Gears", I'd like to discuss a phenomenon that I see all too frequently in person and on social media. When a racially-discriminatory event, like, for instance, the two (!) separate arrests of black males at Starbucks locations (1), occurs, there are many initial responses. For myself and much of the black community, the initial reaction is usually frustration, anger, but usually not surprise - systematic racism manifests itself in new and exciting ways every day, if you're black in America. However, the initial reaction from many white people, and especially conservative white people, is very different. As soon as they read the headline, they say or post something in line with: "oh man, just because they were black and the employees were white, it's suddenly a race issue", or, "all these liberal racists saying it's because they're black", or, "white people get arrested in Starbucks too, where's all the media then?". First of all, ain't nobody getting arrested for being white in Starbucks or they wouldn't have any business. Secondly, why don't you try harder to deny that racism could possibly exist in the 21st century? And in your beloved country? Preposterous. There's a very nice Negro that cleans my house and dusts my Robert E. Lee bust every Sunday, I can't be racist. Get the f--- outta here Mildred (2).

For real though, that has to stop. The oppression of black folk in America manifests itself in different ways constantly, and when it gets publicized, we have to take advantage of the opportunity to combat it. By refusing to even acknowledge the possibility of discrimination or racism in current events, one is only hampering social change and progress. Yes, it is a race issue, because the Starbucks controversies are just another example of the stereotype of black men in America as suspicious and criminals, a stereotype that results in unwarranted confrontations, arrests, and killings.


(1) Various incidents:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/starbucks-police-boycott-black-men-arrest-philadelphia-racism-a8305381.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/04/17/a-starbucks-in-california-treats-black-and-white-men-differently-according-to-this-video/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.139b14155126

(2) www.oldwhiteladynames.com

Life Expectancy in Shelby County

One of the classes that I took this semester was called Health Disparities/ Race Thinking. I add/dropped the class during the first week of the semester, and didn’t really know what to expect other than that it was an Africana studies class that probably talked about health. Through the readings and the discussions in that class, I have learned more than I ever thought I would about racial disparities in healthcare, racialized medicine, the horribly racist history of gynecology (and how female slaves were the Guinea pigs for most of modern gynecological practices), negative patient-physician relations and interactions, and so much more. One of the topics that I found the most upsetting was the relation between where someone lives and how long their life expectancy is. This issue was recently highlighted in the Commercial Appeal in an article titled “Death by ZIP code: In Shelby County, life expectancy varies up to 13 years depending on where you live.” One of the claims that is presented in this article is that zip code determines health outcomes in Shelby County more than genetic code does, highlighting the important role that social factors plays on health at the individual and population level. “In North Memphis, Frayser, South Memphis and Southwest Memphis, residents live an average 69 to 71.5 years. East Memphis, Cordova, Arlington, Germantown and Collierville had rates between 79.22 and 82.59 years.” This disparity is insane! That’s nearly a 10 year difference in life expectancy between two areas in the same county. How can people that live this close to one another have such drastically different life expectancies?

One of the largest factors is access to healthcare, which is much lower in areas of predominantly low socioeconomic status (which also tend to have higher minority populations). “In 38106 and 38126, some 28 percent and 22 percent, respectively, of adults aged 18-64 had no health insurance in 2016, census figures show.” In combination with the relatively low rates of health insurance coverage, the areas of Shelby County with the lowest life expectancies also have fewer healthcare facilities, and those that do exist tend to be underfunded. Access to healthy and affordable food, jobs, public transport and housing are also issues that disproportionately affect the residents of the zip codes with the lowest life expectancies. Prior to this semester, I knew that Memphis had racial disparities in pretty much every metric, but I did not know just how bad the health disparities were.

Source: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2018/03/12/memphis-shelby-county-life-expectancy-varies-zip-code/321264002/

Misconceptions

     Very recently, I saw a thread on twitter of a girlfriend telling her boyfriend's story about his interaction with a police man. She told us that he gave a homeless man some change at a 7/11, and then proceeded to make his way back on the interstate. When he got on the interstate, a cop pulled him over. The cop assumed that the black individual gave the homeless man drugs. Before the cop even got to the car, the man pulled out his license and threw his wallet on the dashboard. When the cop got to the car, he asked for his license and registration, but the man told the cop that it was on his phone. His phone was in his pocket, and he did not want to reach for it for obvious reasons, so the cop proceeded to tell him his car smelled like weed. The cop made the man get out of the car, and had a gun pointed to the mans back. The cop continued to yell at the man to reach into his pocket and to grab his phone, but then man began to cry. He was crying because he knew as soon as he reached for his phone; the cop could shoot him and claim he thought he was reaching for a weapon.

