When are Black people in this country going to realize that no matter their power, their visibility, their smarts as individuals, in the crush, they are in the grips of White people’s view of them. If Whites did not have all the power, some sort of modus vivendi might be reached. But for every Black person who feels secure, wrongly, there are 10 who are Treyvon Martins, Michael Browns, Sean Bells, and so many others, including two of my nephews. That security is illusory, as demonstrated by the deaths of millions of German Jews who felt no one was more German than they, more integrated into the nation. Massive economic insecurity, national frustration, a demagogue promising salvation and a target well-prepared by centuries of persecution and mythology was what it took to bring about the Holocaust.
Will Black people ever try to set up a society in which they write the rules? Probably not, for two reasons: they see around the world what happened to Black nations like Haiti, plus they find their best and brightest siphoned off to those secure lives. The recession might have shown the imbalance as millions of Black and Latino homeowners lost their property, specifically targeted by subprime lenders who passed themselves off as housing experts who assured them they could afford the payments by refinancing every ten minutes. My wife was a target over and over and I could not figure out how they knew she was Black. Being Black, she was not naïve like me and said, “Dummy, the forms you turn in that ask you to identify your ethnicity for statistical purposes only.” No, duh. That’s the last time I’ll ever trust a corporation again. No regulation combined with no morals equals the Great Recession……… no oversight combined with racism equals an out-of-control police force. Welcome to Ferguson…… and New York…….. and Ohio…….. and L.A……… and………………….