My petite 20-something year old daughter has a pretty, 2014 modern car.
I pray when she gets in it,
I pray when I hear a random, distant, irrelevant siren,
I pray when the sun goes down and I know she's driving,
I pray she's invisible to 'them' wherever she drives.
I pray until I know she makes it home.
I pray if I ever forget to pray, or am not here to pray, that my prayers are heard into the future and she is protected from the 'protectors'.
This is EVERY day,
EVERY time.
~ S.A
This mother understands how the leading edge of white supremacy, the police, sees her and her daughter.
You should also understand how are you are seen. White supremacy is taught to everybody who is schooled by the various police academies. Some folk can resist the force of that schooling. But many don't. If you do not understand this, you will find yourself surprised and brutalized by a police officer who is phenotypically white and registers as Mexican, just like Sandra Bland did, or even black, as seen in the Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing."
The film below is a public service announcement for black and brown people on how to survive an encounter with the police. And I think every young person should follow the advice within it.
But I'm not sure every older black or brown person should be following the same advice. Other than keeping your hands in plain sight, I'm not sure some of us who are older shouldn't choose to demand our rights, loudly and rudely in plain sight of a body cam, a dash cam, or a cell phone video.
They say, "Those that don't know their rights don't have any." I say, "Those that don't demand their rights keep any."
If we keep acting like slaves that are afraid of being beaten, they'll keep acting like masters, won't they? The police will keep acting like owners of sassy back talking slave, just like Brian Encina, Dante Servin, Darren Wilson, Daniel Pantaleo, Daniel Andrew, and a predominantly white host of thousands with badges.
Not only is the assumption that she would never kill herself ableist, it is lacking in empathy to assume that Sandra Bland was a "strong black woman"/ "mule of the-world" that could take any amount of mental and emotional beating. You can never, ever know someone else's mental state for sure. And if it was me that died under mysterious circumstances, I'd want you to focus less on my personal death and more on dismantling the laws protecting the fool that got me.
However, the thing we should all be sure of is that the kind of people that would protect Brian Encinia are most definitely the kind of people that are capable of murder. We just don't know if they chose to commit murder in Sandra Bland's case. Anybody who doesn't understand this or pretends not to understand this has a rabid case of slave master mentality.
What else can this lack of understanding be but Slave Master Mentality? If a cop blocker, a cop defender, thinks a cop has the right to physically grab a woman for expressing her irritation after being asked if she's irritated, what else is it? Yes, Encinia made sure there was an excuse in place by provoking Bland into exercising her right to refuse to put out her cigarette. But it's perfectly clear her "attitude" is the thing to set him off. Encinia defenders are quick to talk about Bland's "inappropriate" behavior as well. You know what? There are exactly two relationships that I can think of where a person beats another person for having the audacity to say they are angry about something. Those two relationships are:
1) Slave Master to Slave 2) Abusive Parent to ChildAnd those two relationships are actually variations on one theme, especially in the minds of the Slave Master and the Abusive Parent.
Another symptom of slave master mentality would be the willful ignorance that allows one to believe that the rabid dog racism we're seeing on television regularly now coincidentally came into existence at the very same time that cell phone functionality increased to the point where anybody with a 5th grade education can put a police beat down on social media almost instantly. This is due to Slave Master Mentality's ability to block K.I.S.S. Explanations. And the Keep It Simple Stupid Explanation of more racism being in the news is... 1) Rabid dog racism was always there. It didn't instantly stop with the end of Civil Rights Movement believe it or not. 2) Rabid dog racism is just being recorded more frequently now due to advances in technology on cell phones and on the internet 3) Black Lives Matter is a spotlight linked to social media. 4)The news is now following social media just as often as social media is following the news. That's why the Los Angeles Times hired a Black Twitter consultant(?) --not sure what his title is. 5) Black death by cop is money for news outlets right now. Formula: Racism exists+ better cell phone+better internet+ social media+money to be made on black death = more black death in the news. Other people may have other formulas. But K.I.S.S. says news coverage of racism increased. Racism did not increase. But back to the point. Anybody who has slave master mentality* has a big problem because there's no app for that. Officer Brian Encinia, his protectors, and other sufferers of Slave Master Mentality need more than prayer. They need three exorcisms a piece and copious amounts of prayer. And I don't know that I'm for it. I hope the young people watch this video and take it seriously. But those of us that are a bit older might have to take a stand while sitting down. Some of us may have to say what our rights are and let the consequences come, hopefully on camera, in order to hold onto rights we plan on passing on to those coming up behind us. Our young coming up behind us. They are always what the struggle is all about, right?
Just a thought to be continued....
Pass it on to EVERYONE you know.
Posted by Mt. Olivet Baptist Church - Columbus, OH on Monday, March 2, 2015
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