     Obviously, upon reading this, I was furious that the man did absolutely nothing, but because of his skin color, he was being treated like a criminal. When I took a second, I took a step back and analyzed how my life and perception is with the police force. The last time I got pulled over; violence never crossed my mind. Actually, the last time I was stopped, I forgot to get out my insurance card. When the cop was literally at my window asking for license and registration, without thinking, I reached and got my card out of my glove department. The cop never said anything to me, and I never told the cop what I was doing. When I started thinking about this story and my experience, the black man threw his wallet on the dashboard, so he would not be accused for reaching for anything. I, on the other hand being a white female, just casually reached into an unknown compartment and nothing happened.

     Taking note of both of these events, I realized that I will never understand what it is like to be a black individual in this oppressed world. I will also never try to understand the oppression that black people go through, but will always recognize that it does take place. My unconscious lifestyle shows the racism that takes place in today's community, so the question at hand is whether or not the United States as a whole will recognize the problem at hand. 

The truth about Memphis

A few weeks ago, Memphis commemorated MLK50, the 50^th anniversary of King’s assassination. Newscasters from all of the country, and all over the world, came to Memphis to participate in and document the events. In an NBC broadcast live from Memphis, Lester Holt spoke about the Lorraine Motel as a place “where King died, but where the movement he led- and his dream- survives”. ^[1] Holt’s intentions were pure, but he slightly missed the mark for a variety of reasons. I know that he was simply trying to honor King and King’s legacy, but his remark downplays the truth about how King’s death actually affected Memphis. His statement implies that King’s assassination did not have any poor affect on Memphis, when in reality, it had negative effects that continue to ripple throughout the city even today. Washington post journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky framed the Lorraine Motel in a different and much more accurate way, writing that it “isn’t just a landmark or a place where something terrible happened; it’s a wound from which the city never fully recovered- a gash in the civic soul that still aches, maybe even festers” ^[2]. I like the use of the word “fester” here because it provides an image of an untreated wound that has possibly even gotten worse than when the injury first occurred. Fifty years later in Memphis, racial economic disparities still exist. Racial educational disparities still exist. Racial injustices still run rampant.

Another problem in Holt’s comment is the ambiguity of the “movement” and “dream” that he ascribes to King. Exactly what movement was Holt referring to? Was he referring to the sanitation workers’ strike? Was he referring The Civil Rights Movement as a whole? Additionally, what “dream” is Holt talking about? The vagueness of this statement supports the master narrative that Julian Bond portrayed. Bond explained the false narrative that Americans have constructed over the years: “Dr. King was tragically slain in 1968. Fortunately, by that time, the country had been changed, changed for the better in some fundamental ways…”. This portion of Bond’s work sounds a lot like Holt’s comment. The only difference is that Holt was actually being serious.

In our society, people throw around phrases like “King’s dream will never die” and other happy-go-lucky ambiguous statements. The problem with this is that it completely undermines the reality that our country still has work to do in achieving full racial equality. Some white people in this country would rather construct a false narrative of perfect racial harmony than admit that the problem of racial injustices in our country has still not gone away.

[1] Beifuss, John, and Daniel Connolly. “National, International Media Highlighted Problems and Potential of Memphis during MLK50.” The Commercial Appeal, The Commercial Appeal, 6 Apr. 2018, www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2018/04/06/mlk-martin-luther-king-jr-memphis-tn-media-problems-potential-mlk-50/479971002/.

[2] Beifuss, John, and Daniel Connolly. “National, International Media Highlighted Problems and Potential of Memphis during MLK50.” The Commercial Appeal, The Commercial Appeal, 6 Apr. 2018, www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2018/04/06/mlk-martin-luther-king-jr-memphis-tn-media-problems-potential-mlk-50/479971002/.