More than 50 years after the death of Emmit Till, Reuben Jones says blacks men and boys are safer in Afghanistan than on the streets of America.
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I remember being a young boy, visiting my grandmother in Alabama and being admonished for not having my clothes properly tucked in and looking neat before leaving the house. My grandmother lived 20 miles away from the nearest town in rural Alabama and this was her way of protecting us (her grandsons) when out of her sight. Though it had been 20 years since his murder, she still lived with the ghosts of Emmit Till, and was scared to death for the safety of the men in her family. So we had to button up tight, make sure no belts were hanging loosely and no zippers were left undone. She didn’t want to give anyone a reason to murder us, though it was clear to me they didn’t need one.
Emmit Till was murdered simply because some white man wanted to put the “uppity nigger’ in his place because of some perceived (real or unreal) infraction. They wanted to send a message to other black boys that any unapproved or unacceptable behavior would be dealt with severely. They also sent a message to white America that identified black men and boys as dangerous threats—this is how you treat them. Once the public threat was created, the fear ensued. That was 1955, and the fear for black men and boys has become even more intense since Emmit Till’s death. We see even more heinous crimes being committed against black males with no serious legal consequence. Our mothers are scared. Our grandmothers are terrified. Our brothers, uncles, cousins, nephews, and fathers are targeted, hunted down, and murdered for sport, simply because we are viewed as the “boogeyman” and they know they can get away with it.
So from Emmit Till to Jordan Davis, we have the same outcome; different circumstances, but the same hatred for our black skin. The same vilification of the black male with the same criminal justice system failing us; the same old story told again, again, and again.
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America was built on violence. America celebrates violence. America promotes violence. America benefits from violence. And black men and boys have become the victims of violence more than anyone else on the planet. It’s actually safer for a black man to walk around unarmed in Afghanistan than it is in the streets of America where he may die for having his music too loud; or for wearing a hoodie; or just because he walked down the wrong street on the wrong day.
And every time a black man is murdered, there will be plenty of speeches. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Tavis Smiley, Roalnd Martin, and all the rest of the talking heads had plenty of commentary on the Michael Dunn and George Zimmerman verdict. There will be town hall meetings, maybe a march or a boycott. New organizations will be formed. Facebook will be buzzing with status updates and profile picture dedications. But what will really change? Are we really ready to face the reality that black men are viewed as expendable? Do we want to accept the fact that through mass media, black men have been vilified to the degree that you can now murder a black man in cold blood, in public, with no provocation, and get away with it?
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Much like Emmit Till in 1955, a message has been sent and it resonates throughout America: “Black men and boys are to be feared.” We are viewed as dangerous animals, and we all know what happens to dangerous animals, right?
Because of this perceived fear, a new phenomenon has emerged in which black men are being murdered for the slightest, most irrational reasons. Hip-hop, reality TV, video games, hood novels and the television and movie industry have contributed to this phenomenon called the “Niggification of America,” where all black men are seen through the lens of inaccurate depictions. Once the false image is solidly in the minds of Americans, it becomes easier to kill a black man or boy with no more remorse than stepping on a cockroach. Everybody applauds it; the system sanctions it; the courts validate it, and we, with our inaction, silently approve it.
The black male is the new boogeyman in America. The message to the world is that these niggers are animals and need to be treated as such. What other reason would a man murder a teenager because he was (allegedly) in a car that was playing loud music? (Jordan Davis was in the back seat, with no control over the volume when Michael Dunn recklessly shot into the SUV with an intention to kill the occupants). What other explanation is there for a man to track a teenager down like a wild animal (because he was wearing a hoodie on a rainy night), and then assault this unarmed black boy who valiantly fought for his life only to be murdered by this stranger? What is it that made Zimmerman see Trayvon as a threat? What is it that made Michael Dunn see Jordan Davis and his friends as a problem to be dealt with in the most severe fashion? Why did Susan Smith think that saying a black man had abducted and murdered her children would be an easy way to cover up her own horrible crime? Why was the image of Willie Horton enough to decide a presidential election? What about Amadou Diallo, who was only going home and was murdered right outside his own doorway? There is a collective mindset that says black men are dangerous. That mindset was created by the Niggification of America, where all black men and boys are seen as dangerous niggers who need to be dealt with, much like a snake needs to be dealt with.
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Niggification refers to the propaganda that one race/culture utilizes to depict another race/culture in the most ignorant, inhumane, negative light as possible in order to degrade, dehumanize and vilify him to the world in an effort to remove all sympathy and compassion for them. Niggification portrays the target as a threat that must be neutralized and/or annihilated. Therefore, when people come into contact with the target, they have a built in negative perception and irrational fear that allows them to act violently towards the individual, much like they would if they encountered a snake. And just as Hollywood and mass media has done a remarkable job with making us fear snakes, they’ve done an even more incredible job of making us fear black men and boys.
