THOUGHTS ABOUT WHITE FEAR OF BLACK PEOPLE

THOUGHTS ABOUT WHITE FEAR OF BLACK PEOPLE – another view – PLEASE SHARE It is true that an idea repeated often enough will eventually be accepted as fact. It’s become almost fashionable to justify the killing of an unarmed black man out of a justifiable fear – that fear is assumed to be both rational and legal. I have found nothing remotely close to facts that support this assertion. I have another view of why unarmed blacks are killed by white law enforcers and those protecting their whiteness – the killings are driven not by fear but by impunity: nothing’s going to happen. There will be no fine or time in prison; a killer of black life is in fact rewarded with public commendation. Not too long ago the killing by torture and lynching of black people was a public event; a spectacle attended by jubilant crowds of white families – men women and children. Jubilation has not suddenly turned to fear in White American culture. I think that jubilation has been replaced by a conscious effort to put black life in harm’s way. There is a conscious regard for white life. That regard is intensified when a person is young or female. There is a conscious disregard for black life whether old or young or female. A white citizen’s call to police for suspected mischief by a black person is believed to be fact – it’s as if an order has been given by a senior officer who has eyes on a crime being committed. The same call to police for suspected mischief by a white person is first verified before any action is taken. Verification is a must before lethal force is used against a white suspect. Black life does not share the same conscious regard by white law enforcers nor adjudicators. Racism on the basis of color is still in White America’s (the world) blood. www.adolphusward.net

THOUGHTS ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE

THOUGHTS ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE – still evolving¬_ PLEASE SHARE In the strictest definition of the word culture – that is, people with a common language place art belief sense of oneness awareness of the diaspora – the Black Americans culture is still developing; it is not yet mature. Some black folk find it difficult to say they are an American. As a collective, we do not see ourselves Americans. Most of us don’t consider ourselves Africans even though we admit having African roots. We are not a homogeneous group of people. We are clumps of black people scattered about the United States with each clump having only a vague notion of its relationship to other clumps. The African Diaspora is little more than a cliché to most of us. We neither have a collective consciousness of other Africans scattered about the globe nor they of us. Without shared common goals a collective consciousness can never be developed. We are ambivalent about calling ourselves Americans. Our social and political views are all over the place. Until we agree on essential goals designed to benefit all African Americans our culture will not mature to the point of benefit for all. Our place in this country has been bought and paid for by the involuntary and voluntary labor and blood of our fathers and mothers, our fore-parents and our African ancestors. The mortgage has been burned. We maintain our citizenship by serving in the defense of this nation, by maintaining our homes, our neighborhoods and paying our taxes. We don’t have to ask permission to be here in America: it is our home. And everything around us should speak to that fact. We should pay our artist and architects to make that abundantly clear in all of their works. Their works should inspire and inform all who live or set foot in these United States that we are a proud people; that we live here; that this is our home. adolphusward@aol.com