A couple of years back, my pastor preached a sermon from 2 Timothy 1:7 – For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. His main point in the sermon was that fear is sometimes an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear can protect u,s but it can also cause us to act irrationally and do things that we wouldn’t normally do. Fear is the linchpin in the narrative that police officers use to justify their use of force, particularly deadly force. If an officer of the law or any private citizen for that matter is in fear for their lives from a confrontation with another person, then under the law, they have the right to use deadly force to protect themselves.
Are police officers who use force against black “suspects” really in fear for their lives, or is it a case of False Evidence Appearing Real? In some cases, the false evidence or false narrative that can lead to irrational behavior on the part of police officers can come from an over exaggeration of a stereotype in our culture of black people in general and black males specifically. Let’s face it, the narrative associated with the black man in America is disproportionately populated with images and sounds associated with the N-word, the NBA, NFL and for the police NWA, peppered with a disproportionate amount of negative images and news stories in traditional and new media. All of these bring forth an image of a black man who should be feared by all. As far as I’m concerned, this is false narrative in that it is not inclusive of the whole breadth and depth of the black experience in America, especially for black men.
So what do we do to stem the tide of what increasingly seems to be open season on black males – as evidenced by the Walter Scott video that seemingly shows a white officer planting false evidence (dropping the Taser gun near Scott) to advance his false narrative of fearing for his life?
We have to take complete ownership over the aspects of our narrative that we control. Blacks in media and popular culture (television, film, Internet, sports music, etc.) must understand that the way we conduct ourselves, the songs we sing, the roles we write, direct and act and the stories we tell about ourselves have a profound impact upon the way that we are perceived in this country. This may be too much responsibility to heap upon an individual, but the fact of the matter is that this is the truth, whether or not we want to shoulder the burden. We have to diversify our cultural narrative and imagery to have it reflect the pluralistic aspects of black life in America instead of it being incomplete and thus contributing to the false evidence and false narrative.
Also, every black person who is outraged by the pathology and problems that we see in some of our communities needs to be an active participant in paving a path to the solution. We can’t afford to be inactive bystanders. We can’t control what other people are going to do to assist us, but we can control our own actions, and we should all join in to fight to uplift our own communities – By Any Means Necessary!
We should be engaged in all levels of the political process to understand what is going on and use the tool of the vote to impose our agenda on the process. The election in Ferguson is a good example of this. Tuesday’s voter turnout was 30%, or more than double the rate of the last municipal elections, resulting in the election of two new black city council members. This is a good start and should be an example for other communities across the country. Despite recent efforts to suppress the black vote, we have to stay steadfast and mobilize our voting power to advance an agenda for improving our communities.
We need to hold municipalities and police accountable for their actions and use all resources available to make sure that they live up to their universal motto of “To Protect and Serve.”
We also need to mobilize the other powerful voting block that we have – our buying power. Black Enterprise magazine reported that the buying power of African-Americans will reach $1.1 trillion this year. We need to organize and leverage that power to advance our agenda in the same way that other powerful groups use their economic power.
We need to speak truth to power and expect the country to live up to the lofty goals that are articulated in the Constitution. We may not be able to bring King’s Dream into full focus for everyone, but we can at least move to a place of peaceful coexistence.
That’s exactly what Public Enemy called for in their song Fear of a Black Planet.
I’ve been wonderin’ why
People livin’ in fear of my shade
(Or my hi top fade)
I’m not the one that’s runnin’
But they got me on the run
Treat me like I have a gun
All I got is genes and chromosomes
Consider me black to the bone
All I want is peace and love on this planet
(Ain’t that how God planned it?)
Andre Kimo Stone Guess is a contributing writer for theGrio.com and cultural critic. He is a former CEO of the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh and former VP and Producer for Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. Follow him on Twitter – @aeducatedguess like his page on Facebookfacebook.com/aeducatedguess and visit his blog at aeducatedguess.com