A friend of mine made a speech several months ago where he beseeched the crowd to view black men and boys as assets. He compared them to dandelions which are seen as pesty weeds to be eliminated rather than held as a value. He explained that we spend millions of dollars per year to eradicate dandelions rather than utilizing them for the medicinal purpose in which they had been valued for thousands of years. This speech moved me. As a mentor, social justice advocate and community activist, it made me question my own work in the context of am I working to save black boys or am I promoting them as assets that don’t need saving, but rather valued?
Unfortunately, I don’t believe that America values black men and boys. We pay lip service to the premise, but when you really think about, America benefits from the niggification of black boys. America gets to paint black men and boys as the boogeyman (much like in “Birth of a nation”), so that they can be hunted for sport with no guilty conscience or remorse. Black men are vilified much like snakes are in pop culture and social dialogue. Every movie I’ve ever seen has depicted snakes as poisonous and dangerous. They strike fear in the hearts of men just by mentioning their name. If a person runs across a snake in any circumstance, they automatically jump into defense mode with an effort to attack and kill the snake because of the threat of being bitten. But what I learned about snakes is that there are over 3,000 species of snakes, but only about 375 species are actually poisonous. But every time we see a snake, we fear for our lives because of the way they have been portrayed in the movies and television. Black men and boys have been niggified the same way, as the media whips us into frenzy with stories of carjacking, murder, rape, drugs, and violence to make us fear black men. And the public responds to the niggification with the murder of black men such as Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, and Jordan Davis. And there’s always a justification. There’s always a story. There’s always a perceived threat. There’s always a defective justice system that condones the senseless murder. And, there’s always another murder. Much like the innocent, non-poisonous snakes who die at the hands of people who use their fear of snakes to justify murdering every snake they encounter. After all, the only good snake is a dead snake, right?
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As a father, I fear for my son’s well being because I know that he could leave the house one day and not come back. Every time I am stopped by the police, I realize that I may not survive the encounter. I hear the door clicks when I walk past a car in a parking lot. I feel the distrust of the store clerk when I am shopping and he asks rhetorically, “can I help you?” I know this phenomenon exists. It is all too real for me, as is the case for most black men I know. To know that you could be murdered at any moment for any reason is enough to traumatize a person for life. So how do you think our black boys feel when they see this happening? The president is disrespected at every turn simply because he is a black man. And the most alarming thing is that until Timothy McVeigh, no white man had very received the death penalty for killing a black person in America. Which begs the question, how much is a black life worth? The Michael Dunn verdict is disturbing for a lot of reasons, most of which has already been stated so I won’t add to the redundancy here. However, I do want to ask the question: if we are all afforded the same equal protection under the law, if we are all citizens of the same country, if we all pay the same taxes, and fight the same wars and vote for the same politicians, at what point do black men and boys become entitled to the full privileges of citizenship? I know we can’t legislate the way people think, but at some point we have to hold the institutions accountable who promote the niggification of America, which contributes to the dehumanization of black men and boys.
Its hard to talk about seeing black men and boys as assets when video games like grand theft auto makes a billion dollars in one week by promoting negative images of thuggery, violence and murder. It’s hard for a black boy to feel good about himself when record labels produce and market songs that tell him that he’s a “thug nigga.” It’s hard for parents to have a positive influence on their sons when Hollywood tells them to “keep it real” and rewards them financially for the negative imagery they portray. It’s hard for any other race to respect and value black men and boys when so many industries spend tons of money and make even more, by destroying any credibility or value that we may have. So if we are serious about the Michael Dunn verdict being a watershed moment in the history of race relations in America, then its time to hold all of those industries accountable for the way they portray us in creating the mindset of people like Michel Dunn, George Zimmerman, Susan Smith and others.
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Much like the Jewish mantra, “never again”, we must adopt the position that the niggification has to end. Jordan Davis would still be alive if Michael Dunn saw those young men as human beings. Trayvon Martin would still be alive if George Zimmerman saw him as a human being. The problem is that nobody is willing to have that conversation and do something about it. In order to save our sons and brothers from this fate, we have to be willing to make the big sacrifices for the long-term, not just be satisfied with superficial victories, temporarily. My heart bleeds for the family of Jordan Davis and I can’t imagine the pain they feel and what they are going through to hear such an unjust verdict. But my heart has bled many times in previous situations. I just want to make sure we do something preventive so that another black mother does not have to cry because her son was senselessly murdered. And I would like to think that my grandmother can rest in peace without any fear that her grandson could be murdered just because he wasn’t seen as a human being with value.
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Reuben Jones is a 2012 BMe Leader and the Executive Director of Frontline Dads.
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