Racial battle fatigue makes Black America numb. However, the numbness does not mean that Black America is free from pain. Langston Hughes’ “dream deferred” feels again today like it is ready to explode. Yet miraculously, somehow it does not.Black America is reminded once again, as though black folks have forgotten, that America does not like black men and boys—or black women and girls—very much. We are loved in the abstract as America’s musicians and athletes and sometimes by enough white folks to be elected President. But our humanity, the stuff that is the basis of shared empathy and respect across the colorline, is very much in doubt.
The White Gaze does not see black men and boys, boys and girls, as full and equal human beings. They are the semi-permanent Other. As such, black folks can be subjected to legal murder by the State, its police, armed vigilantes, and other enforcers with little punishment or consequence. Black life is cheap. This is the story of America and the Black Atlantic.
Tamir Rice was killed by police officers in the blink of an eye. They won’t be punished. This is by design
">America’s long, dark history of “objectively reasonable” murder
Racial battle fatigue makes Black America numb. However, the numbness does not mean that Black America is free from pain. Langston Hughes’ “dream deferred” feels again today like it is ready to explode. Yet miraculously, somehow it does not.
Black America is reminded once again, as though black folks have forgotten, that America does not like black men and boys—or black women and girls—very much. We are loved in the abstract as America’s musicians and athletes and sometimes by enough white folks to be elected President. But our humanity, the stuff that is the basis of shared empathy and respect across the colorline, is very much in doubt.
The White Gaze does not see black men and boys, boys and girls, as full and equal human beings. They are the semi-permanent Other. As such, black folks can be subjected to legal murder by the State, its police, armed vigilantes, and other enforcers with little punishment or consequence. Black life is cheap. This is the story of America and the Black Atlantic.